Thread: Good time to buy carputer components?

Originally Posted by danon

so if you'll ask me the best time to buy is yesterday. this is what i have learned from my years of experience in IT. get the best technology you can afford, and stick with it.

Unless you are talking about Intel processors. Some have huge markups just because nobody else has them, take for example the 3ghz chips when they came out. Those things cost in the ballpark of $600, and now they are under $250!! Also the latest and greatest technology will not run well in a car.. the newest P4s produce around 100w, in other words, you'll be hearing the fans instead of the music.

Originally Posted by 0l33l

Unless you are talking about Intel processors. Some have huge markups just because nobody else has them, take for example the 3ghz chips when they came out. Those things cost in the ballpark of $600, and now they are under $250!! Also the latest and greatest technology will not run well in a car.. the newest P4s produce around 100w, in other words, you'll be hearing the fans instead of the music.

very true buddy, the only problem is that we don't have crystal balls that can predict the future so what we usually do is to weight everything and just bite the bullet. you will always have problems one way or the other two similar computer with the same model will not run the same speed, the other one will run slightly faster or slower than the other, dvd players that has just been mass produced by a known company will have one or two models to be faulty. this is technology, there is no guarantee, and that is why they invented the thing called warranty.

danon

Originally Posted by danon

very true buddy, the only problem is that we don't have crystal balls that can predict the future so what we usually do is to weight everything and just bite the bullet. you will always have problems one way or the other two similar computer with the same model will not run the same speed, the other one will run slightly faster or slower than the other, dvd players that has just been mass produced by a known company will have one or two models to be faulty. this is technology, there is no guarantee, and that is why they invented the thing called warranty.

We do have manufacturer's roadmaps
But the rule of thumb is that newer technlologies will cost alot, are not always tested as they should (read: intel chipsets), and will probably run hot/consume a lot of power. So yeh, you have to carefully research all the components and just dive right in. I'm gonna be building my carputer in "peices". Basically I got stuff that doesn't change often (my GPS receiver, a USB Earthmate). Then I'm gonna get a Xenarc because its gonna take forever for me to mold into my dash, and then I'm gonna get an Opus 220w (that's probably going to be out by the time I'm on that step), and then everything else

Originally Posted by 0l33l

... Also the latest and greatest technology will not run well in a car.. the newest P4s produce around 100w, in other words, you'll be hearing the fans instead of the music.

hey thanks for the info btw, that made me push to getting pentium-m.. works with the same speed but half the heat and power consumption, also works with micro-atx mobo very good for carputer setup.

mate, there's always a chance that "the latest and greatest technology will run well in a car.."


danon

Originally Posted by danon

hey thanks for the info btw, that made me push to getting pentium-m.. works with the same speed but half the heat and power consumption, also works with micro-atx mobo very good for carputer setup.

mate, still "the latest and greatest technology will run well in a car.."

You must be made of $$$ Did you get the new core P4-M or the older one? New 2.5ghz P4-M cost $424

Originally Posted by 0l33l

You must be made of $$$ Did you get the new core P4-M or the older one? New 2.5ghz P4-M cost $424

no, i'm on the proccess of "getting" one, the only thing that sets me back is the price but i have a pentium m proccessor in my laptop and the power consumption is too obvious my battery last almost 3x compare to my previous laptop, a benefit for car setup too great to ignore.


danon

Originally Posted by danon

no, i'm on the proccess of "getting" one, the only thing that sets me back is the price but i have a pentium m proccessor in my laptop and the power consumption is too obvious my battery last almost 3x compare to my previous laptop, a benefit for car setup too great to ignore.

What does the process of "getting one" involve? The processor alone costs more than some people's whole setup Personally, I'm looking to go with a athlon mobile.

Good post. I guess I'm in your boat. If I had the option of putting a POS computer with a char-lcd screen in my car, I'd pass and wait a few years for what we have now.

That said, I'm saving for parts for my carputer. It's gonna be awesome. I think the next big thing will be NanoITX from VIA but I don't think I need that right now. Maybe when the price goes down and all the bugs are squashed I will upgrade.

The biggest change I see (and you sort of glossed over) is with wireless networking. Aside from a few small changes in recent years, it's still SLOW and doesn't offer anything for range. One company (I forget the name) attempted to offer roaming access for wireless connections - a transceiver on every lightpole in the major cities across the US. That was a novel idea, but expensive and they're now bankrupt (I think). Cell phones are similar - expensive and slow rates.

On the up side, wireless capability is not tops on most people's list of priorities yet. Most carputers are stuck in the realm of physicial transfer (or short wireless) to get data transfered. In a few years the technology will mature and be as common as cell phones. Hopefully it will be backwards compatible with what we are building now. But you know how fast technology advances...

If this or other emerging gagets are on your list of priorities, you may consider making your machine as upgradeable as possible. For instance, make sure you have spare PCI or USB ports... Perhaps pay a few extra bucks for that shiny new sound card with onboard firewire (video cameras use this, right?).