Hands on: Is it time to upgrade your hardware?

Timing is everything when it comes to upgrading your PC. Processor, memory, graphics and disk technologies may be in an almost constant state of gradual enhancement, but every few years comes a significant leap in evolution with a new platform.

This could be a superior processor or memory architecture, a new expansion bus or advance in storage technology. Either way, switching to the new platform normally involves a performance boost.
If you’re buying a new PC, it’s well worth following industry news to see if a new platform is on the horizon, as it’s often worth waiting for.

However, new platforms can cause headaches for those wanting to upgrade their current system, as they may not be able to re-use many existing components.

New processor and memory technologies rarely fit into older motherboards, so you may need to replace a significant number of parts. Indeed, if your PC is a few years old, it will often be cheaper to buy a new one if you want the latest technologies.

But the arrival of a new platform can drive the cost of older components down - good news for anyone wanting a more straightforward upgrade, such as a boost in memory capacity.

Inside Intel
So what’s coming up? Anyone who follows IT news will know about Intel’s forthcoming Nehalem platform, which represents the biggest advance from the chip giant since the Core architecture. Taking a leaf from AMD, the Nehalem will finally integrate Intel’s memory controller into its main processor.

There’s a new LGA1366 socket (at least for the first versions), which, along with a new chipset, means you’ll need to buy a new motherboard, although anyone with existing DDR-3 memory should be able to re-use some of it.

At the time of writing, we understood the first Nehalem processors, codenamed Bloomfield, will drive DDR-3 memory at 1,066MHz or 1,333MHz. Confirmed compatibility with today’s modules remains to be seen, but at least looks hopeful, although to exploit Nehalem’s new triple-channel access, you’ll need to install Dimms in matched triplets.

As for timing, these first Bloomfield processors should be available in the final quarter of this year. By mid-2009, we should see the second version, codenamed Lynnfield, which has an integrated PCI Express controller, allowing for faster communications with the graphics card.