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I now have nearly £800 to spend on a massive upgrade to my system, but im confuddled, i dont know what to do.

Ive decided to upgrade to a Radeon X800XT, Athlon 64 (of some kind) and a new mobo, but i dont know whether to get it all now (Socket 754, AGP 8x) or wait untill Socket 939 comes out and get PCI-Express X800 (which will be more expensive?).

Should i get now, or wait, and how long will i have to wait? this is so frustrating, Ive heard from some ppl PCI-E isnt all that great, from other people its marvelous, i just don't know who to believe.

Noone can really say what PCI-E is worth since noone has actually used it. It's all hype right now.

You should wait at least 6 months to get a decent 939 board with all the bugs ironed out. The same time period goes for PCI-E too.

My personal recommendation is to wait till 2005 for new technology or max out your current machine based on 32 bit CPU(s) and good ol' plain PCI.

Erm, wait till 2005?!?!?! :S

My system is designed for gaming, i dont think a PCI graphics card (if they even exist anymore) would be suitable to play Doom 3, do you?

can anyone improve on a 6 month time frame?

I m pretty sure what Nodsu meant by "good ol' plain PCI" isn't PCI graphics card.

I don't think there is a real need for a massive upgrade besides the video card. Well the CPU probably a bit later.

The best thing to do is put aside the cash first and see how every goes.

Naw, I have a thing, wherebye as soon as my PC in incapable of not playing a game with all the highest graphics then its time to upgrade, Far Cry (by far the most demanding game out atm) struggles with all graphics on Medium, i think its time to upgrade very soon.

I'll wait for 3/4 months, if nothing has come out by then, then im affraid this money (by then well into a thousand) will have to be spent.

You could send the money to me instead...

That way you'll have to wait a bit longer before you hav enough for a proper upgrade, and most of the bugs & kinks will have had a chance to get ironed out in the meantime.

Seriously, I'd do as nodsu says wrt to PCI-Express and 939. But since there appears to be motherboards coming out which will support 939 and AGP, why not get the X800XT now, and the rest later? That should let you play with better settings than you do now, and give the manufacturers a bit of a chance to fix any problems their implementations might have.

Though if you don't want to wait, you can always comfort yourself, when you've found all the bugs & problems in the first gen hardware, that you're helping the rest of us by showing the manufactureres that there is interest in PCI-Express and 939

AGP 8x X800XT?

Yes, that's the one.

Now, if it turns out that there won't be any 939 motherboards with an AGP port, you should be able to sell the X800XT AGP (The PEG* version is rumoured to be called X880XT btw) without too much of a loss, and buy the PEG version.

*PEG = PCI-Express Graphicsport

thx Garibaldi, you truely are a fountain of knowledge

hehe

Just glad to be of help

(And I don't have anything better to do whilst waiting for the rush-hour to pass so I can hit the golf-course )

Im waitin'- it seems that every potential upgrade for my current system will not be usable in a next-gen machine and if the promised quantum-leap in performance and functionality is delivered as advertised it only makes sense to leave well enough alone untill all is ready for prime-time.

if yer that hell-bent on spending some money, get a girlfriend that likes expensive underwear- it never becomes obsolete!

as long as the underwear is next gen with 16 m-bit pipelines and titanium knitting

Here are some alternatives that could allow you to buy something now & still be ready for futur hardware releases...

A Socket-939 board with PCI-e & AGP ( Via based )


A Socket-939 board with PCI-e & AGP ( SiS based )


& a board with a socket-754 & a socket-939 ( SiS based )


Now if only they combined a mainboard that had a socket-754, a socket-939, AGP & PCI-express...

Hehe, if they did the latter I might just be interested.

But of course, it couldn't cost more than 100$ max....