Seeking advice on new system

[sevyd]

First of thank you to all who have shared their knowledge here. I have learned more about my system, and probably the system I want to build, here then anywhere else.

I am an avid 3d gamer, looking forward too many of the upcoming releasing, but finding my system in need of replacement. Now, I have read the hold off on buying/upgrading your PC right now article because of the coming upgrades, but for my needs should I really wait? I expect the new chipset, memory,...etc from intel is going to be pretty expressive at first and push it out of what I will pay for my hobby. Will I see a corresponding drop in price on "older" chipsets and motherboards that would make it worth my time to wait another couple months? Or am over-estimating what they mean by using premium to describe their prices for the new memory?

If you believe that I should build/buy now, what features would you suggest? So far I am leaning towards Intel, and Nvidia with no intention of overclocking the system.

Thank you for your time and suggestions,

Bryan

 

[SubKamran]

I'm building this system for my very best friend:

RAIDMAX 10-Bay ATX Mid-Tower Case
Price: $52
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=11-156-133&DEPA=1

ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe Motherboard
Price: $116
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-131-492&depa=1

Intel P4 2.4CGhz
Price: $169
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductdesc.asp?description=19-116-157&depa=1

Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT 128MB
Price: $146
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?DEPA=1&sumit=Go&description=14-102-326&searchdepa=1

Corsair TwinX XMS Platinum 512MB PC3200 DDR
Price: $135
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-145-452&depa=1

Hitachi 80GB 7200RPM SATA
Price: $74
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?DEPA=1&sumit=Go&description=22-145-049&searchdepa=1

Optorite 52X32X52 CD-RW
Price: $28
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=27-182-021&depa=1

CTX 17” Black Monitor
Price: $87
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductdesc.asp?description=24-103-155&depa=1

Microsoft Optical Desktop
Price: $36
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProduct.asp?description=23-109-122&depa=1

Gainward Hollywood@Home Sound Xplosion 5.1 Headset
Price: $27
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductdesc.asp?description=26-106-450&depa=1

Total: $867

That will run any game so far. OC to 3Ghz, maybe more...

Also, for 3D gaming, ATI is your friend, not nVidia. I'm sorry to sound like a fan boy, but ATI is ahead of the pack.

 

[Arris]

Ok, lets address the new technologies first.

PCI-e. Realistically its going to be over 6 months away before you get a good selection of consumer devices available for these. It will definitely be 6 months before the next generation of graphics cards are designed from scratch to take advantage of the new bandwidth offered by the PCI-e bus. The current generation using the PCI-e slot are still based on a design that was meant to make the most of the AGP bus. So for a gamer I see little advantage coming soon from the PCI-e bus change.

DDR2. From several technical reviews of the newer DDR2 products it seems that they will have to step up the bus speed several times before there is a reasonable performance boost from switching from the current DDR standard. Sure it will run at lower voltages but until it has a performance benefit I don't see a benefit for gaming.

BTX. A format change that just means buying a new case and power supply. Better layout. Not a real technological boost. If your upgrade just now doesn't involve a case and PSU then this shouldn't have any affect on your decision.

The thing that would most influence my decision on whether to upgrade would be (being a gamer myself) "Am I happy with the resolution and image quality of my gaming experience" and "Is my system struggling to allow me to play the games I want to, the way I want to play them (IQ and high res)". Please post your current PC specifications (or fill in the information about your current PC in your Profile) to help us decide if its worth your while upgrading just now. If your running a P3 800Mhz system with 128Mb PC133 ram and a Voodoo3 video card then I would say it would be worthwhile upgrading now. Your gaming experience would benefit hugely from the change. If your running on a mid-range system then you could weather it out a little longer and wait for the new technology to come out. By then you should be able to get a better idea of the performance increases that may come with a combination of the new technologies (or pick up previous technology parts on the cheap). Its the norm for the older technology:motherboards, video cards, memory etc. to drop in price when the new "next best thing" comes out. So even if you wait you could pick up a decent system after deciding the latest and greatest kit isn't in your hobby budget.

Its a hard decision and also to be considered is your usual upgrade cycle. How often are you likely to update parts of your system?

Anyway, hope my bletherings are of some use to you and welcome :wave:

 

[Jeybyrd]

There are OEM Sapphire Radeon 9800 PRO cards available for $163 here:

http://techspot.pricegrabber.com/re...ff02b49b9c4755f870e33c210363&bl=1&promo_id=40

 

[sevyd]

well of course i should have posted my system info, obviously I did not think far enough ahead. And looking at my system info now, boy am amazed at what is installed on this system.

P3 - 1.o Ghz
512 ram
ge force 2 mx/mx400

Gods I cant bear to go on, I thought I had done more upgrades but appearantly I only upgraded her machine. Time to put this poor thing to rest.

So suggestions on a complete new build? Looking for it last without serious upgrades for say 2 years or so.

Bryan

 

[Didou]

Originally posted by Jeybyrd
There are OEM Sapphire Radeon 9800 PRO cards available for $163 here:

http://techspot.pricegrabber.com/re...ff02b49b9c4755f870e33c210363&bl=1&promo_id=40

Keep away from the card. It has a crippled 128-bit memory bus ( you can also notice the memory chips are in the old TSOP format & not BGA ). These cards offer performance as low as 9600XT cards, if not lower.

 

[Arris]

Originally posted by sevyd
So suggestions on a complete new build? Looking for it last without serious upgrades for say 2 years or so.

1Gb PC3200 Ram or faster.
Best DirectX 9 card that you can afford.
Best available platform just now with upgradability would be Socket 939 for Athlon 64 processors. 754 is aimed at budget users since Athlon XP 32bit units are going to be released for Socket 754. Intel Socket T solutions are in the pipeline and should present a fairly good future upgradability, not read that much about the future intel solution though.

I'm looking to keep my Socket 754 A64 3200+ X800 Pro system for as long as possible. Probably up to a year and a half.
Might change video cards before then but aside from that I'm going to try and make it last