High End Hardware

[Dick Splash]

Whilst reading various mags and doing some surfing, it would appear that the exotic components as of today are;

A Dual Core Processor

ATI's X1800 XT Graphics Card [Then a second for Crossfire later]

The Fatality Sound Card

DDR2 Memory [2GB]

BTX Motherboard [better airflow design]

Widescreen LCD with a refresh rate no slower than 16ms

7.1 Speakers

With the ATI card, it would appear that you need plenty of PCI express slots, although I'm not sure BTX boards have these yet.

As expensive as this all is, are you guaranteed respectable future with your PC. From what I read, very few things out there require 64Bit, or 1GB memory.

That ATI card reads great too, and I wonder if two of them is exsesive!

DS

[Colin]

Exotic yes very, necessary doubtfull.

This topic is very how shall I say it keeping up with the jones family. Not yours DS the gota buy it peeps you know who I mean.

I know about 30 people that game online and use computers in the higher end of the market, say £900 to £1200, an absolute top range system now will cost a couple grand, this to me is madness in the extreme.

Its out of date in 2 months.

I think the real question should be what will I use it for.

How long do I want it to last.

I think the idea should be what software will I be using and what is the requirment for that software, and then just aim a little higher.

If I was a gamer I would be using an AMD sys with this chip. SanDieago

If it was say video and editing etc I would go with still an AMD this chip.

AMD 64X2 4800

For a purely gaming rig 64 bit is a good way to go. But the best of both worlds is always a good thing, I would be using this.

AMD Athlon FX57 San Diego

Once the chip is sorted the rest is well easy.

Well may be the MB are also a good thing to check up on.

I normally start at the recomended boards by the chip maker and work my from there.

amd 64x2 4800 MB list

And so on.

But its like I said at the beggining it depends nearly all on the software you want to run.

Good Post DS.

Colin

[Foxtrot360]

If your dedicated to gaming, possibly.

A few things you dont really need lowers the cost unless you do need them (for example, no need for Widescreen LCD (if your gonna spend money on one, get a High Definiton LCD)and such)

Its true most applications dont use 64-bit, or atleast not to its full extent. I do reccomend 1 GB of RAM though, It will make it faster, but if your other hardware is all high end you may just stick with 512/7xx ammounts.

The video card is a must (as we probably know) if your gonna be gaming with an infinite ammount of time (Which i have but dont have a good PC), but again im not to sure about needing two of them especially if you have 256 mb of video memory on one of them and theyre already Next Gen.

I'd say all that hardware though, too soon could jump the gun , remember theres even more to be released around next year and not many games actually need much just yet. Right now everytihng obsolete two days later. Just a bit of advice.

Oh and with all that hardware you cant forget the Watercooling or alot of fans and coolers for ya stuff (especially if you overclock) with a case with sufficient airflow.

Edited December 16, 2005 by Foxtrot23

[WhiteKnight77]

Personally, I think a midrange CPU is the best bet, but always get a high end video card. It will last you longer than a low or midrange card will.

[pz3]

High end

2 7800GTX cards in SLI =)

AMD64 X2

PhysX

Sound Blaster X-FI

2GB DDR400

everything else is overkill I think.

best bang for the buck

6800GS

AMD64 3500+

Sound Blaster X-FI

1GB DDR400

Edited December 16, 2005 by Prozac360

[Cpl Ledanek]

click on example 4

with all pc reviewers giving this 9/10 (10/10 if price is not an issue), plus certain NASCAR-driver who was using T1 connection (from his home) to compete on-line now with his own LAN set up in the basement, owns a few of these for his friends to play and race.

Great experience with this company. Ask for Brian Kubli if you have the pennies.

[CR6]

As expensive as this all is, are you guaranteed respectable future with your PC. From what I read, very few things out there require 64Bit, or 1GB memory.

That ATI card reads great too, and I wonder if two of them is exsesive!

←

I'll comment on a few of your selections. However, in response to the title of this thread, I would say whether it's worth to invest depends on whether you're a teenage student still living with their parents or a older working guy with a 6-figure income. And I think some of us forget that we have both types of these users in this forum (and maybe even this thread)

Most PC games in recent years aimed for the Xbox spec as the lowest denominator, but many games could still be played on the large installed base of GF2/GF4 MX. This year, it seems DX9 is the lowest (e.g. a GF FX 5200 can still play BF2 even though it's not supported).

So here are my comments:

- A dual core CPU will likely become more useful once next-gen games on the 3-core PS3 and 360 get ported. If you already have a Pentium 4 with Hyperthreading, this will give some multi-core functionality. However, currently single core solutions are faster than dual core.

- Even though I've bought the 9800 Pro and X800XT in the past, I would avoid ATI's X1800 XT Graphics Card. It's been getting less than stellar reviews as it's barely keeps up to the GF 7800, and only does so by high clock speeds that need a big fan which takes up an extra slot.

The successor to the X1800 (R520 core) which is called the R580 will likely be launched in a few weeks (not months) so really there's no point for anyone to get an X1800 card. ATI really missed the boat on the last cycle. However, the next match up between the R580 and the G75(?) should be more interesting.

- I'd only bother with the Fatality Sound Card if you had good speakers or are a real sound buff. The low-end X-Fi is good enough for most peeps.

- The BTX mobo standard is really getting shunned by most major mobo makers besides Dell. AMD is not interested, and with very low power Intel desktop CPUs based on their Pentium M design due late 2006, you won't need better airflow anyway. So BTX may never actually take off.

- Widescreen LCD with a refresh rate no slower than 16ms. I totally agree with this one

- DDR2: AMD will finally start supporting DDR2 soon, so it will become standard in the future. However, currently DDR1 modules are cheaper and have faster timings.

- 2GB RAM - I think this is a good idea if you can afford it (nothing wrong with more RAM right?). Most new PC games really can eat up a lot of RAM (esp BF2, WoW). THG has an article on this:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/13/how...eed/page12.html

[Colin]

Just a side note realy, I have a 64 bit Windows xppro system on the side using a 4800 AMD and this is awsome, very very fast, being used at the moment by LAn system.

Next Year more and more hardware/software will support this.

I realy would not fancy spending out £2000 pounds more than say 3 years.

I think if I had a resonable system now I would hold off, like CR6 says 64 bit Tech will become more usefull.

Colin

[CrowmanUK]

Well I've just spent 1500 quid putting a new system together for myself and its even future proofed, the motherboard is socket 939 and at the moment I've put a 64 bit cpu in it which I can swap in the future for a dual core, and I can stick another graphics card in if I really want to.

Asus A8N-SLi Premium nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard

AMD 64bit 3700 San Diego

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3

BFG 7800GTX 512Meg Ram

X-Fi Fatality sound card

Western Digital 300gig hard drive

Razer Copperhead mouse

Antec P-180 Case

Antec Trupower 2.0 550w psu

Some other bits n pieces too but it runs great, the monitor will only do 1280x1024 so everything runs at that resolution with 8xAA and 16xAF and all settings on high and it doesnt miss a beat, stuff like Quake4, BF2, FEAR, VBS1. In fact the only thing i'm not happy about is the amd heatsink and fan, its given me a bit of grief and I might replace it yet but I'll have to see how that goes. Sound from the fatality cards is spot on too, very nice.

[Specter]

I'd wait on the high end 64 bit stuff for a bit. I mean if you have money to spend on a PC every year, by all means get what ya want.

But if you have a decent system that does what you want now, and does it well, hold off.

To utilize 64 bit, you need a 64 bit OS, 64 bit drivers(which BTW leave alot to be desired right now), and you need 64 bit apps, and enough memory and video card to go with it.

If you are doing good now, I'd wait till Q2 or Q3 next year to really do anything.