Is Waiting Worth It?

[Rainsford]

I currently have an Athlon T-Bird 800@866 and I have been thinking about upgrading. I've seen in many places that by July we should have .13 micron Athlon XPs. So waiting for that seems like a good idea. Then I see that in Q3 or Q4 there should be Barton's available. But if I wait for that, why not wait a little bit more for Hammer? Anyone facing similar issues, and if so, what are your thoughts on the whole waiting game?

 

[CubicZirconia]

Theres is always something on the horizon. You can wait forever if you want. If I were you I might wait for the tbred, but maybe not. It depends on how badly you want the upgrade. If you really want it, do it now. You can always upgrade later. Also, remember that the t-breds won't initially be that much faster the the palimos, if at all.

 

[littlezipp]

Personally I would wait. If you want a performance increase, get a new video card, you will keep that longer than the processor (or at least you should!).

 

[toft-dk]

I would say if you can get a good price on an XP now then do it, there will ALWAYS be something "just around the corner" thats even
faster , better a.s.f . The "only" new thing about T-Bred is thats it's 0,13 and are therefore able to run cooler / faster.
I say go for an XP Now

 

[Marrkks]

maybe a new mb/ram? that PC133 is starting to show its age.

all depends on what you use your box for and what your budget is.

if you do quite a bit of gaming I would suggest a new vid card tho.

you have a nice sturdy computer. personally I would just sit tight and shop around till I find a really good deal. but it all really comes down to what part of you 'puters performance do you really want to improve? personally I would be looking for a mb/RAM upgrade and then slap one of those nice new .13 XP's in that.

just my .02 ¢ents

 

[TheLizardMan]

Buy NOW.
Now is always a good time. And right now prices are not that bad. If you wait a month for the t-bread they could delay it another month or more and you will be kicking your self in the ass.

 

[Innoka]

Rainsford, you could see quite an improvement by upgrading now. The latest Athlon line has never been so cheap before.

 

[Hrochard]

Agreed that buying now, whenever now is, is the best time to buy. Even if something faster is released the day after you install your new hardware, you'll still be happy with the speed increase, and chances are decent you can OC your new stuff to match the newly released hardware.

 

[aznmist]

it's true that there's always something faster around the corner, but there are logical steps you can take to make you get the most bang out of your buck..

CPU: Wait for TBred, it's the next jump
Video card: Wait for a card that is fully DX 9 compatible

The idea is the get the product that's going to stay around when it is cheap and new.

I was early to go from PC133 to DDr.. everybody is still using DDr right now.
In my opinion, there was no reason to go from GF3-->GF4. Sure there were a few improvements but nothing "earth shattering". I'm still using my good ol' Radeon 7200..just wating for a DX9 compatible card before I upgrade

 

[Rainsford]

Thanks for all the advise everyone. I think I'll probably go for a GeForce 4 Ti 4200 at the very least, and probably a new XP with mobo/RAM to match. But at the very least I probably want a new video card I think.

Edit: Would getting a GeForce 4 4200 improve performance that much on an Athlon 866?

 

[CubicZirconia]

Edit: Would getting a GeForce 4 4200 improve performance that much on an Athlon 866?

Whats your current video card? I would say if its anything geforce2 and up the answer would be no.

 

[Rainsford]

I have a GeForce 2 MX 32 meg card.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

IMHO, go for the gold with a Northwood 1.6A +P2B266-C+Samsung PC2700. Why wait for AMD's .13 micron line when Intel's is already out?

For the video card, I'd go for a Radeon 8500LE, they sell for about $100 and offer performance that's almost at the GF4 Ti4200 level

-Ice

*edit* ooops, corrected a typo that said that the Radeon 8500 was almost at Ti4400 levels when it should have stated that it is almost at Ti4200 levels

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: icecool83
IMHO, go for the gold with a Northwood 1.6A +P2B266-C+Samsung PC2700. Why wait for AMD's .13 micron line when Intel's is already out?

For the video card, I'd go for a Radeon 8500LE, they sell for about $100 and offer performance that's almost at the GF4 Ti4400 level

-Ice

I've considered going with the Intel route, but I don't see any reason to spend more money than I have to. I know that some of the Pentium 4s can overclock quite a bit, but I'd like to leave my bus speed as alone as possible (Athlon multiplier changing). That means I probably wouldn't overclock, and since money is and issue for me, I think I can get more bang for my buck out of AMD.

As for the Radeon, I hadn't actually thought about going ATI, probably something worth checking out.

 

[ST4RCUTTER]

Since you don't plan on overclocking I would definitely stick with the AMD route. Unlike some of the others though I would wait until the Tbreds are out. The difference in temperature could mean using a screaming HSF over a quiet retail one. The Tbreds up to 1900+ will run at 1.5v...that should be significantly cooler than their Palomino forebears. Even if they did shave 37% of the surface area off the die it won't be anywhere near the 61W seen in Palomino based 1900+ chips.