You just have to love technology. Right now is the best time ever to buy a new PC (but no matter when you buy, next week its successor will be better/faster/cheaper).
Less than a year ago, AMD was on the top of the heap with its Athlon X2 series of processors. Never before could you buy such a fast CPU for so cheap. Then Intel came out with its Core Duo and Core 2 Duo CPUs. Never before could you … (you get the idea). Then Intel put out the Core 2 Quad as an attempt to expand its lead, though this chip isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, as it is really just two Core 2 Duos on one chip.
AMD stock drops 70 percent; rumor has it the company will be out of business by the end of 2008. But wait, AMD has started shipping its new Quad Core chip, which is really designed as a true Quad Core chip called Barcelona. This is supposed to be the most blazingly fast CPU you can get when it gets to the user level. AMD stock rises on the news. Stock experts promise that the stock will rise by 50 percent.
It’s a great time for AMD — except rumor has it that Intel’s new faster Core 2 Quad is due out shortly, and the main rumor as to why it hasn’t shipped already is because the company wants to be able to trump AMD.
That’s just the CPU side. Hard drives with up to 500 or even 750 gigabytes are available from good, solid manufacturers such as Seagate with a five-year warranty for as low as about 30 cents a gigabyte. And RAM is pretty close to its all-time low at 60 bucks a gigabyte or less for the newer DDRII.
And if you want to play games — oh, my Lord, some of those new video cards can do some pretty amazing things.
I could go on and on. Pretty much everything has done the B/F/C drill (see paragraph one); even keyboards and mice fit this model now.
Now that we have blathered on about all the neat-o stuff out there, most of you only need a PC for word processing, ordering books from Amazon and e-mailing Cousin Joe. You can get away with a pretty basic box. You can get a desktop or even a laptop that will blow you out of socks for $700 or so.
And finally, the complaint we hear over and over again: Why does it change so fast? A few years ago, I paid “X” number of dollars for my PC, and I have to replace it already?
Well, no, if your PC does what you want it to, there is no reason to update. However, the new software can do things that we couldn’t even dream of a few years ago — all you have to do is have a chassis that can handle it.
Sven Mogelgaard is the owner of Mill Creek-based Byte Slaves Inc. (www.byteslaves.com) and can be reached by calling 425-482-9529. Will Rutherford is the owner of Bothell-based Computer Concepts (www.conceptsnet.com) and can be reached by calling 425-481-3666.
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