Slashdot Mirror
PC Makers May Be Left On the Shelves
An anonymous reader writes "With the problems posed by a new Microsoft OS, exploding laptop batteries, and changing technology, PC makers may be feeling this pinch this holiday season. Many consumers who are considering purchasing PC hardware are going to be holding off for next year, according to research analysts." From the article: "According to market researcher IDC, PC shipment growth slowed to 7.9 percent in the third quarter, from double-digit percentage growth in the prior three years. The battery recalls may cut into fourth quarter growth, IDC said. Bank of America on October 31 cut its 2006 PC growth forecast to 9.4 percent from 10 percent. All this suggests that consumers looking for bargain gifts may opt for less-expensive gadgets such as cell phones, digital music players, video phones or noise-cancelling headphones."
Many consumers who are considering purchasing PC hardware are going to be holding off for next year, according to research analysts.
:P
They're waiting for the new Mac models to be announced at MacWorld before buying a real PC with a real OS.
they will have had the best first quarter ever, with all the new sales thanks to Vista.
-- Cheers!
A lot of gamers will opt for a Wii or a PS3 instead of a new PC this year as well. Not a good year to own Dell stock.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
---insert 350 "they should get Macs instead!" posts here---
Okay, if this were the mid 90's, I could see the case why people would want to continuously upgrade, as even the best computers were just.... bleh.
But without a recent Windows OS release to drive growth because of higher requirements, I would almost think that PCs (besides Notebooks) should have flatlined completely several years back. Most apps don't require the lastest and greatest anymore. My five year old PC peter along on Firefox 2 just fine, and for many people, that is probably the most demanding app they'll ever use, besides an office suite.
Not everybody is a gamer or programmer.
You will have to forgive me. My definition of PC user has expanded in the past couple of years from big-haired douchebags from Wintel who trolled Tekserve at night trying to get through Crystal Quest or Inside Macintosh. (Ahh, the '80s.) I now use "PC user" as a general term to describe the wannabes who exhibit an attitude of "Yeah, we cool. We're Mac users," when they are clearly from some other part of the universe.
However, to prevent further confusion from the teeming masses, I will use the term poseur. Or in this case, switcheurs. These are the dunderheads who proclaim their trendiness because they use a Mac even though they were probably maximizing their windows until last week.
They try to act counterculture by making comments about good taste and how everything is beige, and think of themselves as nonconformists, which is laughable since all they are doing is conforming to another lifestyle.
What is really pathetic is when these expatriates proclaim their love for their adopted platform. When I hear it I cringe and automatically think of that Daphna Kalfon song "I Love My Mac." Not that there is anything wrong with Daphna.
That phrase, coming from a switcheur, reeks of such vomit-inducing pretension. You think you are cooler than the rest of the world because you've been to the Apple store? Because of your zero-button mouse? Because of the fact that you have to manually sort the Desktop upon failing (inevitably) to understand the Mac's right-handed icon arrangement? Where I come from, this is called "trying too hard."
The Mac platform today is ground zero for the switcheur epidemic, which means more tourists and more expatriates moving in. It has become way too mainstream and too damn self-congratulatory to live here. And with more corporate giants moving in, the Mac is so ovah.
I'm hoping for one of these:
http://www.presentsdirect.com/go/Product_1000625.
Maybe the way to get people into some new machines is to give them a genuinely new experience. You know the one with Ubuntu or SUSE installed, paying $50-100 less for that new PC, and no need for additional security software. Oh yeah...and no activation headaches.
Call me an idealist but it has to happen at some point. Maybe price pressures and demand falling off will drive the linux and free software adoption we've all been waiting for.
PC makers will definitely feel the (lack of) heat this holiday season. Honestly, who would want to buy now? You get a computer installed with Windows XP, most likely with one of those "promise" certificates, that supposedly give you a free upgrade to Windows Vista. I remember when I got my own computer before moving into college. It was a disaster.
This was Fall 2001. Windows XP wasn't quite out yet, but was more or less supposed to be. I got a Dell with Windows ME installed. In polite terms, it blew dick. My only hope was this certificate for a free upgrade to Windows XP Home Edition (not that I wanted Home). Well, this wasn't a license for WinXP. It was a promise. That Dell would bestow it upon me if they so desired. I called the tech support dept to see if they could do that. Oh wait, thats sales' job. I called sales. They dole me it was tech support's job. I called tech support back and they told me it still wasn't their job. 2 hours of tech support later, you can guess how far I got.
After that much anguish, I still didn't get my copy of XP. For the record, my computer had coincidentally crashed during the time it took to get through to tech support. Worst purchase I ever made. I should have just waited. Good thing for Direct Connect/Kazaa getting me a real copy of what should have been on my computer when I got it.
Even giving Dell the benefit of the doubt here, the best I could have asked for would be a clean install of XP Home. But most of the software that came with my computer was designed for FAT32 windows and not NT. If I wasn't a relatively prudent computer user, I would have been completely stumped. In fact, I knew my shit decently well, and I still had a nightmare.
Buying a computer right before a big software release is a disaster waiting to happen. Unless you're specifically not planning to upgrade, you know you're going to get a lack of proper support (Why are ou trying to run XP? It says here that your Dell came with Windows ME?).
Personally, I think you'd have to be stupid to buy a new computer at a time like this. With Vista's clusterf*ck, AMD's sluggish release of 65nm chips, and the Directx 10-related delays of the next-gen video cards from Nvidia and ATi (G80 and R600, respectively), why would you want to upgrade now? It would be stupid. If you want a Christmas present, get a gift certificate. If you want a *real* computer, wait till this crap get straightened out. Personally, I feel bad for the computer makers this season, but I can't recommend buying one for Christmas to anyone in their right minds.
Partial Credit: The Engineer's Best friend
"Well, the bridge didn't fall all the way down!"
Even tough technology is still improving, just how often are computer manufacturers expecting consumers to purchase a brand new PC? It sounds to me that the slowing growth is more in part due to market saturation than anything else. Computer sales have enjoyed double digit growth through more difficult times than these (Windows ME fiasco, I.LOVE.YOU viruses, massive job loss in the bubble burst, terror attacks and wars, various US and foreign stock upsets, etc).
I am thinking the sources behind this article have stock in Dell and other afflicted manufaturers. Dell will probably see a short-term loss of laptop sales due to their bad press from the exploding batteries. What better way to hedge your losses than say the entire laptop market is slowing in growth, rather than Dell simply losing sales to a competitor? It'll take months for the actual sales numbers to come in, and by then everyone will have forgotten about these stories.
Be wary of any such article around crucial marketing periods like the winter holidays (just as you should be cautious of TV execs hyping up their shows during sweeps periods). Many brokers and firms can make-or-break a large profits during the next two months, all hinging on how well they predicted holiday sales figures from earlier in the year, and not everyone is a neutral party.
they should get a mac instead! wohoo i'm number one!
Check out Pandora by Music Genome Project
i've never trusted pc makers. they constantly put the cheapest possible parts in their products in order to minimize costs. but for some reason, when i compare a cost of pc versus the cost of all of its parts, the pc always costs more. even though i know that i'll get tons of bloatware and other shit that i don't need with my new pc. their excuse for bloatware is that it will reduce cost of the pc to the user. yeah right, it will make pc makers' pockets larger, that's it.
do you know what a cheaply manufactured part does to the pc? creates a bottleneck. a power supply that is poorly made will not deliver clean voltage to the devices, which will cause various very subtle problems that are hard to diagnose and impossible to prove when claiming a warranty!
oh, also.. most pc's come with windows pre-installed. you're paying for windows without even knowing it! do you really need windows? most of slashdot users would have to say "no!", right? they're happily running their open source apps on their open source OS's.
want to have a pc that is fast, quiet, trouble-free, and easy to upgrade? go to newegg and get the damn parts! that'll save you about 30% of the cost. plus you'll know what you're getting. buy with future upgrades in mind. for example, choose a dual-socket motherboard or larger power supply. and if you're having trouble deciding what parts to buy, go to hardware guys and read their recommendations (you can trust them).
who in the hell would want a ready-built computer for him/herself? technology is so good right now, assembling one is easier than ever...
Check out Pandora by Music Genome Project
Boy you sure love to drone on, and about stuff you don't really know that much about. So you had a bad experience with an OEM deal. Well... that doesn't translate into all of the proposed problems people would be having if they bought a PC right now.
WinME was a piece of garbage anyway, getting that was a terrible decision on its own. XP to Vista isn't quite the same; it all depends on how you use your PC and what range it fits in.
You mention something about software being designed for FAT32. I have no clue what that is all about, but I am sure it is total malarkey. First of all, mentioning FAT32 and NT in the same breath is just a mistake, as they are completely different types of technology. There are two ways to take it, either dealing with hard drives or the compatibility between 9x and 2000/XP. Of course XP support was a bit spotty in the beginning, it was just recently released for home users instead of workstations/servers. Any fresh OS (or architecture, e.g. 64-bit) is bound to have some hiccups.
But despite these things, I hope you're not saying we should wait until Vista is over a year old. Waiting for the right moment is fine, but things change way too fast to really have that perfect timing. Just look at DirectX support; the technology comes out but then it takes a while before it is all that useful and has hardware powerful enough to handle it well.
I'd even be willing to say that now is as good a time as ever to get a new PC, especially with Core 2 doing so well. Then you have plenty of time before these new items really settle into the market. Plus who wants a POS OEM "Basic Vista" that only lets you run 3 programs at a time anyway.
I think the OLPC would be a great gift. But hey, what do I know?
Noise-cancelling headphones? Yes, I can see it now... "I was thinking of buying a new PC, but I heard the battery can explode, so instead I'll buy noise-cancelling headphones".
Quick, somebody get on a 'beleaguered Dell' story
I was just about to build an all-new PC, then RAM prices skyrocketed. It's ridiculous, getting 2 gb costs like $70 more in Australia now.
I can just hear the advertisements: "Bose Noise-canceling headphones: For when you don't want to hear your roommate's laptop exploding!" I think it has potential.
Tluin natha Linux xxizzuss uriu olt bwael mon'tun.
Because as an employee of a major computer chain, who's not on commission, and given that I don't have any plans to stay the industry all that much longer, it's great news. The less busy Boxing Day and Christmas is the better.
A dozen or so big corporations can not come up with a PC, sold now, that will be adequately functional/exciting with the operating system sold next year. Apple never (in recent history) had this problem - the same hardware runs at least 3 revisions of OS, and in fact keeps running successive versions faster. Neither does the next upgrade of Ubuntu break systems sold a couple of years ago. Governments/people should recognize the problem and take measures to restore real competition that meets market opportunities. Breaking up Microsoft into an OS and an application companies as originally planed would go a long way.
That means they sold MORE PCs than last quarter. You know, it already counts against capitalism that it depends on growth for stability. Now the growth has to grow to make everybody happy?
You're kidding, right? You know what people want? They want a beautiful-as-hell UI, which is what OS X comes with. I mean, Aqua is so damn good it made me my morning coffee today. And I'm not talking about regular coffee; Apple has made a deal with Sun and now they ship their own flavor of Java, which is like, all integrated and stuff. That makes for some damn fucking good coffee. It even _looks_ better than regular coffee.
You know what people want? They want Adobe Photo-fucking-shop. They want Quark Goddamn Express. World of Motherfucking Warcraft. That's the shit they crave and that's what OS X is fucking filled to the brim with. I mean, it's so damn good I developed Tourette Fucking Syndrome just thinking about using something else. It's like REAL ultimate power, just with less stabbing and more damn eye-candy.
PS: As for the superior speed: I just ran a benchmark and the dual 3 GHz Xeon Mac Pro ran circles around the Unix system I compared it with (a Sun Blade 150 workstation), thus OS X must be the most efficient operating system in existence. qed.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
If Apple develops a consumer brainless one button fail safe migration utility to take every doc, bookmark, photo, song and whatnot from a PC to a Mac and have them run 100% right out of the box, then that is the killer app. Given the price differential between a new Apple and the projected incremental cost of a Vista capable there is no longer any disadvantage in going Mac.
Are you talking about buying a computer or just a fancy electronic wrapper for a microsoft product? The computer prices I am seeing in my local sales flyers are pretty good and I expect them to get even cheaper soon. For people who don't build their own systems and just get bundles, this looks to be a good "sales" season. Maybe not good overall for the computer companies, but for the consumer who wants a deal it's fine. And even if you run just all windows, who cares? Wait a bit into the new year, then go buy one cheap component online (a new mouse or something) and get an oem vista disk for cheap, that's usually been available in the past like that. It's always the opposite from the financial reporting sites. Bad for the big companies=good for the consumer. Just like new cars now, the manufacturers (for most models, not all but most) are sitting on inventory (last I read was 75 days backlog, instead of normal 50-60 days max) and offereng a ton of incentives, zero percent finance, cash off, etc, to move those units.
I somewhat agree with ShimmyShimmy. I am wary of purchasing a new PC before such a major upgrade as Vista. That said, I did purchase a Win 3.1 machine just prior to Win 95, and that upgrade went ok for me. Compaq sent me an upgrade CD that took my machine to Win 95, and the only software issue I recalled hitting was that all my software still used short filenames. And that was not a very significant issue. In fact, I'd have likely hit that issue anyway.
Where that Win95 upgrade caused pain later were all those times over the years that I had to reinstall Windows. Each time, I had to put on 3.1 first, and then run the upgrade to Win 95. What a pain that was. I was so happy the day I decided to throw that PC into the dump. (I ran it for many, many years though).
Now I'm faced with the same dilema about buying just before a major release. I want a new laptop. And as if the looming release of Vista isn't enough on its own to give me pause, I see that Vista comes in five(!) flavors. So Vista is not Vista is not Vista. My daughter runs a Mac, and at least in that world OS X is OS X is OS X. Maybe I'll buy a Macbook this time around. The current crop of Macbooks is very nicely done. I like them.
If I get a good price on a new laptop, I might take the plunge this year. Otherwise, I'm going to sit back and wait a bit. Fortunately, while I do need something eventually, I'm not under any great time-pressure to buy now.
My daughter wants to replace her iBook with a Macbook. She's waiting for Leopard. So that means next year for her too.
My son just got a new gaming console and decided to just quit gaming on the PC altogether. He is trading me his desktop for my old laptop so that he has something for email and the web. None of his friends game on a PC anymore. All the kids that I know have gone to consoles.
All our PCs still actually work for what we do with them. If push came to shove, we really don't need anything new. I suspect a lot of people are in that position. It just is not necessary these days to upgrade all that often, not for most people.
So yeah, I can see why the PC sales might slump a bit over the next couple of months. And book sales too. I work for a publisher. In general, the whole computer book publishing industry is counting on Vista to drive a nice bunch of book sales. Anything that happens with Vista has quite the ripple effect.
PC technology is getting more mature so I'm not surprised to see sales flatten out. Home computers were already far more powerful than the average person ever needed almost ten years ago. Today they're over-powered to the point the average user can get by years longer before there's compelling reason to buy a new machine.
I would consider myself a power user, built all my own PC's. Some of them are going on five years old and there's no compelling reason to upgrade them. I can work, play games, watch TV or movies...why do I need a new computer? Okay, they're not the hottest and fastest boxes on the market. So what? They're fast enough for me. The weak link in the PC interface is sitting in the chair. No matter how fast a PC is, absolute speed is going to be limited at some point by the user. You can only type so fast and take in so much information. Any mid-range machine today can stay ahead of the user in terms of information flow.
Another trend impacting white box PC sales is the proliferation of specialty PC devices like game consoles, mp3 players and appliances like Blackberry. Those off-load what were traditional PC tasks. Where did PC makers think the growth was going to come from? If they think they have it bad now, just wait until the $100.00 laptops (now $175.00 I think) start flooding the market.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Well with the rising costs of RAM, memory is out of the question. My choices are...A HDTV card (but none offer FM or a MPEG chip), a digital camera (decisions, decisions), a VCR/DVD player/recorder. Now as far as PC's are concerned. Why get a new one when used PCs are so cheap. I got a HP Pavillion 8756C running XP for $10.00 and I can make a server out of that (any good Linux server distributions?). Throw in the practically brand-new ($12.99) Epson CX4600 (should work with Linux) and I'm going to have a nice Christmas. :)
I had ME installed, thought I would upgrade to XP..
apt-get dist-upgrade
dependancy nightmare!
His box came with win9x+fat32 installed, and a "promised upgrade" to xp home+ntfx, which we all know just doesn't work.
I remember people replacing their motherboards, their cpus, their video cards, their power supplies, thinking it must have been some sort of hardware problem when they couldn't get both a fat32 and an ntfs partition to co-exist without BSODs every 5 minutes.
Meanwhile i think back to days of old when your standard config for an NT4 server (remember XP is NT 5.1) was a 2GB fat partition to boot and everything NTFS. The Pair of 4200's (NT4 SP6) I have running this way today with this config are now where near as stable as they should be (years of uptime).
Last chance to buy a computer with XP on it.
:)
This is not the same thing as getting screwed with WinME. This time around Vista is the screw.
Well, actually XP was the screw too but hey.... that's Microsoft
Take the one year old slow computer (from last Christmas), which in reality probably just has spyware and virus problems, and install a good desktop Linux OS like Ubuntu. Then next Christmas when the computer still works you can smile and give them a fruit cake.
I fail to see where any kind of validity to this post is. I used combinations of FAT and NTFS for a while, even upgrading from 98 to ME to 2000 and even once or twice to XP. Sounds like some serious user error going on here if you can't get two completely compatible file systems to coincide on the same machine.
Am I the only one who thinks that 7.9% growth in shipments is still quite large?
I really don't see what the problem is, as you can not expect to have 10% growth in shipments every year. I can't think of any other industry that would say a 7.9% growth rate is killing them...
The reason PC sales are slowing is because the economy in general is slowing. There are many forecasts for a recession in 2007. Unnecessary technology would be one of the first things to go in a slowing economy.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
A lot of posters have said that people aren't buying new PCs because what they have is fast enough. Those posters are right. But there still do exist people who, for whatever reason, would like a new computer. Laptops, for instance, don't last forever.
Those people, if they are wise, are waiting for the dust to settle after the mulicore wars.
Processor technology had been stagnating, but now competition is heating up again between Intel and AMD. If I buy this year, something significantly better may come out the next! I don't expect that high rate-of-change to continue for long, but there is obvious work (like Intel developing a real crossbar) that has to happen before it's over with. I'll wait until they've finished.
PC component makers have become lazy. Four years ago I built myself a 2.8GHz P4 machine with 512MB RAM, and that would still be considered "high end" today.
Where are the 10GHz CPUs ? Where are even the 5GHz CPUs ? Where are the 8 or 16GB RAM machines ? Have the component-makers stopped improving ?
No wonder people are not buying, it seems like PC technology stopped improving 4 years ago.
My mom mentioned to me the other day that she is waiting for Vista and a stable multicore processor market. She just feels once those get resolved, she will be able to write emails to Aunt Gertrude much better!
Microsoft and Intel did a lot to condition people to stick with what they have. Microsoft taught people not to buy with it's multiple delays of Vista AND with service packs that rarely add any obvious functionality and even slow a system down (certainly Service Pack 2 did). Throw in DRM and all that stuff and who is genuinely excited about Vista finally coming out? A major theme with Vista is that a persons computer probably cant run it and people are confused as to just what will run Vista. So its better to wait things out. Intel contributed to this sluggish market with its MarketBurst..erm.. NetBurst architecture that turned PC's into toasters. It's been obvious for awhile that Intel cpu's were sluggish yet hot and wasteful. Intel had to break down their marketing paradigm based on faster ghz. They had a lot of brand clarity in the computer market and they had to purposely destroy that to use confusion and obfuscation to hide the Pentiums inferiority and liabilities. While Intel and Microsoft were self destructing more and more people were getting broadband and finding their computers were doing more without having to buy an upgrade. People have been buying a lot more MP3 players and cameras etc. I waited over a year to get a new system because I wanted a Conroe Core 2 Duo. I finally had a reason to upgrade since Core 2 Duo gave a real performance boost without becoming a wasteful furnace. With Core 2 Duo I fly through Windows Movie Maker tasks compared to my Pentium 4, 1.8 but the C2D has the same wattage profile as the Pentium 4 1.8. Unlike most people though I kept reading about hardware developments. I don't think a lot of people know Core 2 Duo from Dual Core. Throw in all the HDCP, Direct X 10 etc. convolutions and the main message a lot of people pick out is "don't buy". They have had that message for awhile now and they have learned not buying a new computer isn't so bad. Right now things like High Def and fiber optics with movies downloaded on line seem to be interesting to people but all the fighting and confusion over standards and "rights management" seem to work against the market yet again. For myself, I am happy because I have seen what high def camcorders can do (I haven't bought yet because of the lack of drives for editing etc.) my area has Verizon FIOS, and I have a new E6600 Core 2 Duo which gets me online almost immediately while crusing through apps. I am even happy with my new OEM Windows Media Center OS (110 USD) and really dont want anything to do with Vista for at least a year or so - if at all. All-in-all I think it's a great time to upgrade a desktop. The hardware innovations are there and the OS situation isn't going to be "clear" in January When Vista comes out. The cost of things like new Direct X 10 cards, together with the bugs WE KNOW will be in Vista (and drivers from other hardware makers) makes this a good time to upgrade things like Desktops. Notebooks are another story since they seem to have a way to go still to be able to use Vista comfortably without costing 2 or 3 grand US.
Buy your Mac at an Apple store and they already offer to migrate your PC data for free.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/switch/
Or you can buy the Move2Mac software and DIY.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
WTF world do you live in?
First off, no single cpu/core is high end... hasn't been that way in years...
A single core in the lowest speed Core 2 Duo (1.86mhz) is significantly faster than a 2.8ghz P4... never mind that there are 2 cores in the chip...
512MB RAM is a joke as well these days...
A 2.8GHZ P4 w/ 512MB RAM is about the slowest thing I'd even think about using....
If you are at all interested in Vista, you should definitely wait until Vista is released before buying a new PC.
If you buy a PC today, you will get a "coupon" for a Vista upgrade in the future. Vista may be delayed. There may be a shipping charge to send you Vista. You will have to upgrade your PC from Windows XP to Vista. Doesn't that sound like fun? If there are any problems during the upgrade, you are on your own to fix them. It might be a hassle to license your "coupon" copy of Vista. You might need to re-install your applications after the upgrade. Your vendor might be reluctant to support your PC after you did your own operating system upgrade. If you have problems with Vista in the future, you will always wonder if it was caused by upgrading from Windows XP, and whether you should have started fresh.
If you prefer to use your PC, rather than fiddle with it, sit on your hands this holiday season, and purchase a new PC only after Vista comes pre-installed by the vendor.
Again, validity? I have no idea what you are talking about because I have never heard of this type of problem. Sounds like a specific machine issue that doesn't apply to others.
For about 3 years, I've been testing the Linux waters. I keep having to revert back to Windows because I know the OS well, and I've been changing life situations frequently (different field of study, different country, etc.). I have a laptop running XP and Ubuntu (after removing Gentoo from it -- compiling everything from source on a laptop is not a grand idea). I plan to remove my XP partition after backing up all my Opera settings and mail and other important files.
However, my laptop is a sub-$1000 Averatec job. Athlon XP-M 2000+, 512MB RAM, 12.1" screen, 4 lbs. It's been very good to me, but is starting to show its wear (and it's only 2 years old). The case also creaks where the LCD meets the rest of the body. Also, the fan gets real loud now.
I sit in my law classes, surrounded by 100 MacBook laptops which make no sound that I can hear, and are built quite sturdily (indeed, isn't this one of the selling points of Macs, that they are constructed well?). UT Law also offers a financial aid plan, where I can buy a laptop that meets certain minimum requirements, and I will receive a loan repayable after graduation for the cost of the laptop.
Buying a MacBook Pro (after MacWorld next semester) and putting Linux (with Compiz/XGL???) on it is looking pretty nice right about now.
I actually went looking for a new system a few weeks ago; my current desktop machine dates back to 2001 and is in dire need of replacement. The result? The only machines I found on the shelves were SLOW. Office Depot, Sam's, the best I could find was a dual core clocked a bit above 2 MHz, with 2 gig of PC4200 RAM that was shared with the video system. CompUSA and Best Buy had some machines with separate video adapters but with the same RAM and CPUs that weren't much better. I'm either going to have to order or build one.
I know you were kidding, but I gotta admit that some of your points...well...what's the old saying about there being a little truth in every joke?
I've always been a fan of "doing more with less". I've written some of my best music using an ancient Roland SC-50 Sound Canvas module despite having $xx,xxx racks of synths and keyboards at my fingertips; I *still* do my best creative writing with a fountain pen and velvety smooth cream-colored paper (that's creme-coloured for my friends on the other side of the pond); and I've done some of my best programming in assembly under DOS (I know I know; don't shoot me). All my code editors are set to green on black; not 80x24, but green on black all the same, with little in the way of visual adornment.
There is indeed such a concept as having too much of a good thing, although I admit that I'm happier compiling code on fast machines and using feature-rich (API- and toolkit-wise) languages.
Nothing is inexplicable; only unexplained -Tom Baker, Doctor Who
Here where Steve Jobs can jump in, and say Ta Da!
Seriously, if apple doesn't snag this moment, for the sake of software relicencing...
2c.
WHAT?
Seriously, a PC is good for about 2(low end) to 4-5(high end) years. Technology changes. With that if you want a new video card, you can go out and buy a new AGP video card. HOWEVER, your benefit might not be as good as a PCI-E card. And either way, PCI-E just crossed AGP in performance anyway. So you would have to buy an expensive PCI-E card to push as much as what would saturate an AGP bus.
That is just plain silly. Here is a ahref=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?I
If you want the top technologies, yes you have to start over. If you want a significant upgrade, drop in a new card, and more ram. It really depends on what you got in the first place. I see so many people toss a perfectly good computer because it didn't have enough ram. (sweet for me!)
Speaking of RAM, Those standards are pretty concrete usually lasting about 4 years. Just don't buy into a new technology right away (RAMBUS anyone?) SD, DDR, just moving to DDR2 now (but will soon be skiped for DDR3) it's been a steady progression.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.