Future Systems (Gaming)

[rmorea]

Hi!

I have seen a lot of posts about the so-called end of Moore's Law or at
least the seeming end of the continuous Intel/AMD drive to release
faster chips. I have found surprisingly little direct speculation on
what this will mean in the next couple years for new systems, etc.

For example, is this merely a speedbump and they'll get around it? Is
the issue mostly heat, or is quantum tunnelling of electrons really
beginning to impact further down-scaling? Will multi-core architecture
allow effective speed to continue to ramp up even if clock speed
doesn't? Or are the old days of fast-doubling gains gone forever?

All this just invites speculation, but I would like to see what people
think. The practical reason is that I have "always" bought a new
gaming computer every two years since 1994. Except, I didn't in 2004
because it hardly seemed necessary. Now, in 2005, I might just go
ahead and upgrade but it again seems barely necessary (I did spring for
a new video card). I don't want to buy a system at the end of a
tech-generation if great things are around the corner. But if the pace
of change has merely slowed, that might be an excuse to spend a bit
more and assume the system lasts 3 or 4 years instead of 18 or 24
months. Just looking for thoughts and comments...

Thanks,

Craig

 

[Veritech]

if you ask me( which you sorta are, lol) the whole things up in the air. All
the new advances need to be optimized in software for them to work to their
full capbilities. Plus the power requirements and the stresses of power
supplys is gonna cause a lot of problems this year, think about it

dual core chips
sli cards
hdd
optical drives

at the rate at which stuff moves nowadays, when ever you buy, you will be a
little bit behind, for example look at those guys who ran out and got p4EE
cpus(775) now they've been replaced by the newer 6 series plus, the older
ones are getting 64 bit capbility, which ever way you'll get screwed over
one way or another.
Untill the game makers support it widely, it has no real impact. eg. SLI is
great but only comes into its own when the game has been optimized for it.

Personally, i always buy a generation behind, this is 1) a price thing, and
2) a compatiblity thing. If i need a little boost to keep up with my games i
overclock, the only place this idea falls short is graphics cards, where
unless you got a super cpu, its the most expensive bit in your system.

The future looks exciting, but you don't wanna be the guy who goes out and
buys a rover the day before the company shuts down.

 

[kony]

Hi!

I have seen a lot of posts about the so-called end of Moore's Law or at
least the seeming end of the continuous Intel/AMD drive to release
faster chips. I have found surprisingly little direct speculation on
what this will mean in the next couple years for new systems, etc.

Sure you have... not only direct speculation but the results
of it - dual core CPUs.

For example, is this merely a speedbump and they'll get around it?

No. Moore's law was just an observation of where their
research was going. The truth is that if it weren't for
AMD, we wouldn't even have followed Moore's law as long as
we did, Intel would've waited longer to ramp up chips.

Is
the issue mostly heat,

Yes, shrinking process size and reducing power loss. Plus,
they'd (Intel) had been using MHz for all it's marketability
but that had to stop eventually- until new technology
independant of microprocessors (or developed through
microprocessor research) makes it possible.

or is quantum tunnelling of electrons really
beginning to impact further down-scaling? Will multi-core architecture
allow effective speed to continue to ramp up even if clock speed
doesn't? Or are the old days of fast-doubling gains gone forever?

No, effective speed won't ramp up. Right now we see it with
the dual-core CPUs, they aren't two cores running at same
speed as one was. Intel has set the thermal envelope at
around 130W, IIRC, and I suspect they REALLY don't want to
put water-cooling or peltiers into every desktop CPU
package, but 130W is approaching the limits of air-cooling,
even with their attempt to thrust BTX on us.

It's a bit more complicated though, as even PS2 sized power
supplies are reaching power density limitations. Intel
wanted them more efficient- fine but not an ultimate
solution as utmost efficiency has to cost more and use more
components. PS2 casing held a couple hundred watt power
supplies in the early days, yet systems only used 1/4 that.
If they had forseen the future better I suspect PS2 would've
been a higher volume enclosure.

All this just invites speculation, but I would like to see what people
think. The practical reason is that I have "always" bought a new
gaming computer every two years since 1994. Except, I didn't in 2004
because it hardly seemed necessary. Now, in 2005, I might just go
ahead and upgrade but it again seems barely necessary (I did spring for
a new video card). I don't want to buy a system at the end of a
tech-generation if great things are around the corner. But if the pace
of change has merely slowed, that might be an excuse to spend a bit
more and assume the system lasts 3 or 4 years instead of 18 or 24
months. Just looking for thoughts and comments...

Great things are always around the corner. If it's not raw
performance it's some new technology. Buy a system built
with quality components that you expect to be happy with for
3 or 4 years... if you later find you want to replace it, it
should have resale value or make a good backup/secondary
system.

Bottom line is that one can't buy a system looking too far
into the future, buy what you need when you need it and let
tomorrow take care of itself. Having written that, we
already HAD a "great thing around the corner" in PCI
Express. The PCI bus was the biggest bottleneck that could
easily be relieved, while CPU and memory will continue to
slowly inch forward. That's intentional too though, Intel
is not going to release their latest & greatest technology
without getting as much profit out of the current tech as
possible- it IS a business.

 

[www.interfacebus.com]

Hmm, DDR2 is out now, and very soon the dual processor systems, SATA
II, cheaper memory, 64 bit software.

What does Moore's law matter, if they take the speed increase in a new
direction.

You have a computer from 2003. My computer is a 3800+, AMD, with 1GB
RAM.

Who cares what Moore's law is if memory prices are reduced, disk drive
interfaces increase, software moves to 64 bits.........

http://www.interfacebus.com

 

[Christo]

if you ask me( which you sorta are, lol) the whole things up in the air.
All the new advances need to be optimized in software for them to work to
their full capbilities. Plus the power requirements and the stresses of
power supplys is gonna cause a lot of problems this year, think about it

dual core chips
sli cards
hdd
optical drives

at the rate at which stuff moves nowadays, when ever you buy, you will be
a little bit behind, for example look at those guys who ran out and got
p4EE cpus(775) now they've been replaced by the newer 6 series plus, the
older ones are getting 64 bit capbility, which ever way you'll get screwed
over one way or another.
Untill the game makers support it widely, it has no real impact. eg. SLI
is great but only comes into its own when the game has been optimized for
it.

Personally, i always buy a generation behind, this is 1) a price thing,
and 2) a compatiblity thing. If i need a little boost to keep up with my
games i overclock, the only place this idea falls short is graphics cards,
where unless you got a super cpu, its the most expensive bit in your
system.

The future looks exciting, but you don't wanna be the guy who goes out and
buys a rover the day before the company shuts down.

shortly before the big 64-bit boom i built myself up a nice little AMD 2600+
machine with 1.5GB of ram and a 80GB SATA hdd with an GeForce 5200 AGP gfx
card (since upgraded to 5900)

i intend to wait

PCI-Express is nice and i have built a few systems with PCI-E cards in and
AMD64 processors

not tried DDR2 yet though...

even so its all new and it all needs to be optimized, the thing is if i wait
again then who is to say that the next step isnt taken just as i am going
for the now new step of DDR2, SATAII 1TB storage and a PCI-Express graphics
card and 64bit processors... or even dual core 64 bit processors.

heat is a problem i think.

I am amazed that the shuttle systems mainly yhe 939 systems can handle a
GeForce6600GT with an AMD 3500+ and 250GB hdd and one optical drive, im
suprised they dont glow red the size of the cases is crazy!