So, now or later?

[Insomniak]

Ok. The PC I'm currently using is two years old. The big three:

AMD Athlon XP 1900+
512MB PC2100
GeForce 4 Ti 4400 (OC'ed 300/600)

So far, this rig has played and currently plays every game I'm interested in just fine. UT2004, Battlefield 1942/Vietnam...some of today's more "demanding" games run fine at 1024x768x32 and med-high details + 2xAA, which is enough for me.

However, Half-Life 2, F.E.A.R., Battlefield 2, STALKER, and a slew of other amazing looking games are coming down the pipe in the next year or so.

So I'm pondering building a new machine. But, there is a catch.

1) PCIE comes out this fall
2) BTX comes out early next year
3) DDR3 is coming fairly soon (next 12 months or so?)
4) 64 bit computing is going mainstream in '05


I'm not too keen on building a new system and having all the standards change immediately thereafter. BTX/64 bit don't concern me as much as the other two - I already plan on building a 64-bit system, and i'll probably stay away from BTX as long as possible - I hate cramped cases.

Anyway, what do you guys think? Go ahead and do it or wait? I think at the very leasat I'm going to wait for PCI Express, since it's only a few months away...

 

[imported_Apophis]

Standards are always changing. This is one in 1,000,000,000,000,000 "should I upgrade guys?!?" threads, just do it whenever.

 

[darXoul]

I have a very similar system to yours (XP 2000+, 512 MB PC2700, GF4 Ti4400) and I know I'll be upgrading for sure as soon as I can get my hands on MSI K8N Neo Platinum mobo. I considered waiting for all those new standards as well but:

- socket 939 lacks budget CPUs like A64 3000+ and we don't even know if AMD decides to provide such CPUs for their new platform at all; plus, it's no revelation in terms of performance and has IMO no advantage over socket 754 in terms of possible upgrades - simply because in 2 years (approx. time of my next upgrade) both will be obsolete anyway;

- BTX is just Intel's more or less desperate attempt to improve cooling of their hot CPUs - the new standard offers me NO real added value or usefulness in comparison to ATX;

- DDR2 has no speed advantage over DDR at same MHz frequency - latencies pretty much suck and price too - no one needs it right now;

- PCI-E has no (or only marginal) performance advantage over AGP - just look at AGP x8 vs. AGP x4 - that's the same story, the added bandwidth is and will be redundant for a while, plus there are bridge chips, unexpected performance drops (some nVidia cards), etc. - I can see no point in insisting on purchasing PCI-E now.

The new standards are, as we say in my country, light rain from a heavy cloud
I would upgrade now. If you hesitate, you'll be always waiting for something, forever. Go ahead and get some nice rig now. I'll do it as well once I get my mobo. I'm sure my planned A64 3000+ along with 1GB DDR433 CAS2 RAM and GF6800GT (or RX800XT) will provide great performance and playability for my games for the next 2+ years.

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: Apophis
Standards are always changing. This is one in 1,000,000,000,000,000 "should I upgrade guys?!?" threads, just do it whenever.

Yes, they are, but rarely do 4 standards change within such a close proximity to one another.

I do plan to wait for PCIE though, if for no other reason than AGP vicards/mobos that are just as good will drop dramatically in price. Plus, I have this aversion to building new systems before processor speed doubles, and since we aren't to 4000+ yet....*twiddles thumbs*


My planned upgrade is something along the lines of:

-MSI K8N Neo Platinum Mobo (Nforce 3 250Gb) ($130)
-AMD Athlon 64 3600 - 4000+ (haven't decided for sure yet) (Roughly $450 - 600, by this fall)
-1GB DDR400 (Right now I'm favoring Mushkin) ($250)
-GeForce 6800GT (Definitely an NV card. I still don't trust ATi for compatibility/stability) ($380)
-Maxtor 40GB 7200RPM ATA133 HDD x2 (one for OS/Media Files, one for games) ($100)
-Chieftec Dragon DX-01 case ($80)
-Antec 550W PSU ($90)


Total: about $1500. Hopefully I'll get lucky and some of these prices will drop a good bit come this fall (especially video cards, RAM prices, and CPU prices, as new products are released). I'd really like to wrangle this one in under $1200.

I've already got my monitor, speakers, peripherals, etc, it's just the guts that will need a punch by the end of the year.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

ll be upgrading from a similar system too, xp2000 512 PC2100 and GF3 ti, i simply dont care for the new stuff.....939 is too expensive anyways and doesnt add alot to 754, amd arent adopting ddr2 jus yet either,
and even the x800s and 6800's dont need pci express yet.........and i wonder if they even need agp 8

this is what ill be buyin hopefully and itll last me a while while at uni

A64 3000
1gig ram pc3200
sata hdd's
probably some form of 9800
antec p160 case

thatll be that an ill be happy

if you feel happy doin it now then why not, future standards arent gonna be much use for a while IMO, by the time 64bit, ddr2/3 btx and pci-x are actually worth while u'll be needin an upgrade anyway

 

[VIAN]

There is no set time to upgrade, you either upgrade or not.

The only exception to wait is if brand new VPUs or CPUs are about to release, then you might want to wait, but only if it's within 2 months. In this case, the Geforce 6800 is just released and I am waiting for official drivers before I decide which company has the better product.

Other than that. If DD3 comes out next year, its not gonna go mainstream overnight. AMD just said that they won't adopt DD2 till next year, but might be DD3.

BTX isn't really anything special to worry about.

PCIe isn't anything to worry about either.

Just think of it this way, do you have a SATA HDD. I know I don't and many other people don't, but the technology has been around for like 1 year.

64-bit will not be main stream by then, but maybe by 2010 it will. There is no need in a mainstream system for it now nor will there be a need for it later.

My planned upgrade is something along the lines of:

-MSI K8N Neo Platinum Mobo (Nforce 3 250Gb) ($130)
-AMD Athlon 64 3600 - 4000+ (haven't decided for sure yet) (Roughly $450 - 600, by this fall)
-1GB DDR400 (Right now I'm favoring Mushkin) ($250)
-GeForce 6800GT (Definitely an NV card. I still don't trust ATi for compatibility/stability) ($380)
-Maxtor 40GB 7200RPM ATA133 HDD x2 (one for OS/Media Files, one for games) ($100)
-Chieftec Dragon DX-01 case ($80)
-Antec 550W PSU ($90)

Total: about $1500. Hopefully I'll get lucky and some of these prices will drop a good bit come this fall (especially video cards, RAM prices, and CPU prices, as new products are released). I'd really like to wrangle this one in under $1200.

The thing you have to do is keep a price point. later in the year, the same build won't be worth as much. Maybe games will demand more - you don't know. So don't build a system now and plan to buy it 6 months later cause it will be different. If you're gonna buy a system 6 months later, then build one 6 months later.

Many issues have been discussed about compatabiliy/stability and as far as I can say, I've had more issues with Nvidia cards and the issues that I've had with both cards are small. All I can say through observation, it is either luck or stupidity. Meaning it's not a brand fault. But that's just a theory.

Those 40GB HDD getting harder to find. You might be better off getting a bigger HDD and just creating two partitions. And I think it might be better to put your game files on the HDD with the OS for faster operation. And keep the Media Files on a separate partition/HDD because it will be harder to get infected by viruses, just saying you could reformat the OS partition and not lose your data.

Anyway, it's up to you.

 

[darXoul]

This is what I'll be getting:

A64 3000+ and Tt SilentBoost K8 cooler
1GB DDR433, probably Kingston HyperX
MSI K8N Neo Platinum
GF6800 GT, possibly Leadtek
Seagate Barracuda 160 GB SATA (I already have a HDD like that, with 7200 rpm and 8MB cache but it's IDE and I want more storage space)
SB Audigy2 Gamer
LG x52/x32/x52/x16 CDRW/DVD drive (later possibly DVD-RW when usefulness increases and the rapid development slows down a bit)
Tt Tsunami black case (oh dear, expensive, but what a stylish case!)
Antec TruePower 430W PSU (or Tt SilentPower 480W)
Logitech Z-640 speakers

I already bought Logitech MX510 mouse and Internet Navigator SE keyboard for my new rig The monitor doesn't need a replacement, it's a 19" CRT Philips Brilliance with good specs.

No new standards in this rig - still AGP, ATX and DDR, plus socket 754 but I think it rocks anyway - and is not really that expensive! High-end but within reason, so to speak.

 

[Insomniak]

Price point is flexible, but definitely no higher than $1500, and the closer to $1000 the better.

And yes, VIAN, I realize things move forward...the point being whatever I put together will be comparable to a system of those specs when I do build it. In other words, pretty high end.

I don't use my PCs specifically for gaming, but that is one of the functions they fill, so I like to be prepared...which basically means high end parts across the board.

 

[SneakyStuff]

My honest advice to you, make due with what you have until August, then see what price drops happen. Once socket 754 Athlon 64's get cheap, that'd be a good time to buy

 

[DrMindbender]

PCi Express is pretty important if not for down the road. Heck knows I felt the pain of discovering no AGP 2x slot on my first computer. 64bit computing I like, but the first edition of 64 bit Windows sounds scary. I'd at least wait until the end of the year to hear the new product announcements. Or whenever Half Life 2 comes out. I'm paranoid about new stuff coming out too. If I had the dough right now, I personally would be waiting till next spring.

 

[VIAN]

No sense in waiting for spring - new things will always come out and then you'll be waiting again and you will never get a new computer.

 

[CJP]

I don't see anything wrong with planning into the future for your next system as long as you stick to your plan and build when the time comes instead of putting it off. My system's still ok so I'm going to wait and build a new system in a year or so when the next gen video cards come out. It'll be a real upgrade and at that point I will build for sure regardless of what's coming out in 4 months or whatever.

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: VIAN
64-bit will not be main stream by then, but maybe by 2010 it will. There is no need in a mainstream system for it now nor will there be a need for it later.

If you don't think 64 bit will be mainstream when the Athlon 64 prices fall, Windows 64bit comes out, and OEMs start offering 64bit systems, then I don't know when it will be...

 

[Regs]

lol, I wouldn't wait on DDR3. 12 months is an insane amount of time to wait for an upgrade. The technology out now is very powerful and will run every desktop program and game you can think of. I think now is actually the perfect time to upgrade, except that the new generation video cards are not widely available yet and some sites charge extra because of how rare they are.

AMD wont be using DDR3 until well into 2005. And they don't really have too.

 

[AnnoyedGrunt]

Since you are able to accomplish your current tasks with your current machine, I see no point in upgrading yet.

I am in a similar situation:
XP 1800+
512 PC2100
9700Pro (only had it since Feb, was using GF3 Ti200 before then)

I am planning on upgrading for HL2 and Doom3, but I will be waiting for those games to arrive before I upgrade. I'll try them on my current computer just to see how they do. I personally hope to upgrade around December, if those games are actually available by then.

My thoughts on the new technology:
BTX - Useful for Intel, not useful for rest of industry. Now that Intel is moving away from their "Netburst" based chips, I wonder if they even care about BTX as much anymore. I hope this standard does not go anywhere since I don't see it bringing anything useful to the table that can't already be accomplished with clever ATX case designs.

PCIe - Not useful for me, but will probably want it on my next computer simply because this will be the future. If I want to upgrade Video cards later, I will probably want PCIe. If at the end of the year, PCIe is still relatively unavailable, and if PCIe cards are more expensive, then I might just stick with AGP, but I'd prefer to go with PCIe.

DDR2/3 - I'll probably go with an AMD64 when I upgrade, so I don't see any benefit from DDR2/3. First, AMD doesn't benefit from the faster RAM as much as Intel. Second, current DDR1 is almost as fast as DDR2. Third, DDR2 seems like a less useful design than DDR3. Fourth, DDR3 seems to be where video cards are going, so I expect that in the long term it will be more standard than DDR2. Finally, prices of DDR2 are too high given it's lack of added performance. So, I don't care about DDR2, although DDR3 is of a bit more interest. However, I won't really need to worry about RAM until AMD starts to push DDR2 or DDR3 for their chips, and I don't see them requiring that for a while. Therefore, I expect that even in December, AMD will be using DDR RAM and will probably still be a year off from DDR3 (I think they will skip DDR2 altogether). Either way, the current performance of the A64 with DDR is fine with me.

64bit - I don't care strongly about 64bit yet, but the fact that the A64 is still one of the fastest 32bit processor families out there means that I don't really need to sacrifice anything in order to get 64bit compatibility. I typically upgrade every 2-3 years, and if Windows 64 is available in 2005, then that would be well within my upgrade window. Therefore, I would be willing to pay a little extra for the A64 over a similar performing P4 or Sempron.

For me, really the only factor is 754 or 939, and I since I upgrade relatively infrequently, I fear that even if I get a 939 MB in december, I'll probably have to upgrade everything in 3 years anyway (although I'm hoping that I can get an A64 3500 in december for about $220, and then have a bit of processor headroom.

Anyway, here's what I would like to do in December (or whenever those games come out):
939 A64 3500+
PCIe 6800GT
1GB PC3200 RAM

Then in 2-3 years, hopefully just a video card and processor upgrade will give the computer another 2-3 years of life. I won't have to worry about DDR2/3 or BTX for 4-6 years. That would give plenty of time for all those standards to be worked out.

-D'oh!

 

[Cerb]

Normally I'm with the "there's always new stuff around the corner" crowd, but not now. This is one time were I would wait.

PCI-E: Yup, and few chipsets with AGP and PCI-E.

BTX: don't worry about it.

DDR: DDR2 is out now, the performance difference isn't there, and won't be worth it until it makes 800MHz, and DDR3 is on the way. Until at least next year, PC3200 will be fine.

64-bit: Hard to say about this one. The A64, however, does fine now w/ 32-bit, so just stick w/ AMD and don't worry.

Cramped cases: take a look at the Stacker. BTX will not make for cramped cases, case manufacturers can make them however they like.

IMO, wait for PCI-E on an AMD platform. Then buy.

 

[VIAN]

If you don't think 64 bit will be mainstream when the Athlon 64 prices fall, Windows 64bit comes out, and OEMs start offering 64bit systems, then I don't know when it will be...

Well, I war referring to those low end 500 dollar systems that every Dell dork buys, but a 32-bit system is cheaper and if you don't need 4GB of RAM, the need for 64-bit is none.

BTX - Useful for Intel, not useful for rest of industry. Now that Intel is moving away from their "Netburst" based chips, I wonder if they even care about BTX as much anymore. I hope this standard does not go anywhere since I don't see it bringing anything useful to the table that can't already be accomplished with clever ATX case designs.

Very true. Intel's BTX was just an inspiration to ATX cases.

Then in 2-3 years, hopefully just a video card and processor upgrade will give the computer another 2-3 years of life. I won't have to worry about DDR2/3 or BTX for 4-6 years. That would give plenty of time for all those standards to be worked out.

Wow, 6 years on one Motherboard! Go to it tiger.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: Insomniak
If you don't think 64 bit will be mainstream when the Athlon 64 prices fall, Windows 64bit comes out, and OEMs start offering 64bit systems, then I don't know when it will be...

64-bit will only be mainstream when Intel has a 64-bit chip. Even then 64-bit computing will only truely be mainstream a year after the Celeron64 comes out. Technology does move quicky, but it still takes a long time for the masses to adopt.

If you don't believe me, consider how long broadband internet commections have been available to the public, and then consider this:

As of May 2004, most users in the US connect to the Internet using dial-up modems of 56Kbps or less. 42.53% use 56Kbps modems, 6.52% use 28/33.3Kbps, and 2.34% use 14.4Kbps modems. In total. 51.39% of home users in the US connect to the Internet at 56Kbps or less.

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