Gaze into the future....

Garibaldi

If you were to buy a killer pc (Heh! B-Movie plotline, ahoy!) at this time next year, what would you expect to be able to kit it out with? What new technology do you think will be on the market by then? Any radical changes expected in the near future? And yes, I *am* fantasising about what I'll do with my SSIA. Btw, I have a personal preference for AMD-based PCs, would there be any reason to expect Intel to be any better by June 2006?

J-blk

Hollodeck emitters .

No, but seriously, most stuff that will be standard kit by then is what is just starting to emerge: dual core CPUs, BTX design mobos/cases, possibly water-cooling for the masses and so on.

I'd expect to see more devices make the jump to PCI-E, like sound cards, TV tuners, etc - other than the graphics card right now, the remainder of PCI-E slots go to waste.

I'd also expect to see a tighter intergration of software/hardware, like what Nvidia is doing with the hardware firewall on some of their mobos. Possibly on-chip support for overlay/video encoding as HTPCs are becoming more popular...

Optical storage should also be radically different by then, as HD-DVD and Blu-Ray start to phase-in to the market...

Garibaldi

Bloody hell! Time to update my glossary. It's been a while since I looked at upgrading and most of what you mentioned is brand new to me. Still, something to browse during an otherwise boring afternoon.

DemonOfTheFall

Intel should be a lot better this time next year, if their new dual core chips are out. (Based on pentium-m chip, very similar to athlon 64s except even less power consumption and heat dissipation)

Gurgle

J-blk wrote:

Optical storage should also be radically different by then, as HD-DVD and Blu-Ray start to phase-in to the market...

My bet is blue-ray will be a non-starter, like those zip-drives (wow 100MB on a floppy disk, if only they released it before CD-RW drives).

EEPROM. Its the future.
Not in a year though, they'll be blanket marketing blue-ray before they miss the chance.

I guess 64-bit will be standard, up around 5GHz/4Gb RAM etc

The Free Man

completely silent pc's, liquid cooling as standard, and solid-state drives. also usb 3.0

and roll on 1Gb dsl!!!!

Capt'n Midnight

Gurgle wrote:

like those zip-drives (wow 100MB on a floppy disk, if only they released it before CD-RW drives).

they were released long before CDRW , but they didn't get cheap media till it was too late.

J-blk

The Free Man wrote:

...also usb 3.0

Wireless USB 1.0 (that doesn't mean USB 1.1 speeds BTW) is almost here - I'd expect to see it rolling out by next year:

http://www.usb.org/developers/wusb/

And wireless would take the cake, even if limited at current USB speeds - not sure about the life left in the wired standard but it could also be with us for ages still (look at how long the venerable ol' serial port hung around for!)...

The Free Man

thats what i meant, thought it was called usb 3.0 tho.
it'll kill bluetooth fo' sho'!

J-blk

The Free Man wrote:

it'll kill bluetooth fo' sho'!

Defo... Bluetooth is slower than USB 1.1 anyway - wireless keyboards/mice, etc and data transfers are fine for BT. Everything else, meeh... Roll on W-USB, I'm fed up of my miles of cables behind my desk!

jesus_thats_gre

Bluetooth is a different kettle of fish.. It has alot of other stuff built into it that won't be in Wireless USB...

The Free Man

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

Bluetooth is a different kettle of fish.. It has alot of other stuff built into it that won't be in Wireless USB...

such as?