Ideas for new RIG

[FlashGameMaker]

Your asking Q's that I cant answer, how long is a piece of string ?

There is countless threads here with same boring Q about Dual V Quad, its about what you use the PC for and how long you want to kepp that CPU.

You mention games but not encoding movies, well faster Dual is better but you want to keep it 2 years and games may use Quads more then so hard to say.

"Twice as long from the middle to the end"

Seriously though thanks for input on this it's appreciated.

Encoding movies not so much, video editing though probably. Does the new Quad offer anything that will be needed in a year or 2? If I get a fast Dual (like the one i linked to) is that still going to be fine in 2 years?

I'm also pondering the MOBO, is socket 775 going to stay around for the next few years, or are they bringing out a new socket setup soon.

 

[helmutcheese]

The new Quads are faster, cooler and more cache than current but still Non Native.

IMO a E8400/8500 should still be good in 2 years sure, but hard to say for sure.

775 is here for now, not sure if new socket due.

 

[FlashGameMaker]

what do you mean by not native?

 

[helmutcheese]

They are 2 Dual Cores stuck together, you can Google it.

Only AMD for now have Native Quads.

 

[FlashGameMaker]

Back with a few questions.

1) I'm not sure to have a vista or XP system. Although it seems that the newish (8800GTX for example) need vista to work correctly??

2) I keep reading that new Nvdia cards are just a stop gap to something better which is coming out in the middle of the year. If this is the case, then I'm thinking I might as well go with a 8800GTX single for now, but is this going to be good enough to handle Crysis on high settings? I've just read a review that said even on a dual setup it still couldn't handle Crysis on high settings!

3) Is there any point having a blu-ray reader/writer? Obviously they won the format battle with HD DVD, but with HD digital download now being the next big thing is blu-ray going to lose the war so to speak? and itself become useless within another few years? (i bought a mini-disc hifi system some years back but I don't like to talk about that).

4) Whats the highest ram a good recent MOBO can go up to? is it 4gb or 8gb?

 

[peetee]

vista wont get the most out a gtx, directx10 is nothing flashy at the moment.
Every graphics card ever out is just a stop gap till the next generation, nothing handles crysis at max with a default config, do you really need to set it to max though?
Buy a single card, end of, put the money away to upgrade said card again in 2years.
Blu-ray has won the optical media war, obviously you can download HD content places, but you wont find it as readily available as blu-ray discs, and no doubt its going to costs for decent speeds, hd videos are huge. It shouldnt lose the distribution war, internet speeds are currently not fast enough for it to really catch on.

 

[FlashGameMaker]

vista wont get the most out a gtx, directx10 is nothing flashy at the moment.
Every graphics card ever out is just a stop gap till the next generation, nothing handles crysis at max with a default config, do you really need to set it to max though?
Buy a single card, end of, put the money away to upgrade said card again in 2years.
Blu-ray has won the optical media war, obviously you can download HD content places, but you wont find it as readily available as blu-ray discs, and no doubt its going to costs for decent speeds, hd videos are huge. It shouldnt lose the distribution war, internet speeds are currently not fast enough for it to really catch on.

So you need vista to use DirectX10 though? you can't do that with XP?

 

[semi-pro waster]

DX10 does not exist for XP or at least not without a significant amount of hacking - I can't remember if anyone has actually got it running properly but it was a huge amount of hassle to try from what I recall months back.

Vista (or any other 64bit OS) is needed for 4gb+ Ram if you want to access all of it. 4gb or 8gb, it really makes no odds to the motherboard but as I've just mentioned you do need to be make sure the OS will support it.

Richdog posted a link in the Graphics Card sub-forum today about new Nvidia cards, it looks like they do have a full refresh of the technology just waiting to be released but it won't be done for another few months at least.

 

[FlashGameMaker]

DX10 does not exist for XP or at least not without a significant amount of hacking - I can't remember if anyone has actually got it running properly but it was a huge amount of hassle to try from what I recall months back.

Vista (or any other 64bit OS) is needed for 4gb+ Ram if you want to access all of it. 4gb or 8gb, it really makes no odds to the motherboard but as I've just mentioned you do need to be make sure the OS will support it.

Richdog posted a link in the Graphics Card sub-forum today about new Nvidia cards, it looks like they do have a full refresh of the technology just waiting to be released but it won't be done for another few months at least.

I was thinking though that with all these new NVidia cards appearing now and also in a few months time, the 8800GTX will drop in price?

you mentioned 64bit Vista, but I keep seeing a cheaper 32bit version?

 

[semi-pro waster]

I wasn't aware that the 32bit version was cheaper but that is probably because it is a bit of a harder sell, at least to my mind, one of the major benefits of Vista is in the 64bit native support of 4gb+ Ram, with Vista 32bit you don't get that but it is still a more memory hungry OS than XP ever was.

 

[Mattus]

Back with a few questions.

1) I'm not sure to have a vista or XP system. Although it seems that the newish (8800GTX for example) need vista to work correctly??

I'd get 4GB RAM and go for Vista 64-bit. Vista is a bit more memory hungry than XP, but I also find it far more smooth and stable, and it flies with 4GB installed. SP1 fixes a lot of issues, and you shouldn't have any compatibility problems since you're buying all new gear.

2) I keep reading that new Nvdia cards are just a stop gap to something better which is coming out in the middle of the year. If this is the case, then I'm thinking I might as well go with a 8800GTX single for now, but is this going to be good enough to handle Crysis on high settings? I've just read a review that said even on a dual setup it still couldn't handle Crysis on high settings!

Nothing can handle Crysis on maximum settings But an 8800GTX is so cheap now, and will handle Crysis on mostly high settings and anything else you can throw at it. Don't wait for the 9800GTX - rehash of the 8800GTS and a waste of money.

3) Is there any point having a blu-ray reader/writer? Obviously they won the format battle with HD DVD, but with HD digital download now being the next big thing is blu-ray going to lose the war so to speak? and itself become useless within another few years? (i bought a mini-disc hifi system some years back but I don't like to talk about that).

I had an MD player too But I'm still skeptical of HD downloading. You can fit 50GB on a Blu-Ray disc, and downloading 50GB takes a long time... I think the media companies are likely to compress HD content to reduce the bandwidth requirement. I reckon there'll still be a place for the physical disc for a few years yet.

4) Whats the highest ram a good recent MOBO can go up to? is it 4gb or 8gb?

8GB.