kevinbeall said:
I keep reading on different misc. hardware review sites that DirectX 10
will require new hardware. Anyone have any idea when we will begin to see
any of this new hardware? I know that Vista will supposedly make great use
of DX10. Also, many of the review sites make reference to quotes from ATI
and NVIDIA as having these new graphics cards ready for late fall, 2006.
I'm thinking of putting together a new system (Core 2 Duo E6600) and I am
thinking about the Radeon X1959XTX. Hate to sink that much money into a
card when a new platform is a month away... Anyone hear anything, or is it
all just speculation based on Vista being released in 2007? Always seem to
be waiting for something right around the corner...
kev
I'm sure there's a lot of us that are finding themselves in this situation.
My current rig is a 2Ghz P4, 1gig of PC 2100 ram, and a 9800pro. I've been
putting off a full upgrade for 4 years! I used to upgrade at lest every year
or so, but the CPU has been OK so I've only been upgrading my video cards
and hard drives.
I finally decided to go ahead and take the plunge last week. I've always
built my own rigs, but this time I seriously looked into buying a Velocity
Micro system. But after I had configured the PC I wanted the price came to
over $2,200 and that's not including shipping! I knew that I could build one
cheaper then that! I always buy from Newegg, so I sat down last Tues. and
started doing some serious research and picking out the parts.
Like you I knew I wanted the E6600 that was a no brainier for me. But then
came the PS,MB, and RAM. I spent 4 hours Tues, and 6 hours Wed going crazy
trying to decide which parts to get. After hours of reading and hair pulling
I finally decide on these parts:
CPU: E6600
PS: Antec TPII 550 watts
Case: Lian Li PC-7B Plus Black
MB: Asus P5B Deluxe Intel P965
Sound Board: SB Audigy 4
HD: Two Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (Perpendicular Recording Tech) 320GB
7200RPM
SATA 3.0 Gb/s drives.
RAM: 2GB of Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800
Video Card: Sapphire X1900XT with 256 MB of RAM.
The total was $1,614 but I saved another $140 in rebates, so I was able to
get all this for only 1,474! That's including a new copy of XP home upgrade
that I bought for $100 with a $50 rebate.
The parts that really took time was the MB, video card and the RAM. I
decided on the P965 chipset after much reading and knowing I wasn't planning
on SLI or Crossfire.
The RAM was a total bitch because I couldn't decide if I should just stick
with DDR2 667 or spend a little more for the 800. There's also been some
problem with the Asus P5B and the Corsair RAM. So after about three hours of
hair pulling I decided to give Corsair a call and find out from them what
the deal was. I got right through to a guy that actually does the memory
testing and I talked with him for about 30 min. He explained that they had a
bad batch of RAM go out, but that's fixed now. I was really impressed that
Corsair has that kind of support.
So that left the video card. I picked the X1900XT 256 because after looking
at so many graphs my eyes where bleeding and reading for hours, the X1900XT
256 seemed the best deal for the money. I looked over all the new Nvidia
cards, and yes they do use less power, but as far as performance goes ATI
still has an edge over Nvidia in this price range. I paid $260 for my card
and that's just about as much as I wanted to spend.
My plan is to wait when it comes to Vista. I never upgrade my OS right
away. I always wait at lest a year for most of the major bugs to get fixed
before I upgrade. I'm excited about DX10 but at what cost? From all that
I've read it's going to be at lest two years before DX10 really takes off
when it comes to gaming. So by that time I should be able to pick up a kick
ass DX10 card for around what I just paid.
I should get all my parts by tomorrow and then I can spend some fun times
putting the beast together! I hope this might help some of you guys that are
trying to figure out what parts to get. Happy shopping! JLC