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Active : 06/03/2010 @ 12:00 AM
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I'm looking to put together some minimum requirements to run DNS 10.1 Legal. My current (out of date) Dell Latitutude D820 with Core 2 Duo T7200 and 4GB XP Pro does not run and work well. I appreciate thoughts as to the minimum requirements to run with sufficient productivity.
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Active : 09/02/2010 @ 03:47 PM
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You should be able to find hundreds of answers by searching this forum for “computer recommendations” but we recommend contacting M-Tech who now keeps a running list of NaturallySpeaking speech recognition ready to go notebook and desktop computers with Intel i7 920 chips. Note that we have tested and endorsed several of their computers but note that we do not receive any form of compensation. We just liked what we saw. Developer ofKnowBrainer 2008 Nuance NaturallySpeakingCertifiedBBBAccredited Speech RecognitionSolutions Provider
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Active : 06/03/2010 @ 12:00 AM
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I'm looking for minimum as opposed to maximum. But obviously am looking for performance as opposed to 10 second recognition. I don't see anything on m-tech's website about DNS systems.
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You would have to call M-Tech for our current recommendations because our review hasn't been posted yet but we were very pleased with the M700 series. See our soon-to-be released M-Tech M7700 Review now Developer ofKnowBrainer 2008 Nuance NaturallySpeakingCertifiedBBBAccredited Speech RecognitionSolutions Provider
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Active : 09/02/2010 @ 10:15 PM
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Quote:
I'm looking for minimum as opposed to maximum. But obviously am looking for performance as opposed to 10 second recognition. I don't see anything on m-tech's website about DNS systems.
netlawbmg,
First, you're not likely to find any references on any of the hardware sites to support for DNS. Although some test speech recognition, virtually none of them report their results unless you specifically ask them. Speech recognition is not at the point where it is a very high-priority for laptop or desktop manufacturers to make it part of their marketing campaigns, or even their support knowledgebases. Besides, that's not the way to go looking for hardware that supports DNS anyway.
What you need to be looking for are those hardware configurations that tend to support optimal functioning and performance for DNS.
Second, DNS can only perform so fast regardless of the speed and performance of the hardware. Today there are so many processors on the market that it's hard to tell, for the average user, which one performs best with DNS. At the upper end you won't find DNS performing any faster more accurately because the hardware performance outstrips the performance of DNS. Therefore, you arrive at a limit whereby DNS won't perform any better no matter how powerful your system is. For example, I currently have two desktop systems: One running the Core™ i7 920 2.66 GHz with 8 MB of L3 cache, quad core, 12 GB of DDR3 tri-channel memory, and one running the Core™ i7 980X Extreme Edition 3.3 GHz with 12 MB of L3 cache (six core or hexa core) and 16 GB of DDR3 tri-channel memory. Both systems are running RAM at 2000 MHz. The base cost of the Core™ i7 920 was $259. The base cost of the Core™ i7 980X Extreme Edition was $1099 and has more bells and whistles than you can shake a stick at. However, DNS does not run significantly faster on the Core™ i7 980X than it does on the Core™ i7 920. The only reason that I have the Core™ i7 980X Extreme Edition is for software development and testing purposes and also because I you make extensive use of graphics software for web design, which is where it works the best. So, there is no significant cost-benefit of the Core™ i7 980X over the Core™ i7 920 as far as DNS performance is concerned.
Third, when you're looking at laptops you're looking at mobile processors. Therefore, you don't have access to tri-channel memory because laptops only have 2 memory slots vs. the desktop processors having 6 memory slots. You can spend upwards of $$3000-$4000 getting a laptop with the Core™ i7 920 desktop processor with tri-channel memory. However, you really don't gain anything in terms of DNS performance by going that route. You might as well just take your money and flush it down the toilet.
In addition, you can buy a laptop for about $1800-$2000 with the Core™ i7 820QM (quad core) that has 8 MB of SmartCache (L3 cache), which supports 8 threads, dual channel memory supporting up to 8 GB of DDR3 RAM, with a maximum RAM speed of 1333 MHz and the CPU speed of 1.73 GHz (Max Turbo Frequency 3.06 GHz) or you can step down to the Core™ i7 640LM with a clock speed of 2.13 GHz (Max Turbo Frequency 2.933 GHz), dual core, with 4 MB of SmartCache (L3 cache), which supports 4 threads and up to 8 GB of dual channel DDR3 RAM running at a maximum of 1066 MHz for about $1500, or less, and you'll get the same performance out of DNS. So, you could basically take the difference in price, buy yourself some top-quality Cuban tobacco, and rule yourself some good cigars because you're throwing that money out the window anywhere and not getting any better performance out of DNS. In addition, you could even go as low as the Core™ i5 540M with one less megabyte of cache dual core and everything else being the same as the Core™ i7 640LM and with a clock speed of 2.53 GHz (Max Turbo Frequency 3.066 GHz) and still get the same performance with regard to DNS for about $1100.
So, as you can see, you can spend a lot of money or you can spend a reasonable amount of money and get the same performance of DNS. You might notice a slight difference between the high-end systems and the Core™ i5, but it will not be significant enough to warrant the extra cost. Nevertheless, this is how you should be looking for a laptop.
What Lunis is talking about is, even though you'll spend more money, that M-Tech will build you a solid system guaranteed to perform and be reliable. But the question is, is it really worth it? For the quality, yes. For the performance/cost, no relative to DNS. It all depends on what you want relative to the minimum processor/RAM configuration that will give you the best performance with DNS. Right now, it's basically the Nehalem technology that'll give you the best bang for the buck, but you don't need to spend an arm and a leg to get it.
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Active : 08/30/2010 @ 04:21 PM
Posts : 190
Barry,
“I'm looking to put together some minimum requirements to run DNS 10.1 Legal. My current (out of date) Dell Latitutude D820 with Core 2 Duo T7200 and 4GB XP Pro does not run and work well. I appreciate thoughts as to the minimum requirements to run with sufficient productivity.
“I'm looking for minimum as opposed to maximum. But obviously am looking for performance as opposed to 10 second recognition. I don't see anything on m-tech's website about DNS systems.”
Your Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 Merom 2.0GHz 4MB L2 Cache has 4 MB level 2 cache.
The amount of cache is one of the most crucial factors relative to the performance of DNS. The older CPUs have level 2 and the newer ones have level 3. Regardless, 4 to 6 MB is recommended. From a cost-benefit point of view, 4 MB is the sweet spot. In other words, you get a slight gain by going from 4 to 6 MB level 2 cache, and nothing beyond that. While on the other hand, going with 3 will degrade performance. 6 MB cache is preferred. Cash is more important than gigahertz speed. The newer CPUs with level 3 cache are Nehalem-based and are more powerful, clock for clock, than the older Core 2 Duo CPUs.
With a laptop you’re probably looking at around a 15 inch screen, and 4 GB of memory. Hard drive size and speed is pretty much a irrelevant relative to DNS. Also, video performance is pretty much irrelevant relative to DNS.
I will be more than happy to make a few recommendations. But first I wanted to say something about support. I never buy extended warranties on anything. I build my own desktop computers and therefore am my own OEM. With my 24 inch iMac I did buy the three year support for $89. Their support is good but it was unnecessary. With any computer I figure it will either break within the first 30 days and I’ll return it, or will last 3 to 4 years until it is obsolete. So if support and extended warranties are important to you, need to go beyond the basic specifications for running any application and consider how much extra you want to spend to deal with a seller or manufacturer.
I also wanted to mention some thoughts about Intel’s naming scheme for CPUs. Calling CPUs I3 vs I5 vs I7 is really quite ridiculous and confusing. Generally higher the number the better. But each CPU really needs to be looked at carefully. To get the exact specifications you can take a name like “i5 520M” and cut and pasted into Intel’s website like this: http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=47341
The i5-520M CPU only has 3 MB of cache. So it’s really not quite powerful enough for DNS.
These days Intel is coming out with a major new CPU every 24 months or so. I believe it is cheaper and better to get a laptop that is adequate and replace it every 24 months or so rather than get one that is more powerful than necessary and try to run it longer. Also, be aware that the faster the CPU, the more RAM you have, and bigger faster the hard drive is, the more heat you make in the faster you run down the battery. A hotter laptop generally means a higher likelihood of hard drive failures and other component failures.
Intel E8400 Core 2 Duo 3.00 GHz Wolfdale 6MB L2 cache CPU, Gigabyte EP45-UD3P motherboard, 4 GB DDR2 1066 RAM, Buddy USB pod 6g sound card, The Boom C microphone, Seagate 475 GB 7200 RPM hard drive, Windows XP SP3. DNS Preferred 10.1, Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer + Internet (MCSE+I)
Group : Advanced Member
Active : 08/01/2010 @ 02:43 PM
Posts : 82
I would also mention, reliability and fast mantenance are important.
Example I cant afford down time since i use my laptop for dns daily, so a few years ago went with the dell xps m1530 because they did in office same day repair, at that time.
I am currently looking for a new laptop also, Thinking of the I7 for the bigger cache.
Will post what I think is current best bang for buck. Prices change frequently lately.
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Active : 09/02/2010 @ 03:47 PM
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Quote:
I would also mention, reliability and fast mantenance are important.
You should know that most service agreements are subcontracted by 2 or 3 major companies. When you purchase a maintenance agreement with Dell, it is subcontracted to another company. In other words when you sign a service agreement with Dell, you could very likely be signing the same agreement offered by Gateway or even the boutique computer shop down the street. Don't be fooled. If you live in a small community, a guy that shows up during the next business day, to service your computer, is just as likely wearing a Burger King hat. You'll typically do better in the larger metropolitan areas but even companies like the Geek Squad are limited by the software they bring with them which doesn't compare to taking your computer to a local shop and having the proper hardware tests conducted (in a hardware failure situation). Developer ofKnowBrainer 2008 Nuance NaturallySpeakingCertifiedBBBAccredited Speech RecognitionSolutions Provider
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Thread has been edited.
Edit Count :
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Date Last Edited :
05/03/2010
Time Last Edited :
04:28 PM
Laptops and down time
Generally laptops are more likely to break than desktops. Hard drives run hotter and fail more often. Also, laptops get bounced around and can be left in a vehicle where they can overheat in the summer and freeze in the winter. One simple way to not have downtime is simply to have two laptops. Another idea would be to use a backup service like Carbonite http://www.carbonite.com, and if you have to take your laptop to a shop to be repaired, you can purchase another laptop locally and use Carbonite to restore all your user data. Then when you get your original laptop back you can return the second one. You may have to pay a restocking fee, but that beats being without a laptop for several days.
Note, if you find that you have left your laptop in your vehicle overnight in the winter when it is below freezing, you should put it in a Ziploc bag or a series of bags and perhaps a briefcase and bring it inside and leave it in the coldest least humid location you have so it will warm up slowly. Otherwise you can get a cocktail glass effect my computer gets literally all wet. The same goes for digital cameras and cell phones etc.
Intel E8400 Core 2 Duo 3.00 GHz Wolfdale 6MB L2 cache CPU, Gigabyte EP45-UD3P motherboard, 4 GB DDR2 1066 RAM, Buddy USB pod 6g sound card, The Boom C microphone, Seagate 475 GB 7200 RPM hard drive, Windows XP SP3. DNS Preferred 10.1, Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer + Internet (MCSE+I)
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Thread has been edited.
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Date Last Edited :
05/04/2010
Time Last Edited :
12:58 AM
Quote:
Generally laptops are more likely to break than desktops. Hard drives run hotter and fail more often. Also, laptops get bounced around and can be left in a vehicle where they can overheat in the summer and freeze in the winter. One simple way to not have downtime is simply to have two laptops. Another idea would be to use a backup service like Carbonite http://www.carbonite.com, and if you have to take your laptop to a shop to be repaired, you can purchase another laptop locally and use Carbonite to restore all your user data. Then when you get your original laptop back you can return the second one. You may have to pay a restocking fee, but that beats being without a laptop for several days.
Generally good advice but I would add a couple points.
1. Don't leave your laptop in your car, EVER. The likelihood of having a proper place to let it cool off or warm-up properly is limited. Basically, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
2. Extended warranties and in-house service are outsourced. That much is true. However, the companies to which they are outsourced have to be licensed and bonded. Their technicians also have to be certified. I have yet to find in-house service (i.e., getting your laptop serviced on-site) to be a real problem. As long as your laptop is under warranty, either the manufacturer or the service is liable for replacement if and when necessary. The only real problem that you run into is downtime if it can't be fixed on site. However, the one time that I had to use an on-site service contract, the keyboard had to be replaced and the technician had all the necessary replacement parts. My laptop was fixed inside 20 minutes. Therefore, on-site service is not all that bad and most of the companies are pretty good. Yes, you can run into the Burger King man from time to time, but that is relatively rare.
3. Carbonite can be expensive if you have a large amount of data. It's cheaper, easier, and just as effective to consistently perform an image backup to an external drive using utilities like Acronis TrueImage or Norton Ghost. My laptop is backed up every two hours from eight in the morning until midnight to a Western Digital 320 GB passport external USB drive that I reformatted for NTFS vs. the Fat 32 filesystem that they come set up with. The reason for doing this is that Windows Vista/Windows 7 64-bit don't correctly recognize Western Digital passport external hard drives formatted as Fat 32. Backing up your system in this manner lets you restore the complete image any time that you need to on any system. Also, programs like Acronis TrueImage use a CD boot recovery system based on Linux, which is more reliable and automatically boots up on insertion of the CD during the bootup process.
4. Yes, laptops generally run hotter than desktops. However, a little common sense goes a long way towards preventing heat from becoming the ipso facto laptop destroyer. Never place your laptop flat, particularly on the surface that conducts heat. Doing this can block the cooling fan, and, even if the cooling fan is on the side vs. the bottom, the reflected heat from a flat surface makes your laptop run hotter regardless of the cooling fan. Always elevate your laptop so that there is air between the bottom of the laptop and the surface on which you place it.
Use an external laptop cooling fan(s). While the laptop fan forces heat out, the laptop external cooling fan(s) force cool air against the bottom of the laptop. Using this approach, I've never had a laptop fail due to overheating and I've never had to have a hard drive replaced as a result of such. I run my Gateway Core2™ Duo 24/7 (2 GHz with 2 GB of RAM and 4 MB of L2 cache). It has yet to fail and it's almost 5 years old. It was one of the very first Core2™ Duo laptops manufactured. It runs DNS 10.1 just fine and since I back it up every two hours, just like all my other systems to its dedicated Western Digital passport external USB hard drive, all I would have to do is simply go out and purchase a new hard drive if the hard drive ever failed, which it hasn't, probably because it's a Seagate 7200 RPM 160 GB for which the warranty has only just expired. I never leave it in the car. I never expose it to excessive heating. I use an external cooling fan underneath it that has three 120 mm fans. The laptop fan exits hot air on the left side, not the bottom, and when it's not absolutely necessary, I close the lid to put it in hibernation. I paid $1449 back when similar laptops from Toshiba and HP were running about $2500. I still take it with me and I use it at tradeshows, for demos, and testing.
Now, that's not to say that every laptop will perform as well as mine has over the years. What it does say is that if you take proper care of your laptop it will last longer generally. Nevertheless, heat is anathema to electronics and is why 99% of all electronics fail. Take care of your laptop and it will take care of you.
Point of note: This laptop has outlasted two desktops.
Posted : Friday 04/30/2010 11:16 PM 
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