Treatise on hardware for 2006

[saphalline]

What is going on in the hardware arena? What new things are happening? What should you buy and what should you avoid? Instead of spreading the new hardware news in bits and pieces over different threads, I decided to consolidate them. This way we can discuss these things all in one thread. Or you can just read and learn. I will be updating my sticky on top hardware, but I need more time. This was actually much faster because I didn't have to dig up links and compare hundreds of products. So here's what's new in hardware.


Processors:

Cedar Mill
These are the latest P4's, denoted by a model number of the form "6x1". They range from the 3.0 GHz 631 to the 3.8 GHz 671 (hasn't seemed to hit the streets yet). (The 3.6GHz 661 is available online for buying, however.) In case you hadn't heard about these, this new core revision moves the process down to 65nm, which finally makes the P4 cool enough to alleviate most heat concerns. Intel's Virtualization, EM64T, Hyper-Threading, and eXecute Disable bit are all features of this new core revision. Meaning it is finally the most feature-rich Pentium 4 to ever grace our presence. Within the next 6 months it will be old news once Conroe is released, but for now, you can't go wrong with Cedar Mill. It's the best P4 ever, and the best P4 that will ever be made.

Presler
These are the latest PD's, denoted by the all-powerful model number of the form "9xx". They range from the 2.8 GHz 920 to the 3.46 GHz Extreme Edition 955. These are also 65nm CPU's and come equipped with Intel's Virtualization, EM64T, and the eXecute Disable bit. Hyper-Threading is only available for the EE 955. Presler has made a name for itself on the tech sites for tearing up the benchmarks compared to Smithfield. The L2 cache has been doubled from the older PD's and they are much much cooler. A good combo even though the PD pales in comparison to the upcoming Conroe CPU's.

Prescott / Smithfield
Still a decent series of CPU's, there are a few gems to be had here for a couple more months. For one thing, these older CPU's don't have the BIOS support concerns that the new 65nm CPU's have (more on that later). And at the lower end, they are still cheaper by a bit, making them excellent budget choices. The PD 805 is worthy of attention at this point because it's a Smithfield but it's cheap and still a dual-core CPU. Awesome choice for any budget-minded multitaskers out there.

Venice
This core revision from AMD is quite old. About a year now. But AMD did it right the first time, and these Socket 939 Athlon64's are the bread & butter of most gaming systems. Since they haven't been passed up by AMD yet, these are still the budget A64's to buy.

San Diego
The "double cache" version of Venice, these CPU's from AMD used to be expensive. Time has tempered their price tags, however, and now these A64's are well within the grasp of mid-range gamers. The performance boost they receive from the extra L2 cache is impressive, and the 3700+ and 4000+ are now the best game performers for the money. The A64 FX's, however, are somewhat overpriced, but they are FAST! Speed always incurs a price premium in the CPU market, but I still say the money would be better spent on dual-core.

Manchester / Toledo
This is where AMD shines. The A64 X2's are hands-down the best dual-core CPU's on the market right now. Well, until Intel releases Conroe, that is. But for now, AMD rules the roost in this area. The only difference between the two core revisions is L2 cache - Toledo has more. That's all there is to it. The X2 3800+ is on the low end (relatively speaking) and is a great budget dual-core CPU from AMD. But the X2 4800+ still commands too much of a price premium at this point to be fully recommended. If you must have Toledo, get the X2 4400+. In other news, there is a new addition to the dual-core market - the A64 FX-60! No longer based on San Diego, the new FX is a Toledo! And at 2.6 GHz, it's one of the fastest and most powerful CPU's available today. Over $1000 each, though, so not necessarily the best in terms of cost-effectiveness.


Chipsets:

i945P
Decent prices, DDR2 RAM, SATA 300, and support for most Intel CPU's makes this the best budget and mid-range chipset for an Intel platform. For most purposes, this is the one to get. The i945G version adds onboard video, so home office users take note. As for the latest 65nm CPU's, results are mixed. About half the mobo's support them, but far less support them out-of-the-box. This is a true sore spot for Intel, requiring a new BIOS update for every new core revision, but 65nm support is getting better every day. It's well worth it to shop for 65nm support and there are plenty of excellent mobo's that come with it. Just be warned and shop carefully and you shouldn't have any problems.

i975X
The ultra super high end chipset from Intel, mobo's equipped with it are also super expensive. But they're packed with tons of features, and even unsupported features. For a real shocker, check out Intel's own BOXD975XBXLKR (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813121016). Truly a marvel of the modern mobo market for Intel to release a high end enthusiast board of such magnitude... Oh yeah, watch out for the 65nm BIOS support again.

NForce4 Ultra
I think this one is actually over a year old now, but it's still a mainstay for the AMD platform. Just like AMD does things lately - do it once and do it right. Unless you're looking for SLI support, this the THE chipset to buy for Socket 939 systems.

NForce4 SLI X16
The other AMD chipset, this one is for SLI. Not really much to say about it since NVidia has been making the best chipsets for AMD platforms for years. If you want SLI, get this chipset. They make an Intel version, too!


RAM:

DDR vs DDR2
DDR is still the RAM to use for AMD systems right now. AMD CPU's get the best performance using DDR400, or PC3200. This summer when AMD releases their new Socket AM2 (or just M2) they will also be moving over to DDR2 support. Remember that the memory controller is built into the latest AMD CPU's, so a new core revision is needed to make the switch. Intel is already on the DDR2 bus (pun intended) and since DDR2 can scale better in terms of capacity and performance, DDR2 will be the main focus moving towards the end of this year. Both Intel and AMD will hit validation for DDR2-800 (aka PC2-6400) at the same time for their respective major upcoming releases.

1GB or two?
Ah, the age-old question: "How much RAM should I get?" Well, that depends. Right now, a 1GB dual-channel kit of two 512MB modules is still plenty for most uses. From office apps to games, a gig of RAM is great for WinXP systems. It's also dirt cheap, down to $60-70 for both DDR400 and DDR2-533. On the other hand, as we move further into 2006, 2GB is going to be the new standard. Not 4 x 512MB, mind you, but 2 x 1GB modules. The price has dropped considerably on all RAM so now is the time to buy! If you don't have 1GB yet, move up! If you're building a new system, consider 2GB. Dual-core CPU's in particular will be happier with the extra RAM because that effectively means each core get its own gig. It's still sort of a toss-up for now, but more and more we'll all be putting the pressure on 2 gigs of RAM.

[saphalline]

Video/Graphics Cards:
What's hot and what's not? The GPU/VPU scene changes more often than you can change your socks! New releases and core revisions keep coming faster and faster, and the differences between respective vid cards become more and more compelling as you dig further. It's not easy to recommend the best of the best because NVidia and ATI not only have their own angles on rendering, they also have more products on the market than ever before. As the release schedules get tighter, older products remain on store shelves and just add to the confusion. Vid cards that haven't been new for 2 years are still floating around out there, so you all need to be aware of what's new and what's the older new. Here's a basic list of PCIe and AGP vid cards, with their street prices.

PCIe:
$100-115 - Radeon X800 GTO 128MB
$170 - Radeon X1600 XT
$175-190 - GeForce 6800 GS
$190/200 - GeForce 7600 GT
$280 - GeForce 7800 GT
$300-320 - GeForce 7900 GT
$490 - Radeon X1900 XT
$500-550 - GeForce 7900 GTX
$500-550 - Radeon X1900 XTX
$600 - Radeon X1900 XTX CrossFire Edition

AGP:
$135 - Radeon X1600 Pro
$135 - GeForce 6600 GT
$170 - Radeon X800 GTO
$200 - GeForce 6800 GS
$300 - GeForce 7800 GS

Before you ask, yes, there are many others. But these are the ones I would recommend because they are the most modern and provide the best gaming performance per dollar. Notice the PCIe list is more than twice as long as the AGP list. Take note: AGP is dying. It's dying much slower than I predicted, but it is dying nonetheless. If you have an AGP system and want to upgrade, do it soon before AGP vid cards fall too far behind the curve. As it is the AGP version of the 6800 GS is significantly more expensive than its PCIe counterpart.

The current trend in GPU's/VPU's is to pile on the shaders! ATI's VPU's have had an excessive amount of shader units for several months now, with the X1900 taking it to new levels with 48 pixel shaders! NVidia recently caught up to that figure with their 7900 and continuing to put pressure on ATI with 24 pipelines vs ATI's 16. Even so, they trade blows. ATI's design is more effecient and powerful, especially in shader-heavy games. NVidia's design has pure power and clock speed to back it up. Either way you slice the frames, performance costs money. The X1900 and 7900 are both expensive yet still worth every monetary unit. In the mid-range, the battle heats up! There are more vid card options than available slots to stuff 'em into! I won't go into too much detail here, but suffice to say that NVidia seems to have better options for the money at more price points than ATI. The 7600 GT, for instance, is following the legacy of the 6600 GT, which is now retired from PCIe dominance. And the 7800 GT continues to put up a fight. But on the low end, you simply cannot beat the pure power of the slightly older Radeon X800 GTO for such a low price, and the X1600 XT rivals the 6800 GS in shader-intensive games even with only 2/3 the RAM bandwidth. An honorable mention also goes out to the PCIe Radeon X800 GTO2 ($180-200 street price) for those of you with high aspirations and a knowledge of the R480 VPU. ;)

SLI vs CrossFire
Now that CrossFire is actually available, this is a real dual-graphics battle. They both have their strengths, so let's delve a little deeper...

SLI has one big advantage: simplicity. You buy an SLI mobo, you buy two SLI capable vid cards (pretty much all NVidia vid cards these days) and away you go! It's even dummy-proof now to the point where you don't have to attach the SLI bridge. It's better if you do, but you don't need to. The SLI driver is also getting better and better all the time. Game compatibility and improved speed boosts occur for every new driver revision. It's not quite perfect yet (far from it), but the fact that you can get better performance with a mere driver update has been one of NVidia's strengths for years.

CrossFire also has one big advantage: performance. Instead of relying heavily on game code to use their dual-graphics implementation, ATI decided to handle it all internally. A composition chip on a CrossFire Edition ATI vid card doles out frame rendering to the two VPU's and turns them into one signal to the monitor. Performance boost ratios of CrossFire exceed that of SLI on average, especially for new games that are not SLI friendly. CrossFire also has the advantage of being highly compatible. Numerous success stories about CrossFire set-ups working on non-CrossFire chipsets are all over the web. The downsides to CrossFire are that it's expensive (CrossFire Edition cards carry a $50 price premium) and it's more complex. CrossFire doesn't have the simple platform and ease of use that SLI has, and it doesn't have the maturity and user base that SLI has.

Even so, for those looking for the ultimate in gaming performance, a few drawbacks are merely a challenge to overcome! Gamers with the money to throw at SLI and CrossFire are not going to be deterred in the least by the potential shortcomings.


Moving towards 2007...
What are we going to see for the remainder of this year then?

In terms of platforms, this summer is the most exciting. Intel is moving to a completely new microarchitecture, and AMD is moving to a new socket and adding DDR2 support. By early winter, AMD will follow Intel's lead down to a 65nm process. For anyone interested in a brand new blow-your-socks-off gaming system, I suggest waiting until summer if you can. New happenings such as this occur rarely in the CPU market - once every 2 years or so. And the odds of both Intel and AMD doing this at the same time are extremely rare. The last time that I remember was back when they hit 1 GHz a mere two days apart in 2000. Another few months of waiting is well worth it.

DDR2 RAM will obviously become the RAM of choice by year's end, but the most exciting aspect of DDR2 is the capacity. 1GB modules are just the beginning. DDR2 chips are planned to scale up to 4 Gbits, which means tons of RAM per module and cheaper prices as we go along. 2GB modules are just around the corner, then 4GB, and so on. This means RAM capacity in home computers is set to scale nicely with future requirements and multi-core CPU's. It's time to think seriously about DDR2 for your next system.

The graphics war is fully ablaze with NVidia and ATI holding nothing back! They launch products and insults as if they're the same thing, and both are deeply entrenched in one market or another. As it stands right now, NVidia is playing favorites with AMD, and ATI is making buddy-buddy with Intel. Nvidia has the slight lead right now with better yeilds and lower power requirements at the high end, and a sheer saturation of products in the mid-range. But ATI's designs are clearly more efficient and have more potential as they make improvements throughout the year. It's going to be a huge battle between NVidia's brute strenght and effective execution and ATI's efficiency and potentially scalable designs. Whatever happens, one thing is for sure: it's a shader battle from now on. The game FEAR is the best example of this. When it came out, not even two 512MB 7800 GTX's in SLI could keep up with it at 1600 x 1200. Now both NVidia and ATI have single cards that play it at 1920 x 1440 with AA and AS cranked up, and they barely break a sweat! Shader Model 3.0 is going to be the gaming mantra of the year, and oddly enough I think XBox 360 ports are going to help computer game technology to move forward. I foresee games actually using DX10-class effects, floating-point color, and curved surface polygons by 2007.

[anton muzic]

WOW...
that's a great update saph...appreciate the effort!!

i somehow feel so...redundant...typing away on my P2, 350Mhz belle,
with 98se even!, yep..surfing da net is slow but like a prized teddy bear, i just
can't get rid of her.

cheers
anton :D

[hockey man]

These days of computer hardware are becoming more and more interesting. Keeping on top of the newest technology has almost arrived at the point were it takes all one's free time to stay on top off. Way to go Saphalline. I esspecially liked the video card line-up. Very helpful.