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Q2 2004 In Preview

by Ryszard Sommefeldt on 3 May 2004, 00:00

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qaxu

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Conclusion

Q2 is a decent quarter for new products. Intel's new chipsets and processors get released shortly, AMD releases new CPUs on its new Socket, VIA and NVIDIA release chipsets to support it and SiS get busy with PCI Express for their AMD and Intel lineups.

The Socket 939 wait is probably the biggest for the enthusiast. Unless Grantsdale raises the performance bar above Canterwood by a decent margin and Prescott on LGA775 turns out to overclock like a champion, with less heat than the Socket 478 versions, AMD should have the enthusiast market sown up for a little while longer.

Prices should fall on existing Socket 754 processors, letting more people get in on the AMD64 act, driving acceptance. Microsoft's continual delays for the release of Windows XP for the ISA, due to Intel dragging their heels on their own compatible processor releases, don't help, but strong 32-bit performance is a continual saviour.

Q2 is a fine time to be a computing enthusiast, new toys get released very soon and reviews are just around the corner.

My own personal choice for a high end computing platform in Q2 sits with Athlon 64, K8T800 Pro and Socket 939 processors. The only thing that would change my mind is a fair gap in performance between a current AGP graphics card and its PCI Express counterpart, making the Intel side of things look more attractive. Although PCI Express will be supported on AMD64 in short order, with K8T890 arriving at retail in Q3.

We look forward to that.