Why Now Isn't The Time To Buy For Power Users

If you're a power user or a gamer now isn't the best time to buy a new notebook. The two major companies in notebooks, NVIDIA and Intel, are currently just doing die-shrinks of their current hardware, basically taking the same hardware from last generation and making it smaller and require less power. That's great for the average customer, but means that for gamers and power users Penryn and 9 series hardware will be outdated sooner since they're as powerful as the Santa Rosa processors and 8 series cards from last year. The 10 and 11 series of NVIDIA's cards should definitely be dedicated to being more powerful cards, so if you're a gamer or power user I'd recommend to wait for the 10 series.

 

This is a good argument, though probably obvious to most people on NBR in the Gaming subforum.

To set the record straight, Penryn processors are actually a little bit faster per GHz than Conroe/Merom (whatever) while using less power at the same time.

Otherwise, it is going to be quite awhile before we see the 10k generation of mobile GPU's, I'm thinking sometime early next year, unless ATI comes out with something killer very soon. So it might be worthwhile for some people to forgo the year-long wait and just buy an 8800m or whatever the 9 series high-end card ends up being.

 

Well intel is coming out with a whole new architecture Nehalem so..... The die shrink is old news.

 

And as of right now, we have no idea how well Nehalem will perform.

Considering their design seems to be curiously similar to AMD's Phenom, for all we know it will actually be slower than current chips.

And if they offer little to no improvement, Penryn might be a big deal for a long while.

 

I am confident that I ntel will continue to kickass the only similarity is the chips being on a single chipset.

 

The time to buy should always be based on need, not future forcasts, or because the "new" thing isnt as glamourous as one would hope. "Power users" tend upgrade often anyway. Even with all the advances in mobile gaming the past few years, I still dont see laptops as a viable or practical hardcore gaming machine, they are simply easier to move expensive desktops that have horrid upgradeability, gaming on battery is a joke, and for most games a touchpad simply wont work, so your tied to an outlet and external periphials anyway.

 

You should just buy when you want/need to upgrade. It's your money afterall, it's not hurting anyone else if you're going bankrupt.

 

Its still going to be based of off core2, the addition of the on die memory controller(s) is a most welcome addition. I dont think the perfromance jump will be anything like P4 to core2, but its a pretty safe bet it will be in stride with current offerings.

 

Most people buy within a budget....I dont see the relevence at all to your post aside from just tring to stir things up, if thats case please stop, its not helpful or cute.

 

I agree with storm effect it is a good argument, but only for desktop users. My reason being that if the notebook cards are going to reflect the same changes being made to the desktop variants of the 9 series then the now midend card for notebook 8600m GT with 128 - bit bus will possible be replaced by 9600m GT with 256 hopefully. At the moment, nvidia hasn't release any concrete roadmap for the notebook 9 series besides some low-end variants, but if a notebook mid end card were to get 256 bit bus, that will still be very powerful in the notebook world; oppose to desktop world where high end cards are more frequently seem along with larger buses.

 

There will always be something better out if you wait 6 months. The secret is hitting the sweet spot for price/performance that fits you.

If you have the extra cash to spend $3k+ on a laptop every year then you just upgrade when the latest and greatest is released.

If you are like most you get mid ranged hardware that is going to be slightly outperformed in real world apps by the high end stuff, for a good price and upgrade it every couple of years.

Timing is rarely a concern unless a price drop or something is pending in the very near future (i.e. within the month), otherwise you get sucked up in the 6 month release cycle most hardware manufacturers follow.

Honestly, is waiting 3 months for a CPU that will get you 5 FPS more worth it to most gamers? No. If a true new generation of gfx cards was due soon it would be worth waiting for, but its not like the technology will be mainstream in laptops right away anyway.

Hence, unless you know a very specific gfx card will be out and also available in laptops AND in your price range its not worth it for a gamer to wait for hardware.

 

Basically, get Penryn/9 series if you want to feel a little more power efficient.

 

I think opposite of the OP... now is the BEST time to buy a lappy if you're a GAMER. Its the GPU that is the bottleneck, not the CPU.

I think the 8800gtx will be unsurpassed for quite some time... it's a generation ahead of the 8600 cards. And if the 9600 desktop cards are any indicator, the 9600 mobile cards will end up being slightly more powerful than the 8800 (if at all).

Most 'modern' CPUs are more than adequate for games... so meron, penryn, motevina, etc, doesn't make much of a diffrence in games. If you're into heavy audio, video encoding, math programs, etc, it might make a difference to wait... but for games, I say get the 8800gtx while its hot.

 

Penryns are not much better than Meroms and they are also snta rosa chips , so in Intel part your completely right , wait for next generation chips but NIVIDIA part, I dont know , maybe your right, I dont know anything about new 9 series as they are not out here yet.


Ok have a good one.

 

It's never a good time to buy technology. Period.
EDIT: So either you buy what you get, or not at all.

 

I was being sarcastic with that post. Point was, there's always a time to buy, if the person in question wants to buy. It's nobody's business with what said person does with his/her money.
And I'll say something else, I've been here long enough, and I'm far more mature than to post things just to "stir" things up. I was being sarcastic yes, but my post had a point to it. Technology with graphics cards seems to be a bit at a stand still currently, so budget buyers may not want to purchase right now. However, anyone will buy what they want to buy, when they want to buy it. There's always going to be something better, so if you want it now, you should purchase now.
I will leave this thread because I don't want this to get off topic and turn into a flame war.

 

It came across more flagrant than sarcastic to me at least, its all good. Bottom line you you should buy what you need.want within budget when you need/want it, waiting is an endless game, say your on the cusp of a new card launch, chances are that new card is going to be out of budget for quite some time, and when it is, a newer card is about to surface...and so on and so on.

 

Agreed.

Or rather, it's never a good time to buy technology if you want the latest and greatest. "Latest and greatest" will always feel so "outdated" [if you're into that] in just a few months. Of course that's not a problem if you've got lots of $$$ to burn. Buy, upgrade, buy again if upgrade is no longer compatible with existing hardware [or specifically, mobo]. In the case of laptops, buy, buy again, buy again.

 

A bit off topic but i'm amazed at how well some older technology, like the older T7400 is holding the price..still $430! Going for $180 on flea bay...
These are for the older socket M , not Santa Rosa. I paid $330 for the T9300 for comparison.

 

Actually, now IS the time to buy.

Specially if you're made of money! Just go to the alienware website, buy an Area-51 m15x and be happy!

At least that's what I would do, if I had some spare $3k in my pocket...

 

The Geforce 9650m GS is = Geforce 8700m GT, the only difference is that now it doesn't need a cooler anymore (because of the die-shrink) and is gonna aim the under 15" laptop market.

The Geforce 9650m or 9700m (the name's still undecided) GT is gonna be the same as the Geforce 8800m GTS.

Probably we're gonna see the Geforce 9800m only near the end of this year or in Q1/09'.

Then, wait as long as you want to, but be sure that the market ain't gonna change too much (in performance value)...

 

better technology is always on its way. buy it when you need it. just like always. there is no special circumstance here due to the "current state of tech progress" or anything. there isn't something more special than normal around the corner. buy a computer when you need it. done.

 

Mate,

You're 90% right about the thing you said.

However, there's still those 10% where you were wrong. And those are when you KNOW that something you need is gonna change very, very soon... thus, buying it at the exactly moment that you need it would be stupid... in the sense that you could get a better machine for almost the same price... let's see a real example:


When I feed my dog with my old Averatec notebook, I ended up without any computer at home (you can read the story here)... Then, I needed to buy a new one.

At the time I checked many forums, read some reviews and finally decided to buy an ASUS G1, as I was looking for a descent gaming laptop.

However, it was at the exactly time when there were many rumours on the web that Asus was gonna chance it's gaming line (a.k.a. G1/G2) to the just released Geforce 8600m GT along with the "new" Santa Rosa's CPUs...

So, I decided to postpone my purchase for like 2 months and then I bought an ASUS G1 S, which is a MUCH BETEER product and costed almots the same price I'd have paid for the G1.

Then, in some cases it actually worths to delay your purchase for 1 or 2 months cause the benefits would definitely pay off.

Unfortunately that only happens 10% of the time, cause in the other 90% porcent, you should really buy something at the time you need it.