An agonizing period for PC builders

  • Thread starter Thread starter Seth Brundle
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Seth Brundle

Is it just me, or is everyone tired of just sitting around twiddling
their thumbs waiting for their next upgrade?

I wont buy another mobo/CPU until Intel Alderwood chipset and/or AMD64
Socket 939 boards are out, wont buy another video card until ATI
launches its competition to the GeForce 6800 Ultra and both are
available in PCI Express. Wont buy a new DVD burner until dual-layer
launches.

Browsing NewEgg just isnt going to be much fun for another month or
so. :(
 
Seth Brundle said:
Is it just me, or is everyone tired of just sitting around twiddling
their thumbs waiting for their next upgrade?

I wont buy another mobo/CPU until Intel Alderwood chipset and/or AMD64
Socket 939 boards are out, wont buy another video card until ATI
launches its competition to the GeForce 6800 Ultra and both are
available in PCI Express. Wont buy a new DVD burner until dual-layer
launches.
Click to expand...

BTX too.

-- Bob Day
 
And... whatever the NEXT tech advancement that comes up. I see no
difference from today compared to yesteryears.
Considering that on the average, a hardcore user (be them gamers or
heavy production people) upgrade major components every 1-1/2 - 2
years, these up and coming advancements won't be mainstream, and by
that I mean software that would take full advantage of them, for about
the same time. If I had the urge to upgrade currently, I would.

Just my feeling on the matter. I would like to jump into dual
channel memory. I believe that could be taken advantage of right now.
Also, would like to implement SSE3 (lack of an official name, or is
that the final?) CPUs in hopes of even more video work time
improvements. I get a little apprehensive about the Prescott. It seems
that it will be the only Intel chip to support SSE3? I need to look
past the gamers put down of the CPU and find a good hardware analysis
in regards to work production.

Certainly not going to hold my breath on this one.

http://www.anandtech.com/chipsets/showdoc.html?i=2022

As we continue to receive more information about Alderwood (also known
as i925X), we continue to hear disappointing news about the upcoming
product launch. Recently, motherboard manufacturers have confirmed
with us that 925X will not launch with ECC support as originally
planned. We have previously stated that while 915 supports DDR2 and
DDR1, 925X supports only DDR2 memory. Thus, the lack of initial ECC
support on 925X will only affect DDR2 ECC memory.




And it seems that Adobe and Macromedia and other major players are now
only going to make software that runs on the latest MAC Jaguar OS10
and no more 9x windows software. Which AFA the business end of things
is fine, but at home I like my WinME machines, mainly because I can
(even though not suppose to) have 5 machines running it for the price
of one copy ( I have always thought that was fair, Bill doesn't
though).

TCPA and the willingness of the software/hardware companies to push
it along, makes me sweat more so than waiting for tech that keeps me
from upgrading. This little Gem will not keep you from upgrading, it
will kick you out of the homebuilding business all together.


http://www.againsttcpa.com/what-is-tcpa.html
 
But... buying a 107D or 2500 burner is worth while... price is superb and
with the flash mods available most 4x media will burn 8x, as well I have
found media that previously would not read on my Sony DVD player, will read
fine when burned with the new units---- it appears the quality of the burn
algorithm has improved significantly. (logical if 4x media can now burn 8x)
 
Is it just me, or is everyone tired of just sitting around twiddling
their thumbs waiting for their next upgrade?

I wont buy another mobo/CPU until Intel Alderwood chipset and/or AMD64
Socket 939 boards are out, wont buy another video card until ATI
launches its competition to the GeForce 6800 Ultra and both are
available in PCI Express. Wont buy a new DVD burner until dual-layer
launches.

Browsing NewEgg just isnt going to be much fun for another month or
so. :(
Click to expand...
I won't upgrade as AMD 64 is my next stop. Until Microsoft have a 64
bit version of XP out and the hardware driver issues that have cropped
up in WinXP 64 BETA have been resolved then I'll stay put. THe nextgen
graphics cards aren't going to make games anymore playable than they
are at the moment on my system.
 
Is it just me, or is everyone tired of just sitting around twiddling
their thumbs waiting for their next upgrade?

I wont buy another mobo/CPU until Intel Alderwood chipset and/or AMD64
Socket 939 boards are out, wont buy another video card until ATI
launches its competition to the GeForce 6800 Ultra and both are
available in PCI Express. Wont buy a new DVD burner until dual-layer
launches.

Browsing NewEgg just isnt going to be much fun for another month or
so. :(
Click to expand...

I'm not. I figure when the system I am using now becomes obsolete,
I'll have enough scratch to buy/build a new sytem.
 
I'm not. I figure when the system I am using now becomes obsolete,
I'll have enough scratch to buy/build a new sytem.
Click to expand...

I may be stuck with the one I have for a while, no matter what's going
on. I do little things to make it seem fresh and exciting to me.
Replace my old CD-RW/DVD with a DVD-RW, get a fancy glow in the dark
keyboard, install a light in the case that changes color in time with my
music, stuff like that.
 
No, this is definitely one of those times where you *really want* to
wait....because nearly everything new is very significant and coming out in
the next 1-3 months.

Are you saying you want to be holding a brand-new AGP ATX PCI Radeon 9800 XT
DDR rig when in June you can buy a PCI Express BTX GeForce 6800 Ultra DDR2
rig (or perhaps a dead-ended AMD64 mobo)? Yikes! I wouldnt want to wait 1
1/2 years to upgrade that rig!

It isnt frequent a new expansion bus (PCI Express x1), graphics bus (PCI
Express x 16) memory (DDR2), and thermal-performance mobo form factor (BTX)
are launched - and it never happens all at once! The new graphics cards are
one of the most significant technological leaps between generations yet,
says THG. And I dont know of any enthusiast who would currently invest in
the dead-ended AMD64 mobos currently on the market before Socket 939. There
is nothing immediately exciting about Prescott - the EE's are currently
overpriced.

Why are you so concerned about ECC support?
I run 4 full rackspace cabinets full of production Linux hardware, and only
use ECC in non-redundant database servers.
In a workstation or redundant webserver its far cheaper simply to replace
the a stick of non-ECC.
 
I won't upgrade as AMD 64 is my next stop. Until Microsoft have a 64
bit version of XP out and the hardware driver issues that have cropped
up in WinXP 64 BETA have been resolved then I'll stay put.
Click to expand...

But AMD64 is one of the best 32-bit platforms available and competitively
priced, so you dont need to wait until 64-bit Windows matures.

But you DO want to wait for Socket 939 mobos before buying AMD64.
 
um first off, creating scenarios of what hardware I'm holding makes
little sense to me. And of course these things your saying are your
Opinion right? To me, if you already made the jump to a amd64 mobo,
guess you will have to live with it, less you have squanderable moneys
to throw around. I will not jump into any 64 bit until there is
something to use it with... tech is always ahead of software,
nowadays. I am not into holding up my system specs and yelling 'I have
the latest and fastest' that's not my deal.

AFA PCI express...how many choices will there be of vid cards or any
PCI hardware that will take advantage of it as soon as its available
on a MB? 2 Maybe? no thanks, that locks me into to limited amount of
choices. That's me personally, When it comes to customers however,
what ever they want. Mostly my work consists of established stable
systems, as they are used for the disabled. The 'new tech' is based
around accessibility issues/technology rather than the fastest FPS
vidcard or the like. So, I am not the 'average' builder as it were. My
opinions will be rather 'off the beaten path'.

To each his own, and certainly doesn't mean your wrong in your ideas,
just keep in mind we are not all in the same mindset.
 
Not to mention that RAM is more expense now than it was 8 months to a year
ago.
Price fixing bastards . . .
 
JAD said:
AFA PCI express...how many choices will there be of vid cards or any
PCI hardware that will take advantage of it as soon as its available
on a MB? 2 Maybe? no thanks, that locks me into to limited amount of
choices. That's me personally, When it comes to customers however,
what ever they want. Mostly my work consists of established stable
systems, as they are used for the disabled. The 'new tech' is based
around accessibility issues/technology rather than the fastest FPS
vidcard or the like. So, I am not the 'average' builder as it were. My
opinions will be rather 'off the beaten path'.
Click to expand...

Thank you. I focus on assembling budget systems for the home user, and
for me, a leap forward in technology means that current technology which
is out of reach now will become affordable, then.
 
Dave said:
Not to mention that RAM is more expense now than it was 8 months to a year
ago.
Price fixing bastards . . .
Click to expand...
Blame ENRON, which did the magic to cut costs from 'competition'
in the memory market!

My fastest systems are Athlon 1.4Ghz and Duron 1.3Ghz systems.
all the rest (27) are making up a BEOWULF cluster, on the Knoppix
Cluster OS.

I upgrade as soon as the salvage market gets into the technology.
Other than the PIII dual systems (550Mhz) I have running, the rest are
all AMD systems. I run most of the systems on Linux, which is fast!

The technology can be crippled if you run a slow, kludgy, Microsoft
environment! I run XP Pro on the fastest system here, and can see how
slow it really is... That 1.4Ghz Athlon cannot compete with the PIII
550Mhz systems that are running Linux!

http://knopper.net/knoppix for your free download.
 
available in PCI Express. Wont buy a new DVD burner until dual-layer
launches.
Click to expand...
Lite-On SOHW-832S (Sony components I believe) is a dual layer DVD burner,
out in the next few days.

Adam S
 
Adam S said:
Lite-On SOHW-832S (Sony components I believe) is a dual layer DVD burner,
out in the next few days.

Adam S
Click to expand...

Anandtech review today - slow writes, write errors, and lack of media
point to 'wait' as well...
 
Personally, I'm waiting for Socket 939 and unless there is ATI Radeon
X800 based All-In-Wonder card around that time, I'm getting the 9600XT
AIW. I have not done anything to my current PC for 3 years besides
adding 256MB of RAM.
So, this system that I plan on building in June should last me until
enough 64-bit computing is out there and we are fully on BTX, PCI
Express, and DDR2.
 
Bah. My computer fried last week, and instead of waiting six months
for the "next big thing" I went ahead and got what I could now. I
just bought what was basically Tom's Hadware's reference system for
the AMD 64 bit platform.

Is it already obsolete? Absolutely. Are there going to be new and
awesome technologies just around the corner? No doubt.

But you know what? It's going to take 3-6 months for those new techs
to reach the street in any sort of numbers. It'll take another year
before the nasty hidden bugs in the bios's are figured out and fixed.
It'll be a year after that before the various OS and driver patches
and updates are stable enough to take real advantage of it all.

So while everyone else is waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and then
getting frustrated or annoyed or fried, I'll be enjoying my "geeze you
coulda waited a little longer" system, running all the games and fun
stuff at max settings and having a blast. And then in three years I'll
just buy whatever's max and common all over again.

Bottom line, IMO, buy the best your money can buy NOW and have a ball
with it. The PC treadmill means you'll always be at least a gen
behind, no matter what you do. By the time real-world performance
means the difference between having fun with a game or app and not
having fun, you'll be able to do it all over again.
 
Scott said:
Bah. My computer fried last week, and instead of waiting six months
for the "next big thing" I went ahead and got what I could now. I
just bought what was basically Tom's Hadware's reference system for
the AMD 64 bit platform.

Is it already obsolete? Absolutely. Are there going to be new and
awesome technologies just around the corner? No doubt.

But you know what? It's going to take 3-6 months for those new techs
to reach the street in any sort of numbers. It'll take another year
before the nasty hidden bugs in the bios's are figured out and fixed.
It'll be a year after that before the various OS and driver patches
and updates are stable enough to take real advantage of it all.
Click to expand...

LOL, true! :)
Bottom line, IMO, buy the best your money can buy NOW and have a ball
with it.
Click to expand...

Sure, what the heck! Life is short! None of us really knows how long
we have got! The supervolcano in Yellowstone could blow at any second!
Carpe Diem!
 
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