My new pc sepc

[Flippant]

why you so afraid of new card series? when last time they (ati or nvidia) messed up whole video card line, and customers needed to exchange it to new ones? Right after release almost every internet benchmark site is testing these cards in numerous games and test. Sometimes its a good product sometimes not. But everything move to Mhz, amount of Ram, 256/512bit line, and such. I never heard that  card was "bad" coz of chip underdone.

if you decide to buy 2xGTX anyway, you prabobly buy same cards as in premiere day

Poor luck I guess, last time I got a new card fresh from release, the whole series was recalled because of a chip problem - I didn't realise till 6months or so later.

[Noadonis]

Hi all!

I'm thinking of buying a new computer.  Question is, do I want Vista 64 or Vista 32?  What are the implications of/issue with both?  I see Flip went for 64, how's that working out?

Think I'm going to go for a Q6600 with a 9600GT (single).

Your advice would be very much appreciated!

Noa

[Rowain]

The main issue that you can have with Vista 64 is that it requres different drivers than 32 bit Vista/XP, and for some hardware they may not be of good quality yet or not even exist. There may be some compatibility issues too. Overall right now for consumer desktops it is safer to go 32 bit IMO.

As for the CPU, I wouldn't recommend quad-cores. While they can pull off impressive speed benchmarks in some scalable applications (eg. video encoding, 3D modelling software) unless you use such software alot, you may even experience less speed than newer dual-cores because 2-3 cores will just be idle. There is almost no game on the market that is faster with quad cores than with dual cores, maybe Crysis. Even if it is, that would be an overkill for a 9600GT vidcard which would become the bottleneck. So again, no speedup.
I'd recommend the new 8400, that is almost the fastest dual-core on the market for decent price and less power consumption/heat/noice than quad cores.

The 9600GT is a nice vidcard if you don't plan running games in more than 1280x1024. Not really futureproof, but cheap enough to upgrade more freqently than the "power-cards".

[Blazul]

mhm I went with what noa is thinking. The 9600 is a botle neck allright. But since except for wow and possibly other mmorpgs I don`t use my pc for gaming it`s ok. (console fanboy XD )
I didn`t want the dual core since I think it`s outdated technology. After all it is what 2 years old?

[Noadonis]

might go for the 8800GT or GTS - would that make the difference? 

[Rowain]

The GTS is usually an "overclocked" version of the GT, slightly faster. The 8800 GT is an excellent choice, very speedy and still quite cheap.

I don't consider "more cores" = "better technology". It is more like designers saying "hm, we run out of new ideas to improve, lets cram more of the same in there". Hardware designers try to make it seem like it is child's play to utililize 2-4-8 cores but believe me, it is goddamn hard to rewrite software to properly and fully utilize more cores. In a significant portion of problems it is impossible.

[Blazul]

Well it`s an investment hopefully it will pay off. Pc-buying it`s a gamble anyway ^^

[Rowain]

By the time it will start to pay off, you will want to upgrade again
Right now the best dual cores easily beat the "theoretically twice as fast" quad cores in practically all games. Yea, encoding/modelling/syntetic benchmarks look pretty, but 90% of the users do not touch these kind of softwares or use them very rarely.

[Rowain]

By the way: getting ready for Age of Conan, Noa?

[Noadonis]

prolly Row, but tbh I seem to have got over my MMPORG addiction so I'm not sure if I want to relapse...

My current computer is a bit cleveland is all, think mainly cos the HD is completely full.  I need to upgrade because I only have a Athlon 64 3000+, and it's on a socket 939 MoBo so basically upgrading requires new comp (chip + Mobo + HDrive = new comp in my book, although I suppose if I was desperate I could reuse my graphics card (x1900xtx), case etc.)

AoC definitely would require a new comp!

Also, Empire Total War looks pretty nifty and that comes out later on in the year...

Noa

[Noadonis]

ordered me new 'puter:

E8400 chippy
Asus P5k SE Mobo
4GB 800MHz DDR2 Ram
64 Bit Vista 
320 GB 7200rpm HDD
512MB 8800GTS Graphixxxx
and 700Watt (yes, 700 Watt  -  it cost the same as 600W...) Powerpack for possible graphixx upgrade in a couple oh years.  Decided not to go SLI.

with a few bits and bobs and delivery came to 760 squids, which I thought was ok really.

[Noadonis]

P.S. anyone want to buy a:

Sapphire Radeon X1900 XTX 512MB GDDR3 Dual DVI ViVO PCI-E?

 - the only part of this comp worth salvaging

[foovl]

ordered me new 'puter:

and 700Watt (yes, 700 Watt  -  it cost the same as 600W...) Powerpack for possible graphixx upgrade in a couple oh years.  Decided not to go SLI.

in couple of years new graphic card prabobly wont fit your motherboard anyway ;p
and even if... there will be PCI x32 standard maybe? so you'll have to change your motherboard... and ram, cpu, with it