Looking past the troubled economy, 2009 was actually a good year for the tech industry – and in particular for PC enthusiasts. It marked the arrival of much-anticipated standards like USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps, a deluge of faster, larger and more reliable solid-state drives, the first DirectX 11-capable graphics cards and Microsoft's successful launch of Windows 7 after a troubled run with Windows Vista.
Intel remained unchallenged in the high-end processor segment with its Bloomfield Core i7 lineup and further cemented its position by launching the mainstream Core i5/i7 Lynnfield parts. Motherboard makers had a serious range of quality and reasonably priced products on offer, DDR3 memory prices came down a bit and, well, you get the picture. Things don't seem to be slowing down in 2010, either, now that Intel has launched its 32nm Clarkdale processors featuring built-in graphics and Nvidia looks ready to finally go against AMD's ATI Radeon HD 5000 series with Fermi.
There won't be any shortage of games to throw at these cards, that's for sure. With all these great advances, at some point many of you will consider updating your rig to keep up with the latest technologies. In this edition of our Weekend Open Forum we want to know what your next upgrade will be. Perhaps a new graphics card to play games in their full visual glory? An SSD to speed up your OS? Or maybe build an entire system based on a new platform for good measure?