Well, for almost 15 years, I've been an AMD guy. My first personal computer was in 1993. Intel was starting to market their Pentium I's. So I bought the AMD 486. That computer lasted me for 6 years. And it was still ticking well. The only reason I had to upgrade was because the softwares and the internet demanded faster processors and more memories. But 6 long years is unbelievable! After that first one, it's been downhill since.

My second computer was the AMD K5 in 1999. That computer lasted me for 4 years, and it croaked.

So in 2003, it was the AMD Athlon 1800. 2 years later, it wigged out and fried.

So in 2005, I bought the AMD Athlon XP 2800. 2 years later, it started behaving funny. No matter how many times I did a fresh install and reformat of the hard drives, the bugs kept coming back.

By 2007, I desperately needed a new computer, but finances prevented me from doing so. So I tried to hang on as long as I could. By March 2008, it completely died.

So after a month of researching for my next computer, and weighing all the options, and assessing my long relationship with AMD processors that has spiralled worse and worse with each new computer, I finally went Intel. All I can say about Intel is, it sure is expensive. I got a computer with a Core 2 Quad Q9450. Huge 4gb DDR3 RAM. I checked my resources, and was shocked to see that already 2.7gb of the RAM was being used. Simply unbelievable.

But I'm running the new Windows Vista, and I guess that's the new demanding hardware requirements. With my Athlon XP, I couldn't even watch HD trailers on the internet. But with this new computer, WOW!!! Those HD trailer movies run very nice... very very nice...

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Will Shin
Rockville, MD