When are new technologies comeing out? and what are they?

[mongoo13]

New technologies are good in two ways, 1) they are better then what was previously avalible and 2) they make what was previously avalible cheaper.

So whats next for computers and when will it be avalible? I know this is kind of OT but bear with me here. First off is there a release schedule for the near future? Like do new products typicly come out in the fall? or some other time? or is it completly random and unforseeable?

I trying to figure out if I should buy now or wait a little while.

For example.... When will there be 512MB Video cards or 3.6Ghz Proccessors, or anything else that is in the near future.

Where can I learn/find out whats next to come? Is there a site?


Thanks

Mongoo

[thecoalman]

For example.... When will there be 512MB Video cards or 3.6Ghz Proccessors, or anything else that is in the near future.

I'd give the 512mb vid card another 6 to 12 months. 3.6 came out 2 months ago.

I personally like to stay 6 to 12 months behind the curve. Let me point out the ATI AIW 9800 Pro. It was over $300 a year ago and I recently saw it for $150 after rebate in a Best Buy ad.

[ViRaL1]

Why exactly would you NEED a 512MB video card?

[gitreel]

If you read the computer magazines that are in the stores, they usually tell you.

[thecoalman]

Why exactly would you NEED a 512MB video card?

To play Doom 4

Edit: forgot that'll be anothe 10 years by then it'll be one terabyte

[handyguy]

You can buy a 1.6TB HD froom buy.com

[Jayhawk]

I agree with thecoalman about staying slightly behind the curve, if only for cost purposes. I tend to upgrade my machines piece by piece anyway and usually investigate technology on that basis (if I need a hard drive, I research hard drives).

Right now, I don't seen any reason to wait on technology. CPU's will get slightly faster over the next 6 months. Bus speeds will remain fairly constant with 800 becoming standard on all but the low-end boards. The new chipsets are already out. To my knowlege, there are no video games that even require 256mb video cards. USB & Firewire, no changes. SATA hard drives are the new state-of-the-art in storage. Gigabit Ethernet is already here for networks as is 802G for wireless. Dual layer 16X DVD drives are here waiting on affordable media.

I think over the next 18 - 24 month we'll see incremental changes but no real "new" technology. As for how to keep up, I subscribe to several magazines (PC Magazine, PC World, Smart Computing, etc.) and visit a whole bunch of forums like this one.

[mongoo13]

What is a SATA-Hard Drive, and how does it compare to IDE hard drives? Can you have both in one computer? Do they require different cables/motherboards?

How different are they speed wise?

THanks

[SaSi]

mongo13,

technologies improve all the time and in some times, change as well. The radical changes seem to happen every 4-5 years, although we did not have any in the recent past.

The last radical change was the introduction of the AGP slot for video - that rendered previous PCI VGA boards a thing of the past.

Before that, it was the introduction of the ATX form size, which rendered my old and nice full tower case obsolete.

Now, things are changing again. Boards will now be called BTX, everything will be upside down - or better right to left, the AGP slot will go away and make room for PCI Express slots and IDE controllers will be reduced - only for CD/DVD drivers and be replaced by SATA channels.

All this technology is already here. You can buy a mobo with PCI Express slots and a PCI express VGA for premium money. No reason to do so.

The current technology has another 6-8 months before any new and descent product stops using it. And the new technology needs this time before it can prove itself and become cost effective - even for the few who want to pay top dollar for premium performance.

SATA drives use different data connectors from IDE. They are theoretically able to be a bit faster (150Mbps compared to 100Mbps) but with 7200rpm drives, this remains an unproven theory. Also, SATA, now SATA-1, is becoming obsolete in favour of SATA-2, designed to go to 300Mbps. (Bear in mind that SCSI disks are already at 320Mbps and spinning at 15000rpm).

The site to visit for hardware and technology info is www.tomshardware.com

EDIT: Forgot to mention that Intel CPUs will change their socket and lose their pins. Your current CPU (if it's Pentium) will not fit on tomorows mobos - but then, I never replaced a mobo to use the old CPU anyway...

[BJ_M]

512 meg video cards been out awhile-- 640 meg video cards are shipping now in fact ..

rairly though do you need that memory on board your video card ..