Is now the time to buy a motherboard? (moved)

manintaps

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Jul 27, 2006
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EDIT: I realized I posted this in the wrong motherboard forum, so moving it here. Any input is appreciated!

Hi all, I'm a serious gamer with a sizeable (~$2500US) budget who's looking to put together an entirely new rig sometime in the near future.

With Conroe on the market, it seems like a good time to buy a processor. I've done a lot of reading up, and technologies in hard drives and optical drives seem like they are relatively stable for the time being. Obviously, there will be a new line of graphics cards coming out soon that are optimized for DX10, but I'd prefer not to wait until then if I don't have to, because who knows when those are REALLY going to hit the shelves. When they do come out, as long as it's just my graphics card that needs upgrading, I'll be happy to do it.

My concern is with the motherboards. I've read good things about boards such as the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3, Abit AB9 Pro, and the Asus P5B. People seem to be saying that these are good choices for Conroe.

My question is this -- when Vista and DX10 hit, will these still be desireable motherboards? My worry is that if Vista+DX10 require a mobo upgrade for peak gaming performance, that will probably mean I'll end up purchasing a bunch of new stuff, and I'll feel real silly for having bought a new rig today.

Basically, I'm looking to buy when I'll get the most high-end longevity for my money, and I'm wondering, if I pick up a Asus P5B or a P5W DH, are those still going to be considered good high-end choices for the DX10 cards? Is it ok to buy now or should I wait a few weeks for the conroe mobo choices to flesh out, or should I really just be settling in and waiting it out till Vista and DX10?
 

Vein

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Jul 10, 2006
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Microsoft has been working in conjunction with many manufacturers to make sure that their products are vista ready. In fact, my Intel DP965LT claims vista readyness on the box. I know that the P965 series Gigabytes claim the same.
That being said, I have the beta 2 version of Vista running on a skt 754 motherboard w/ x200 chipset. I can even run aero with the onboard graphics :D . In reality though, vista is going to take a long while to mature, so by the time something is actually worth upgrading for, it will probably be near your normal upgrading cycle anyways. The best thing in preparing for vista is to make sure you have lots of memory. Other than that, your should be more than fine getting current components.
 
I wouldn't be so quick to make the move to Vista..... I have no complaints about building a system that will easily be able to handle it.... but I heard in a recent podcast (Security Now! Episode 51: Vista's Virgin Stack | http://www.twit.tv/SN) that Microsoft completely rewrote the network stack for Vista. The problem as was explained in the podcast, was that the new stack was vulnerable to all kinds of attacks (some of these were 10 year old attacks that were fixed long ago, back in the Windows 95 days... does the Ping of Death ring a bell?) Luckily these issues were detected and fixed in later beta versions (I think 5472 has this problem fixed), but don't be so quick to jump on the Vista bandwagon. Like Vein said, let the OS mature for awhile before making the move.