Give me some hardware recommendations…

**xcntrk75** · 01-13-2005, 09:47 PM

Well I finally got my first carputer PC fully built and ready for action, but it’s too damn slow. I used an old ATX mini tower that I had kicking around.

I’m running:
Win2k
Frodoplayer
GPS - Destinator 3 w/USA maps

Radiator FM tuner
TV Software
DVD Software
Wireless
Digimoto OBD-II Software
Blah..blah..blah

Anyway, this old P3 – 333 with 256Mb of memory [PC66 SDRAM mind you

] takes about 3 minutes to boot and what seems like forever to navigate.

Obviously I should retire this box back to the attic from which it came, but what’s a good hardware platform to run? I’ve seen from some of the threads here that many folk appear to be running some serious power (or overkill), is this really necessary? I crunch some significant data in my profession and don’t run half the processing power some folks are outfitting in their carputer. Do these popular applications require that much power?

All comments appreciated…

**strohmrs** · 01-13-2005, 10:30 PM

I believe that with any two or more of those apps running an 800 MHz is probably going to be a lot more acceptable and 1 GHz more desirable. 256MB should be fine for Win2k. Don't know what video you're running but upgrading the card to something newer with good MPEG decoding and 3D processing will take a lot of load of the CPU and may make that 333 quicker for you.

Most people are running overkill. I'm guilty of it! Unless you already have something lying around it's just cheaper to get the faster processors. I planned on going with a mobile AMD but went with a P4 because the MB was free after rebates. It runs cooler then I expected and will have a longer usable life with the extra CPU overhead.