Are you sure you want or really need the next generation NOW!!!
With all the fuss about the new M2 from AMD and Conroe from Intel I think we all need to step back and take a second look. Sure new technology is fun and exciting but there is a lot of hard truth to it too. I keep reading where someone asks for advice on a new system and the biggest reply is; "Wait, the new stuff will be out shortly." This works for the enthusiast but not for the aveage user/consumer. As enthusiasts we enjoy the challenge of picking apart the flaws of new technology. And somtimes we even enjoy being the first to discover problems even at the monitary expense of such harware. We all certainly enjoy finding the fixes and sharing the wealth of such finds. But can the average guy or gal afford it?
I think people forget that just because there is newer hardware coming out that the old is still good. This is especially true for those who do not upgrade constantly and/or just want a system that will last them for several years. Just because M2 is newer dosen't mean it is better. Since it is new there will be problems till it gets sorted out. Right now the only real change change M2 has compared to 939 is the implementation of DDR2 over DDR. The chips are basically the same untill AMD gets its new 65nm rolling. Also, DDR2 does not have the degreee of quality development that DDR has had for the past several years so it is still lacking in comparason performance wise. On the other side of the fence is Conroe waiting in the wings. Here we have another case of new that still needs further development and refinement. I would be no more eager to go out and buy a new Conroe system than I would an M2 system. It is not like the current (or now past) level of performance is lacking in any way. A well thought out and executed 939 system will play any games that come out in the next 2 years with a level of quality just about anyone would be happy with. There is absolutely no dust on 939 yet. And I don't think 939 will gather much dust for a while yet. Look at how long 754 lasted and it wasn't quite as solid as 939 due to the level of development since its inception. Sure M2 and Conroe are the newest with better things yet to come from both of their platforms. But there is always the price to pay for new technology till it gets straightened out. The big question is; "Can you afford to throw hard earned cash at the new technology till they get it right?" For the vast majority of folks the answer is an ovewhelming "Hell No!".
This is actually one time I am happy to be content with what I currently have after deciding to take the plunge into socket 939 almost 1 1/2 years ago. It can be very overwhelming to be an entusiast on a budget right now. Since I am like most who are enthusiasts on a budget I do a major build about every year or two. This is one time I will excercise the 2 year option and wait for the refinments and further developments to unfold. I actually ended up doing this last time as I wasn't impressed enough with socket 754 when it came out and held on to my NF2/ Mobile XP systems. Those systems were well enogh thought out in the beginning to last me till I found the "Next New Best Thing" in the never ending saga of technology development.
I think people forget that just because there is newer hardware coming out that the old is still good. This is especially true for those who do not upgrade constantly and/or just want a system that will last them for several years. Just because M2 is newer dosen't mean it is better. Since it is new there will be problems till it gets sorted out. Right now the only real change change M2 has compared to 939 is the implementation of DDR2 over DDR. The chips are basically the same untill AMD gets its new 65nm rolling. Also, DDR2 does not have the degreee of quality development that DDR has had for the past several years so it is still lacking in comparason performance wise. On the other side of the fence is Conroe waiting in the wings. Here we have another case of new that still needs further development and refinement. I would be no more eager to go out and buy a new Conroe system than I would an M2 system. It is not like the current (or now past) level of performance is lacking in any way. A well thought out and executed 939 system will play any games that come out in the next 2 years with a level of quality just about anyone would be happy with. There is absolutely no dust on 939 yet. And I don't think 939 will gather much dust for a while yet. Look at how long 754 lasted and it wasn't quite as solid as 939 due to the level of development since its inception. Sure M2 and Conroe are the newest with better things yet to come from both of their platforms. But there is always the price to pay for new technology till it gets straightened out. The big question is; "Can you afford to throw hard earned cash at the new technology till they get it right?" For the vast majority of folks the answer is an ovewhelming "Hell No!".
This is actually one time I am happy to be content with what I currently have after deciding to take the plunge into socket 939 almost 1 1/2 years ago. It can be very overwhelming to be an entusiast on a budget right now. Since I am like most who are enthusiasts on a budget I do a major build about every year or two. This is one time I will excercise the 2 year option and wait for the refinments and further developments to unfold. I actually ended up doing this last time as I wasn't impressed enough with socket 754 when it came out and held on to my NF2/ Mobile XP systems. Those systems were well enogh thought out in the beginning to last me till I found the "Next New Best Thing" in the never ending saga of technology development.
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I'm still running socket A systems because of cost.
And whenever I build new updated systems for family and friends I get to keep the old systems. Which I put to folding here on my little folding farm.
And when I build my newer systems- I buy a piece at a time until I get all the parts, then put them together.
Some time this yr, I'd like to build an Opty 170 system like you have in your sig, but work is a little sporadic, (housing market slowing) so I'm waiting on buying.
I agree too, that it's best to wait for the bugs to be worked out of this new stuff coming out. Not to mention the price always drops after a newer generation comes out.
If there will be garage sale pricing on D930s, I'll probably pick up three or four of them. Plug and play - I've already got the DDR2, motherboards, and powerful PSUs. The newest M2 and Conroe can wait. Don't you want to laugh or feel sorry for all the folks who've just recently purchased high end AMD or Intel systems just before the prices are going to fall dramatically? AMD CPU prices may be cut by up to 50% in the next few weeks. Pentium D chips will also tumble in price. (But then, is the power consumption and heat output of the D9XX better enough to warrant any money at all spent for an upgrade?)
Items purchased
Items on hand
- Memory - Patriot XBLK (TCCD)
- Hard Drives - WD 36GB Raptor + Hitachi 120 GB SATA 3.0
- Case - Antec Super Lanboy (120mm in and 120mm out makes for nice and quiet)
_____________Total = $456
Out of what I just bought I will have a great PSU that will go with me for a long time, a decent heatsink that is reuseable, a DVD burner that will never go out of usefullness and a video card that is good enough for its intened purpose. Only the board and CPU will be obsolete in years to come but I suspect I will get my moneys worth out of them. I didn't need a dual core CPU for this purpose so I was able to keep it cheap.
ALSO
Right now M2 is kind of shakey and lots of people are haveing dificulties with it. Socket 939 is rock solid and as powerful as anything needed for todays most demanding apps and games.
Nevermind I think they jacked that price back up or something ...it's like $350.
edit: monarch has some decent pricing going on now.
That is M2, which is the whole point of the point I made. It is also not just price but the difference between what is currently stable (939 and LGA775) and what still needs a lot of work (M2 and Conroe).
Intel hasn't quite blown people away lately, and although the preliminary benches for the Conroe look good, they're not awe inspiring. Also, Intel's track record with faulty chips doesn't exactly give me the warm and fuzzies.
Well ...no wonder! LOL
I think this past upgrade will last me to the next chip revision beit AM3 or whatever ...at least that's what I'm hoping for.
Put me down as another person who would be just as happy to let others pay the hefty premium for being an early-adopter and allow them to do the field testing for new technology.
Reading your post reminded me of the horrors of dialup.
Right now, Conroe is no bargain. But also, it's not outrageously expensive either. The biggest problem for the next 3-6 months will be the supply side. If Conroe is scarce, most e-tailers including Newegg will be scalping on prices. Right now, Conroe capable motherboards are pretty much the same way too. If you can find one in stock right now, most e-tailers are scalping on the prices too. But the mobo situation should get much better soon, IMO. So once the supply side is met pretty well, the outrageous pricing should end. That leaves the cost difference between the processors (for a total new system build) as the factor to decide which processor to go with. You should be able to find real cheap deals on Pentium D processors real soon, as well as on the X2's that have 512k L2 cache. Now to add to the total cost of ownership, you also need to figure in the amount of power savings with going with a more efficient, less power hungry processor. In all the Conroe tests I've seen so far, it's full load power consumption is lower than AMD and way lower than Pentium D. With power consumption figured in, Pentium D turns out to be no bargain, over the life of the system. AMD (either socket 939 or AM2) looks to be a much better proposition, cost-wise. And Conroe shows the lowest power consumption, but it's not nearly as great a difference between it and AMD so it would be hard to say if the price difference between Conroe and X2 would offset the little bit extra money required to power the X2 machine.
But, the rules will change on this by quarter 1 of 2007. Intel plans to start offering a much cheaper Conroe that will have 2 MB L2 cache and no VT, but will run on a 200 fsb. The E4300 will be a 1.8 GHz part with a 9 multi selling in the $160-190 range. With a 200 fsb Conroe the choices for building a budget system that performs like a scalded dog will be much greater. Asrock already has a $50 mobo that is Conroe-ready, uses either ddr or ddr2 and can run either agp or pci-e video cards. The biggest problem with it is that it can't run much beyond 385 fsb, which just kills any high overclocking on the 1066 fsb (actual 266 fsb quad pumped) cheaper Conroes since they use such a low multiplier. And there are supposed to be some other value mobo's coming out too, based on the old reliable 865 chipset.
Another factor to consider, even for gamers, is that with the latest games you are still held back by the video subsystem maxing out before the cpu becomes the bottleneck. And that is even with running high end cards in SLI/Crossfire when the resolution is cranked up and all the eyecandy turned on. I figure it will be at least a year before you see the video subsystem being advanced far enough to where you see a noticable difference in gameplay between a Conroe and socket 939/AM2 because the cpu is bottlenecking performance.
In summary, unless you are an ardent gamer and want to be able to run future high end vid cards, AMD is still a great choice to make for a system, especially with the recent price cuts on the X2-3800 and X2-4200 procs. But 6 months down the road, the cheap Conroes will negate any price advantage AMD has and Conroe would be the much preferred choice for a new build.
As far as for me, I do plan to build a Conroe system in the next month or 2. It might be primarily a folding rig at first, since I will have to buy mobo, proc and ddr2 just to get running (I have a pci vid card I can use in it). I have an older system (or 3) I plan to phase out with it and I can't wait to play with Intel's new toys.
Heh let me know when you're ready to phase out the redlines ...mine are getting lonely!
Do 4 sticks run dual channel?
AFAIK, the redlines will run in DC mode, but I think it will put a big strain on the onboard mem controller on the chip so you might not have the overclocking headroom you presently have.
Yeah it probably would tax the hell out of the cpu ...well it was worth a shot and I won't be ready for anything else for quite a while anyway. Might not be a good idea ...2gb should be plenty to handle Vista.
If you are refering to need in the sense of being able to run the software, then right now, no, but I think very shortly we are going to see software coded to take advantage of multiple cores and 64 bit processing, and then all the single core processors are gonna be begging for mercy, and the 32 bit processors will be worse off yet.
You're dismissed!
I'll just regard the comments about electricity and having a car/truck in my case as inexperience of life, being your only 17.
We could all just live in a dirt floor hut, make a ditch out back for a bathroom.
I could pull my generator, compressor, tools, materials for job, etc, in a wagon -30 mi a day to make money to live.
This is not meant to be rude or mean, just that these things are neccesary to live in this country anyway.
Sorry for the thread hijack, but that just struck me.
I would like to upgrade it a bit, maybe some more RAM or something, but then again I figure if I'm going to do that I might as well buy a whole new system.
But that costs money, so my old reliable system doesn't look so bad after all.
It really made me see and feel the difference once I did upgrade, though.
I always recomend the best stuff and the top-of-the-line for my clients, but my own system is filled with second-hand and second-rate peices, which only continue to work together because of ancient spell circles painted inside of the case, and an army of voodoo-esk worry-dolls standing watch from the outside...
and sometimes I have to kick it... especially if I've left it off for awhile...
I save a lot of money personally, by never buying the top-of-the-line, but I can only do that because I seem to occasionally know what I'm doing
LOWTECHS!!!!!!
Bring on the CONROES!!!! WOOO!!!
(I know, I know...I'm dismissed.)
but to answer leo's question: we only need to upgrade when a new OS comes out...if your a simple comp user
However, this thread is not for enthusiasts like me. And I do agree that most average users/consumers do not need the latest and greatest gear. I build computers for a lot of my friends at work. Everyone of them says I want a really fast computer. I always ask them what they will be using it for and 99% of the time the response is, "To surf the internet." Then I proceed to build them a "blazing fast" computer using last generation componets at rock bottom prices. Never had an unsatisfied customer yet.
To be honest, a lot of enthusiast dont, however, people that I have worked on their computers, and even my parents do upgrade based on need. my parents will use a computer till the hypothetical wheels fall off. I have worked on peoples computer using Win 98, and they get mad when I tell them that it is almost an unsupported OS, and that it is the reason they cant run some programs.
So yes, you have a point, "us", the enthusiast community almost never upgrades off of the principle of need, more so of want. however, your casual user in my experience doesn't care as long as it works, and wont care until something borks when they push the power button; or if they can not install some software that they recently purchased.
I appreciate your enthusiasim. And don't write me off as a low-tech either! If you read the entire first post word for word and don't assume anything (assume; adj. to make an a** of you and me) you will see that I am mainly getting at the fact that both new platforms have flaws and pitfalls that in my book don't warrant the imediate need to move to either one of them. There is a time when bleeding edge also equals bleeding wallet with no recourse for redemption. How well will a new game play on a system that is not stable enough to run for very long? How well will a new game run when you need to lower the system settings to very low levels just so it can operate? This is one time when waiting out the first revision may just be a real good idea! With the problems already evident from users with AM2 that are well documented. And then there are the unknown problems of Conroe that haven't had time to rear their ugly heads because it is being rammed through development so fast just to beat the competition that it will take real world use to find. You also speak of new games needing the power of new technology. The video cards are much more of a bottleneck in todays systems than the system itself. Then you get to the ongoing issue of games and software being years behind the hardware market. The hardware of last year will work circles around the games and software to be produced till next Summer! Look at the rig in my sig below and tell me that simply upgrading to the latest greatest video card would let me play the most demanding games to come out in the year to come!