[Hammm]

Hey guys, with all the new hardware about to comeout, i've thought of a possible build for people like me who want to upgrade soon and can't really wait for Windows Vista to arrive(end of 2006 is expected) but want to not get left behind in the new DDR2. M2 socket and stuff so here goes. i may do this build too so please advise

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ :not too bad a CPU, only dual core is missing but in gamers world, CPU isn't a big thing it also allows for more to be spent on the gfx card

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum :decent mobo for its price and can support many things that will last, SATA2, PCI-E etc.

2x512Mb of Corsair VAlue Select :good RAM and no use wasting money on XMS stuff when DDR2 comes out

X1900XT :this is the bit i'm unsure on. i plan to when Vista comes out, buy a Dual-Core Athlon or Opteron on M2 when prices are down, then plug this baby into it and get a cheap 6800GS or X800GTO for this machine. that way, i have good gfx now and for the new PC, i have a decent PC and a hard core one as well. one thing that makes me unsure is, will the 3700+ run Vista well.
otherwise a X800GTO now is good

250Gb SATA2 Seagate, it makes no senseto spend a lot now as bigger HDs will come out .

Case and PSU of choice


what do you guys think, i'm really unsure if i get a DX9 card, it will be obselete when DX10 arrives or will it still last. and as for the CPU, is the 3700+ ok for Vista or not. really confused but i think this machine could stand, for buget users the X800GTO is good enough. unsure and any suggestions will be welcome. i plan to leave the proposed machine to dad then buy new RAM, DDR2, CPU for me(bit selfesh but hey...) and stick in the X1900XT. and what about new gfx cards from nVidia and ATI, no news on then. Will the X1900XT be old by the time Vista has settled and so i've wasted more money? sooooooooooooooo unsure

Edited by Hammm, 15 March 2006 - 01:17 AM.

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well in all honesty. dual core processors are the future and singal cores will not be around in the next 5 years. so i would recomend a good dual core. i myself am going to purchase the opteron 165 dual core for abour $328.00 it comes stock at 1.8ghz but im looking to overclock it. its my personal opion but i havent really seen anything speacial about ddr2 to make me go and buy some so instead ive stuck with a good old DDR500 2X 1gb pack for my new build its a little pricy but im willing to try it out.....

Im thinking the same way about the video card thing....im getting a 6800GS cause im hangin back on the video card power and seeing waht comes out. I went ahaead and did some more reasherch on windows vista and it will come with DX10 or it will be launched at around the same time. I might get vista myself very impressive features on that OS...lol ill just keep it off the internet and use my old comp to surf the web...

the X1900xt isnt worth the money at this point in time so id hang back and see waht else comes out....
but if you must get a highend card...then id recomend the { Evga 7900GT } pepole are saying this card is performing like a $500.00 7800GTX for mere $299.00 on newegg.com

thats about all i can say at the moment....wish you luck :-)

[Metatron2012]

well in all honesty. dual core processors are the future and singal cores will not be around in the next 5 years. so i would recomend a good dual core. i myself am going to purchase the opteron 165 dual core for abour $328.00 it comes stock at 1.8ghz but im looking to overclock it. its my personal opion but i havent really seen anything speacial about ddr2 to make me go and buy some so instead ive stuck with a good old DDR500 2X 1gb pack for my new build its a little pricy but im willing to try it out.....

Im thinking the same way about the video card thing....im getting a 6800GS cause im hangin back on the video card power and seeing waht comes out. I went ahaead and did some more reasherch on windows vista and it will come with DX10 or it will be launched at around the same time. I might get vista myself very impressive features on that OS...lol ill just keep it off the internet and use my old comp to surf the web...

the X1900xt isnt worth the money at this point in time so id hang back and see waht else comes out....
but if you must get a highend card...then id recomend the { Evga 7900GT } pepole are saying this card is performing like a $500.00 7800GTX for mere $299.00 on newegg.com

thats about all i can say at the moment....wish you luck :-)

[warriorscot]

Depends on your location and what deal you get at the time wether an X1900 is worth it and how much performance you need if you want the best then obvioulsy its the choice.

DDR2 and M2 wont offer huge performance boost really as AMD are allready so good at DDR, until they move over to 65nm the chips are almost identical apart from an extra pin and being even more power efficient(not a huge factor on a high end desktop).

I would wait for the DX10 now, the x800 GTO and 6800GS have plenty of clout in there own right and can run most games at high settings no bother at all, increasing numbers of games are going to be made with dual core support and eventually fully optimised for the second core. Its a worthwhile expenditure.

CPU is more importnat than you think, of late CPU performance improvements were alot more dramatic than gfx card improvements which were laggin behind so that meant that most systems for gaming were GPU limited(they only performed in games as well as the GPU could handle) however recently gfx cards have not only caught up but have surpassed CPUs in many ways meaning that if you use one of the high end current gen cards you will have a CPU bottlenecked system in some cases(3700+ would be borderline for this effect its pretty fast but it would still be there).

[Hammm]

so you're saying what, get a CPU now, the dual core one's and buy a cheaper Gfx card, but i don't know if i'll need to upgrade soon with DDR2 memory coming out, i may or may not, depends on the impact on the other specs. i just don't want to get left behind with Skt 939 because they won't make them by 2007 and all the new features will be on M2

also, i've taken a look at the 7600GT from nVidia, it looks quite nice, is cheaper than the 6800GS, is it better, all the specs are higher, what about the X1600XT? it didn't do as well in lab tests as the X800GTO and i'm assuming the 7600GT is better than that

i've read a lot of reviews and many say the 7600GT is better than the X1800XL and that the 7900GT is better than the 7800GTX, is this true, if so, which one do i get?

Edited by Hammm, 16 March 2006 - 03:01 AM.

[warriorscot]

AMD could switch to a socket other than M2 in 2007 as well though(which there was rumours of) you cant go by oh but theyll stop making them, yes theyll stop making them but theyll stop making m2 as well, its the workd of computers for you, 939 and M2 are almost identical and because if the huge quantities of 939 CPUs made then if you did upgrade later chips wouldnt be to hard to come by. DDR2 isnt going to be a huge differnece(AMD have said as much) its more of a cost thing DDR2 is going to be cheaper than DDR.

With computers your damned if you do damned if you dont.

Its not to hard to believe that the 7600GT is faster than the XL it was the XT that was properly fast the XL wasnt great you cant even find them in large numbers anymore, 7900GT/78000GTX if i remember the review it was faster but ild have to check as i didnt have time to go over all the little details at the time as life takes its toll on time. Biggest factor price if youre going that high end i would get a X1900XT it offers a good balance between price and performance if youre going high end XTX is to much x1800XT not enough.

X1800XT versus 7900GT and GTX were pretty close as well for some things, the GTX out paced it usually, but the XT and GT were very close competitiors.
Gfx card wise the biggest factor is going to be cost not performance you get to a certain point and its not going to get much better for most people and you dont want to get the best card in a current generation as you end up with something that you paid alot of money that wont be up to much in a year, aim one below at best to get a good price.

[Hammm]

what would offer more bang per buck, 7600GT or 7900GT? the 7600GT is cheaper but not too much

[warriorscot]

Put the prices up, it varies, here neither of them really the X1800XT would be better cause its cheaper but in the US the 7900s are very cheap(even here they are still a good price though. Totally depends on local prices.

[Hammm]

7600GT Gigabyte 370 NZD, around 250 USD i don't like gigabyte's bundle though but it's the cheapest there is

7900GT Gigabyte 595 NZD or aournd 390 USD