Upgrading capacity for next 6 months...

[GeorgeTuk]

Had a look around and was trying to find the best place, although if it isn't please feel free to move to elsewhere...just let me know where its going!

Basically I am going to do a little course of upgrades, currently my spec is in the sig under My System.

So I am looking at getting the following:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ (Socket 939) with after market heatsink/fan - about £110
Thermaltake Armor Jr ( http://www.thermaltake.com/product/C.../vc3000sna.asp ) - about £60
ATI X1600 of some description - about £110

Is this wise as I would like to play things like Supreme Commander and C&C 3 in the next few months. Maybe there is some better setup you could suggest?

Any suggestions welcome and no fanbois please.

[Smokey21]

Erm, not really worth it, IMO, compared to what you have now. Wait till those games come out, then decide.

You'd want at least a 7800GT/X1800 IMO.

[cptwhite_uk]

I agree with Smokey - is your Venice overclocked? From what I've read Supreme Commander will want a decent processor to run, but if it stumbles on a Venice clocked @ 2.6Ghz then god help us all.

My advice would be to overclock the venice to about 2.6Ghz (entirely possible, most will do 2.7Ghz)... and assuming the motherboard is PCI-e I'd wait and get a DirectX 10 video card for about £250-300 when they become available. If that can't handle SupCom and C&C3 they'll be a lot of unhappy people.

[Steve B]

yep, agree with all the comments above, C&C 3 was announced for 1st january, iirc. and supcom is Q1 2007, so i'd save up and wait for things to get better before splashing the cash

[Smokey21]

Yeah. I was assuming the X800 and mobo were AGP. If they are, your gonna need a new mobo, and video card, to make it worthwhile. If not, just buying a X1800XT would be a good idea, or something higher.

[GeorgeTuk]

All noted and taken board, think I will wait until firmer specs are released for these games.

And my X800 is PCI-E so no worries there, should be able to get some much better stuff by January but then there will also be newer stuf out...its like chasing the end of a rainbow!

[neonplanet40]

wait for direct x 10 gcards tbh then upgrade with every penny u got! thats what im doing

[Smokey21]

wait for direct x 10 gcards tbh then upgrade with every penny u got! thats what im doing

There plenty of factors, to say thats not that clever.

-DX10 games are over 6 months away
-Vista is over 6 months away at least
-They will be seriously expensive
-History shows us, the first gen cards, for a new DX standard, aren't really fast enough, or as fast as we hope
-There supposed to draw huge amount sof power
-We have no idea how fast they will be in DX9

I was going to get R600, but because of the above factors, im not. Im going to wait for the refresh of the first gen, and wait till Vista is mature.