Upgrade PC before Vista or wait?

Upgrade now, but get a low end video card so you don't waste $500 on a card you'll use for 6 months before moving to DX 10. IF you give me a budget to work with, I can make a few suggestions on parts for you.

Is Vista going to require a DX10 card? Or will it install DX10 drivers on a DX9 card? As of now, I haven't seen or heard of a DX10 card; do they or will they exist when Vista is released?

Thank you.

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To experience Vista at its fullest, a DX10 card will be required. DX9 cards will work in Vista but some features will be disabled. DX10 drivers require Vista and will not run on any other OS. DX10 cards will be out when Vista is out.

If i were you, I would wait! If your computer can do a decent job at games then it is the best option to wait. In the fall they will be offering 4x4 systems for both intel and amd. They are going to be able to multi task out the butt. By next spring you are going to see alot of software come out to use the dual or multi core. I would suggest to wait.

Well, lets fix this post. 4x4 is an AMD thing, not Intel. Intel is going to offer a halfway quad core solution by December, with AMD following sometime in 2007. A quad core CPU is not going to be any better at multi-tasking then a dual core unless you are using multi-thread aware software.

You can wait and wait on that PC and get the best deal ever, but you won't get any work done.

I agree with shadow.... yet again. If you keep waiting for the latest and greatest from Intel (or AMD if you're an AMD fan), you'll never end up buying a new system.

So, a DX9 card can't be upgraded via software software dirvers to a DX10 card? Are there any dates for their release? Prices?

Is a DX10 and only a DX10 card going to be able to utilise Vista's graphical features to their fullest - especially when it comes to gaming?

If so (keeping in mind that the main goal is gaming), then the best option seems to be to wait.

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I think you should wait for vista you have nothing to loose,and then when vista comes out how knows what might come out and you will be sorry (All good things come to those ho wait)

You can get your main components now if you want eg. CPU, MB, RAM and HDD but buy a mid range DX9 vid card for now. A 7900GT or X1600 will do fine for current DX9 games and their cheap as dirt and will get even cheaper (compared to 7950GX2 or X1900XTX). Then when a DX10 card is available, go for it!

Just remember it’s going to be a while before a DX10 game comes along after VISTA is released and DX9 will still be used for a long time yet. There are new game engines that are still to be released for the PC games that are based on DX9 eg. UnrealEngine 3 & Project Offset. There is only one DX10 engine that I know of at the moment and that is the Crytek engine used for Crysis.

The only thing stoping me right now is that there's no Conroe m/board that uses nVidia 590 SLI chipset. Once they hit the stores, I'm buying in! I’ll be putting in the following:
Intel Core 2 E6600
PC6400 2GB RAM – Undecided to which brand
nVidia 590 SLI board
A single 7900GT

I say if you wait and wait and wait you'll never get there, don't make the hardware the deciding factor in upgrading as it's a never ending cycle, make software the deciding factor. It's been 4 years since my last upgrade!

Cheers!

I think you should ask yourself why you want to upgrade. Here is a list of reasons that you might want to upgrade to Vista:

1) It looks nice.

Er, that's it at the moment. Eventually - a long way in the future - there might be some games or applications that run only on Vista, but no software house other than Microsoft is going to release Vista-only stuff unless they really don't want to sell many copies.

If you really want to run Vista your current machine will do the job just fine. You might not be able to use some of the DX10-only graphical effects, but so what? It's an operating system, not a game. And remember, as DX10 cards don't exist at the moment all the people who are testing Vista or writing stuff for it are doing so on, at best, DX9 cards.

If your current machine isn't grunty enough to handle the games you like to play at the moment, get yourself a 7600GT. They're good cards that don't cost a great deal. When DX10 games do first come out they will still run on DX9 cards, just not with all the DX10 features. It will be a very long time before we see a DX10-only game for the commercial reasons above - publishers want as many people as possible to buy their stuff.

Regards

Man!!! WAIT WAIT WAIT.

Hardware will be much cheaper buy the time Vista finally hits.

In a year dont be suprised to see 1gb video cards ect...

Most of the AERO GLASS features (the cool ones) wont work on dx9 cards.

M$ is still writing code, beta is in build number 10,000,000 or something and will change many times before release.

Hardware specs have been released for Vista but that will change...

Wait for the release - seee whats on the HCL. Then decide on hardware.

OH and remember it will be like having a bug convention in your PC!!!

If your old enough to remember 3.1 and 95 have a big laugh!!!!!!

As was pointed out, I don't want to wait and wait for the new set hardware cycles to be released to upgrade (i.e. kingdom come).

But, after watching gameplay videos of the Cryrtek engine running DX10 (fully destructable environments, soft shadows, real time movements for natural environments, etc.) I would prefer waiting for a card that will enable me to utilize DX10.

Does anyone know the projected price range of the DX10 cards? Also, I would assume that they would be released around the release of Vista (late Q4/early Q1), no?

Lastly, if I were to upgrade to a 7900GT now, and the DX10 cards were released in a few months, I would have had only a short time to utilise the 7900GT.

In short, if the DX10 cards will enchance gaming to a level higher than the most advanced DX9 card, then they are worth the wait.

Exactly.... instead of a 7900GT.... go for this 7600GT for now.

Vista was supposed to be out what 3 years ago...

Who here really trusts that M$ is gonna be releasing this on time? They have delayed it so many times that it might just be another half of a year... and before then there will be plenty of games that will be more fun on a high end card... IF you need the high end card to play at the resolution you want... personally I enjoy playing games at full max... this is why I'm upgrading right now to the big conroe and a 7950... I believe at the least I will get 4 months outta the card with a lot of fun and use... and I really think it wont be till over half a year till vista comes out...

IMO F M$... ill get something fun now... and do what i can with it! Then if the time is right and Vista doesnt look like a complete failure as a OS much like ME... and Vista doesnt drain too many resources... then i might switch over after a lot of reviews

When they come out they'll have exactly the same price range that new card launches always have - fairly affordable at the low end, expensive in the mid-range and extortionate at the top end. Older card ranges will come down in price straight away, then a few months after launch the new ranges will drop to 'cheap', 'fairly expensive' and 'expensive'.

Regards

Try upgrading to 2 GB of RAM first, you will see better performance all around and it is also standard practice nowadays. If you can run it in dual channel if possible.