Conclusion
Basically this is an editorial opinion piece as I get a few PDFs together over a couple of beers and take an educated guess at what's going to happen in Q1. It's not meant to be completely prophetic (or pathetic), rather a semi-educated guess based on existing roadmaps and knowledge of new products, all in a single article.Q1 is dominated by the wait for Intel's socket change in April, along with a large segment of the enthusiast sector checking out Athlon 64 at the same time, since current products are so good, CPUs are plentiful and K8T800 Pro is just about to arrive.
Prescott shouldn't be the bogey that everyone thinks it might be, it should end up doing well and the 3.4EE is always there for the stupid(ly) rich or the reviewer on the blag.
Personally, my eye remains firmly fixed on Athlon 64, Socket 754 and K8T800 Pro for the duration of Q1, in terms of the products and companies talked about in this article. Good, affordable processors and lovely motherboards make it a good choice.
Q2 is when things kick off properly, PCI Express, Grantsdale and Alderwood, Model 3700+ Athlon 64 and Socket 939 and new graphics cards from NVIDIA and ATI will all appear.
I look forward to writing the Q2 article at the end of March.
