When to buy a new top spec system this year

[jb77]

Hi, want to replace my PC (PIV 3.o/1 gb ram/NVIDIA 6800oc 256). Got it bit over 4 years now and want to buy a top spec system to use for another 4 yrs somewhere in the course of this year. Use it for Photo and video hobby and gaming (battlefield etc)

Lot of changes I read (Vista/CPU's/Ram/HD etc) so not sure if this is the best moment to buy or if there is some new development expected this year worth waiting for. Also appreciate some guidelines on what a top end system should contain

thanks for the help.

 

[waleedhk]

April 22. prices drop and new core 2 duo or wait for amd's payback

 

[waleedhk]

April 22. prices drop and new core 2 duo or wait for amd's payback

 

[waleedhk]

There is three events to watch for this year, one minor the other major and another major that may or may not happen.

First, April 22 will see a price drop from Intel and a minor refresh of the Core 2 Duo line with CPUs scaling into the lower end segments and some more segmentation into the high end. You will be able to get a) a cheaper Intel CPU that offers great performance or b) a good CPU from AMD for much less.

Second, Junish-Julish AMD will release Barcelona, their major architectural revision since C2D was released. This promises to be a killer chip with huge potential, AMD is really hyping up this product. Alas, desktop versions of this will not appear until Q3 by leaked roadmaps to lean so the Julish-Augustish range for desktop, server chips will be the first to launch.

Third, and this is the may or may not happen, Intel will release Penryn on the 45 nm technology, there are a lot of question marks here --- it will have minor architectural tweaks, some new instructions, and larger cache. The big question though is clock speed, will it clock high enough to keep the performance lead? Speculation has placed this in 2H 2007, there had been rumors that it will push out to Q1 2008, nobody really knows for sure.... Intel is officially on record stating 2H 2007.

You are right that now is a good time to think about an upgrade cycle, the price war and newer product refreshes on the horizon, it is now time to keep your eyes open. I list the three big ones and about when they will happen.

hey what will be the pricing of Barcelona chips (will their be, any entry level model lesser than 200$) and will they defeat C2D. And i think Barcelona also consist of dual core as well as quadcores

 

[YO_KID37]

Jack, do you think AMD's Delaying Barcelona right now so that the Engineers can work on how to push the L1 and L2 Latency's to a critical level so that the IPC could be almost Efficient as ever possible while Pushing through the new 128 Bit IPCs?. I'm thinking from all the information out there with AMD and Microsoft Buddy-Buddy that AMD could have persuaded and worked with and have got Microsoft to get their O/S's to better make use of that Wider-Pipeline Barcelona K8L has promised, so that in benchmarks we could truly see 40% better Real life Benchmarks and 70% or better Synthetics on their 2.6Ghz processors over the Clovertown @ ~ 2.6Ghz

While the new Hyper transport 3.0 @ 5200Mb/s FSB push is so that Bridges have space for addition of more Data Intensive attachments Example R600(quads) and HD Contents and other Next Generation things slated for more Regular use.

I'm not the Engineer here(only in 12th grade), so I would need a little clarification on this technical info

 

[YO_KID37]

Jack, any ideas? any help would be appreciated

 

[jackxlj]

I doubt Microsoft would tune vista to meet Barcelona, I expect what they did, was look at the cores out now, and then double the performance of those, and base the os on that mark. AMD could indeed be tuneing k10 for all its worth, but I doubt thats what is happening,unless they have discovered some problem with the arch. It is far more likely that they are tuneing the 65nm production as much as possible, to try to improve yeilds, so that when k10 does launch they will have enough to meet demand, and make a profit off of it

 

[Valrath]

To be realistic, developers are always making something that'll come out in 3-6 months at any give point in time, so you have to decide whether to keep waiting for the next big thing, or enjoy what's out now. If you do decide to wait, don't wait to long, or you'll spend all your life waiting since tech companies won't say "eh, comps are fast enough now, we're done making new stuff. Enjoy the current stuff".

That being said, if you can wait a few more months, you'll have a barrage of new componets to choose from to build your next system, whether it'll be high end or budget. April 22nd is when Intel is adding new CPUs and slashing current CPU's prices, some by 30%. I think their quad-core will go from 900 to 600ish. QC will last you many, many years if you want to future-proof.

Also, nVidia is releasing its mid-range and budget DX10 cards in March, IIRC. They'll be between $100-200, and current gfx cards will drop in price as well. The 8900/8950 is due sometime later. Then there's ATI's r600 series which should come out in May, assuming no more delays. These'll be high-end cards said to rival and even surpass the nVidia's 8800 series. ATI's budget card will come later, I think.

I don't follow AMD news, so they may have goodies coming. For high end/low end, don't know. Other people already mentioned that stuff here, I got nothing to add.

If you can wait til May, you'll have more options and stuff will be cheaper. June/July AMD's new stuff comes. Some time later, Intel will release more stuff. Granted, I don't think you want to wait til the near end of 2007 for a new comp. I say wait til at least April 22nd. If you want ATI's gfx cards, you can settle for a cheapo card for a few weeks. If Intels next chips will work with LGA 775 mobos, you can get an e4300 for $120ish in april to ride out the summer into winter, then upgrade then.

 

[dragonsprayer]

Buy a quad core for $500 in the summmer or fall. Intel insiders have said either the q6600 or new slower one will be around $500. That makes since since fx-70 is $300 - thats the 4x4 and its only sold in pairs.

You should get a low end c2d and pop in quad core next year. It sounds like you want to set it and forget it. I really do not think the 8800 gts 640mmb is going to get any cheaper the current $380 or so it at.

tests on the factory oc versions 8800 gts 640 show it to almost as good as the gtx - it runs cooler and it smaller

 

[tekzor]

when amds new chip comes out, judging by their price drops and need to make room for new chip, athlon64 and low end x2s will be sold for $free :lol: