Hi all,
I'm a new user to these forums, though I've visited here many times.
OK, too business: I am building a new gaming PC. My plan is to buy a good single graphics card today(e.g. HD 5850), use it as long as it runs games smoothly on 1920X1200, and when it starts to show it's age, in let's say: 2 years, I'll buy another one and crossfire or SLI it. I want to be able to game on this rig for at least 4 years (my screen resolution will definitely not change in that time).
I am debating whether it is advisable to buy now or to wait for nVidia's Fermi and Intel's Westmere coming in 2010...
As far as I see, there are mainly 3 reasons to wait until 2010 as far as gaming is concerned:
1. the main disadvantages for the P55 chipset is the limit on PCIe rails, which might not allow me to take full advantage of the second graphics card once I add it. And the switch to the X58 chipset is costly and adds much more power consumption to the system, and I generally want to avoid it (I prefer to spend more money on graphics than on processing power). The question is, will Westmere bring with it a new chipset (P65?), and if so will it support 2 full PCIex16 rails as X58 does? Secondly, am I justly concerned about this? Meaning, will the x8 rail on the second graphics card have a real life impact on SLI/Crossfire performance?
2. Fermi: is it worth waiting for? Are there any benchmarks predicting the performance bump between ATI's 5000 series and the GT300?
3. SATA III: Will we be seeing any SATA III SSDs in the next couple of months? And if so, will they actualy be able to use the wider bandwith to increase performance? Or is this something that won't have any effect on performance in the near future (As you can see, I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to SSDs)
Of course no one can give me any promises on products that haven't come out yet. I just want to hear opinions and educated guesses, because I really don't want to buy a new rig now and regret it in a few months. Waiting up to 6 months is fine with me, if there is good justification.
I am wondering if any of the 3 above mentioned, are worth it?
One last thing. here are some of the games that I plan on playing: Crysis Warhead, COD:Modern Warfare 2, and, I don't know: Starcraft II if it ever comes out
I'm a new user to these forums, though I've visited here many times.
OK, too business: I am building a new gaming PC. My plan is to buy a good single graphics card today(e.g. HD 5850), use it as long as it runs games smoothly on 1920X1200, and when it starts to show it's age, in let's say: 2 years, I'll buy another one and crossfire or SLI it. I want to be able to game on this rig for at least 4 years (my screen resolution will definitely not change in that time).
I am debating whether it is advisable to buy now or to wait for nVidia's Fermi and Intel's Westmere coming in 2010...
As far as I see, there are mainly 3 reasons to wait until 2010 as far as gaming is concerned:
1. the main disadvantages for the P55 chipset is the limit on PCIe rails, which might not allow me to take full advantage of the second graphics card once I add it. And the switch to the X58 chipset is costly and adds much more power consumption to the system, and I generally want to avoid it (I prefer to spend more money on graphics than on processing power). The question is, will Westmere bring with it a new chipset (P65?), and if so will it support 2 full PCIex16 rails as X58 does? Secondly, am I justly concerned about this? Meaning, will the x8 rail on the second graphics card have a real life impact on SLI/Crossfire performance?
2. Fermi: is it worth waiting for? Are there any benchmarks predicting the performance bump between ATI's 5000 series and the GT300?
3. SATA III: Will we be seeing any SATA III SSDs in the next couple of months? And if so, will they actualy be able to use the wider bandwith to increase performance? Or is this something that won't have any effect on performance in the near future (As you can see, I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to SSDs)
Of course no one can give me any promises on products that haven't come out yet. I just want to hear opinions and educated guesses, because I really don't want to buy a new rig now and regret it in a few months. Waiting up to 6 months is fine with me, if there is good justification.
I am wondering if any of the 3 above mentioned, are worth it?
One last thing. here are some of the games that I plan on playing: Crysis Warhead, COD:Modern Warfare 2, and, I don't know: Starcraft II if it ever comes out