Latest trend: No significant changes but much faster

Zatni Arbi Contributor Jakarta

In the last few years, there have not been too many fundamental changes in the ways PCs are built. The processors may be running much faster -- the latest speed record from Intel is 2.2 GHz, but the architecture remains basically the same.

You can still assemble your own PC from components you buy in Ratu Plaza, Gajah Mada Plaza, Mal Mangga Dua or Dusit Mangga Dua, and get a machine that is comparable in performance with branded PCs.

Talking about processor speeds, PCWorld reported that a small quantity of Intel Pentium 4 running at 2.4 GHz were available in Japan recently, although chipmaker Intel Corp. has not officially announced the product. Usually, when Intel announces a new product, PC vendors have already received a limited volume so that they can also announce their products at the same time. It is, however, unusual for them to sell new processors ahead of Intel's announcement.

While Intel is working very hard to leave its competitors behind in terms of speed, it turns out that that is a very difficult task to accomplish. Reports also have it that the Athlon XP processors from rival AMD outperform Intel Pentium 4 processors running at higher speeds. To tip the balance further toward the Athlon processors, their prices are lower, too, than the Pentium 4. However, as reported by ZDNet, Intel claimed that AMD used a naming standard that misled customers into thinking that its processors, which ran at lower clock speeds, outperformed the Pentium 4s with higher clock speeds. There is no dull moment in the processor race field.

Wearable PCs, i.e., small PCs in your pockets with monitors that you may wear on your head, are still a thing of the distant future, although they are already available for specialized applications such as in field combats. Personal Data Assistants (PDAs), particularly those running Microsoft PocketPC operating systems, are now used by a lot of people, but they still cannot replace a desktop or a notebook computer.

As for breakthroughs, Apple has perhaps been more progressive than the guys in the PC industry. Incidentally, if you are a Mac fan, there will be an event on Wednesday, April 3 at Kempinski Hotel, Jakarta, where you can see the latest technology on the Mac side of personal computing.

There has been some progress here and there in the PCs, of course. The monitors now no longer have to be a CRT. Both Samsung Electronics and LG-Phillips LCD from Korea have been working around the clock churning out LCD screens to meet the growing demand. Although the price may not be much lower this year due to the strong demand, the trend is clear. More and more people choose LCD over CRT monitors for obvious reasons.

One thing that you may need to note here is that the latest PCs, such as the ones from Acer, are abandoning the plain old Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM) standard and moving fast to adopt the Double Data Rate SDRAM. The move may lead to a lot of confusion, as one new standard is being introduced when the preceding one has barely got the chance to establish a market share. At 266 MHz and a peak bandwidth of 2.1 Gbps per second, the current DDR266 memory module has a speed twice the 133 MHz top speed of the old SDRAM. However, faster DDR SDRAM at speeds of 333 MHz and 400 MHz are also available in select PCs.

Then the industry is already talking about DDR II, which allows for speed beyond DDR400. In the meantime, Rambus is still keeping a good fight with its RDRAM standard. So, be prepared for a lot of chaos in the memory arena.

What about the production of sound? The PCs, especially those in the multimedia home PC category, are gradually replacing the home theater system in your living room. Today, more and more motherboards come complete with Dolby-certified audio subsystem with 5.1 channels, enabling you to watch DVD movies in your study.

Another trend is the DVD and CD-RW combo. Unlike in the past, you no longer need two separate drives for watching a DVD movie and burning a CD-ROM. The DVD-CD-RW combo is even available for the notebook computers. DVD-writers are not yet commonplace, but they are already available.

Hard disks have also become larger, much larger than you need- unless you are into video editing. New PCs today come with a hard disk that boasts a capacity of up to 160 GB. Imagine how much non-pirated software you should buy to fill it up, and how many DVD-RAM discs you would need to back it up. The mainstream PCs, however, now come with a 40 GB hard disk that spins 7200 times in a minute.

For those who use expensive machines to play games for self- actualization, the choice of graphics subsystem should include an Nvidia GeForce 4 processor. For the rest of us who use the PCs to get our jobs done, however, a PC is still a PC. Any processor speed above 500 MHz will do. And, when it comes to price, the US$ 777 of an Acer Power SD is perhaps the most that we need to spend.