The Inquirer has written an article about what will happen with computers during 2004, and it is certainly a long list. I suspect that some of the changes which they name will not be done during 2004, but even with a negative attitude the list becomes long.
First of all the two major CPU manufacturers will change both sockets and manufacturing processes. Intel will switch from 478 to 775 when Prescott’s “real” socket is launched, and AMD will mainly go over to 939. The manufacturing process will go from 130nm to 90nm.
Furthermore the memory standard will be exchanged, DDR has to give in for its bigger brother DDR-2 which comes with a new DIMM format. Of course NV40 and R400 will also arrive. If BTX gets established it will mean a lot of new shopping, new cases and power supplies to name the two major.
PCI-Express is also on its way, and most of you already know what that means. Throw away your old expansion cards and buy new ones :). Of course there will probably be a longer overlapping period where there are mainboards which supports a lot of standards so you don’t have to exchange everything at once, but it looks to be a year of replacement.
Read the original article here.
