Bob,

I understand what you are saying. Getting ready to pull the trigger then you see something coming in the near future.

But overall I like Intel letting me know what is coming rather than buying a new system and being blindsided with a new release 3 weeks later.

With a little pre-planning this info can be quite helpful.

For example. Right now I'm running a C2D. Despite the news of Nehalem I'm going to upgrade to a Penryn based ("9" series) quad. Why? Prices are good on the Penryn quads and all I need do is pop it into my motherboard.

In addition, Nehalem will require a new motherboard (new pinout) and memory. And Nehalem prices will initially start high. So based on my current configuration and needs I will upgrade to a quad now. Let "Tock" go by, wait for "Tick" and buy a 32nm (or perhaps 45nm) Nehalem when prices on the CPU itself, motherboard, and memory have come down a bit. And all of the motherboard manufacturers will have things optimized and most of the bugs worked out.

Now if I was ready for a motherboard and memory upgrade then I'd wait for Nahalem in Q4 so I wouldn't be buying a motherboard/memory combo that would be outdated in 6 months.

Like I said I understand your concern but having this advance knowledge really can help you plan your future configuration path to maximize the bang for the buck.

- Mark

Your right and I was being a bit tongue in cheek. I do have a dual 3GHz Xeon rig that I bought years ago at quite some expense and although it's a tad slow by todays standard for 10bit SD it is quite adequate, even 2K doesn't trouble it too much so it's lasted longer than the depreciation on it and not hiccuped once apart from an initial issue with a RAM stick not seated properly.

And yes it's nice to know what's coming. Bought an EX1 and then Sony announce the EX3 before they'd even fixed the bugs in the EX1. Not that I'd have bought the EX3 anyway. I find spending money on good audio kit more fun, if I'd bought up a bunch of ribbon mics decades ago I could afford to retire. The old Nagras go for a pretty penny these days too. Used to be hard to get anything for them.

Grips stuff is a good investment too as are top shelf prime lenses if you've got that sort of capital. Funny though how we always get excited about the stuff that'll be on the footpath in a few years.

Bob.

i'd rather wait to see what amd does after this. i've had great luck with them & the prices aren't high. They don't make an upgrade a 100% new PC every 6 months either which is nice. :)

The best boost will be that the new CPUs have 6 and 8 cores. That should help rendering speeds for hi-def stuff. The new CPUs will probably be outrageously priced, though, since AMD continues to lag further and further behind Intel on the high end.

FYI the actual sockets that Nehalem will be available for have not been finalized, while it is being shown in a 1366 pin socket there is talk it may be in other formats as well.

BigRockies.com Your Home in the Rockies!

Unfortunately AMD has been pretty much out of the game for anyone that needs a really fast system since the introduction of C2D.

Conroe quads are faster clock-for-clock than Phenom. They are clocked much higher too. Plus they are pretty cheap.

In addition, Penryn is even faster and thermally more efficient than Conroe. Thus distancing Phenom even further performance-wise.

I would expect the higher clocked Nehalem parts to be quite expensive but they usually release a lower clocked part that is affordable. And as always prices will come down. I think it good news that faster parts are on the horizon.

-- Mark

AMD's next big thing after purchasing ATI was the "Fusion" project which was supposed to put a CPU and GPU on the same silicon...I wouldn't rule out something good from them yet!