Been Away For 3 Years

[Crism]

Hey all,

I've been away from computer parts and building and whatnot for the past few years, and I'm wanting to get my knowledge back up again.

I did a little bit of research but I've got a few questions.

1. Are SSD's the new HD of the future? If so it looks like we're back to 80GB for $200.
2. Who's got the leading video card(s) at the moment? Are you guys throwing 3 GTX295's on a board like I thought you would be or no? ATI's Crossfire turned me off back in the day. Have their drivers improved?
3. Leading CPU? I'm guessing still Intel. Along with that, I see the good OC'ing motherboards are $250+.....ugh.
4. Power supplies....now +1000W...holy crap.

And the kicker, 5) I absolutely LOVE Windows XP. Is Windows 7 worth it?

To give you a frame of reference of where my current knowledge stands, my old bear at home has an Opteron 148 (remember when the Opterons OC'ed better than the others?), 1GB RAM, 7800GT video card, 250GB SATA HD, 80GB storage, PCI Audigy 2 audio card (I love this thing), all on a DFI SLI-DR board with a Vantec 470W PSU that has a terrible 12v rail.....and it's all connected to a 19" Sony 75lb CRT....

If have a feeling that if I get back into things, I'm going to be blown away by performance and gaming. Turn me up the AA and AF all the way and give me a huge LCD and that's what I want eventually.

Just looking for some tips and tricks on things nowadays. Pointing me towards reviews or whatever works. I read quite an interesting 80GB SSD vs. RAID 0 300GB Raptors review the other day.

 

[Fayd]

intel and AMD are very similar for gaming performance. most games are GPU bottlenecked anyways.

SSD's are good for OS/Swap/some programs drives. they're not meant as, nor should they be used as, storage drives. ideally, if you go with an SSD, you're meant to have 2-3 harddrives in your machine. 1 SSD, 1 programs/storage drive.

ATI's cards do very well. you dont need more than 1 card to game at 1920x1200. if you want to go multiple cards, think gaming at 2560x1600 with full detail.

people over-buy power supplies. that hasn't changed in the past 3 years. a single GPU, single CPU system has no need of more than a 500 watt PS... and even that's pushing it.

those 1000w+ PS's are for people running 3-4 GPU's

yes, 7 is worth it over XP. though you're probably gonna want to drop the audigy. i dropped my x-fi when i switched to 7, and couldn't be happier with the onboard sound.

 

[klocwerk]

Hey pardner, I'm a month or so ahead of you in a very similar place, I just swiched from an Opteron 170 to the rig in my .sig, it's blowing me away. SSD boot drive with Win7.

Let me fill you in on what I've discovered.

Processors:
Intel's beating the snot out of AMD right now for the performance crown.
Bang for buck for under $150 processors it's debatable though. Factor in the mobo cost and AMD's more competitive.

Pure gaming: CPU's mostly out of the picture, grab an AMD combo or an Intel i5-750 + p55 mobo and a big expensive video card and you'll do fine.

GPU: the Radeon's are pwning right now. 5770's a great bang-for-buck card.

PSU: a good quality 500-600w will do everything you need unless you're running two-three monster dual-GPU video cards and a giant RAID array.

SSD : Game-changer, but still expensive. Your money, you choose. I snagged an 80gb one for under $2/gb and use it for OS and programs, Photoshop opens lightning fast.

Win7's shiny, I don't miss XP much.

Read up around the forums, check out the overclocker forums too. Lots to take in.
Basically though any modern hardware should push any modern game at resolutions that would've made our jaws drop 3-5 years ago. 😉