Considering my odds.

If you notice my dartboard, you will realise that one of my aims is to assemble my own computer. This is really something that I've always wanted to do yet can't, due to budgetary constraints. From around 3 months ago, I drawn up the potential specifications of my computer as well as the expected expenditure outlay. As with IT technology always, the list has undergone numerous changes, no thanks to sudden price changes, new product launches as well as my fickle mind.

Now with 3 months left to the end of my commitment, I expect that the said computer will be realised very soon. However, there are hurdles to overcome and I don't refer to those monetary ones. Rather, I am troubled with the unwanted and likely prospect that my computer may be rendered obsolete within months due to new emerging technology standards.

The DRAM Conundrum

For example, the most common form of Dynamic Random Access Memory available in the market today is DDR2 wih DDR1 gradually being phased, a trend which is no doubt being accelerated by the hard launch of the new AM2 standard by AMD. That being said, the DDR1 and DDR2 are regarded as technology which offers similar performance in price brackets that are close neighbours themselves. DDR1 offers low latency at the disadvantage of low data throughput while DDR2 address low data throughput concerns with a higher clockspeed and in the process, resulting in high CAS latency. DDR1 and DDR2 are old technology despite the fact that they are still more than adequate to address computing demands of today and possibly the near future. DDR1 itself emerged in 1998 while DDR2 came out in 2001.

Now there is news that DDR3 is going to be commercially available within WY2007 itself. The reason why DDR3 is proving to be such a anticipated product is because it promises the best of both DDR1 and DDR2- high throughput and extremely low latency while consuming relatively lesser amounts of power. Even if I ignore DDR3 and risk missing out on futureproofing my systems, there are other worrying signs- DRAMExchange has reported a straight-on increase in DDR2 prices due to unabating shortage concerns and this is expected to remain so at least till early WY2007.

The Graphic Card

Even since the era of the 386es, the computer has acquired a ubiquitous role as a gaming platform. An insatiable demand for more stunning, better rendered as well as realistic graphics in their games has got graphic card developers working ovetime in order to churn out efficient as well as powerful graphic processing cores in order to meet the demand. Unfortunately, unlike in the CPU scene whereby Moore's Law is slowly losing its relevance, GPUs have always been playing the eternal game of catchup to the game developers. Inefficient game coding aside, GPU has arguably evolved much. From a humble integrated core residing within the motherboard, it has earned and warranted the need for a separate circuitry on a silicon wafer with the subsequent company of VGA coolers as well as GDDR technology.

The situation in the Graphics department is fairly simpler. I have to decide whether i should stake my odds on the current best bets and pray that they will receive DirectX 10 support- a crucial thing in order to qualify the system to being Vista Performance Ready. Though I suspect this is a likely scenario (I wouldn't think the companies would want to incur the wrath of gamers globally), it is also highly probable that the cards that I spoke have would only be DirectX 10 compatible and supportive up to the software level. Nothing can ever beat a piece of hardware that is purportedly designed from scratched with the DirectX 10 in mind. DirectX support and compatibilty aside, there's also the issue over the impending industrial-wide adoption of the new GDDR4 standard. (GDDR is a totally different form of technology as compared to DRAM) In case you wonder, GDDR4 is vaunted for its capability to work at a much lower voltage. With a lower power comsumption, naturally heat dissipation is significantly lower compared to its GDDR3 brethren clock for clock. Which implies that the overclocking ceiling for identical graphical cores employing the GDDR4 is going to be much higher than the ones utilising GDDR3.

I have thus documented more or less imminent technological developments that threatened to wipe out the value of your purchase within as short as 2 months. Now as a informed consumer, I will of course do all I can to prevent this scenario from happening. Now don't tell me that I shouldn't do this or I will be waiting for eternity for my computer to come. Had I pushed on ignorantly with my supposed planned purchase in July, the value of the system (By the way the expected expenditure outlay was around $2300) would have been whittled down to $1200 within one month i.e. August due to the release of Core 2 Duo/ Core 2 Extreme. Since I have already waited for a relatvely long time, what's another proverbial 5 minutes for a better bang-for-buck to more importantly, ensure that my computer will be able to handle my rigorous computing for at least 5 years. In case you are unaware, my current(which also happens to be my first) has been serving faithfully for 7 years and still counting.