The time is now! [maybe not quite now]
Posted by madotteя
OK, I've been putting money away for the last year or so ready to get a new PC. I was going to wait until January but seeing as my old PC went bang (for the last time, beyond repair) I will be ordering within the next few hours. Heres the system I have put together:
I was going for the E6600 but countless reviews give the awards and best buy to the E6700. The price difference is quite hefty, £150 between the two. Both are Conroe with 4MB L2 Cache but the 6600 is 2.4GHz and the 6700 is 2.66GHz. What would the PC people here recommend? Any other things I should look at before I order or does the rest seem OK? I have gone for the 8800 card as it says its DX10/WGF compatible,
Many Thanks for all relevent advice
Iain
EDIT// I'm not getting the mouse or keyboard now, got a good one from Work.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2006 12:12AM by madotteя.
I was going for the E6600 but countless reviews give the awards and best buy to the E6700. The price difference is quite hefty, £150 between the two. Both are Conroe with 4MB L2 Cache but the 6600 is 2.4GHz and the 6700 is 2.66GHz. What would the PC people here recommend? Any other things I should look at before I order or does the rest seem OK? I have gone for the 8800 card as it says its DX10/WGF compatible,
Many Thanks for all relevent advice
Iain
EDIT// I'm not getting the mouse or keyboard now, got a good one from Work.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2006 12:12AM by madotteя.
In all honesty, we are on the verge of a major new operating system, thus are heading into a new DirectX version which means big changes in the world of graphics card manufacturers and we also on the verge of pretty soon going to fully working quad-cores (not just two glued together as it were) and 65nm to 45nm CPUs (not quite as fast coming as Quad-cores but close enough), both of which are no small steps.
Also, the component that goes out of date the quickest is easily a graphics card; I just find it utterly ludicrous, especially the timing of this, to spend close to half a grand on one. With new territory comes the unknown and because the 8800 series (which will very soon be followed by more series once Vista is out in January) is the first ever DX10 capable card on the market, it by no means will make the most out of the new dependencies available to it.
In my honest opinion, wait. But its completely upto you.
Also, the component that goes out of date the quickest is easily a graphics card; I just find it utterly ludicrous, especially the timing of this, to spend close to half a grand on one. With new territory comes the unknown and because the 8800 series (which will very soon be followed by more series once Vista is out in January) is the first ever DX10 capable card on the market, it by no means will make the most out of the new dependencies available to it.
In my honest opinion, wait. But its completely upto you.
I have to say the 8800 hits the sweet spot for DX9 and DX10 games, so ATI will have to pull something rather special next time. As for quadcore: if you don't do video encoding, stick with Core 2 Duo. Most games are only 2 thread optimised at the moment, so hold out for quadcore for a year or so if you can.
Everyone knows that million-to-one chances happen 9 times out of 10; indeed, it's a common requirement in fairy tales. If the human didn't have to overcome huge odds, what would be the point? Terry Pratchett - The Science Of Discworld
GPGSL S5 Race driver for IED.
Everyone knows that million-to-one chances happen 9 times out of 10; indeed, it's a common requirement in fairy tales. If the human didn't have to overcome huge odds, what would be the point? Terry Pratchett - The Science Of Discworld
GPGSL S5 Race driver for IED.
I wasnt quite as forthcoming as Gav but, yeah, I agree 100% :P
OK, thanks to both of you 
I have managed to borrow another PC which runs the internet and all programs fine. I'll never see a game on this but I can use it for as long as I need. I think i'll take the advice and wait a couple of months after Vista is out to see the new components.
Cheers
Iain
I have managed to borrow another PC which runs the internet and all programs fine. I'll never see a game on this but I can use it for as long as I need. I think i'll take the advice and wait a couple of months after Vista is out to see the new components.Cheers
Iain
gav Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Frankly, you're mental.
>
> You're about to buy a motherboard that's totally
> untested on a platform absolutely ridden with
> bugs, and a graphics card with no opposition until
> 2007 (which will better it on DX9 form). We've
> absolutely no idea how well the 8800GTX will
> perform in Vista (and therefore DX10), and
> currently drivers are simply atrocious. You're
> going for a CPU that is no better than the model
> beneath it, but in fairness it does cost
> 150OddMatters more.
>
> As major upgrades go, your timing couldn't be any
> worse.
>
> If you've any sense in the slightest, and aren't
> simply after an epenis, you'd wait until at least
> Q2 2007.
>
> As for what Turkey says above, nothing is
> optimised for dual-core. It's all about
> multi-cores. If you apps can support 2 cores, they
> can support 16 - there'll be some poor exceptions
> (/me looks in Symantec's direction), but that's
> the way it is and will be.
Go with the 8800 my friend
I will concede that the drivers are immature, however I've yet to find a game that I can't run (although HL2 didn't run with the latest drivers, and so I reverted to the ones that were shipped with the card) There haven't been any new drivers recently but I hear rumours, from the Inquirer and other sites, that they are to show up in quite soon.
I went with the EVGA 690i motherboard, and it was 210 when I bought it (not sure what it is now) and it's worked flawlessly. The Asus board is just out, but I have no reason to think it'd have any major issues.
Personally, i'd go for the 6600 (in fact, I did go for it) as it is a fraction slower in terms of clock speed, but it such a fast processor in the first place that I doubt you'd notice the difference (however £150 is a lot of beer, and that you WILL notice) Plus, that heatsink will almost certainly let you clock it >3GHz anyway.
You'd also be wise to make sure that the 8800 will fit inside your case! I didn't expect it to be a problem however it came very close to the hard drive bays at the front. There are a few threads on forums with lists of compatible cases.
-------------------------------------------------------
SKEL
You can accuse a person of just about anything and get away with it, as long as you don't call them a lousy lover or bad driver. -Jackie Stewart
-------------------------------------------------------
> Frankly, you're mental.
>
> You're about to buy a motherboard that's totally
> untested on a platform absolutely ridden with
> bugs, and a graphics card with no opposition until
> 2007 (which will better it on DX9 form). We've
> absolutely no idea how well the 8800GTX will
> perform in Vista (and therefore DX10), and
> currently drivers are simply atrocious. You're
> going for a CPU that is no better than the model
> beneath it, but in fairness it does cost
> 150OddMatters more.
>
> As major upgrades go, your timing couldn't be any
> worse.
>
> If you've any sense in the slightest, and aren't
> simply after an epenis, you'd wait until at least
> Q2 2007.
>
> As for what Turkey says above, nothing is
> optimised for dual-core. It's all about
> multi-cores. If you apps can support 2 cores, they
> can support 16 - there'll be some poor exceptions
> (/me looks in Symantec's direction), but that's
> the way it is and will be.
Go with the 8800 my friend
I will concede that the drivers are immature, however I've yet to find a game that I can't run (although HL2 didn't run with the latest drivers, and so I reverted to the ones that were shipped with the card) There haven't been any new drivers recently but I hear rumours, from the Inquirer and other sites, that they are to show up in quite soon.I went with the EVGA 690i motherboard, and it was 210 when I bought it (not sure what it is now) and it's worked flawlessly. The Asus board is just out, but I have no reason to think it'd have any major issues.
Personally, i'd go for the 6600 (in fact, I did go for it) as it is a fraction slower in terms of clock speed, but it such a fast processor in the first place that I doubt you'd notice the difference (however £150 is a lot of beer, and that you WILL notice) Plus, that heatsink will almost certainly let you clock it >3GHz anyway.
You'd also be wise to make sure that the 8800 will fit inside your case! I didn't expect it to be a problem however it came very close to the hard drive bays at the front. There are a few threads on forums with lists of compatible cases.
-------------------------------------------------------
SKEL
You can accuse a person of just about anything and get away with it, as long as you don't call them a lousy lover or bad driver. -Jackie Stewart
I don't do hype. Had the Y2K bug hooked into the kernel's API and not some 15 yr old BIOS, we would have had a problem
I've no intention of upgrading to Vista at work. It would be suicidal there. However, if you can get FS:X running adequately on a modest Athlon64 with, say an X800 Pro, then you let me know. Same will apply to Crysis too. 2 of the most anticipated games of 2006 and 2007, and neither will do anything other than struggle to run on XP. It's going to be the same story all the time until you do go Vista.
Anti-virus is less of an issue. It won't just stop working. It's is however having to attach itself to the system in a different way. If you've got it set up to update itself (and most will update both definitions and engine), then you're going to leave yourself a little more susceptible to attacks. Not an issue for most of us, but 'hackers' if you like will exploit it (indeed, already are), and the kids and less wary of us who participate in, lets say the less legal activities will get hit. The current fashion of the MSN virus will be next.
It's all good and well saying "I can do this and it'll last until I'm ready", but there will inevitably be something you want that just won't fit in.
As for 64bit CPUs, you'd better believe it. It is happening, and for one very, very important reason. RAM. Both XP and Vista 32-bit can support a max of 3.7Gb of RAM, and for many applications in the not too distant future, that's just not enough.
I've no intention of upgrading to Vista at work. It would be suicidal there. However, if you can get FS:X running adequately on a modest Athlon64 with, say an X800 Pro, then you let me know. Same will apply to Crysis too. 2 of the most anticipated games of 2006 and 2007, and neither will do anything other than struggle to run on XP. It's going to be the same story all the time until you do go Vista.
Anti-virus is less of an issue. It won't just stop working. It's is however having to attach itself to the system in a different way. If you've got it set up to update itself (and most will update both definitions and engine), then you're going to leave yourself a little more susceptible to attacks. Not an issue for most of us, but 'hackers' if you like will exploit it (indeed, already are), and the kids and less wary of us who participate in, lets say the less legal activities will get hit. The current fashion of the MSN virus will be next.
It's all good and well saying "I can do this and it'll last until I'm ready", but there will inevitably be something you want that just won't fit in.
As for 64bit CPUs, you'd better believe it. It is happening, and for one very, very important reason. RAM. Both XP and Vista 32-bit can support a max of 3.7Gb of RAM, and for many applications in the not too distant future, that's just not enough.
Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.