On Mon, 20 Mar 2006, WAYNE CHIRNSIDE wrote:

> -> Yeah.  It's because it's now all obsolete in a month or less.
>
> Unless you have it's custom built it's obsolete before you walk out
> the door with it IMO.

For PC hardware, I tend to jump for "upgrade path" hardware, custom built.
The top of the line is always priced at absurdly high levels, but there's
always a manufacturer or two out there making hardware that provides a
migration path (particularly in regard to motherboards).  The *first* CPU I
install on the motherboard usually runs at only a third or a fourth of the
maximum rated speed for the mobo's bus, though I tend to pick higher-speed
RAM in preparation for a future CPU boost.

When DDR first appeared, my first upgrade was a motherboard with both SDRAM
and DDR slots.  Now that PCIexpress is gaining momentum, my next upgrade
will probably be a motherboard with both an AGP-compatible slot, and PCIe
slot(s).  I usually choose a processor socket variant that appears to have a
reasonable upgrade future (today I'd probably recommend AMD socket-939 with
reasonably high top bus speed).

This approach has afforded me the flexibility to keep per-PC upgrade costs
well below US$200 a year, without sacrificing "usable" speed and
expandability.  My longest running motherboard was installed about 5 years
ago, and today has 1GB PC3200 DDR RAM and an AMD Sempron 3200+ (socket-A)
installed -- not too shabby for that kind of base hardware longevity.

-- 
-- Todd Vierling   


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