I found an old pc world catalog from 2003 under the stairs and the “top spec” personal in the catalog are like 80 gb hard drive 512 mb ram celeron d processors for £899

What kind of spec can I expect to purchase in 2013 when I buy a new desk top.

Thank you for your answers.

Answer:
The only answer to that really is “Who in the Hell really knows?”

With the rate of advance in electronics anything can happen!

You referring to an old magazine reminded me of my first computer back in 94.

Windows 3.1, 386 CPU, 4 Mb RAM, 25 Mb hard drive. The only drive was a 3½” Floppy and the OS came on 7 floppy discs! And that machine was the cat's whiskers in it's day!

So if you compare that one to the new ones now [and don't forget they are out of date when you buy them!] what are they going to be like in the next 14 years is the real question?

Answer:
if you want a system now that’ll be around in 5 years

purchase either a fully decked out Skulltrail ( it supports 4 quadcore cpus 16 GIGS memory both sli and crossfire video cards make sure you go with at least 1 320 Gig ULTA fast 10,000 or 15,000 rpm drive and at least 7 terabytes of hard drive space, going all out get the dual card 1 gig slix 4 in dual sli configuration

or a SUN personal so depending on what you want to spend to avoid obsolete for a tiny while anyways these two units will do it

if you want screaming fast but will be out of date in 3 years

go with VOODOO or Alienware

as most units off the shelf are already obsolete

Answer:
Ummm maybe atleast ummm a INtel Xeon Qaud Processor running at 5.6GHZ or a Octa Processor running at 3.67ghz.

A 2TB Hardrive -5TB. 12-16GB ram.

Answer:
it will be too much for you if you are going to pursue that goal.

As what I can observe right now. Games are the only application that can make a Computer Obsolete.

Answer:
like 40 gigs of ram with 20-core processors with gigabyte catches and 500 tb hard drives spinning at a billion rpm. lol
Answer:
Desktops may be antiques by then …no one knows for sure but

it will likely be similar to what exist today only faster and superior.

We all hope…

Answer:
Look up Moore's Law.