current and near future technologies

[Vulcan 0]

hey..

i an thinking of buying a new computer in a month or two (when quad-core will be available)

i would like to know what technologies the motherboad/soundcard/video card/NIC should support and if i should wait because maybe something new is just around the corner and it's better to wait another month than to buy right now.

with the new processors and Vista i would really appreciate your thoughts.

thanks in advance !!!

[DosFreak 2]

Well PCIExpress 2.0 is just around the corner....you may as well wait for that. LOL!

 

heh. There's nothing to wait for. Buy whatever is available right now. I personally am waiting for Quad core for when I build my next machine at the end of this year/early next year. That's only because when I build my machines I build them to last 4-5 years.

[Sampson 0]

You might want to look at this article: http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=4130 The reason for reading it is that the newer Bad-Axe2 board seems to be the basis of what will become identified with the Quad core. Most of the 975x based boards are Bad-Axe1. Look at the picture of the two boards in the article. All those trace lines going to the Northbridge have seemingly been set up to optimize the Quad core. In any event FSB increases with the Bad-Axe2 boards don't hit a wall. Further, Intel is working on some kind of chipset to enhance their video which may not be out until next year. My advice, wait until after Vista has hit the stands sometime in January or thereafter. Vista is going to have the effect of "Bios upgrade frenzy" on a lot of boards. Better to start with a motherboard that has been tested thoroughly with Vista.

[Vulcan 0]

thanks..

i was going to wait for quad core...but waiting for vista to make its impact on current hardware is a good advise..

 

if there are more ideas i would like to hear them ..

[DosFreak 2]

Don't know why you would wait for Vista. The only diifference between XP and Vista as far as hardware is increased memory requirement and DX10 support. Since DX10 capable cards aren't out yet and it's not a good idea to pick up a DX10 card as soon as it comes out I really don't see the point.

 

Oh, there's the HD's with the included flash memory but why wait for that either?

 

 

[Sampson 0]

Why wait for Vista? "Techweb hacks have been working their way through the licence and found a few things that have not been mentioned in the official releases.

 

The first is that once you have installed Vista on a machine you can only move it once. If you have an upgrade of your motherboard or anything else that will cause the operating system to think that it is a new computer you have to buy a new copy of Vista.

 

While the expensive versions of Vista, Vista Ultimate and Vista Business, can be installed within a Virtual Machine environment, Vole forbids you from doing so with the cheaper Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium."

 

From WinXPcentral: "The level at which I am testing is isolated to the lab and only on machines that have the "Vista Compatible" label on them which begs the question: did the OEM's really perform any sort of testing on these machines or did they simply slap a sticker on them so people would buy them now ? I can't speak with any authority about that, but I have to wonder if that's not the case. As of RC2, not one my "Vista Compatible" systems fully work. Whether it be video, sound, chipset, RAID, etc... all of them need driver support at some level from the OEM's. So far, all I hear from the OEM's is" "Ummm... yea... we'll get to it... maybe."

 

I think I would have felt better buying a desktop or a laptop with Vista already installed on it but equipment fails and needs to be replaced. So, we thought buying new equipment with the Vista Compatible sticker on it would be smart thing to do. Now I'm not so sure we wouldn't be better off repairing the broken machines and waiting for machines that have Vista already installed on them. It might save some time and headaches with future roll outs. Hmmm... decisions... decisions...

 

Please understand, I get the fact that a 50 MILLION, 2-3+ GB OS will have its problems but again, when you hit a point in the development cycle where you start to tout it as a "Release Candidate" one assumes it's good enough to send to manufacturing. Well, RC2 is not and I'm not the only one saying that. CNET has a video "First Look: Windows Vista RC2" where the Senior Editor of CNET says what I have been saying: "Vista needs at least one more RC before it heads off to manufacturing".

 

I was reading the latest Redmond Magazine this morning and something caught my eye. Microsoft has been touting how more companies than ever before will roll Vista sooner rather than later. Hmmm... well, according to a recent Merrill Lynch survey, that number has dropped almost in half. The survey concluded that only 8% of CTO's surveyed plan on deploying Vista in 2007. That's down from January's 14%.

 

So what caused this drop? I can tell you in one word: "caution". Every tech I have spoken with loves what Vista promises (I do to) but the application incompatibility, driver issues, and the weirdness in-between the RC releases has put brakes on any sort of rapid deployment. Until IT Departments get either a fully cooked RC release or the "gold" release AND driver support, I think MS might have a hard time getting companies to deploy it on any scale.

 

That said, I think true Microsoft shops will probably be the first to deploy on a small scale. They will test, deploy, make adjustments, patch, and then deploy on a larger scale ONLY after they are satisfied Vista is stable but most importantly, works with their internal applications. Personally, I eagerly await their blogs.

 

The good news is MS will get Vista right at some point. I remember typing something similar to this when XP came out and slowly but surely XP became a very stable (although not the securest OS) operating system. But, that brings up one more point people have been sorta scratching there heads about? Is XP worth dumping for Vista? For now, I've joined the "scratching my head" crowd. I'm just not sure yet."