With apologies to Dell and their irritating PC buying boot camp commercial, I did, nonetheless, think their march cadence an appropriate title for this column.

New Year, New Computer.

I usually buy computers on a three year cycle and now I'm about five months overdue. Regular readers of this column know that last year was a bit unusual for me; hence some things took a back seat. Now that I'm back on a more or less even keel, well, as even as a keel might be for me, I've turned to more mundane affairs, one of which is the fact my computer is getting a little long in the tooth.

Originally, I was going to wait until the next iteration of Windows. However, that's been put off for another two or three years at which time I'll be ready for another new computer. In any event, I thought it might be instructive, not to mention an interesting column or two if I took you along for the ride.

First, as some of you may know, I'm also in need of a new television, the only thing left from last year's list of things I needed that I've not yet purchased. That does need to be considered. I was thinking of an HDTV rear projection big screen…well, not too big. Why rear projection? There are a few dirty little secrets about plasma screens. One, they have a problem with image burn and two, they leak; oh, and three, they're a lot of money! They also use a lot of electricity. It makes no sense to buy a fuel efficient automobile only to buy such an inefficient appliance.

I'm afraid large screen LCDs, which are very energy efficient by the way, are a bit pricey right now too. You also need to be directly in front of them for best viewing results. A rear projection wide screen model makes the most sense for me at the moment. Of course, this inevitably leads to the eternal question, "How are you going to pay for this?" That's why I brought it up as this is in direct competition with my new computer. At least I don't have to buy a monitor!

Oh well, the stores selling big screens always have some sort of big financing plan (Buy now, no interest, no payments…FOREVER) so I figure the big screen will take care of itself. At least it shouldn't be a major impediment to scratching my "new computer" itch.

I have a local shop that builds my systems for me, usually to my specs or some combination of theirs and mine. I spend time nosing around Computer Shopper magazine and a free regional magazine, ComputerUser, www.computeruser.com to which I subscribe for a fee. It's free if you pick it up at one of its drop sites but right now, I need to have it regularly and I can't be bothered running around hoping there's an issue still available. For $24.99 a year, it's worth the convenience. Computer Shopper you can pick up at any newsstand but I subscribe to that as well.

I watch the ads and look at how systems are being configured. Then, I make a list of things I want, making modifications as time goes by, only finalizing it in the last days before I'm ready to make the purchase. I then go to the shop, look at what they are offering and between us we come up with a happy medium. Actually, I've usually already surveyed the shop and their website by that time.

This year's purchase is a little more complicated than usual. I mentioned to an e-list to which I belong that I was starting to think about a new system and posted some early specs. I actually posted because I had a question about memory. I received a huge volume of responses, not one answered my question, every one telling me I should forget Intel and move to the AMD 64.

I have nothing against AMD but when I'm beta testing, the first systems to implode are AMD. "Hey, this thing killed my system, this thing blew my motherboard, this thing ate my foot…" On and on they go and I just don't want to deal with it. First advice is always, "Have you updated your BIOS, have you patched your chipset?" You see, AMD folks are always patching something. Some of these folks could make a quilt they've patched so much.

Now, I hear you AMD folks roaring back there and I'm going to throw some meat at you in a few minutes so resist the urge to write me your rants or your anecdotal tales of how you've never patched your setup or never had this kind of problem. I don't care and you're probably lying, well, exaggerating or never been in a beta test.

I actually like AMD. What they've accomplished is miraculous. They haven't defeated Intel but they've played them to a flat footed tie. There's no doubt in my mind, if there were no AMD, computers would cost about double today's prices. Further, given they are first out with a true consumer version of a 64-bit processor, they have to be causing some consternation in Santa Clara, Intel's headquarters in California. Not only will this processor run 64-bit software tomorrow but it will run 32-bit software today.

And that is one of my objections to purchasing such a system today. One of my friends on that e-list lamented the fact he had just purchased a new system and just a few weeks later, AMD released their 64-bit processor. Why should he be upset about this? There's virtually no software currently available to take advantage of this new architecture. Further, application developers are going to be wary of moving too quickly in that direction as they are going to want to see how or if Intel is going to respond.

You see, the Intel Itanium 64-bit processor uses emulation to allow 32-bit applications to run in its environment. Emulation is slow and 32-bit apps running on the Itanium reportedly run like sludge. It can't even be used with the 32-bit iterations of Windows. Microsoft has created a special 64-bit version of XP for the Itanium and, by the way, as of this writing it is not compatible with the AMD chip. However, the AMD chip can run the current 32-bit version of XP albeit in 32-bit mode but, it's not using emulation. In any event, AMD has complicated my choices a bit.

While I've generally gone with the three year cycle for PC purchases, my prime consideration is usually, whether or not my system is up to the task of the demands I'm making of it. Generally, three years beyond purchase date I find my system bogging down. That hasn't been quite the case this time. In fact, in terms of overall speed, I'm not all that impressed with systems claiming much beefier processors than my current Pentium III, 733 MHz.

You see, as processors have increased clock speed, a lot of other parts of the system have not caught up so we haven't seen the great gains in speed we've seen in some earlier generation jumps. Second, a lot of the gain has been in increased instructions per clock cycle. This certainly helps if you are crunching numbers but in the overall scheme of things, unless you are a gamer with a system that also has huge amounts of memory, the speed differences aren't all that noticeable.

However, in the last year, Intel introduced Hyper-Threading to the masses. In essence, this allows multi-threaded applications to execute instructions in parallel. In the past, this required a multi-processor setup but now it can be done with a single processor as long as it supports this feature. Previously, processors had to prioritize execution. While that is the case with a processor that supports Hyper-Threading, it can also run instructions simultaneously, allowing you to run more operations at one time without having the system seem to bog down or have to wait for one operation to finish before moving to the next.

While I'm still not all that impressed with the speed I'm seeing on systems with which I've been testing, purely on a subjective basis by the way, this new feature makes a world of difference if you do any multi-tasking.

As I move forward in this venture, I'll write more, perhaps posting preliminary specs, etc. as well as my thinking about why I want various features in the hopes of helping you make such decisions about your own future purchases.

Stay tuned!