Hardware advances on the horizon

[legocitytruck]

What major hardware advances are on the horizon in the next one to two years? I will be in the market for a new laptop and desktop in that time frame. I made the mistake last time of purchasing a top of the line laptop right before dual core computing made it's way into the portable market. I don't want to make the same mistake again.

Some possible thoughts: Will there be a big change in processor design and not just speed? Will solid state hard drives replace our current type? In that time period will the CPU and GPU become one entity? Will memory change significantly?

Any suggestions are good!

 

[mpilchfamily]

Everything you asked is either in development now or already availible on laptops.

Yes SSDs are here to stay and will one day replace standard HDDs. Most laptops now have SSDs availible. Speeds, size and price dropps improve almost weekly.

CPU design chenges about every 6 months.

Intell is working on a CPU/GPU combo for the mobil market. They on't be on the same die but they will be under the same ICH. You can find an article about it in the latest issue of Maximum PC magazine.

Eventually there will be a DDR4.

The next big thing comming is having servers on the net do all the heavy computing for you so all you need is minimal hardware to play the lattest games. Or you buy a simple box to plug into your LCD TV and your set for gaming. Something like this could stiffle PC inovation. This idea of moving everything into "the cloud" is very likelly. Especially as high speed internet becomes more and more standard.

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: mpilchfamily
The next big thing comming is having servers on the net do all the heavy computing for you so all you need is minimal hardware to play the lattest games. Or you buy a simple box to plug into your LCD TV and your set for gaming. Something like this could stiffle PC inovation. This idea of moving everything into "the cloud" is very likelly. Especially as high speed internet becomes more and more standard.

-1

 

[Hacp]

Performacne wise, the only thing I can forsee is transistor shrinks. The I7 chip is fairly new and if I understand correctly, Laurabee is a chip designed for the low end of the market. I think the end of 2009-early 2010 will be the sweet spot for buying a laptop. Thats when the 32nm chips will come out, along with the 32nm samsung flash chips for cheaper ssds.

 

[JTP709]

New tech comes out each year, its unavoidable. In terms of major component replacements not much; PCI-e 3.0 is a while off, DDR4 is years away as DDR3 is finally becoming the standard, the AM3 and LGA 1377 are the latest sockets from AMD and Intel and are fairly new so I don't expect a replacement anytime soon. So if you buy a system now, you'll still have a few years to be able to incrementally upgrade your components. I got screwed with my first build, because 2 months after I finished it AGP got replaced by PCI-E, a new AMD 939 CPU socket replaced my 754 socket, and eventually DDR2 became available along with dual core. So essentially If i wanted to upgrade my graphics card, CPU, or memory, I would end up having to replace my CPU, graphics, memory, AND motherboard all at the same time. At least for the next year or two you should be able to have more options.

USB 3.0 will be available within the next year I believe, but its not something to hold out for. You'll most likely be able to throw in a PCI expansion card with USB 3.0.