@ E "Few large boxes...

Hello, E...

You just proved my point.

No money to buy your spot under the Sun, you settled for a Slackware / 486 combo. I did that too back then, what choice did we have? We couldn't afford the efficient stuff, because they came in a very large package, so we bought the INEFFICIENT stuff, but in a size that fit our wallets, and a second mortgage...

The large companies discovered that the inefficient stuff sold so well, it became dominant just because it was cheap. It didn't mean it was good.

AND WE HAD TO PUT UP WITH THAT, nothing was that cheap. The reason is monetary and monetary ALONE, I give you that!

It became so blatant obvious it was inefficient with the Intel PresHott Pentium 4's, because it was beginning to get real hard to cool it with air, lots of people said "I bought a space-heater from Dell!"

When I say "you wanted it" I meant, IBM saying: "you asked for cheap stuff, since you bought my whole stash of crap, I will give you cheap stuff".... sorry about that... it didn't come out clear... In other words, IBM and others started selling truck-loads of cheap (hence inefficient) stuff because people were buying it.

2-stroke motorcycles are highly aggressive to environment, yet they sell a lot because they are cheap.

We bought the crap, so we asked for it. Economics 101.

Excellent remarks, though. Up to this day a decent Workstation is worth more than many cars.

My point remains valid, if you have the cash up-front, go for the family-pack, it costs less cash per VUP in the long run.

It is a Price/Performance rating, that's it. Tom's Hardware show a pretty long one for x86 processors, for instance, but that is only for purchase price. When the power consumption comes into play (you can do your own math based on those charts) some results could come up, I don't know...

You must admit, the whole PC architecture is build to be cheap, since it is a no-redundancy version of a server or mainframe. Nowadays PC users are going for hard-drive redundancy..., but that's it. What about PSU redundancy? Hot swapping? Your PC SATA drive might survive a hot-swapping, but most people don't recommend even trying. eSATA connectors show promise, I haven't seen one live. USB connectors, even, are promising. What about ECC memory? Your refrigerator kicks in (at home), it jolts your power supply just enough to change a 0 into a 1 in your RAM, you won't even know. But I digress...

The point is, you have to choose CAN AFFORD vs. GOOD STUFF.

Good stuff cost dosh, LOTS of it. It can't be helped. We both know.

Rant on...