Technology is omnipresent in human civilization. It always has been. It always will be. Some forms of technology tend to advance more quickly than others. For instance, farming has not advanced nearly as much as microprocessors in the last half century or so.

We have reached a time of constant evolution and competition in the information age. What started as simple number calculating machines has lead to worldwide unification of intelligence and communication. Average consumers can easily take advantage of this. However, said consumers have since broken up into various categories ranging from simple users to enthusiasts who demand more than a communication medium from their personal computers.

That enthusiast crowd has seen interesting shifts in their target products lately. Direct 3D 10 (a component of Direct X 10) was hailed as a new leap in graphics processing capability. Major hardware companies took note of the new API and soon unveiled powerful GPUs capable of running it. The NVIDIA Corporation first began production and was soon followed by ATI (now a branch of AMD).

High-end PC users realized these cards are indeed powerful. Early adopters of the new technology had to pay a premium for such power, which is to be expected. NVIDIA's flagship 8800 series of cards were released before any Direct X 10 compatible games were available on the market. Alas, the same cards today are still deemed quite expensive by many.

Over half a year has passed since then, and only a small number of "next gen" PC games are up for purchase. I will not omit Direct X 10 titles still in development such as Bioshock, Crysis, and Unreal Tournament 3. Even with these titles, no games have yet to bring the top echelon of PC hardware to its knees. That being said, new technology (next-next generation) will be arriving within a matter of months.

What is the point? Companies have yet to fine-tune current generation hardware and get the best performance from it. Even high end users are silenced by the ability (and cost) of Intel's top CPU. In spite of having the strongest CPU offered to the consumer market, Intel is already pushing out stats for its next line of processors. The soon-to-be-last-gen QX6800 quad-core CPU goes skyward of one thousand U.S. dollars. Can any programs take full advantage of its power? No!

Smaller and faster is the name of the game these days. Less power consumption means less heat. Less heat means better stability. More stable processors allow for higher clock speeds. Higher clock speed means a faster piece of hardware. Although I admit this is impressive, what is the point? We all need to stop and ask why. Will it make your games any faster? Yes, but do you really need to play Counter-Strike at 300 frames per second?

It would be unfair to limit this battle to CPUs alone. ATI has recently announced a GPU with 1 gigabyte of onboard memory. Why do people see the need to spend thousands of dollars to run two of these in a machine with nothing short of super-computer capabilities? I have but one 8800 GTX in my machine, and it has no problem with even the toughest gaming applications.

Some people may suggest the point of buying the newest and best is for longevity. One problem remains. The current generation is still too expensive for some users' budgets. They speak of the 8 series being expensive, so they wait for the 9 series. If these consumers can not afford the current gen, why do companies think the same people can access next gen equipment?

This brings me to conclude that new products being released now are for bragging rights. "Duh, Vortexx!" Well, if people always complain about their current setup being unstable or products being too expensive, blame the companies for their greed! Want a better Futuremark score? Fine, but there is absolutely no need to make another gasp-eliciting advancement when the people don't need it. Perfect today's work before unravelling the future.