Topic: dangerous time to buy a computer

[adamdaly]

as someone who is currently looking to buy a computer, i can't help but feel it is a dangerous time to do so. we ll know the as soon as you buy a comp it goes out of date giving the current speed of hardware improvments.

but at the moment, the market is flooded with 32bit machines, the advent of amd's 64bit, and the impending arival of the pentium 5, means the the 32 bit macines will look a lot more out dated, than say the pIII compared to PIV.

i'll admit that my knowledge is limited on this subject but are there any thoughs on my header statement?

adamdaly

[Adept]

The trouble with (and joy of) the computer industry is that there is always something new around the corner. It has always been the same. When I bought my first 486, Pentium was just around the corner, offering fantastic increases in speed etc. Reality was that my 486DX/2 66 was faster than the Pentium 60 and the chip that followed it (P90 ?). So it took a while for it to be out of date.

Admittedly, the move to 64bit processors is a big leap, but it will be a while before Windows supports any of the new CPUs directly, so the benefit for the average PC user will be small for quite a while yet.

My advice is to buy the best you can when you need it. If you wait until the next "big thing" comes along, you will wait forever. There is always something new around the corner

[Sandra]

The main thing Adam is that if the PC you buy does all that you want it to do now then it doesnt really matter does it?
Its the same with anything these days, cars, TVs etc.
There will always be a new improved model out a few weeks or months after you bought the latest, fanciest whatever it is, otherwise we would still be playing 78rpm records and not CDs and Minidiscs today.
Fortunately just because a new improved model comes out it doesnt stop yesterdays new improved model from working at all, its just that it is not to the latest specifications any more  

[Lona]

otherwise we would still be playing 78rpm records and not CDs and Minidiscs today.

I still got my 78rpm records, Sandra. They must be worth a bob or two  

[Simon]

There is also the advantage that if something new is round the corner, the current ranges tend to drop in price.  You may well pick up a very good 'not quite the absolute latest' system now, which will more than suit your needs, for quite a reasonable price.  You can then always upgrade it later if you want to.

[Robotochan]

There are a few other things to watch out for next year:
new SerialATA - Up to 666Mbps  
PCI Express - A lot faster than AGP8  
and of course the AMD64