New comp - buy now or wait?

[slagtrad]

Hey all!
I'm gonna buy a new gaming rig - money isn't an issue as I get this as payment for a job I've done and I'm gonna make it a phat one.
So I was wondering.. with crysis, bioshock and all new promising dx10 games coming out soon, should I wait a couple of weeks/months or could I go out and buy a comp now that will hold up? Is there any new technologies in the pipe that is worth waiting for? I know that stuff get old and new stuff is always coming out but as I probably will use my new comp for 2-3 years I dont wanna buy it now and see that one week later 10 core cpu's and new ultragiga gpus are released. Any thoughts?

 

[StevieD]

Intel's latest generation of dual core chips are hot.


Take a look at the latest Tom's CPU chart. I pulled up one of my favorite benchmarks...the HDTV playback. The current good buy chips, the Q6600 is using 21.5% of the CPU for a 60 second playback, the E6850 is using 25.7%. Compare those numbers to the Pent D 920 of just two years ago which is using 77.8% of the CPU for the same task.

Intel's Penryn chips will be coming out sometime before then end of the year. Yes Penryn will be Hotter than than the Q6600 and E6850. Penryn is a die shrink, so energy consumption versus performance will improve, and performance will obviously improve. But how big of an improvement will be achieved on this single benchmark that I referenced. Maybe 15% CPU consumption? Great, maybe something to wait for, but then again the improvement may only be 18 or 20% CPU consumption?

Today's hot chips are going to hold up for 3-4 years by my guess. Software is gotta catchup with the advances the chips have made in the past couple years.

For a pure gamer I would buy the E6850 today. If Penryn is better than I expect you could always upgrade at a later date. But today's E6850 is not going to leave you green with envy for not waiting.

 

[williamfontaine]

or buy a q6600 g0 and overclock that baby to 3+ easily.

 

[cole92]

I would wait until around November-December for the Geforce 9800's to come out which will play all the direct x 10 games(Crysis, Bioshock etc) on the highest settings and will play games well for at least 1.5-2 years.

But if you don't want to wait till then, then go ahead and buy and 8800 because it will play all direct x 10 games well to

 

[coldmast]

if you can wait... then wait, if there is a game you want/need now -- then buy now.

don't prebuy anything, you'll just get mad when the game comes out and your rig ends up being $300-500 cheaper

 

[slagtrad]

thanks for the input! i think i might go for a q6600 and a shitty gfxcard, maybe keep my current x800 xtpe and upgrade it when santa comes around.