What will computers be like in a year?

[Marcus Wolfe]

My problem is not finding what gets the most bang for my buck, (because that's not my top concern), but where I can find the best prices. I'll probably ask that in a new topic when I have the money.

[DarkWarrior45]

Right now, I would see if you can your hands on at least one of the 2.66ghz/3.0ghz wolfdales or a quadcore that you can actually afford. Unless AMD gets a miracle, stick with Intel if you want to stay up to date.

 

In regards to graphics card, one thing I did last summer was saved up some money and picked me up a 8800 GTX. The reason I went with the GTX was because I wanted the extra power so that it would last me a little longer and be able to max everything out for a while longer.

 

If you want the best price, then you want to custom build. If you build, Newegg.com is the place to go.

[Marcus Wolfe]

Update: I will not be able to get $6000 by September, only $1000 or so. However, my birthday is in September, and my parents on both sides have three siblings each.

 

My strategy:

In September, get 9 different pieces of the $5000 dollar computer (3 from my dad's siblings, 3 from my mom's siblings, 1 from each set of grandparents and one from my parents), but not the graphics card or CPU (don't want to ask to much of them financially)

 

In December, I ask Dad's half of the family to put all the money they were going to spend on me together to buy me the best Intel Quadcore CPU available, and ask my Mother's side to do the same for the best Nvida graphics card(s) on the market.

 

Anything not covered by those 2 events I'll just buy myself.

 

Clever, or what?

[worm82075]

Hey, more power to ya, Marcus, just do us all a favor huh? When you do get this uber computer of yours, don't start making and releasing mods that will only run on uber computers. Keep in mind that most of us have to work for a living and most of those that don't will never have this handed to them.

[Mythic_One28]

Well, I'm only interested in getting the latest and greatest............

So what's that going to be in a year?

In a year, computers will probably need atleast 3-4gb ram to play games well enough. 512mb videocards will be the minimum, but still good enough for almost everything but FPS games. Spore will probably be geared around current technology, so there shouldn't be any issue there. The speed of the videocard may however be an issue, as always you won't be able to get by with any of the onboard cards or even what Dell is offering is you really want the performance. But since replacing a videocard isn't that big a deal, you can upgrade at a later date. Having multiple linked videocards will probably be the best way to go. For processors, you should aim for a multicore with atleast 3.5ghz but are better off closer to 5ghz. Although I can't really see games getting much more resource intensive than they are now. There's only so much that you can display, and there are certain limitations of various hardware standards. Even cooling can become an issue.

 

What I'm trying to say is that there are limitations as to what will be out on the market for the average "buying a PC and just plugging it in" crowd. This is because to get into the 5+ ghz range, you really need a more efficient method of cooling than with fans and air. That creates a problem in the marketplace since your average consumer wouldn't be able to understand, let alone maintain a water cooled system. This means that unless some sort of breakthrough does occur, games will eventually have to just plan for those limitations since you can't expect to sell a game that requires everyone to customize their computer to play. It may not mean that these games play extremely well on an "off the shelf" computer, but they will play well enough to make the product viable. If anything ends up limiting you, it'll probably be videocards, but again game companies can't expect people to have multiple cards installed and setup, so unless the standard is to put two sets of video processors and memory on a single card, there probably won't be a serious need to go beyond what is currently available now. Think about it for a moment, how much have things advanced within the last year, compared to the year before that, or the year before that. The tech push isn't as strong now, and a slowly dying american economy isn't making it stronger.

 

 

I doubt that intel has any plans to introduce a 5Gz anytime soon, as they are going with multiple cores instead. And unless 64-bit operating systems are mainstream you will not need more than 3GB of ram, since 32-bit operating systems can only use about 1.5GB of ram per application. The high end video cards available today should also be sufficient in a year because developers are loath to get to far ahead of the consoles, which have a much larger sales rate than PC games.

 

 

Mine's at $16,132.19. Don't call'em dream machines for nothing.

Let's see what these guys offer at a lower price......

Nope, I don't think there's anything in my range. Of course, I intend to buy the pieces and assemble it myself to save some cash. I'll also be cheap on the chassis.

 

Of course, if I change my mind and decide to go all out on a chassis, I'll definitely get a HP Blackbird 002. Those things are bitching. My dream system from that site's @ $10644.95.

 

Take a look for yourself, it's one helluva chassis!

 

I wouldn't recommend going cheap on the chassis, unless you want to melt your parts, of course.

[Marcus Wolfe]

Well, not THAT cheap. I'm just looking for function more than fashion.