Worth it to buy a new video card for my system?

[hydroponik]

So I currently have an opteron 165 OC'd to 2.8ghz with an 7900 GTO, but it's getting pretty old these days for more modern games.

Is it even worth it for me to upgrade to a new video card, or should I just bite the bullet and upgrade the CPU/Mobo as well?

 

[Maximilian]

I had that exact setup a while back, the gto was a real steal :thumbsup: I think you should just hang on to that until ATI's southern islands 6xxx series is out and the new cpu's from AMD/Intel are out with their new sockets. Bulldozer (AMD) and Sandy bridge (Intel) are what theyre called for now.

If none of that interests you it will at least drive down prices on current gen stuff. Or if you really cant wait maybe grab a cheap 5750/5770 and just hang onto that CPU for now.

 

[hydroponik]

Well I can definitely wait since I'm not really playing any games at the moment, but want to start back up.

Do you have an idea on when these new parts will be coming out? I'm pretty out of the loop these days since I haven't had a need to do any research.

I guess for now, I can just add hard drive space and a new monitor in anticipation for the system revamp. Will probaably work out better too since I wouldn't have to shell out all of this money at once.

 

[Will Robinson]

No,that Opteron rig is not worth upgrading.
Sandy Bridge and Bulldozer are brand new architectures.
Everyone knows you should wait for the revision 2 motherboards with a new design CPU unless you are fairly hardcore and don't mind the first generation motherboard glitches.
That being the case you are looking at a mighty long "wait".
The current Core i7 range is very good.Grab yourself a P55 mainboard,4-8GB of DDR3,perhaps a Core i5 750 or i7 860, an HD 5770 and call it a day.
That will be very fast and last for years.

 

[RussianSensation]

Everyone knows you should wait for the revision 2 motherboards with a new design CPU unless you are fairly hardcore and don't mind the first generation motherboard glitches.

That's a myth imo. I purchased first revisions of 865, P965, P35 and now P55 chipset boards every time I got a new CPU. None of those boards had any glitches you speak of. 2nd or 3rd revisions tend to add more features (i.e., PCIe express 2.0 vs. 1.0, more SATA ports, change board layout, change Foxconn retention to Lotes, USB 3.0/SATA3 etc.) than fix glitches. Today almost all motherboards are of such high quality, that discussing glitches is hardly relevant when you are talking about top brands: Asus, Gigabyte, EVGA. Also, board Revision from 1->x have the exact same bios versions. This means that whatever BIOS issues are present on Revision 1 are fixed with the same BIOS for all other board revisions.

Besides with this logic, you will wait until 2nd / 3rd board revision (which will come 4-6 months after the first revision boards launch). Then with that logic "oh it's only 12 more months until refresh of Sandy Bridge...etc." You keep waiting forever.

That being the case you are looking at a mighty long "wait".

This is very true. The real Sandy Bridge that is worth waiting (i.e., 6 and 8 core versions) for will not come out until Q3 2011. This means the Q1 2011 Sandy will only be a Quad Core. Unless you want to wait that long, you might as well get Core i7 now.

 

[Bill Brasky]

That's a myth imo. I purchased first revisions of 865, P965, P35 and now P55 chipset boards every time I got a new CPU.

This is very true. The real Sandy Bridge that is worth waiting (i.e., 6 and 8 core versions) for will not come out until Q3 2011. This means the Q1 2011 Sandy will only be a Quad Core. Unless you want to wait that long, you might as well get Core i7 now.

I agree with both of those points. But if you're only interested in gaming and not encoding, it's hard to beat the price/ performance of the i5 750. If there's interest in staggering the build, the OP could do cpu, mobo, and ram now, and then upgrade his gpu during the refresh in Q4.

edit: There are good graphics cards available now if you'd like to start gaming sooner, but they are a little pricey in my opinion.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

What games are you looking to play?

Now if you upgrade your video card you will most definitely see gains in performance. But your processor will hold back performance a little to a lot depending on what resolution you play at, what games you are looking to play, and what card you get.

It sounds like you're almost willing to upgrade your system anyway. In which case it seems to make sense for you to upgrade the video card first, to something like an HD5750 or HD5770, and if you are dissatisfied then upgrade the rest of the system.

 

[Will Robinson]

That's a myth imo. I purchased first revisions of 865, P965, P35 and now P55 chipset boards every time I got a new CPU. None of those boards had any glitches you speak of. 2nd or 3rd revisions tend to add more features (i.e., PCIe express 2.0 vs. 1.0, more SATA ports, change board layout, change Foxconn retention to Lotes, USB 3.0/SATA3 etc.) than fix glitches. Today almost all motherboards are of such high quality, that discussing glitches is hardly relevant when you are talking about top brands: Asus, Gigabyte, EVGA. Also, board Revision from 1->x have the exact same bios versions. This means that whatever BIOS issues are present on Revision 1 are fixed with the same BIOS for all other board revisions.

Besides with this logic, you will wait until 2nd / 3rd board revision (which will come 4-6 months after the first revision boards launch). Then with that logic "oh it's only 12 more months until refresh of Sandy Bridge...etc." You keep waiting forever.

This is very true. The real Sandy Bridge that is worth waiting (i.e., 6 and 8 core versions) for will not come out until Q3 2011. This means the Q1 2011 Sandy will only be a Quad Core. Unless you want to wait that long, you might as well get Core i7 now.

I afraid I can't agree with that.
BIOS updates tend to come in a rush as the early adopters run into issues and the factory pushes out the updates.
It makes good sense to wait till the post release issues are ironed out.
Just because you adopted early a few times is hardly indicative of the user base and is merely an anecdote.
I've seen first hand the sense in waiting on new CPU architectures/motherboards to reach stability.
The OP doesn't sound like he's a candidate for BIOS flashing and first gen issues.

 

[pelikan]

I had a similar AMD setup as you. I found an intel e3200 with mobo and 2gb ram for $60. used. Overclocked it to 3.6. Then bought a 4850 1gb for $65. After selling my old parts it cost me almost nothing. That old pc3200 ram is worth a lot.

 

[hydroponik]

Yes, I am looking to replace the CPU/Mobo/RAM anyway, however I'd be willing to wait if the next generation of CPUs are due to be released before the end of 2010.

I'm not looking to spend a shitload of money, just looking for the best price/performance ratio. If the new platforms aren't due until next year, I may just go with an AMD or Intel i3 system.

Does that sound like a good plan, or should I wait?

 

[Will Robinson]

No point in waiting for unreleased products that have yet to prove themselves in the market place.
Both Intel and AMD have some excellent,affordable hardware out right now that will make for a killer rig.
Also hard to get tech support on unreleased hardware from the gurus here if no one has had a chance to "pull it apart and test to the limits".
Here's a rig that would be good at your budget:
omponent Item Price Processor Intel Core i3-530 $114.99 Motherboard Gigabyte GA-H57M-USB3 $119.99 Memory Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 $104.99 Graphics XFX Radeon HD 5770 $159.99 Storage Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB $79.99

 

[Emulex]

^^ 409$ for a refurb'd essentio asus with Geforce 220 shipped; 8gb of ram. old core 2 quad but hay not as much money. win 7 OEM ultimate included.

do you shopping wise; core2 has a lot of MOJO left in it still. mobo's are dirt cheap. whole oem systems with SLIC2.1 are stupid cheap. cowboom