Upgrade Now... Or Wait?

Thinking of upgrading to a PCI-E system preferably the new Intel Core 2 Duo. My poor 6600GT is AGP so its gotta go. You guys reckon its better to wait until Vista rolls out and all this D3D10 whatnot is finalized, or upgrade now and hope for the best?

I suggest wait, but I can't say much tho.

I think it depends on whether Vista is going to offer you something you really need. For me it doesn't so I would upgrade now. Besides which, there's no telling when Vista is actually going to arrive. It's already been pushed back more times than Max3D.

Nice comparison lol, I dunno, I couldnt really care less about upgrading to Vista unless it offers better performance, or they stop making games for Windows XP.

If you don't need it now i would wait for vista/dx10 and get a merom based system then. They are nearly as fast as the big ones but consume much less power. Less mobos but there are some around.

...Yet.

Even if you don't plan to rush out and get Vista, the market situation may be vastly different 1-2 years from now. Do you still intend to be using your 'new' PC at that point? If so, and there is no real reason to buy a new PC right away, you may want to hold of a few months buying right now, just so you can potentially gain extra *years* operation out of your new system.

Something to consider: vista uses a new driver model again. There's a real chance that an item like a motherboard or PCI adapter or something that you buy today won't have Vista drivers available. If that particular model gets phased out or replaced two months from now, there's a good chance that many of the motherboard manufacturers wouldn't exactly go out of their way to create Vista drivers for 'em -- many would rather just sell your their latest and greatest motherboard out on the market at that point, which of course will have the Vista drivers.

Even though I personally have no inclination at this point to buy Vista at all, it's still something to consider. No one knows what the market looks like a year from now, might as well play it safe.

I am in the position too of wanting a new PC and I am also stuck in the 'Vista' void.

I've decided my route might be wait for Vista and it's DX10 cards. Then buy a new XP based system with a top of the range (EDIT: DX9) card for cheaper than what they are now.

Some industry experts think it will be quite a while before we see DX10 taking over as the new standard.

My intention is to buy a good base PC - at least an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 - as from the 2.4 up the cache doubles.

Ideally, I want my system for Christmas, so I am hoping that towards the end of November/Early December we see a price drop in the XP and DX9 systems.

Personally, I don't see any point in rushing to buy Vista and DX10. Look at the people that rushed to buy 64 bit processors and then snapped up Windows 64 - Where are all the 64 bit games?

Leiden

I agree with Puki regarding Vista and more importantly, the introduction of DX10 cards.

But I want to be able to play Medieval2:Total War on at least medium settings. So I've opted to postpone a system upgrade and swap my 6600GT AGP for a 7600GT. It's only recently that the 6600GT's been chugging (starting with Oblivion), so I hope the 7600'll keep me going till things get clearer.

/me strokes his Win98 PC.

The real question: where are all the 64bit drivers?

I'll wait a bit then, my 6600GT should be handle for a while longer, at least, if I turn shadows off :/

good move i will get a top end direct x 9 card when dx10 is out they will be really cheap and vista will make no difference to me until blitz get to a point where it uses it. id give it a good 2 year or so before vista only games are a must

I think it's funny that the same people who think Vista is going to take over the world in two years are the same people who won't use BlitzMAX, because it doesn't work reliably on computers that are more than 5 years old.

I don't see the reasoning there at all.

Ha the age old question. I want a similar system minus Vista. I'll wait until next spring though when I'm minted ;-)

Huh? Sorry for going off topic here, but I've tested BMax programs on more than a
dozen old setups(as old as 1998). I've never had any glitches or difficulties
at all. What are you talking about?

But back on topic: don't hold your breath for Vista and the standardization of DX10.
You'll be waiting so long, you'll be considering buying the next next Total War game.

Just get the best deal you can right now. It doesn't matter when you buy, the
curve is constant and your machine will be just as "crappy" 5 years after you buy it.

This whole "Waiting for technology to advance before I buy" thing is futile and useless.

My plan is to get a Core Duo 6300 and this motherboard. This board takes your existing AGP card but also has a PCI-E slot, and it also takes existing DDR memory as well as providing DDR2 slots to upgrade later -- gets good reviews as an intermediate measure and it's cheap too.

I'll upgrade to a PCI-E card when I'm ready, upgrade the RAM to DDR2 when when I'm ready, then finally go for a full PCI-E motherboard at my leisure. (There are minor speed limitations on the PCI-E and DDR2 memory, but it seems like a great upgrade path to Core Duo/PCI-E if you're on a budget or don't want to fully commit yet.)

> The real question: where are all the 64bit drivers?

Many people have experienced problems with running certain older 32bit games with 64bit processors. Now, there's another backwards compatibility issue that is bound to get worse over time.

The longer you wait, the more money you can save!

Can't you see the futility in this way of thinking? By the same logic, you should
be content to buy an ATI 9800 because the price is low. But you probably won't.

Just buy at 3/4 bleeding edge (right now!) and you get the best bang for the buck.
Waiting for something that will never come is a very unsmart thing to do.

word on the grapevine is that MS has set their Vista Launch to the general public at January 30th, 2007.

BlitzSupport, I got one of them PCIe/AGP mobo's from the same manufacturer, mine be a 939Dual-VSTA , problem is that it's an AMD board, so nothing the OP is interested in. ;/

Works great though, I never knew such boards existed until my parts-guy found them, saved me some bucks by not having to buy a whole new PCIe vid card at the time for when my old CPU fried my mobo.


Regarding waiting, that's what I'm doing, waiting for the Vista crap to come out, along with the next set of "better" dual-core processors, my bros got one in his new PC atm, and while nice, next to no games use it which is my main purpose, and hopefully support for them will pick up in the near-future. Not to mention DX10 cards....

Vista itself bears little importance on my recommendation - but wait for DX10 gfx cards to surface if you've got the cash to splash. nVidia are promising stupidly rediculous big things. Apparently it's not going to be your usual 'step up' in next gen performance and these benefits will apply to whatever OS you use for the next three years ;]

Genexi2, glad to hear they work well. I first have to flog my Yamaha RM1X (see "blitzmax/samples/rockout.bmx", line 24!) on Ebay before I can pay for even a mere Core Duo 6300...

I was looking at the E6600 caus' its got the 4MB L2 cache. Authough it probably wouldnt make much difference, the 6300 can overclock pretty damn good, up to almost extreme edition speeds.

Keep your 6600 for a little while. The 8800GTX and GTS are due soon and I'm sure that the price of the 7-series cards will fall soon thereafter.

My 256MB 7800GTX still packs a real punch. If you wait a while, I reckon you will be able to pick up a 512MB 7950GT for under £150.

wait a while

> The longer you wait, the more money you can save!

Consequently, the sooner you upgrade, the sooner you'll need a new PC!

I dropped out of the computer arms race a few years back. I just don't need to be spending $500+ on a video card every year and a half. It's ridiculous.

My advice? Wait until something comes out that uses DirectX 10 that you absolutely HAVE to have. Then upgrade. That'll buy you at least a year.