Hardware Year 2004

[Mad Cat]

PCI Express
PCI Express is a new interface for connecting cards to your motherboard. It has increased bandwith from current PCI and AGP (with a thundering 4GB/sec bandwith). The slots for PCI Express will be different for graphics and normal cards (more pins for the graphics slots).
Rumours around ATi's next chipset, R4xx, suggest that it will first appear with a PCI Express interface, but it has also been said that it will ship with a PCI Express to AGP bridge. nVidia, however will initially release it's NV4x graphics with an AGP interface.
PCI Express will be appearing in Spring.


A 16x connector for your GPU, and the small thing is a 1x connector.

Processors
Intel
The Intel Pentium 4 Prescott will be Intel's next biggest release, available around February. The Prescott P4 will be made using new techniques and new instuctions, plus a tighter design with shorter interconnects to go faster and do more than the current Northwood P4s. A downside is that it will kick out a fifth more heat.
You can probably expect a 775 pin connector, PCI Express compliancy, a 1 GHz front side bus and a 4 GHz clock speed around the end of the year.
I've just read that Prescotts will support DDR2 memory from the off.
LOOK HERE!

AMD
Intel arch rival, AMD, plans to switch to a 90 nanometer process some time in the middle of the year, but up to then AMD are going to continue using their 130nm process - exactly like that of the Northwood P4. The 90nm 64 FX, codenamed San Diego, should appear along with the Winchester and the Paris, both codenames for the 90nm Athlon 64 and Athlon XP chips.
More 64 bit motherboards will be appearing over the next few months, including chipsets from ALI, ATi, nVidia, SiS and Via.

The AMD vs. Intel will really be cooking up in the Summer, and it will become clear whether AMD's 64 bit domination plans have been futile or not.

Video Cards
nVidia
Pretty soon, nVidia will release the successor to its NV3x series of cards, the NV4x. It will feature full support for the key technologies used in DirectX 9.1 - Pixel Shader 3.0 and Vertex Shader 3.0. It will initially appear with an AGP interface, as PCI Express will not be appearing till Spring, at the earliest. Although there is much speculation about the actual hardware configuration of the next nVidia crop of cards, but it is likely that it will feature eight rendering pipelines (up from four) and at least GDDR-II RAM. This is probably going to appear coinciding with the launch of Doom 3 and before CeBIT 2004. Maybe the second week of March?

ATi
ATi's R4xx chip, codename Loki, will probably be appearing about the same time as nVidia's next chip (above). There is also a lot of speculation about this chip's features, but Pixel and Vertex Shaders 3.0 will be supported, as well as the 32-bit processing precision required for the next generation of DirectX. Rumours are that it will be twice as fast as current Radeons and will feature PCI Express from the start.

XGI
XGI is basically a spin off from SiS.
Look here: New Kid on the Block
From those bechmarks, XGI's cards look very promising. You may say, "Pah!" but considering that its a beta card, running on alpha drivers, I'm pretty impressed.

Memory
DDR2 RAM
I don't know much about this yet, but I heard from Clocker that it will offer better speeds and less heat output that normal DDR RAM.
This I have heard, from a few sites. DDR2 RAM will probably not become mainstream this year, simply because its so expensive. It costs around 2x as much as DDR RAM, and several motherboard manufacturers have shown little interest in supporting DDR2 RAM because of this issue.

Originally posted by Source on this Info
Unless DRAM makers can narrow the price gap between DDR and DDR2 chips to under 20%, DDR2 memory is not likely to become a mainstream choice before the end of this year, local board makers said. DDR2 chips are estimated to enjoy close to a 100% price premium over DDR chips. The gap is mainly due to the limited number of suppliers. Companies that have introduced DDR2 chips are Elpida Memory, Micron Technology and Samsung Electronics.

Cases
BTX
Look at my post here.

I'll update this more, ask me and I'll research whatever I can about upcoming stuff.

[RGX]

this puts me in an intresting position....do i wait for the next generation PCI express mobos and cards, or buy now...

Nice list Mad Cat

[Mad Cat]

Originally posted by RGX@26 January 2004 - 23:05
this puts me in an intresting position....do i wait for the next generation PCI express mobos and cards, or buy now...

Nice list Mad Cat

The bandwith is madly increased, but I've heard from a few places that you will only really need this increased bandwith on things like Hard Drive controller PCI cards, that get really pushed to the limit. For things like network cards, and PCI modems I really doubt it will be of much difference.

Graphics card are the interesting thing for PCI Express though, but you'll probably be waiting till March for them.

[abu_has_the_power]

nice post. the prescott will go up to 4 gig? nice. too bad that'll cost 1 k or 2

[Mad Cat]

Originally posted by abu_has_the_power@26 January 2004 - 23:20
nice post. the prescott will go up to 4 gig? nice. too bad that'll cost 1 k or 2

It'll make lower level P4s drop in price though

[bigdawgfoxx]

Great job madcat! enjoyed reading it!

[SciManAl]

Bravo seen all this coming, but i bet most of you didn't see it all in one place hehehehe Very nice, yes P4s should go down, the 64 bits will further push them down, and the ddr2 will in time make ddr go down in price too... lots of cheap things soon... of course to run the latest os you will need the a neo gen. computer because OSs are "Supposed to be full rich with media and made easier to use"-Microsoft But i think the coming year will be promising... New companies... New tech... Bandwith on the Vid cards will kick ass... but again not something that everyone needs.. just something that everyone HERE needs... The p4s should go way down!!! i might get to really play with them... i mean come on besides certian features who the fuck needs a computer with those kind of specs??? a gamer, yes, a graphics artist yes, my hill billy clients?? NO... so this year should be fun

Yes ddr2 is basicly faster, less heat (not a BIG problem, but a nice added feature...) and it defintly will be nicer performance.., What we will have to see though is how fast i can find a place to steal all these parts from and make a good comp... that gets over 20k in 3dmark03 with ease ....


Cheers!!

[Keikan]

I gots a better question right now right here cheap processers are athlon xp bartons but what about in 2004 in the future? What will be cheap and good? Like todays 2500+

[bigdawgfoxx]

P4 2.4C...not to exspensive right now though lol

[clocker]

From what I understand (based on 3 or 4 articles...) DDR2 memory is going to happen sooner rather than later.
It had never really occured to me, but the people who are in the catbird seat in terms of new tech release are the motherboard manufacturers. AMD (more on them in a bit) can make all the 64bit chips that they want, but, until the boards are readily available, it does them no good.
One of the major concerns of the board manufacturers is power. On the OC and Bit-tech forums it is becoming increasingly common to see threads on volt modding your board. With the rapid increase of PSU output and the need of fast chips for more voltage, it's becoming difficult for the board designers to provide stable, increased voltage throughout the whole circuit. So they love the idea of DDR2 cause it takes some of the pressure off of them.

AMD has apparently pissed of the board makers because they have decreased the production of the 64bit chips from the estimates that they provided last year. So Asus and Abit and all those guys hurried to meet a demand that won't happen for a few more quarters. So far AMD has yet to get a major PC manufacturer to commit to a big order...they are all waiting to see if Microsoft really will release 64 bit XP on time and if people are willing to make the jump.
Surprisingly, eMachines has already released a PC with the new AMD chip. So have the little, high end gaming machine makers, but that's not enough to make much of a dent in the market.

The poor board manufacturers are really caught between a rock and a hard place...there is so much new development going on that it's hard for them to decide what to incorporate into their designs. Plus, there is a whole new form factor being finalized, ATX is going to be history soon, so they have a lot of redesigning to do and have to commit to it years before they know whether or not anyone will actually buy the stuff.