I'm mostly a lurker here, but haven't found an answer to my question, so I'm finally posting.
Buddy of mine and I are debating a full rebuild now of our current systems (we can barely get Oblivion to play acceptably, and we will be getting NWN2 in 9/06, which will likely put the same load on our systems). We've taken our systems about as far as they can go (DFI nForce3, 3800+AMD, 6800 Ultra video OC'd, 2GhzRAM, etc.).
We are going to upgrade our Mobos and get dual-core AMD chips. Our goal is to make a machine that will last about 3 years, play Oblivion and NWN2 with the eye candy on, and play 2008 games at least passably.
The question is whether to do this now and get two high-end video cards in SLI/Crossfire configuration, OR save our cash and wait for AM2 MoBos and DX10 cards to come out and get one high-end DX10 card (which can be upgraded later with a 2nd DX10 card in SLI/Crossfire configuration).
If we do it now (by July with AMD price drops), we can use our current RAM on a Socket 939 board; cost would be $169/chip, $180/MoBo, $80/power supply, $425 for X1900 XTX card (and another $425 or less next year for the 2nd X1900 XTX card when games start catching up to us). We can use our current memory and OS; total now is $850, total by end of next year would probably be less than $1200 with price drops on the video cards.
Doing it later would mean that we have to get an AM2 board, newer DDR2, and Windows Vista, as well as the pricing on DX10 cards, which is unknown.
As our goal is to make a machine that will last about 3 years. Any opinions on whether a pair of x1900 XTX cards on a MoBo with two 16x PCIe Crossfire slots will last that long in the face of DX10/Vista configurations? Would it be worth the money, or should we spend it all next year on the new stuff? Is there no good answer at this time, and will there be a point at which this will all become clear with product releases before 2007?
Thanks in advance for any advice; I realize this little question has almost turned into a novel. If I missed the answer to this question in my search, please point me to it.
Fritz1970
Buddy of mine and I are debating a full rebuild now of our current systems (we can barely get Oblivion to play acceptably, and we will be getting NWN2 in 9/06, which will likely put the same load on our systems). We've taken our systems about as far as they can go (DFI nForce3, 3800+AMD, 6800 Ultra video OC'd, 2GhzRAM, etc.).
We are going to upgrade our Mobos and get dual-core AMD chips. Our goal is to make a machine that will last about 3 years, play Oblivion and NWN2 with the eye candy on, and play 2008 games at least passably.
The question is whether to do this now and get two high-end video cards in SLI/Crossfire configuration, OR save our cash and wait for AM2 MoBos and DX10 cards to come out and get one high-end DX10 card (which can be upgraded later with a 2nd DX10 card in SLI/Crossfire configuration).
If we do it now (by July with AMD price drops), we can use our current RAM on a Socket 939 board; cost would be $169/chip, $180/MoBo, $80/power supply, $425 for X1900 XTX card (and another $425 or less next year for the 2nd X1900 XTX card when games start catching up to us). We can use our current memory and OS; total now is $850, total by end of next year would probably be less than $1200 with price drops on the video cards.
Doing it later would mean that we have to get an AM2 board, newer DDR2, and Windows Vista, as well as the pricing on DX10 cards, which is unknown.
As our goal is to make a machine that will last about 3 years. Any opinions on whether a pair of x1900 XTX cards on a MoBo with two 16x PCIe Crossfire slots will last that long in the face of DX10/Vista configurations? Would it be worth the money, or should we spend it all next year on the new stuff? Is there no good answer at this time, and will there be a point at which this will all become clear with product releases before 2007?
Thanks in advance for any advice; I realize this little question has almost turned into a novel. If I missed the answer to this question in my search, please point me to it.
Fritz1970
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