Anyone else bored with computer hardware right now?

[joecool]

not sure i can completely agree here - intel has been doing a great job of adding incremental features to their cpu's to gradually blow away amd. also, the latest intel chipset and the 865 v. 875 shananigans were kind of cool. bottom line, i just got a p4 2.4c and an abit is7 and now have a very sweet system running at 3GHz that runs circles around anything you buy a year ago. plus i got 8(!) USB2.0 ports on board, 3 1294, LAN, and sound, and sata raid support. maybe not exciting to you guys but i'm lovin' it! the new sata may not be sexy but it is faster than pata (plain ata ;-) ) and i love the improved cabling and connectors.

that said, i agree that there has been a dearth of exciting pc technology as of late, and clearly the hardware has outstripped the software for now. however, for those of us who lived a step behind you guys on the bleeding edge, it's nice to see the technology take a breather and give us a chance to catch up without busting the bank!

my two bits,

joe

 

[rbV5]

Build a HTPC...end of boredom.

 

[buleyb]

Maybe we should start branching out and doing new things with home PCs. HTPCs, PCs for cars, systems that run the house (power, lights, furnace, a/c, etc)....I want more to tinker with that isn't going to cost me piles of money.

Maybe i'm just sick of seeing all the "critique my systems" threads on here...

 

[Czar]

been like crap since 3dfx went down but its starting to get interesting again after nvidia caught the 3dfx virus

 

[Ilmater]

Look at the market:

Video cards - Everyone's "optimizing" drivers for games that people benchmark frequently, so who knows which card is the fastest?! Besides, I don't think there's quite the need for cards right now. There was more of a drive for cards when you needed them just to run a game, but now you can run any game with a decent video card. nVidia shot themselves in the foot when they hyped up the GFFX cards and then they sucked.

CPU - There's nothing new there, just speed upgrades. When the Athlon 64 and Pentium 5 come around, there will be plenty of interest there. Until then, they're just increasing clock speeds on processors that have already been overclocked to those levels.

Motherboards - Intel: There are 865s that can be flashed to 875s, so if you want to save money, go with that. Otherwise, pick whichever 875 best fits your needs from a features standpoint, and buy it. You don't need a reviewer to tell you that. AMD: The nForce 2 boards have been out for awhile now, so nothing new there. Most people don't even care what VIA puts out, so the KT600 doesn't matter. This is not only backed by polls I've seen (and posted), but the obvious lack of flare that sites have put behind this quietest of launches of a chipset I've ever seen.

Sound Card - Audigy 2 is what 99% of people would like to have, and the rest have been out forever. The M-Audio tried to start interest, but it turned out to not be for gamers at all, so no real hype there.

Hard Drives - The Raptor from WD is interesting, but not mind-blowing. It's old news now, and the price keeps most people from caring.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: buleyb
...PCs for cars...

Idiots talking on cell phones while driving are bad enough, don't give them PCs too. Bad idea.

Maybe i'm just sick of seeing all the "critique my systems" threads on here...

I am too.

 

[Stealth1024]

Are we forgetting about the new PCI interface and the elimination of AGP so we can once again install multiple graphics cards?

Perhaps in redesigning such things as sound cards they will get a bit better and cheaper

 

[Adul]

yeah me needs a new toy.

 

[boyz]

Yea pc are a bit boring now, but we should add a hacking section to anandtech forums. I always want to know how to hack but i really don't have time. Oh Well !

 

[Vonkhan]

exactly the reason why I'm modding my computer ... its already maxed put on the all the speed that I need, tired of the same old benches - atleast my rig is purtier than yours, mister

 

[bigpow]

I am.

Currently I'm enjoying my PS2...

Maybe XBOX in the near future.

Of course this is while waiting for DOOM3

 

[zippy]

I've been bored with computer hardware for over a year. It's not as fun any more and I didn't have any time during the school year so I haven't even kept up as much as I probably should have. I'm now trying to figure out what I should put in my new computer and stuggling mightily because I have neither the patience to read everything any more and I don't inherently know what I should put together like I used to. It's quite the conundrum, I want to just know what machine I should put together but I don't want to do the research because it has gotten boring.

 

[buleyb]

Originally posted by: Megatomic

Originally posted by: buleyb
...PCs for cars...

Idiots talking on cell phones while driving are bad enough, don't give them PCs too. Bad idea.

I'm really looking for ways to hook into the car's computer. You can get some awsome information from those in real-time (including speed, tach, engine temps, fuel-efficiency, etc). Its all published standards, nobody really seems to do it much though. And what about HUDs and stuff. Our PCs have soooo much power in them, a trimmed down OS and some decent programming would really create a powerful machine to do stuff with.

Anyone who wants to really torture a computer, run some real-time apps on them, this is where a small hardware upgrade can go a long way

Otherwise I agree, watching DVDs and playing Age of Empires while driving would be a disaster.

 

[Stealth1024]

Isn't this just a cycle everyone goes through as technology goes through its own?

 

[borgmang]

Originally posted by: Stealth1024
Are we forgetting about the new PCI interface and the elimination of AGP so we can once again install multiple graphics cards?

Perhaps in redesigning such things as sound cards they will get a bit better and cheaper

 

[First]

It's called a recession Brandon.

 

[Chaotic42]

Yeah, I agree.

Slow economy
Fewer demanding programs
Less competition

I think the hay-days were from like 1996-1999.

 

[buleyb]

Originally posted by: Evan Lieb
It's called a recession Brandon.

Nonono! "Economic Downturn"....that way people don't panic

 

[magomago]

Or perhaps its a sign that we are too into it computers

I think the reason "excitement" has died down is just because there are less new releases. The 9700PRO released a year ago still pwns major arse in a lot of today's games and can do 16xAF+4xAA and still run really great. On the processor side we've gone from 2.8 to 3.2 for Intel and something similar for AMD - not such a huge leap even if it is 400mhz. While I think there is a difference between 200Mhz and 600mhz machines I feel a less of a difference between a 2800mhz machine and a 3200mhz machine.

To get interest sparked back up there has to be something that is necessary or VERY desirable and it pretty much wipes out any existing hardware...period. Then we will want this new technology, we'll get it and begin the entire process all over.

But I really hope nothing of the sort occurs just because I like how my PC can handle all the tasks I thrown at it (save for some games where my mx420 beings to choke).

I want new technology - yet I don't want it to make my current investment seem worthless.

But I find the reaction slightly interesting...some of you seem to be looking for EXCUSES to spend money. If so Private Message me and you can send me some - or an inferior alternative would be to invest it in the stock market.

Hell if we spend it on technology what we buy will be worthless within a few years anyway - might as well piss it away in the stock market too.

 

[Davegod]

when can we expect to see:
- Pentium 5's,
- 64bit AMD's for gaming PC's,
- Longhorn,
- the next ATi cards,
- the next nVidia cards,
- PCI-X / PCI Express?

those are about all the "exciting" things i can think of coming in the near-ish future. atm it seems only to be the benchmark shenanigans, and statistic twisting gets boring really quick - just puts a downer on the entire scene tbh.

also, somehow it seems the video card prices just arent coming down at all. a lot of 9700pro's dont seem to have come down in price anything like significantly, seems to have cut out my ususal sweet spot for performance/price. nforce2 boards are still a bit pricey too, just been replaced with updated versions - not saying its bad value or whatever but cuts out my options a bit for slightly older and significantly cheaper -- but still feature rich and well performing -- mobo to upgrade my kt266a (which just wont overclock at all and doesnt have sata).

 

[wacki]

Bored with computer hardware? Are you kidding?!?!!?!

Have any of you seen Dawn or the Light Orbs in the Woods Demo for the Radeon?
How can u be bored with that thats like watching "Finding Nemo" in real time!

Then there's the Opteron, PCI express, WiFi, bluetooth, gigabit lan, Via's Envy24HT, Nforce 2, dual DDR, DDRII, serial ATA, cheap ram, huge hard drives, what else do you need? Oh ya Blue Ray's. Common todays hardware lets you render movies like Nemo in real time, have electric lady land quality music (24 bit @ 192 khz), store thousands of music files on your hard drive (home theater PC's), RF remotes, cold cathodes, I mean seriously come on how much do you want.

If I'm bored with anything its the software. Windows constantly has bugs that you can't fix, and video games, well seriously they are not all that they are cracked up to be. Even the incredible UT2003 has in my opinion, not all that impressive graphics. Don't get me wrong its a great game, but its sad to see that thats the best out there. Seriously, most games out there can't max out a geforce 3 let alone a geforce 4 or geforce FX. I understand that they have to program for the market, but I get well over 300 fps, and thats doesn't sink well with me. I want more than a fps race to push me to buy new hardware. Why can't software makers supply scalable models that allow you to push any graphics card to the max. They do it with distances within a game, so why don't they do it for the various video cards. That way you could push up the polygon count so that you could really push any video card.

Newer versions of DirectX and features on the newer cards should be more than enough reasons to upgrade software, and hardware. But the FPS race? Seriously, how fast do your eyeballs need to be? In my opinion if a new video game can't push the polygon count past the limits of any card you have then it isn't doing its job. It seems so easy to do. Even I have written programs that have scalable polygon counts, so why don't software makers.

Shouldn't the real reason to upgrade be newer features like lighting, caustics, ray traces, and efficiency? Not the maximum polygon count.

 

[bocamojo]

I agree, things seem to be in a lull right now. These things seem to go in cycles, so it's just a matter of time before something new and revolutionary peeks around the corner... In the meantime, I find myself staying occupied with other things, such as home audio / video electronics (DVD players, HDTV recievers, widescreen TV's, hi fi a/v receivers, etc.). I imagine in about 6 months or so, I will be compelled to build a new rig. Until then, I'm just enjoying what I've got, and keeping my eyes and ears open.

 

[LED]

Sure we all have a break, Heh maybe we can take advantage of this time to learn how to use all this stuff @ optimal performance with all the software and tweaks offered

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: bjc112

Face it: for the time being hardware has outrun software. It's gonna suck like this till the next killer app comes out.

So very true...

Im confident that Longhorn will be the next "killer app" MS always makes sure our PCs run like crap if we dont upgrade

Edit: and i definately agree on the hardware lull. I havent felt the "burn to upgrade" since my last upgrade to my RDRAM 1066 512MB, P4 2.26, G4 Ti4200 128MB. The only thing ive upgraded in the last few months is HDDs on my server Raid5 Array.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Hardware is boring in general to me. Lately I have been getting into scsi though, I find 15k scsi drives and 64MB cache, battery backed, 64-bit pci, BIG ass scsi cards more interesting than video cards and cpus.