Temp upgrade? Or wait?

[imported_Kintoun]

So right now I'm running on a P4 1.6a/1GB/ATI8500 which can't OC at all anymore. I want to get a whole new system, but would prefer to wait for PCI-e to become more widely used. My roommate said he will give me his 5900FX Ultra.

Is there anyway I can make use of his card in a new cpu/mobo and still pull off 60FPS in HL2 @ 1600x1200 (use your best guess)? If not then I'll simply buy a new card. Budget isn't really an issue.

The main question is to wait, or not to wait? But I REALLY want to play HL2 at a minimum of 60FPS, but if it screws me for the future then I can force myself to wait.

If there is a good STABLE mobo out with PCI-e then I could be wasting my time as I might as well buy that. But as far as I have read, there are no good PCI-e boards out yet (NF4). Or am I wasting my time chasing PCI-e when AGP is just as fast and will be around awhile?

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[Nyquest007]

So, your roommate is giving you a 5900? What wrong with swithing the tired 8500 for the 5900? As far as AGP to PCI-E, I haven't seen any real performance differences in "today's" games. Future games may exploit the new bandwidth availible, but the real advantage to PCI-E is SLI. Waiting for that is up to you. "Stable" boards won't be on the street for months, most are still in testing. AGP will be around for atleast 6-8 months or more even on the highest end of the scale. Too much money to be lost killing of AGP right now. The last word on Nvidia's roadmap was that AGP is still on their high end line until 3Q 05.

I would take your friend up on the 5900 then ride that till you feel like dropping the money on a solid investment that you feel is somewhat future proof. With that CPU you will probably find that it's the bottleneck in newer games. It's not the best card, but it's not a card to just throw out either. If you wait long enough, you may end up with a dual core proc, SLI setup......ha, ha. Be smart, it's your money and alot of changes are around the way.

 

[Canterwood]

Can I just say that if your running an FX 5900 and HL2, then it will run the game in DirectX 8.1 mode and NOT DirectX 9.0 mode.

I think you can force it into DirectX 9.0 mode, but it will hit performance big time.

This is due to the problems the FX range have running some fully DirectX 9.0 compatible games. (HL2 is one of them)

 

[The Internal]

why the heck do you need to run HL2 at that high a res? you got a 30" screen or something?