Worth building?

[pentacube]

Hey guys, while I know my way around a computer and it's inner workings, I am no expert by far. I was recently having a conversation with a friend, asking what he thought of my idea for my new build (about mid range). And he told me that it will be more pointless than ever at this point, spouting stuff about "but with PCI-express 3.0, HT 3.0, and GDDR5 hitting in 2009...why build one in 2008?". Is he correct? I mean, i understand that computers date very quickly, but am I building at the completely wrong time? I don't want to fork out 1200 dollars and then have it all go down the drain in a few months anyway once the standard is turned on its head. Any suggestions on my next course of action?

Planned Rig:
Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813131142R
GPU: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814150252
PSU: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16817148019
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819115029
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820227139
HDD: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16822136178

 

[Noya]

That power supply is ****. 70% effeciency for a $100'ish PSU? What a joke. Not to mention it's no named.

Another thing is that newegg ALWAYS overcharges on PSU's.

This $62 Corsair is more than enough for any single card build:
http://www.buy.com/prod/corsair-vx-450w-power-supply/q/loc/101/205466485.html

But I see you have an SLi mobo, so this may be better, actually an AMAZING DEAL at $68:
http://www.buy.com/prod/corsair-520w-sli-certified-modular-atx-power-supply/q/loc/101/203270716.html
Order TODAY for that rebate!!

 

[chookman]

Your mate didnt buy a 8800GTS a fortnight ago did he by any chance?

To be honest anytime is a bad time to buy computer parts they become obsolete more often than i goto the toilet.

If you want/need a new computer now and you have the money buy all means buy one. You wont regret it.

your component selection seems good i would say you could look at a P35 chipset mobo if you dont want/use SLI at any stage and the PSU i aint really heard of Corsair, Antect and PCPC make some goodens.

If you wait for the next best thing you will be waiting DECADES because there is always something close to comming out. Within the next 2 months we should be Intels Penryn, AMD's RV670, Intels x48 chipset, AMD's Phenom...Even NVIDIA might update the 8800series more

 

[pentacube]

He got me thinking though, it would always be nice to have a new rig, but I don't really NEED one at this point. Now, I would like a rig that would handle crysis on medium comfortably. As it stands now, my specs on this computer are as follows.

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 4000+
GPU: ATI X800GT
RAM: 2 gigs of PC3200 (OCZ Platinum revision 2 if it matters)
Mobo: Neo4 platinum

I think thats all the vital info. If I were to upgrade my GPU to an X1950XT, overclock the CPU and whatever else I could get away with overclocking, would that do the trick for now? Because thinking about it, I would really like to buy that new guitar I've been craving for a long time now, and if i settled with a computer upgrade over an overhaul I could get it.

 

[KekaiGenkai]

On my computer (spec's below) I can run Crysis at about 1280X1024, all medium settings and get ~40fps average. It runs everything else (TF2, Half-Life, UT3 demo) at pretty much max settings on a 1680X1050 monitor. AFAIK, Sapphire makes some pretty crappy cards (mine gets ridiculously hot and I've got freaking spectacular cooling), so try to stay away from their GPUs. I really like the card otherwise, it's got plenty of juice for most of the games out there and it can be had for little money.

I suspect there are going to be some pretty huge price drops in the next couple of quarters, so going with a simple upgrade seems like a good idea for now.