Here's my situation. My current system is starting to show its age. It's an AMD Athlon XP 3200+, 9600XT, Asus A7NX-E, and 1 gig of ram (2x512). I really want to build a new system, but I don't know if I should even attempt it at this point.
I was originally going to go somewhat high-end. Athlon 64 x2 4800+, 2 gigs of ram, Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe, XFX GeForce 7900GTX EXTREME, all that fun stuff. Then I heard about the new AM2 platform...and shortly after that I was hit with the bombshell of the joys of converting to Vista and DX10. Quite frankly, my original plans are shot and I'm overwhelmed with all this new stuff I need to plan for.
I'm off to college next year, and I'd like this computer to last me a good while. The comp will be predominately a gaming comp, with some engineering programs and such thrown in. I'm really pumped for the PC games shown at e3 this year (spore, crysis), and I want somthing that can run them well when they come out later. I realize that to run said games, Vista is a must. I havent done extremely extensive reading on Vista, but from what I hear, it's going to be a fairly beefy OS. I don't really feel like having a dedicated GPU to open my start menu, personally X-(.
So my question is this. Is it even worth trying to build a new system right now? I want somthing that will serve me well now and also down the road once Vista launches with all the shiny new games. I'm fine going with AM2, but will what's available now be good enough for what's going to launch in the future? Should I just save my money and buy DX10-compatible stuff way down the line, and suffer with my geriatric system for the time being?
Thanks for reading
Also...I've got a brief question on the new AM2's. I'm interested in either a 4800 or 5000+ AM2. The 4800+ has a 2MB cache, but the 5000+ only has a 1MB? Seems a bit odd to me... Would there be a noticible difference with the smaller cache despite the extra .2ghz processing power?
I was originally going to go somewhat high-end. Athlon 64 x2 4800+, 2 gigs of ram, Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe, XFX GeForce 7900GTX EXTREME, all that fun stuff. Then I heard about the new AM2 platform...and shortly after that I was hit with the bombshell of the joys of converting to Vista and DX10. Quite frankly, my original plans are shot and I'm overwhelmed with all this new stuff I need to plan for.
I'm off to college next year, and I'd like this computer to last me a good while. The comp will be predominately a gaming comp, with some engineering programs and such thrown in. I'm really pumped for the PC games shown at e3 this year (spore, crysis), and I want somthing that can run them well when they come out later. I realize that to run said games, Vista is a must. I havent done extremely extensive reading on Vista, but from what I hear, it's going to be a fairly beefy OS. I don't really feel like having a dedicated GPU to open my start menu, personally X-(.
So my question is this. Is it even worth trying to build a new system right now? I want somthing that will serve me well now and also down the road once Vista launches with all the shiny new games. I'm fine going with AM2, but will what's available now be good enough for what's going to launch in the future? Should I just save my money and buy DX10-compatible stuff way down the line, and suffer with my geriatric system for the time being?
Thanks for reading
Also...I've got a brief question on the new AM2's. I'm interested in either a 4800 or 5000+ AM2. The 4800+ has a 2MB cache, but the 5000+ only has a 1MB? Seems a bit odd to me... Would there be a noticible difference with the smaller cache despite the extra .2ghz processing power?
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