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Future proofing my gaming PC?

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nocturnal7x   12-08-2008 at 03:21:30 AM

ok, so I knew nothing about computers when I built my computer, that makes sense right? Ok, so I bought a mobo that was cheap because I was trying to keep it cheap. That worked out ok, but I think I should have spent a little more on the mobo to give it some future resistance.

 

My question is how long will something like the Q9550 will be enough not to hold my GPU(s) back? I have a C2D e8400 right now, I was thinking I would buy a 780i SLI mobo so I could SLI in the future, and eventually upgrade to the quad core CPU and that system would last me 2 years with upgrades.

 

Am I off base? should I just forget it, upgrade my GPU and CPU then go i7 when I can no longer play games the way I want?

 

I was thinking I could save some money if I had the ability to SLI currently I dont. IDK, what do you guys think. I also want to do RAID 0, and the new mobo would enable me to do that.

 

Thanks!

  

My current system:
e8400
8800GT OC 700/1700/2000
GA-P35-DS3L gigabyte mobo
2 gigs DDR2 800

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Razor512   12-08-2008 at 06:19:59 AM
- 0 +

SLI is a bad idea especially if you are going to do SLI, if you look at many different benchmarks, you will notice that 1 new model card can beat 2 of the older models in SLI

 

sli is not future proofing and it is very wasteful

 

videocard requirements go up much faster than CPU requirements, so make sure you can upgrade your videocard for a good long time.

 

if you plan or upgrading your hard drives a lot than stay away from raid unless you plan on getting 2 10k rpm drives in a performance raid, then use a 1TB 7200 for storage

 

if you go for a smaller amount of storage for a performance raid, then don't keep important info on it as with raid, the risk of data loss increases exponentially

 

a 8800 gt is a good value card as it pretty much runs every game out there at high settings

 

if your current games run good enough then wait, the gtx 280 is on it's way to being replaced, wait for a new card

 

PS don't rush into going with the most expensive stuff, stay within a good value range, if you look at some of the most expensive cards, they will cost 2-3 times as much while only offering a little bit of performance gain over the cheaper card

 

the best way to future proof a pc is to make it so it will be economical to upgrade in the years to come


Message edited by Razor512 on 12-08-2008 at 01:48:34 PM
------------------------------ My anime site: http://mysite.verizon.net/vze2241e/
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vochtige   12-08-2008 at 12:06:26 PM
- 0 +

i think to be safe, go quad. if you see games like gta4. a Q9550 would be a great deal!

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nocturnal7x   12-08-2008 at 06:31:26 PM
- 0 +

ok, About my current motherboard, it has 1 PCIe x16 slot, it is not a 2.0 slot. Are future cards, like the next line expected to pass that threshold where my PCIe x16 would be a bottleneck? Or are cards still not close to needing all that bandwidth?


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Razor512   12-08-2008 at 07:54:09 PM
- 0 +

yep they will eventually be able to flood the pcie bus so pci express 2.0 is recommended

 

SLI is only needed if you want more performance than the current fastest card on the market can provide, just know that another card will come out soon and it will be faster than your SLI setup

 

stick with 1 card that can run your games smoothly

 


your current setup is for a while longer though, just consider overclocking if you need more performance.

 

remember cpu socket types change every few years , the current socket types have been around for a while and are on their way to being replaced

 

wait for a new socket type to take hole then upgrade to a new motherboard, cpu and videocard

 

also compare the SLI setups

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts [...] 0,798.html the SLI setups are generally more expensive and do worst


Message edited by Razor512 on 12-08-2008 at 07:57:31 PM
------------------------------ My anime site: http://mysite.verizon.net/vze2241e/
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