Your System Specs.

AMD Athlon 2200+
Giga-byte GA-7VT600 1394
512 MB RAM
Radeon 9100
Win 2000

Home:


AMD Athlon 2500+
Gigabyte GA-7N400Pro2
1280 MB Crucial PC2700
Gainward GF3 Ti 200 GS
80 GB WD Special Edition HD
Sound Blaster 5.1 Live
Sennheiser PC-150 headphones (so the neighbors won't complain)
XP Pro SP2 RC1


AMD T-bird 1200
Gigabyte Mobo
768 MB PC133
Gainward MX400
40 GB Maxtor
Integrated Sound
Demo version of Server 2003

Work:
P3 550
384 MB of el Cheapo ram
40 GB hd (probably reman - they're really cheap here)
Integrated video and sound

Sabot wrote:

Why is it that machines at home these days are better than the ones at work? If I remember correctly the trend used to be the other way around.

Baaaaaaad economy...

Sabot wrote:

Does anyone still have a CBM 64? ... or even a VIC 20 3.5k !!! Seems funny, but those were the days when you could do soooooooo much with 3.5k

I have a Toshiba MSX-1, from 1985 or '86, I believe. Every once in a while, I hook it up to my widescreen tv and enjoy the BASIC code and simple games from those good old days.

Home-(the ones I mainly use)

850mhz Classic Slot A AMD
80Gig HD
Quad Boot XPSP1,XPSP2 (2082),XPSP2 (RC1),SBS 2003
256MB PC133
ATI 9600XT

Server Home-
1gig Duron
768MB
2 180gig Hard Drives
Win2kSP4
NVIDIA TNT2 M64

Work
Dual AmD MP MSI K7D
1 gig Memory
80Gig Hard Drive
ATI 9600
TRI BOOT- Win2k SP4/WinXPSP1/WIn2k3 ENT

Laptop-
Toshiba Portegee
133mhz 64mb 2gig Hard Drive
Win98SE
Gateway-
120mhz 64mb 4gig Hard Drive
Win2k SP4

And Yes I have noticed that trend... Home Computers become more powerful than work computers...interesting though seems as if buisiness is trying to cut corners here and there.

Sabot wrote:

Why is it that machines at home these days are better than the ones at work? If I remember correctly the trend used to be the other way around.

To hazard a guess, I'd say the answer is twofold-- first, powerful computers are now cheap, and second, the halycon days of engineers are over.

My first "real" computer job was for the Contra Costa Water District over in sunny Walnut Creek.  There were maybe a dozen engineers with extremely powerful machines... we're talking Pentium 60s here, with huge monitors and HDs!  Their machines probably cost in the $8k range, which was 2-3x what everybody else's Macs cost.  I think you could buy a decent car for a little more at that time.  But the users were the few, the proud, the highly-trained don't-mess-with-these-guys CAD/CAM people.  At the time, the computers I bought for myself were quite far behind the cutting edge.

Nowadays, there are engineers aplenty.  Can't toss a stick without hitting a couple.  And they all have extremely powerful machines... we're talking Pentium 4 3Ghzs with huge monitors and HDs!  But those machine only cost, what, 1.5k?  At that cost, you can afford to toss them around, just about.  Even the CAD/CAM guys could probably get along with off-the-shelf stuff-- being an engineer no longer means "I must have the absolute best".  Now I can afford to buy very close to the cutting edge.

But, I could be wrong.

That said, there are two big differences between my work machine and my home machine.  My work machine has twice as much memory (1GB vs. 512MB), and my home machine has a 17" LCD (vs. an aging 21" CRT).  Makes them pretty even in my book.

Desktop:

AMD XP2800+
512meg of ram
nForce2 64meg gfx
80 gig HDD
XP Pro

Laptop:

Intel P4 3.06 ghz with HT
512meg of ram
Mobility radeon 64meg  gfx
60 gig HDD
XP Pro

Work:

No job

D875PBZ Motherboard (Intel Canterwood)
2.4GHz P4 w/800MHz FSB + HT
1GB DDR400 Memory at 2-3-2-5 timings (Corsair Memory)
ATI AIW 9700 Pro (AGP)
ATI TV Wonder (PCI)
Western Digital 36.7GB Raptor (SATA)
Western Digital 200GB Special Edition Cavair (IDE)
CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive (IDE)
LS-120/SuperDisk drive (IDE)
Thermaltake Purepower 480
Windows XP Professional SP1 (used to be SP2 RC1 but an auto update destablized it)

I'd love to run 2004 Media Center Edition but unfortunately, there isn't a retail version and I built my computer myself so I could get more for my money.

Sabot wrote:

Why is it that machines at home these days are better than the ones at work? If I remember correctly the trend used to be the other way around.

Speaking of Spec, it's about time I upgraded my PC at home in time for the release of Half Life 2!

Does anyone still have a CBM 64? ... or even a VIC 20 3.5k !!! Seems funny, but those were the days when you could do soooooooo much with 3.5k

Corporations might be trying to cut spendings to boost profits. If you look at paulcam's machines, you would see that it is still the old way at Microsoft.

Main System:
ECS EliteGroup K7S5A Pro Motherboard
AMD Athlon 1.2 GHz
320m PC100 SDRAM
nVidia GeForce2 MX440 64m AGP4x
10GB Combined HD Space (8.4 + 1.6)
Windows 2000 w/ Service Pack 4
US Robotics 3595OEM 56k Modem
Onboard Sound using 2.1 speaker system
Onboard LAN + Realtek 8139 PCI addon card (DUAL LAN FUN!)

System Currently on loan to parental unit (female):
Some old AOpen motherboard
Intel Pentium 233MHz
32m PC66 SDRAM
3dfx Voodoo3 16m PCI
1.2GB HD Space
Windows 98 SE
AOpen 56-PLM 56k Modem
Sound Blaster 16
Some old DLink LAN card

System Currently used for old DOS apps:
Some old IBM motherboard
Intel Pentium 100MHz
32m 72pin RAM
ATI Rage IIc 4m PCI
500m HD Space
No modem
No sound
Some old IBM Etherjet LAN card (suprised it has cat5e port)

Home Desktop
------------
Dell XPS
3.2GHz Extreme Edition P4 w/800MHz FSB + HT
2GB DDR400 Memory
ATI AIW 9800 Pro (AGP)
2 x 10,000 RPM 72 GB SATA Drives
1 x 7,2000 RPM 250GB SATA Drive
CD-RW/DVD-RW combo drive (IDE)
20" Dell Flat Panel 16ms Update Speed
Windows XP Professional SP1

Work Laptop
-----------
Toshiba Tecra S2
Centrino 1.7 GHz Chipset
2GB RAM
Mobile Nvidia
1 x 60GB 7,200 IDE Drive
CD-RW/DVD-ROM
15" Screen

bluebird: (workstation)
    2.4Ghz P4
    640MB RAM
    XP Pro w/ SP1
    140GB HDD space (1 80GB, 1 60GB)
    Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB VRAM
    SB Audigy 2 ZS

gyre: (server)
    900Mhz Athlon
    1024MB RAM
    Debian (Unstable) w/ 2.6.5 kernel
    200GB HDD space (1 drive)
    Couple of really loud fans

Home:
PIII 600mhz (damn I love those PIIIs)
256mb RAM
60 gig HD
GF4 mx 440
Win2k Pro

those PIIIs were powerhouses..

Work:

My twins! (Two Workstations)

PIII 550 Xeons (Dual) (HP Visualize X550)
2gig RAM
2 x 9gig SCSI HD in RAID 0
Geforce FX5200 (128mb) Dual Display (replaced)
XP Pro

Both are hooked up to a KVM switch on my Two Sony Trinitron 20" CRTs .. One with Dual Monitor and the switch to the other for one monitor..

got the 2 stations and 2 monitors for $350 from John Deere (used)

Dell Inspiron 8200
Mobile Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 - M CPU 2.20GHz
1024 MB RAM
Disk Space: 350GB across 3 drives
MOBILITY RADEON 9000
Dell TrueMobile 1180 Internal 802.11b Mini PCI Card - Packet Scheduler Miniport
2nd Monitor, Dell 19" LCD
Plantronics DSP 400 headset
Windows XP Pro

I am a good Dell Customer!

Home:

Compaq Presario 2.3 Ghz
512mb RAM
120 GB HD
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X
SoundBlaster Live
MS Desktop Elite Keyboard
MS Intellimouse Optical (until they fix the 5.0 drivers)
Logitech 5.1 speaker system
Samsung SyncMaster 955DF
CDRW
DVD

Dell Optiplex 866mhz
256mb RAM
9.5 GB HD
CD
MS Desktop Elite Keyboard and Mouse
Other standard built-in Dell stuff
Dell 17" monitor

Work:

Dell Dimension Desktop 1.8 Ghz
256mb RAM
20 GB HD
Other standard built-in Dell stuff
GE Optical Mouse (I provided it myself, only $12 at Target)
A old, burnt-in, 17" Philips monitor

Work:
OS Name    Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
Version    5.0.2195 Service Pack 4 Build 2195
OS Manufacturer    Microsoft Corporation
System Manufacturer    IBM
System Model    657480U
System Type    X86-based PC
Processor    x86 Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 1 GenuineIntel ~596 Mhz
BIOS Version    IBM BIOS Ver PJKT31.0
Windows Directory    C:\WINNT
System Directory    C:\WINNT\system32
Boot Device    \Device\Harddisk0\Partition1
Locale    United States
Time Zone    Central Daylight Time
Total Physical Memory    261,560 KB
Available Physical Memory    45,108 KB
Total Virtual Memory    894,076 KB
Available Virtual Memory    404,560 KB
Page File Space    632,516 KB
Page File    C:\pagefile.sys

am I bitter that my MEM usage runs at about 70% with vs.net, db tool, and outlook open....YES. There is nothing worse then making a wrong move in vs.net that makes the MEM jump up to 90% for a few minutes. I am jealous of all of you with decent work pcs. We are actually suppose to get new IBMs but since we have a special configuration (dual mon) it is taking longer to get them. I  know how tricky that dual monitor config is *rolls eye smiley*

Home:
1.8 AMD (think its like the 2800?)
1g RAM
40 G RAID 0 + seperate 80g WD HD(hey it was on sale)
Radeon 9700

Working on my home pc compared to work is like night and day.

Home - Main system
AMD 2000+
512 MB PC-2700 RAM
120 Gig 7200rpm
ATI 9600 XT 128 MB
52x24x52 CD-RW
4x DVD Combo burner
Windows XP

Home - Server
AMD 1 ghz
640 MB RAM
100 gig of space(2 x 40 gig + 1 20 gig)
8x12x24 CD-RW
Mandrake 10.0
ATI 9200 SE

Tandy TRS80 Running Deskmate 2.0, with dual 5 1/4 drives! It's a real screamer.

Almost forgot about PC Link.

A big step up from my Altaire 8800

MAIN PC/GAMING PC
ASUS A7N8X-UAY
AMD ATHLON XP 2500+ w/333MHz FSB
512MB DDR400 Memory (Samsung)
ATI/Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro (AGPx8)
Maxtor 30GB Diamond Max 9 IDE(ATA-133)
Maxtor 60GB Diamond Max 9 IDE(ATA-133)
Pioneer DVD-ROM drive 
HP CD-Writer 9300+ serise drive
ANTEC TruePower 430
Windows XP Home Edition SP1 (Code Name Whistler)

I posted my setup, with photos of my workspace here:

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=6435#6435

But to save you a click:

Workstation
Intel Mainboard, P4 3.0 GHz, 1MB L2, 800Mhz FSB, 1GB PC400, DUAL 40GB- 10K RPM SATA IN RAID0,XFX GeForce 128MB DUAL-DVI

Display (I Love my MaxDisplay)
MD-218 Dual 18" XGA LCD By MaxDisplays

HID
Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop Elite

PHONE
Vodavi StarPlusSTS + Plantronics Vista Headset

Chair
OfficeMax Black Leather High back (Ergonomic)
Rated for 12-18 Hour Use (Very Firm)

Shredder
Tech Solutions Crosscut Shredder
No company should be without one of these!

Wall Art
Courtesy my children (see: www.beinefamily.com)
Gallery coming to a blog near you.

Regards,

Jamie