New Upgrades

[KnightFlyer 43]

Many people have spent their money on a new Athlon XP and GeForce3/4 Ti Series spending hundereds of dollars. and...as soon as a few months later, out comes a new AMD and NVIDIA chip with, what seems to be a significant advance in technology. How do you high-end users feel about having to buy new hardware a few months later after you just got your new Athlon XP or GeForce?That's one of the reasons I haven't upgraded for a while...new technology is comming out too soonMy specs:2 year old Compaq 5900zAthlon 600Mhz230W PSW256 MB PC133 RAM (upgraded from 64MB)GeForce4 MX440 (upgraded from Savage4 Pro and ATi Rage Fury Pro)

[Guest Max Cowgill]

>Many people have spent their money on a new Athlon XP and >GeForce3/4 Ti Series spending hundereds of dollars. and...as >soon as a few months later, out comes a new AMD and NVIDIA >chip with, what seems to be a significant advance in >technology. How do you high-end users feel about having to >buy new hardware a few months later after you just got your >new Athlon XP or GeForce? >>That's one of the reasons I haven't upgraded for a while... >new technology is comming out too soon There is nothing new about all this (other than the technology itself). There's always "something significantly better around the corner", that's just the nature of the business. This has been going on since tech companies started releasing new products. Recent developments in the industry such as Intel and AMD's CPU war forcing each other to release newer and faster CPUs on a weekly basis, and Nvidia's 6 month GPU product release cycle have forced other companies to either stick to the same schedule, try to trump Nvidia, or drop out of the business altogether. Things are probably a bit faster paced now than they were say 15 years ago, but there's a lot more competition now than there was then.Max Cowgill

[LAdamson 240]

I'll just go for another two years knowing how much better FS2002 has performed on my Athlon 1900XP/Geforce3Ti500 over my previous PentiumIII/Viper 770 combo. Within two years, the CPU's you speak of, will be old technology anyway!L.Adamson

[Guest georgi55]

I have set this veiw on upgrading. When a processor that is 3 times higher than my clock speed comes out, I upgrade.I have Althon 1.2 now, so I will probably upgrade when 3.0 or 3.6 comes out.About video cards, I've found buying the best video card at a time and using it for 2 years to be the best.I use ATI 64MB DDR right now, bought it for $300 2 years ago, and will upgrade to faster one soon.That way you dont have to spend $200 every year to get little better card, but you jsut spend $300 in 2 years and get fastest card.

[Toys_R_Us 0]

I like to stay well on the side of "cheap".To do this I always buy off-brand AMD machines, and look for specials. This concept has worked out very well for me.Three bargain links are listed below.http://www.tigerdirect.comhttp://cgi6.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?...&sort=2&rows=25http://www.cyberpowerinc.com/Remember, a 1 Gigaherz Dell machine with Rambus DDR, 2 years ago was$5200.00. That machine capability is selling for about $399 to $499 now.Although I have never needed to do it, this buys a lot of local service during a major manufacturers warranty period.Then places like Cyberpower are now offering 3 year in-home service for $59 to $ 99.Unless you have tons of money, wait awhile after a new major advancement, and then buy cheap.It really works !!! Bob (Lecanto, Fl)AMD, Athlon XP, 1800+MSI, K7T266 XP ProPC 2100 DDR, 1024 MBXP, Home Edition Elsa GLadiac 920, GF3/64Mb andPNY, Verto nVidia TNT 2-M64/32WD, 100 MB, 7200, Ultra 100Sound Blaster, Audigy MP3+CH Prod, VPP Yoke - Sound CardCH Prod, Pedals - Sound Card

[Guest Max Cowgill]

>I have set this veiw on upgrading. When a processor that is >3 times higher than my clock speed comes out, I upgrade. >I have Althon 1.2 now, so I will probably upgrade when 3.0 >or 3.6 comes out. >About video cards, I've found buying the best video card at >a time and using it for 2 years to be the best. >I use ATI 64MB DDR right now, bought it for $300 2 years >ago, and will upgrade to faster one soon. >That way you dont have to spend $200 every year to get >little better card, but you jsut spend $300 in 2 years and >get fastest card. Not to bash you or your buying philosophy but I hope you do realize that clock speed is NOT the only factor in determining the power of a CPU. A 3.6GHz P4 will not be 3 times faster than your 1.2GHz Athlon under any circumstances (unless you count synthetic benchmarks, in which case you can make any CPU appear to be any amount faster than any other CPU). Real-world performance is what counts, and clock speed is not the only measure of a CPU's level of real-world performance. The marketing department at Intel would have you believe otherwise, but who do you trust? A marketing department for one of the world's largest corporations (nothing inherently wrong with large corporations, but marketing departments are a whole other story ;) ) or a self-proclaimed hardware god such as myself? ;) (j/k, btw)Max Cowgill