Hey, look it’s... the same. groan

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A day at the Melbourne Grand Prix

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By Josh Collins
11:15 Jun 3, 2008

For the past 18 to 24 months we’ve been floating around in an oasis of new tech. This tech has literally been taking leaps and bounds. Take a look at DDR3 memory if you don’t believe me. Ten months ago it was crawling along at DDR3-1066 C6, now it’s flying along at DDR3-2000 C8 – now that is fast development!

The problem in this little paradise occurs when we, the ever needy, ever wanting, ever new-born-like, crave for continuous leaps in generation-split computing power. But can we really be the ones to blame?

With every new product release, vendors announce that their new hardware is growing ever mightier, gaining an ever more glorious aura and far exceeding what we expected out of hardware a generation ago. So naturally, we’ve become accustomed to expecting revolutionary advances with each new release.

We’ve been conditioned to yearn for the two-fold increase in performance more than any other new feature come new release time. And yes, sometimes “two-fold increase in performance” is a bit optimistic. But by the same token, we’re not stupid. You’re not stupid. I’m not stupid.

So why the hell do manufacturers try to feed us the same silicon twice? Any pub crawler will tell you that things are never as enjoyable the second time around, no matter how good they were the first time. So why do this to us?

Over the last few months I feel like I’ve been force fed, and swallowed, the same tech from three to six months ago. All the while a flashy dance is put on to herald what vendors believe to be the second coming.

Well I’ll tell you, it is and has been the second coming. But not of the almighty embodied within your second-time-around product. Oh no. Just the same tech all over again and only if we’re lucky will it have a new bell or whistle. But rarely both.

All is well and good. I’ve had a rant, but where’s the proof for this cry for new and interesting tech? Well, let’s take a moment and just look at the new releases recently.

Intel hasn’t even officially launched the X48, but it’s been such a long time coming that manufacturers are making boards with it anyway. And it’s no big deal either, because X48 is just an X38 with a big ol’ +1 in the tens column.

We want new tech, not just a numerical upgrade in the model number.

They say it’s a cherry picked X38 northbridge but from my experience with a large slather of motherboards, I’ve had just as many X38 boards out perform X48 as I have had the opposite. Not only that, but Intel feels it’s right to charge manufacturers $US20 more than an X38 for the privilage of a higher product number. For us, this means a price hike for no performance gain.

With this kind of behaviour from Intel, we can call ASUS downright lazy. Its P5E, Maximus Formula and Rampage Formula are all essentially the same. The $200 X38-based P5E can be flashed to a $350 Maximus Formula, and then to the $450, yet to be released, X48-based Rampage Formula!

But it doesn’t stop there. How about the 780i? The only difference for the end user is 45nm quad core support, because Intel coincidentally screwed over NVIDIA with its 680i plans and the inclusion of nForce200 bridge chip for three PCIe slots running the full 16x electrical transfer speed. These are valid introductions but the hoo-hah surrounding the release was all a little over the top.

To round out the recent second servings is the G92 grapics core. Initially hailed a performance-on-a-shoestring saint, it has now returned to take evil advantage of our wallets, kill kittens, make baby Jebus cry and resurrect itself as a value killer.

It’s not often I get tired of new releases. After all, they do tend to keep me in a job. But once the novelty has worn off, and the market appears to be doing circles rather than progressive strides forwards, I can’t help but to vent the frustration.

Viva La New Releases!

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