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The quest of CAD/CAM software users for ever-greater computing power tends to make us more conservative in our computer choices, both in selection of design and in sticking to proven technologies. After all, speed makes a real and tangible difference in the amount of work done and how fast it gets done. Time is still money. We are on occasion asked why we conduct our benchmark tests under Windows 2000 rather than Windows XP, and the answer is all in the numbers. Our benchmark tests run well under Windows XP, but a quick survey of several workstation vendors reveals that, on average, fewer than 10% of new CAD/CAM systems configured for customers ship with Microsoft Windows XP. The overwhelming majority of CAD/CAM users still want Windows 2000. In Microsoft's drive to "dumb down" the operating system with XP and protect users, many operations are more tedious for technically savvy users to access. So despite improvements in security and arguably more stable underpinnings, Windows XP is just not proving a popular choice at this time. Will this change over time through personal choice, or will users simply be forced to upgrade to use the applications they need? Good question, and the answer is not yet in sight.
SIGNS SAY
The computer industry seems to be undergoing a facelift-- the cases continue to be fancier, more innovative, and stylish. The selection of computer housings for this roundup is the most varied that I've ever seen in a single review. Pretty to behold is, however, only part of the story.
System noise continues to be a mixed bag-we had extremely quiet and extremely noisy systems. HyperThreading, Intel's new technology that makes the processor appear as two virtual processors to the operating system and software, is something of a "so what" at this stage of its development. Just after we started this roundup, Intel posted a notice on its Web site indicating that HyperThreading worked correctly only with Windows XP and Linux-based systems. From what we've seen, the performance advantage amounts to only a few percentage points at best. In some situations, a few percentage points of performance gain can be significant, but most users won't notice the difference, at least on currently available systems and software. While this...