Dell 30in LCD...What card should I get or should I just wait

[kellison007]

I'm getting a Dell 30in LCD cause I think monitor last 3-4 times longer than any computer I build plus it's like a 3-5 year warranty so I think it will be a good investment. Anyway, I'm wondering if my only option for good gaming would be the 1950 XTX card or Nvidia 7950GX cards. But I'm seeing a million people to just wait for the DX Cards to come out. What would you do if you were in my situation? Money is not that big of deal for the initial investment but I don't want to get a card now then have to sell it 2-4 months later and lose about 200 bucks or more cause of price drops when I get the DX10 cards. How far off are these DX10 cards really. I've heard 3 weeks...i've heard a year from now. Are you guys just making this stuff up?

 

[jaguarskx]

I'm getting a Dell 30in LCD... Money is not that big of deal...

Can you buy me one too?

Anywaste, there isn't a hard date for when the DX10 cards will be released. The earliest rumored date that I've heard is sometime in November. The latest date is when Windows Vista is released.

Assuming you will be gaming at the the native 2560 x 1600 resolution, you will definitely want a powerful card. Most people simply opt for the 7600GT to hold them over until the DX10 GPUs are available. But the 7600GT simply will not do unless you want to play at lower resolutions which also decreases the visual quality a little bit, and makes having a 30" LCD somewhat pointless.

That leaves you no choice but to choose the two GPUs you mentioned. Which card is best for you depends on what games you play. I recently ordered the X1900XT for playing Oblivion since ATI card perform better.

There is also a rumor that whenever these DX10 card are released there will be limited availablity, which leads to inflated prices. Unfortunately, your timing for buying new hardware is on the eve of the current generation products and near the dawn of the next generation GPUs.

I know how you feel, I've postponed my new PC rig for 6 months (I have the old Athlon XP) just to get a Conroe E6600 CPU. I decided to simply bite the bullet and buy a DX9 card. If I were to wait for the DX10 cards then my PC would be over 5 years old if they were to be released simutaneously with Windows Vista.

Sorry, I can't really help, but I do empathize with your dilema.

 

[enforcerfx]

I'm getting a Dell 30in LCD cause I think monitor last 3-4 times longer than any computer I build plus it's like a 3-5 year warranty so I think it will be a good investment. Anyway, I'm wondering if my only option for good gaming would be the 1950 XTX card or Nvidia 7950GX cards. But I'm seeing a million people to just wait for the DX Cards to come out. What would you do if you were in my situation? Money is not that big of deal for the initial investment but I don't want to get a card now then have to sell it 2-4 months later and lose about 200 bucks or more cause of price drops when I get the DX10 cards. How far off are these DX10 cards really. I've heard 3 weeks...i've heard a year from now. Are you guys just making this stuff up?

I agree with jaguar: "Can you buy us both one?" Lol besides the point. I would think a x1900xt like jaguar said, would hold you over. But if you want to go all out, Then the 7950GX2 is probably your best choice.

 

[kellison007]

:roll: Thanks guys. This helps alot. I'm finally making a little money and I dumped my dumb girlfriend so all of a sudden I have a few bucks to spend on a dream machine. This dream machine of mine i'm guessing will take about 4 months of paychecks so i'm trying to decide which order to buy my crap and what is a good investment now and what I should wait for to come out. I'm guessing now would be a good time to invest in a case/power, cpu/motherboard/ram and even hard-drive setup(2-3 raptor raid anyone?). I guess i just can't wait to play the games and watch big 'adult entertainment' on this 30incher I want so bad. I just needed a narrowed down estimate on how long my wait it for these hyped-up dx10 cards. Looks like i'm basically gonna have a $1000 buck pair of Voiki skis but only be able to ride them on the bunny slopes till christmas. Crap...now I have to go back to going to bars and picking up hot chicks. Damn you DX10 cards!!!

 

[jaguarskx]

What are the specs of your current PC? There maybe parts that you can buy for your next PC that will benefit your current PC. For example a new PSU and case if they are on the shopping list. Perhaps you can by the X1950XTX for your current system. However, doing so will mean you may want to shoot yourself if the DX10 GPU are out by the time you save up 4 months worth of paycheck. Hmm.. okay scratch the GPU idea.

What CPU will you be using for your next PC?

 

[kellison007]

Current Setup-
AMD 64 3000
Lame 939 motherboard with one PCIx 16x slot
1 gig DDR 266 Ram
70 Gig Harddrive for Windows/Linux
250Gig for Data
250Gig for 'Adult Entertainment'
600W PS Raidmax (crappy)
PCI Geforce/Vanta Card (Long Story but, I bet you're cracking up right now)
17 in DELL LCD monitor

Dream Setup-
Intel C2D 6600
ASUS LG775 (i forget the model but the best one)
2-4 Gigs of DDR2 800MHZ RAM
Case: Thermaltake Kandolff Full Tower - integrated Watercooling ($370)
(do I need watercooling if I was gonna overclock these C2D or am I fine with a good Zalman?)
600W OCZ Gaming PS
X-Fi Soundblaster
3-150G Raptors RAID0 Windows/Linux Drive(is this overkill? Should I just get two and either RAID0, or even RAID1?)
Monitor:30inch Dell Widescreen LCD
Videocard: Guess I'm waiting for the new DX10 dual GPU cards for this freaking monitor

Anyway, I have about $2000-$2500 to burn right now and will have about $1000 bucks to spend each month after now. So by christmas, I could put as much as $5000 into this. The dell 30in will cost around $1700 alone so that a big smack. What would you recommend for now or later?

 

[enforcerfx]

Current Setup-
AMD 64 3000
Lame 939 motherboard with one PCIx 16x slot
1 gig DDR 266 Ram
70 Gig Harddrive for Windows/Linux
250Gig for Data
250Gig for 'Adult Entertainment'
600W PS Raidmax (crappy)
PCI Geforce/Vanta Card (Long Story but, I bet you're cracking up right now)
17 in DELL LCD monitor

Dream Setup-
Intel C2D 6600
ASUS LG775 (i forget the model but the best one)
2-4 Gigs of DDR2 800MHZ RAM
Case: Thermaltake Kandolff Full Tower - integrated Watercooling ($370)
(do I need watercooling if I was gonna overclock these C2D or am I fine with a good Zalman?)
600W OCZ Gaming PS
X-Fi Soundblaster
3-150G Raptors RAID0 Windows/Linux Drive(is this overkill? Should I just get two and either RAID0, or even RAID1?)
Monitor:30inch Dell Widescreen LCD
Videocard: Guess I'm waiting for the new DX10 dual GPU cards for this freaking monitor

Anyway, I have about $2000-$2500 to burn right now and will have about $1000 bucks to spend each month after now. So by christmas, I could put as much as $5000 into this. The dell 30in will cost around $1700 alone so that a big smack. What would you recommend for now or later?

I would invest right now in a new graphics card, power supply, and a extra gig of ram. Everything else looks like it will hold until you are ready to buy this very nice piece of hardware. I was thinking along the lines of a Forton Source PSU with around 500w, a x1800xt, and a extra gig of corsair. That rounds off to around 400 i think. Good luck with your new system.

 

[jaguarskx]

)
PCI Geforce/Vanta Card (Long Story but, I bet you're cracking up right now)

Wow, but I think the Etch-A-Sketch is superior to your Vanta.

:lol:

ASUS LG775 (i forget the model but the best one)

ASUS P5W DH DELUXE/WIFI-AP Socket T

Case: Thermaltake Kandolff Full Tower - integrated Watercooling ($370)
(do I need watercooling if I was gonna overclock these C2D or am I fine with a good Zalman?)

Well assuming you want to use a 1:1 memory divider to so that you can run your DDR2 800 RAM at 400MHz, that means you will be OC'ing from 2.4GHz all the way up to 3.6GHz (400MHz x 9 multiplier). I would recommend water cooling at the speed. Sorry can't offer any info since water cooling is beyond my knowledge.

3-150G Raptors RAID0 Windows/Linux Drive(is this overkill? Should I just get two and either RAID0, or even RAID1?)

RAID0 = Striping - Chuncks of data is written to each hard drive to increase read and write performance. Each drive will contain different data. The downside is if either one dies, all your data is lost because half of it (basically speaking) is on one hard drive, and the 2nd half is on the other drive. Very bad; no redundancy.

RAID1 = Mirroring - The same data is written to both hard drives. Therefore data is automatically backed up. Good for redundancy. Bad for write performance since the data has to be written to both hard drives. Another bad; your capacity is effectively cut in half because if you have two 250GB hard drives the both drives will have the same data.

RAID5 - Basically similar to RAID1, but you need at least 3 hard drives. If one drives dies. All your data is still intact. If two drives die, that means you're f*cked. Read/Write speeds will be slower than RAID0, but faster than RAID1.

Personally, I have not played with RAID, but if I were to choose one of the three, I'll probably just get RAID1 since I don't need to buy more than just two drives of the same capacity in addition to a single hard drive for the OS and "temporary data".

For example, say I am converting my DVDs to DivX files so that I will have all my movies on the hard drive for easy access and so that I can store away my DVDs to keep them in prestine condition. All the data will be written to the 'C: Drive'. Once all the encoding steps have been completed and I have a DivX file, I would drag the DivX file to one of the RAID1 drives. The DivX file would be automatically written to both drives and I would delete the DivX file from the 'C: Drive'.

Anyway, I have about $2000-$2500 to burn right now and will have about $1000 bucks to spend each month after now. So by christmas, I could put as much as $5000 into this. The dell 30in will cost around $1700 alone so that a big smack.

Since the X1950XT is supposed to have been released this month, and the X1950Pro is to be released next month (September), I kinda doubt ATI will be releasing DX10 cards this year. Since these cards are really considered refreshes of the current lineup, I am guessing ATI will give them 3 months to shine before they release thier DX10 GPUs. That basically means you are looking at January 2007 at the earliest.

I would wait two months, by then you should have $3500 - $4500 for your PC. At that point you should have enough money to buy all the important pieces (at least 1 hard drive). Hopefully some real news about the DX10 card will come out by then. If you are dying for a new video card, then I would grudgingly say get the X1950XT or 7950GX as soon as you can.

 

[kellison007]

Great advice guys. Etch-a-sketch.....I just saw that in the movie 'elf'. Good stuff. Ok two more questions, If I went for Raid1(mirror) raptor setup...would the read performce be equal to raid0? I don't care about write performance that much.

Also would I be fine with 1 dual GPU dx10 card when they come out or should I go for the full Quad setup (2 cards) for good gaming when it comes to that high of a res on this 30in monitor? I imagine when these new cards come out the dual gpus are gonna be around 600-700 bucks so two of these f*$ers better be worth it for that price.

Also I've been combing the predictions of the releases for Nvidia and ATI with both their next gen cards. It looks like Nvidia would be first with a good chance of a pre-christmas release with ATI 2-3 months after. What I'm wondering is if ATI would make a launch similar to an overtake like the Core 2 Dou just bi$tched slapped just did to AMD. Or if they'd just match up in speed simliar to the crap they just released to match up against the 7950GX2s. Any ideas?

 

[jaguarskx]

If I went for Raid1(mirror) raptor setup...would the read performce be equal to raid0? I don't care about write performance that much.

Your read speed will nearly double theoretically speaking, but there should be a real life increase as well. Afterall, RAID is designed to address mutliple hard drives.

Also would I be fine with 1 dual GPU dx10 card when they come out or should I go for the full Quad setup (2 cards) for good gaming when it comes to that high of a res on this 30in monitor?

Gaming at 2560 x 1600 resolution is quite demanding. I'm sure not all games will support that kind of resolution, but I could be wrong. A premium ATI DX10 card should be able to beat the X1950XT. I think the safest bet is to just get one dual GPU card first and see what the performance is like. If is not good enough then drop in another.

One important note you need to consider. A couple of months ago, ATI and nVidia inferred that their performance oriented DX10 card would consume between 130w to 300w each. That is a lot of power and you will need a very powerful and reliable powersupply. A system with two premium video cards can consume to 600w just for the GPUs. Tack on about another 300w for the rest of your system and you are now up to 900w. Could be more depending on what components you have.

You will need a very good PSU for a Quad Core GPU system that can deliver at least 1000w of power. My recommendations are:

1. PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1KW-Quad SLI T1KW-4E - $500 - This should be at the top of your list.

2. ENERMAX GALAXY EGA1000EWL - #370

PC Power & Cooling is well known for their top quality PSUs.

What I'm wondering is if ATI would make a launch similar to an overtake like the Core 2 Dou just bi$tched slapped just did to AMD. Or if they'd just match up in speed simliar to the crap they just released to match up against the 7950GX2s. Any ideas?

Hard to say, but based on past performance, my money is on ATI.

 

[jaguarskx]

Windows Vista Launch Date is January 30, 2007.

Based on that article, I'm guessing nVidia well be selling their DX10 cards in December, and ATI should be selling their's in either February or March.