Little upgrade

[Disturbedguy]

Hello all,

I have beenthinking of giving my PC a little upgrade for a while now, mainly an SSD or two, depending on what fund's I have and what I finally decided, also a decent rather large case.

I have been looking at something like the Coolermast HAF.

At the same time, I am thinking about an OS update/ upgrade. I am currently running on XP and have been thinking about upgrading to Vista, is it worth the upgrade now, with Windows 7 seemingly on the horizon? Or should I wait for Windows 7 to come out?

On top of that, one of the things concerning me is IF I were to upgrade to Vista, would my current hardware/ drivers be compatible? I seem to remember hearing that Vista + Creative are not the most ideal of partners?

Thanks in advance.

[Hawker1986]

If it was me I would just wait for windows 7 now, its not far off from what I understand. There were driver problems, but my creative sound cards are now working fine on vista 64.

Hawker

[Disturbedguy]

Hmm cheers, thing is Windows 7 will more than likey have teething problem's, just like other OS's, so I am kind of hmm and errr about it.

[Hawker1986]

This is true, but I think windows 7 has been organised a lot better, the platform is based on vista as far as im aware so it shouldnt have the same kinds of issues as vista did since the precident is there, and the beta has been much better organised so im hoping once its out it should work pretty well.

Hawker

[Disturbedguy]

Indeed, I did test the Beta. I believe that while the front end has had some rather minor cosmetic changes, the actually back end of the OS has been designed/ coded.

[scaryjim]

I've got a completely cheap-ass USB wireless network thing, and it works fine on Windows 7 x64 using the supplied drivers off the CD (which I guess must've been Vista x64 drivers). Having used both, Windows 7 is infinitely better than Vista (IMNSHO), and so far (my rig is over there <------ ) I've had no compatibility problems, even thought Win 7 is only a beta.

So, yeah; forget Vista, wait for 7. It looks to me like it'll be the most stable and best supported Windows at launch yet.

[Disturbedguy]

Hmm ok, so am waiting for that..now for the price of SSD's to come down..not that I can afford it yet..holiday to pay for and all that.

[Disturbedguy]

Ok, think of small-ish upgrades for now that can be used for new build or even just kept in this PC when it goes to the family (As all my old PC's do!)

What is the best possible GFX card that my Mobo can handle?

ABIT/IP-35 S775 MOBO

While I may be good at building PC's and all that jazz, I always fail at this type of thing.

[Hawker1986]

Well the skys the limit, that mobo will take anything you like upto amd imcluding a 4870x2 or GTX 295. Whats your budget?

Hawker

[Disturbedguy]

Not really got one at the moment, but if that mobo can definitely take the GTX 295 then that might be my port of call, as long as I am not going to expect any performance degradation, then it may be on my "to buy" list.

[Hawker1986]

I dont see any reason it wouldnt work on your motherboard.

Hawker

[Disturbedguy]

I mean arent there different version's/ types of PCI-e? Being different speeds and such?

[Badbonji]

For the PCI-e x16, there is 1.1 and 2.0 versions, the 2.0 has twice the bandwidth but the x16 1.1 is barely being saturated, so you wont notice much difference in performance if any. As for OS, you could give the windows 7 Beta a spin as I have been using it since it was released with no problems

Any 2.0 GPU will work in a 1.1 no problem, so your ok with that

[NightshadowUK]

It's worth considering what resolution you're playing at? No point in blasting cash at a card that goes above and beyond 1440x900 (I'm going off your spec here).