Hi,
I'm thinking of building a new sub-$1000 computer. So first question - is now even a good time? I hear there are some nehalem processors coming out soon, along with a bunch of new video cards. How far off are these, and how much better would they be than a overclocked quad core/nvidia8800. What about DDR3 and PCI-E2?
Also, is the 8800 even worth it? I'm not really much of gamer, other than spring and civilization 4, maybe crysis. This will be mostly a gentoo linux rig, used for media and general use.
Do you have any specific part recommendations? I would like plenty of room for an upgrade path.
-Thanks in Advance!
New computer reccommendations?
Moderator: Moderators
depends if you want a new monitor. without one, a ~$1000 box will get you a quad-core monster with an 8800GT. (if you're brave and AMD won't fail in the drivers department - and there's hope they won't - you could try the new ATI 3800 series.) if a new display is in order, last-gen gfx (such as radeon x1950 and nvidia 7900 series) will provide good performance (and they're dirt cheap.)
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cafecomleite
- Posts: 9
- Joined: 25 Jan 2007, 04:45
Thanks for the reply imbaczek,
I have an awesome widescreen 20.1inch.
Do you think it would be a better idea to purchase last-gen gfx and wait it out for a couple quarters? My current card is 6600GT OC, but it's totally bottlenecked with 4xAGP and slow processor/board/not enough RAM. This computer is a suped up dell from 2003.
I have an awesome widescreen 20.1inch.
Do you think it would be a better idea to purchase last-gen gfx and wait it out for a couple quarters? My current card is 6600GT OC, but it's totally bottlenecked with 4xAGP and slow processor/board/not enough RAM. This computer is a suped up dell from 2003.
For the moment I would say get an nvidia card.
Wether the ATI opensource linux drivers catch up or not, the ATI windows drivers are still miles behind the nvidia drivers, especially where OpenGL is concerned, whcih means spring.
An 8800GT is apparently much better value for money than any of the other nvidia cards in terms of bang for buck, and imo nvidia are in general better.
As for cpus I would go for the intel cpus, namely the penryn class cpus. Nehalem is a june 2008 thing, especially since penryns are barely a week old.
PCIE2 isn't much point as there are no cards that require it. The 8800GT is PCIE2 compliant but it would do just as well in a PCIE1 slot anyway.
As for DDR3, IIRC some of the top end phenom cpus planned for release in the coming months have DDR3 memory controllers, however I do not know if that's right. Either way you probably won't be able to afford them and you would get better performance out of a cheaper intel cpu.
With regards to which intel cpu, I would say a core 2 duo is a minimum, but if you have the money to go for the quad cores do so.
Wether the ATI opensource linux drivers catch up or not, the ATI windows drivers are still miles behind the nvidia drivers, especially where OpenGL is concerned, whcih means spring.
An 8800GT is apparently much better value for money than any of the other nvidia cards in terms of bang for buck, and imo nvidia are in general better.
As for cpus I would go for the intel cpus, namely the penryn class cpus. Nehalem is a june 2008 thing, especially since penryns are barely a week old.
PCIE2 isn't much point as there are no cards that require it. The 8800GT is PCIE2 compliant but it would do just as well in a PCIE1 slot anyway.
As for DDR3, IIRC some of the top end phenom cpus planned for release in the coming months have DDR3 memory controllers, however I do not know if that's right. Either way you probably won't be able to afford them and you would get better performance out of a cheaper intel cpu.
With regards to which intel cpu, I would say a core 2 duo is a minimum, but if you have the money to go for the quad cores do so.
these guys are worth listening to: http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=3148
