Should I buy a new video card?

Its a discussion of computer tech, and we'll be talking about the same thing a year from now. When we get the hardware, we'll feel as though we need the latest dx(X) just to find out its a little ahead of our brand new hardware.

The question about DX11 is when we're going to see its full impact. Not too soon I presume. So all the recent games (and quite a few more to come) should do fine on any good hardware currently available. I'd think of upgrading now and wait long enough before the shift to DX11. That's just my 2 cents worth though.

Right on. What's the point upgrading to E6600 when you can have E7300 or E8400 for a really good performance and price?

Believe it or not, I think these processors i recommended should be good enough for next few more years until DX11 comes out, and THEN he can splurge for the new monster specs.

The fact that the performance increase from doing so will be minimal, and that he will need to buy a new mobo for the new CPU, which also needs a clean install of Windows. Also, the difference between a Pentium D and any Core 2 CPU is night-and-day. Wolfdale is just a die shrink of Conroe, with faster stock clocks due to the lower power consumption and heat dissipation.

Too much trouble and money spent for a meagre performance increase IMO. Why not just do all the aforementioned steps once (when the rest of the Intel CPUs and chipsets are released and are affordable enough, along with DDR3 RAM), and be done with it?

Okay Rage, let me ask you something.

Since this opinion differs from people, would you really like to burn your wallet for over $1000 on ridiculous things, like DX11 cards, Quad core cpus, and all of that **stuff**, just for GAMES?

I thinks not.

**LNCPapa - family friendly forum - enough with the vulgarity.

For a gamer, they are hardly ridiculous (they are made for gamers in mind BTW; video cards are irrefutable proof of this), and the OP also stated that he wants to upgrade so he can have better performance in games.

So I fail to see your point.

I'm talking about this.

Would you care to explain a little more in detail?

I would, and I do, but I wouldnt suggest it to everyone. For the price of things now its better to just spend maybe 4-500 usd to build a decent pc.

@bushwhacker, I was just telling him to get a new CPU now, and then do a complete upgrade later. It would be pointless to get a new Socket 775 mobo and CPU now, since LGA 1156 will take over as the new mainstream Intel socket pretty soon. Also, the AM3 socket provides much better options for upgrades in the future, since it is going to pretty much be the flagship socket for AMD for the coming years. An AM3 motherboard and CPU are also cheaper than their similarly-performing Intel equivalents.

@Rage,

You have a good point on upgrading to AM3 board. I never saw this coming, so I'll give you a point for that.

Still, it would be nicer to have the USB 3.0 and / or SATA 3.0 comes out before DX11

talk about a tech that looks like its not going to get support for a long while, i think it was ASUS that announced a MB with USB 3.0 support , and then scrapped it the following month because they couldn't guarantee backward compatibility.

It will yes, but the problem with these two technologies is that they are severely limited by the hardware used. In the case of HDDs, their performance is pretty much limited by the rotation speed. When it comes to USB, most new USB 3.0 SuperSpeed devices will be pretty expensive, just like with USB 2.0 Hi-Speed when it was initially released. It will take time for prices to come down to current levels IMO.