The PC world changed over the weekend. Technologies that have kept us going for a decade were given the black spot, and new ones were nominated to replace them for the next 10 years.
The new Socket-T processor slot, DDR2 memory chips, PCI Express expansion slots and Serial ATA hard drives are obvious examples, However, items such as cooling systems, fan connections and power supplies have also changed.
Most of these technologies will be familiar to people who track the PC industry. The cause of the change was that Intel has launched two new chipsets, codenamed Grantsdale and Alderwood, to support them. Rival suppliers such as VIA Technologies and SiS will have similar chipsets out this summer.
Over the next year or two, PC manufacturers will move from selling machines with PCI expansion slots, IDE hard drives, DDR chips and AGP graphics cards to systems based on the new stuff.
This is not about producing the PC equivalent of "hot rods", it's about bringing high-end features to the mass market. The price of upgrading is, as usual, incompatibility with past technology.
Intel's launch of its new chipsets trumpeted their appeal to home users, because of their enhanced sound and graphics. For example, the High Definition Audio (HDA) supports 192kHz 24-bit 8-channel audio and 7.1 surround sound - a big improvement on the antique AC97 baseline standard.
More important for businesses is the support for Raid drive arrays as standard (with data written across two hard drives, in case one fails), plus the ability to support up to eight USB 2.0 ports and 4GB of memory. All users will benefit from minor tweaks such as the addition of an extra pin to the fan connector. This will make it simple to vary the fan speed according to the temperature of the processor, so PCs should run quieter.
But don't run out and buy a new PC immediately, because new technologies always have problems. For example, Intel has delayed the release of wireless support for Grantsdale, and it is already working on an enhanced version that will provide a faster 1066MHz FSB (front side bus) for its fastest Pentiums. In another year, Grantsdale could well be replaced by the Lakeport chipset, with support for dual-core processors. So, wait for the bugs to be shaken out.
However, if you need a new PC in the near future, then it could soon be a good time to buy one based on the "old" technologies. The arrival of new high-end PCs based on Grantsdale and Alderwood will probably knock all the current models down a price level, making them more affordable.
Those companies that bought PCs in bulk to avoid the Y2K problem should soon be able to replace them with much faster, cheaper and better systems running Microsoft Windows XP with the increased reliability and security of the SP2 service back.
Then, in 2007, they can think about whether to replace them with PCs running Longhorn (the next version of Windows), or a version of GNU/Linux that should, by then, be mature and well supported enough for general desktop use.
PCI Express
www.pcisig.com/specifications/pciexpress
Serial ATA
www.serialata.org
Intel Socket T (LGA775)
http://legitreviews.com/reviews/lga775
DDR2 (JESD79-2A)
www.digit-life.com/articles2/ddr2-rmma/ddr2-rmma.html
www.jedec.org/download/search/JESD79-2A.pdf
