Future System

[DarkDonut]

I haven't been too well in the loop the past couple years about whats the latest and greatest hardware choices for gaming/media rigs, but I kind of have an idea of what I would get right now if I were buying one.

I'm interested in what's coming within the next 6-8 months. What kind of system do you guys think people will be building Q4 08 - Q1 09? Are there better quad-cores coming out to best the 8400 dual-cores? Are there cards coming to be the new king of quality vs price to replace the 8800GT/9600GTs? Is DDR3 going to become more affordable/available for mid-high end enthusiasts?

I am sure I could find a lot of this info by looking around for previews and whatnot, but I just thought I'd ask you all for your input.

 

[Dangman]

In Q4 2008, Intel is releasing their new Nehalem CPUs and motherboards. The Nehalem CPUs will now have an integrated memory controller, similar to AMD CPUs, has something called Quick Path Interconnect, support for only DDR3 RAM and will be using a totally new socket, LGA 1160. The mainstream Nehalem CPUs should be out around Q1 2009.

DDR3 RAM should be cheaper around Q1 2009.

 

[DarkDonut]

What about video cards? I know the new batch is supposed to be coming out sometime in June right? I guess it may really be too early to tell what kind of sweetspot new rigs will be in end of this year.

 

[AndonSage]

What about video cards? I know the new batch is supposed to be coming out sometime in June right? I guess it may really be too early to tell what kind of sweetspot new rigs will be in end of this year.

June 17/18 for the new ATI and nVidia cards, although not all of the new cards will be released then... some will be a few weeks later.