Any prognosticators out there?

[Joeydubbs]

I've been toying around with building a new computer for awhile now. I currently have an old P4 @2.6, 2 gig ram, 6800 graphics card...functional but getting long in the tooth. I made the decision to wait for the nehalem revolution but am finding waiting may not be a good option for me. As you can see, I build about every 4-5 years so I look for longevity in a system. From what I understand, Nehalem won't be coming out until fall at the earliest. When these new platforms hit the street I would imagine the price will be quite significant. From past experience with other new architecture launces, do any of you have an idea how much it would cost, how quickly prices will fall, and when one would be "affordable" to build? Right now, you can build a killer rig for around $800 and Intel is making even more price cuts on many of their proc's. There seems to be tremendous "bang for the buck" out there now even though nehalem is around the corner. Will my $800 build me a nehalem rig within the next 12 months? Would love advice, comments, suggestions, flames, etc...

 

[drebo]

More than likely, yes. The days of new, top-end processors debuting at $1000 are over. AMD broke Intel of that tradition by offering great processors for not a lot of money. I think you can expect the upper-midrange processors to start around the $200 range for Nehalem. The remaining $600 is more than enough to put together a decent system.

 

[BassBomb]

12 months is a really long time to postulate on prices

Nehalem is DDR3 and that doesn't look like it will go down soon. Nehalem will come out as enthusiast based off the bat rather than mainstream. I doubt you will be able to build a Nehalem system in Q1 2009 for ~$800 consider a probably 300 CPU cost and a probably 200 Motherboard cost. Factor in the RAM and you are looking pretty high up already.

Now if you mean August 2009, you probably would be able to build a mainstream Nehalem for ~800

 

[DSF]

I tend to lean towards BassBomb's view more than drebo's but it's tough to say.

If I were you, I'd probably wait until the fall at least so that we have more info on Nehalem and probable pricing.

 

[BassBomb]

Originally posted by: DSF
I tend to lean towards BassBomb's view more than drebo's but it's tough to say.

If I were you, I'd probably wait until the fall at least so that we have more info on Nehalem and probable pricing.

Pretty sure nehalem will become mainstream by Q2 2009

 

[Joeydubbs]

Thanks for the replies. I think I'll sit on my hands a bit longer...dunno if I can wait till next August though

 

[lxskllr]

Here's an editorial discussing Nehalem a bit.

 

[Joeydubbs]

An interesting read for sure...thanks for the link