Why wait longer to build a new system?
So you have an ancient gaming rig, that's struggling to run flash games
from yahoo and you are thinking about upgrading to a nice
Core2Duo/Athlon X2 2.4Ghz or something CPU with some fast Corsair/OCZ
DDR2 Memory on that nForce 650i/a motherboard and drop in a bombing
8800 series PCI-Express video card....
If you did that you could get a screaming rig for pennies...And it would definitely do justice to the likes of BioShock and maybe even Call of Duty 4. But that rig won't last more than a few months before it becomes an out-dated gaming rig. If you are the "late adopter" buyer that gets the best bang for the buck at the end of the life-cycle of a killer product then, don't let me hold you back. But if you are waiting for the next best thing and once everything is out and you want to pick the winner, now is a bit too soon (or late rather). Let me tell you why I think it's too soon.
If you did that you could get a screaming rig for pennies...And it would definitely do justice to the likes of BioShock and maybe even Call of Duty 4. But that rig won't last more than a few months before it becomes an out-dated gaming rig. If you are the "late adopter" buyer that gets the best bang for the buck at the end of the life-cycle of a killer product then, don't let me hold you back. But if you are waiting for the next best thing and once everything is out and you want to pick the winner, now is a bit too soon (or late rather). Let me tell you why I think it's too soon.
Right now, hands down the Intel has the best gaming CPU on the market.
Top of the line dual core/quad core run on 65nm cores...fresh size from
the previous 90nm cores of the older P4's and what not. Not wanting to
let AMD catch up, Intel is on the verge of dropping a new series of
CPUs on 45nm cores. Smaller the core, the less power consumption and
the less it takes to keep it cool. That's what I am talking about,
sign me up for the next 45nm Quad Core Intel chip.
Next up to bat, is the RAM, DDR2 is in the mid to late end of it's game. DDR3 is now available. Within a few months DDR3 will become the norm as more hardware is released to support the higher bus speeds that the new DDR3 memory can handle. Sure if you want the lowest latency it will be a while before the DDR3 architecture is fine tuned for lower latency, but even at the current offerings (read slow offerings) it's on par with current high end DDR2 offerings. So the DDR3 performance curve is going up from DDR2 and is just going to get better.
Now for video cards, nVidia is top dog. The GeForce 8800 Ultra sits on the throne with it's 65nm core and GDDR3 memory. nVidia's new GeForce 9XXX series will consist of 45nm cores and GDDR4 memory. The first run of cards in this new series will attack the mid-range market. It's when they bring out the big guns to over throw the current 8800 Ultra that I will be interested in picking up one of these bad boys.
Now that AMD has acquired ATI, I see more motherboard support for Intel down the road from nVidia. I have always been a supporter of the nForce chipset which have always favored AMD CPUs, that's going to change. The nForce 7 series will be the perfect opportunity to create a new board for Intels 45nm CPUs with support for DDR3. That's what I am waiting for.
How long do I have to wait? The new CPUs and Video cards will be out before the end of the year. DDR3 memory is already available. The motherboard is what may be holding up the line. I have no estimate, but I doubt nVidia will wait any longer than early next year. That's still a long ways off. But then again, There's not a lot to play today. Sure there's BioShock, but that's single player...
In the meantime, we can also wait for Call of Duty 4, Crysis, HL:Episode 2, TimeShift, Unreal 3, BlackSite:Area51 and a few other titles that escape me right now....so by the time the last game in the list has come out, the system should be prime for building to play those games.
Next up to bat, is the RAM, DDR2 is in the mid to late end of it's game. DDR3 is now available. Within a few months DDR3 will become the norm as more hardware is released to support the higher bus speeds that the new DDR3 memory can handle. Sure if you want the lowest latency it will be a while before the DDR3 architecture is fine tuned for lower latency, but even at the current offerings (read slow offerings) it's on par with current high end DDR2 offerings. So the DDR3 performance curve is going up from DDR2 and is just going to get better.
Now for video cards, nVidia is top dog. The GeForce 8800 Ultra sits on the throne with it's 65nm core and GDDR3 memory. nVidia's new GeForce 9XXX series will consist of 45nm cores and GDDR4 memory. The first run of cards in this new series will attack the mid-range market. It's when they bring out the big guns to over throw the current 8800 Ultra that I will be interested in picking up one of these bad boys.
Now that AMD has acquired ATI, I see more motherboard support for Intel down the road from nVidia. I have always been a supporter of the nForce chipset which have always favored AMD CPUs, that's going to change. The nForce 7 series will be the perfect opportunity to create a new board for Intels 45nm CPUs with support for DDR3. That's what I am waiting for.
How long do I have to wait? The new CPUs and Video cards will be out before the end of the year. DDR3 memory is already available. The motherboard is what may be holding up the line. I have no estimate, but I doubt nVidia will wait any longer than early next year. That's still a long ways off. But then again, There's not a lot to play today. Sure there's BioShock, but that's single player...
In the meantime, we can also wait for Call of Duty 4, Crysis, HL:Episode 2, TimeShift, Unreal 3, BlackSite:Area51 and a few other titles that escape me right now....so by the time the last game in the list has come out, the system should be prime for building to play those games.
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