hello im new to the forums. i have a 2 year old computer with intergrated graphics and a amd athlon 3000+ xp processor on a socket A motherboard. i know i should upgrade but then after seeing that post about quad core processors should i not upgrade to core 2 duo and wait for quad processors to come out?
There is always going to be something new "round the corner". If you want / need a new pc now then just go for it and upgrade.
I think it's the whole Vista/Conroe/DX10 thing that's making most people hold back, not the amount of cores that may be around soon. Too many core technologies are about to change. As soon as DX10 arrives, everyone will want to upgrade their cards. The same for Vista is probably true. Even those that say they won't, probably will. Unless your current machine is really strugling to cope I'd hold off a while, or just upgrade as cheaply as possible. Generally I'd just say upgrade now, but it may be worth seeing what DX10 cards arrive, and what the pricing is etc.
get the cheapest core 2 now if you really need to, and OC it, then get a Core 3 at the end of the year, or te begining of next, they will be quad core.
I'm holding on for Vista though it'll be about 6-10 months before they iron out all the bugs in Vista and there will be a protracted gfx war as usual between Nvidia and ATI following the release of Vista or in the run up to release. Its best to wait a little while after the release of tech to judge which is the most stable option (for all we talk about performance on these forums the number one concern is stability - who wants a system thats going to hang on them once an hour?). If you've got enough cash coming in and could put by a little each month then you could save slowly and buy a nice system a little while after Vista has come out. Alternatively you could take advantage of the price cuts and buy yourself a budget system (The 3800 X2 is down to <£100 and a Pentium 805 is ~£80, you can get a decent gfx card for ~£150 and 1GB Generic Ram is about £55. Awoken's Bargain of the week: Lovely quiet Samsung Spinpoint SATA2 Drives @250GB are now ~£47!) now then sell the parts an upgrade again once Vista is out. Remember - Perpendicular storage is beginning to come out. DX10 will need new gfx cards. Few programs make use of 2 cores let alone 4. A budget processor ~£150 is more than powerful enough for all the latest games and applications and dual core processors are mighty cheap at the moment. A monitor is a good investment but noone is certain what standards will be necessary for Vista re: HD content. DVD writers will be popular for another year minimum, the format war over Blue Ray and HD is just getting started and Holographic storage isn't so far off so it might be best to stick with DVD writers for now rather than take sides. DDR2 will be the standard in Ram for at least the next 18 months (I think AMD have plans to move to DDR 3 in the future but this may/may not work or there may be a new standard by then) so DDR2 Ram is a good investment. A nice little speaker system will never need upgrading. Neither will a good keyboard/Mouse.
Upgrade CPU/Memory/HDD's/Mobo etc to whatever you want now. Dual core is only just on the market and not really fully utilised yet. It's going to be a long time before quad cores are needed. Buy a lower end GFX card now - make sure you get one that'll fufil your needs gaming wise but don't go OTT. Save a little cash and it should put you in a position to decide which way to go when the DX10 cards emerge. Remeber though that the cards out Q4 06/Q1 07 are first gen DX10, so there's going to be lots of improvement. There's probably little point jumping on the DX10 bandwagon straight off.
