When for various next generation items?

[BBC454]

Out of curiousity, when will the next generation video cards be coming out? I assume it will be the R400 for ATI.

Also, when will Intel come out with their next gen CPU(prescott)? How about the 90 nm technology for AMD and Intel?

From what I have read, it seems like about March for the video cards and anytime now for Intel's CPU. I have no idea though for the 90 nm technology, maybe beginning of next summer? I am hoping some of you would have a better estimate or information than the older posts.

 

[Matthias99]

Video cards (R420/NV40 for ATI/NVIDIA, respectively) -- Q1-Q2 of next year, most likely starting in March/April (if it's anything like the last few launches, you'll get a small number of super-fast cards first, then midrange and low-end stuff over the next few months). Few details have been released from either company.

The Prescott *may* be out relatively soon, at least in small numbers, but everything coming out of Intel has been very wishy-washy and the rumor is the new chips are running VERY hot (~120W at stock!) AMD is still shooting for Q2 2004 on their 90nm chips, last I heard -- their conference call a few weeks back sort of suggested otherwise, but then they said that was incorrect and they were on target. Socket 939 is also coming sometime next year (sooner rather than later, hopefully), but I don't believe a firm date has been set. Intel's 90nm tech is also aimed at summertime.

The reason you're not finding much is that there just isn't much info out there yet. I don't expect we'll have firm timeframes for any of these products until after the holidays. Part of this is that they want people to buy things *now*, not to wait until next year and keep hobbling along with whatever they have until then.

 

[BBC454]

Thanks for the info.

I forgot to add one other thing, DDR2. I have read that it is more efficient and reliable than the current DDR (even though I don't hear of any trouble with the current DDR), also faster. When will this start to come around?

I am looking to buying or building a desktop around March or so of next year, which is the reason I want to know when various things are coming out.

 

[Matthias99]

The DDR2 standard still hasn't been approved by JEDEC (although that's probably going to happen in the next 12 months -- and heck, they had DDR500 out before JEDEC approved it!), although it's in use on some high-end graphics cards already. So far, it hasn't quite lived up to expectations in terms of performance (they're having trouble getting it to clock really high, apparently -- which is not surprising for a new technology), so don't expect much of it during the next year. Standard DDR is hitting 500/533 at not-totally-outrageous costs, and there's still room for improvements there.

If you're aiming to build a "current-gen" system (P4 Willamette/Athlon XP/Athlon64) in March, you should be OK (and if any of the newer stuff is out, prices on current equipment will drop even further). But I'm not sure I'd jump right on Prescott *or* Socket 939 right after either one comes out. Waiting until later in the year will likely yield significant benefits in terms of motherboard and chipset maturity, and improved yields will drive down prices and bring up performance of any new processors.