New Standards Are Arriving...Should I Wait?

[K6-III]

For AMD that will be the SIS746 chipset....

...for Intel the SIS648 chipset...

[KvHagedorn]

The advantage to waiting for Hammer will be bus speeds. With hypertransport and the on die memory controller, it's going to be much faster. That being said, you will probably be waiting a year for it, and then pay an early-adopter premium. X86-64 is a cool technology, but it's of no use to average folks yet. Yeah, if you are running a database written for it on linux or BSD it would be if use, but not playing games just yet.

[DGhost]

Originally posted by WyWyWyWy

firstly, games might not get optimised for multiproc, but most Linux applications (you running Debian, right?) and the W2K/XP kernel, Photoshop, video-editing software, and damn even IE are heavily thread programmed hence would make good use of multiproc. And as it is getting more popular, you will see more "threded" application in the coming years. (especially after P4 with hyperthread launched.)

most linux programs are not dual proc optimized. hell, most programs involved in the GUI are not dual proc optimized. under Windows you can tell the difference between a single and a dual proc box. under Linux, you really can't.

for Windows 2K/XP, yes, pretty much everything out of box is multithreaded. is it for the reason of running nicely on a dual processor system? hardly. its things like the file find tool.. you have one thread that searches for files, and another thread that handles the interface and updates it with results, gives options, etc all while you are still searching. out side of that though only professional level apps are multithreaded, i'm not sure how many of those can be said to make good use of them. Photoshop and Premiere both do, and make fairly good use for it. most of the rendering programs only use it for the final render. and outside of the fact that Windows really does work and feel better on a dual processor system, there is really no other reason to suggest it. not for the average user.

Hyperthreading is not gonna bring games using multithreading to the table. or at least not heavily optimized for it. people have been saying that Multithreading was gonna be in everything 3 years ago. look where it is now.

Originally posted by WyWyWyWy

Bluetooth, I personally like because of Ericsson handset... but you might not, ok. WiFi and 1394, disregard what I said if you have no use for it. USB2 is a must if you don't plan on upgrade in next two three years, most new USB devices (webcam, HDD, pendrive, CD-RW, etc) WILL be USB2.0.

Bluetooth is a feature that would be convientient to have, but right now is not a feature to buy for. its kinda like USB when it was new... every motherboard shipped with it but nothing used it... it became saturated on the market and now USB is in everything... same will happen with bluetooth. certainly not anything that needs to be invested in tho.

WiFi is wonderful if you have a laptop. if you have a desktop its rather pointless. wired networks are faster, more secure, and that one wire you have to run is not gonna kill you. If you have a laptop, that changes entirely.

i wish FireWire would catch on, as it serious kicks the crap out of USB2 for storage devices. not only does it have low CPU Utilization, but it also moved data ~2x faster than a USB2 drive cage with the same hard drive. FireWire just kicks ass.

USB2 is one of those things that will be nice, but almost every device that i would even bother using over USB or USB2 will not benefit from the USB2 interface. the digital camera and webcam stuff might be nice, but you are a fool if you use a USB HD or CD-RW. wasted money.

Originally posted by WyWyWyWy

Giga-ethernet is very promising indeed, if you have a home network set up.

you know whats funny about this statement and all those who buy gigabit networking cards? the network cards don't do shit for you unless you have a switch. and has anyone here priced out the rest of the gigabit networking hardware? its expensive. $500+. and in addition, a majority of the computers that people have would have problems moving that much data around at once. hell, most computers have a hard time fully saturating a 100bt network connection, let alone a 1000bt. in addition, the only thing that you will see as a major advantage is large file transfers. yeah, that will probably be good as computers readily are capable of making movies. but for the average home user in the average home doesn't even have a home network, and those who do have a home network are not doing enough with it to justify 1000bt.

[Pace]

Just a little counterpoint to that last statement DGhost, I'd love a 1000Mbit network here. I'd probably benefit more than most, because I have a server with everything I'll ever need on it, and my XP2200+ accesses it almost every minute And, every new card I bought was a 10/100, because I thought I'd get a 100Mbit hub eventually. I've now got that. However, it won't be long before a nice 3Com 10/100/1000 NIC is getting nice and cheap, so every card I get then will be one of them. Leading me to eventually upgrade to the ultimate Gbit switch

Buddman is looking for future proofing, and Gbit will provide that a bit - if he's into networking.

Bluetooth is becoming quite common too, I expect every mobile phone to have it soon enough, and I'll be getting a Nokia6310i with Bluetooth soon as well. So I'd be looking for Bluetooth connectivity too

In conclusion, I'd say none of these are worth getting, just get what you want now, and the fastest you can afford. Personally, I'm waiting on SerialATA drives, but that's because I'd like to move any harddrives I buy into new systems. I bought my 30/40GB dirves ages ago, and they've hopped around a few systems.

As for CPUs and architectures, I have never upgraded just my CPU - I always buy a motherboard at the same time, so unless they use a different memory technology (like RAMBUS), I can usually transfer my RAM in too. With memory now catching up for sitting at PC66/100 for too long though, even memory standards are changing pretty quick. I remember I got PC100 with my P2-350, and when I run my P3-800 at stock fsb it's still in use

I don't upgrade in big jumps much now though, I upgrade something every few months, last thing was fairly big for me - a new CPU/MB and RAM For a single system to last 3 years, it doesn't matter what technology is inside. My G400MAX is still going strong, as is my SBLive, 3Com 905B/C TX etc. Even now the only stuff I'd really upgrade is CPU and graphics. Everything else is pretty good.

P.

[BuddMan]

Well, thanks for the info. I'm gonna start building ASAP. I'll tell you all how it goes. James Crivellone is gonna help with it, so it should be a bad ass system.

[Dr Mordrid]

Au contrare, at leas for video editors. For them X86/64 will be huge.

As for support taking a long time; that's wrong too.

Matrox has already announced 64 bit support for their drivers (presumably including the RT cards). Several editing suites, even lower end ones like Vegas Video, are known to be coming out with 64 bit versions within a short time after the Hammer introduction.

SerialATA RAID will likewise be a major deal for realtime editing.

Dr. Mordrid