Find the bottleneck!

[korsen]

Lol, and NO - do not include the hard drive. (well, i suppose you could... I do really need a raptor..., but leave it out for now)

Q6600 2.4 @ 3.6
Abit IX38 @ 2000
2x2900Pro 600/1600 @ 950/1900
2x1GB DDR2-800 @ 1000
(X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatality)

Concerning the future: Which will bottleneck me first? ( I assume the gfx. It's always the first to go...)
( I use an 80GB main drive, a 320GB and 500GB storage, and have another 500GB on the way all SataII )

Thanks for all comments!

 

[wolfseeker2828]

Yep the GPU is going to be the first to go. It's already somewhat outdated and doesn't perform too hot on DX10 games.

The RAM next - DDR3 will be the future soon.

The quad-core is going to be useful for awhile, but any computer out right now will be considered outdated with the release of the new socket type rumored to be released at the end of 2008.

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

Man, I think you'll be set for a while. Unless you game at the very highest resolutions....Even dual core chips can usually feed enough power. You should get at least a good year or 2 out of that rig IMHO.

 

[korsen]

Yeah I expect at least 2 years. I understand the gfx will go the soonest, but will the ram really bottleneck me that quick? I mean, probably when Nehalem is priced decently i'll upgrade again to 8 core, that chipset, and dual R700/GF(9/10).

Don't think i'll need to though. Probably the last thing i'll upgrade is the Ram/Cpu (might as well just do both at the same time, they should both be available enough when the time comes to be worth the price). Once I can't play any of the blockbuster games at max i'll upgrade. Not worried about crysis, but say if they had UT4 come out next year, if i couldn't max it out or any other blockbuster for the entire year, i'll upgrade my gfx. But i'm sure my ram/cpu will leave me alone for a good long time.

 

[kolix]

the IX38 is good (nice layout and design), but not great
sure it's got lots of OC potential (uGuru) but benchmarks show the Maximus kicking its behind with slightly better performance- ouch
and DDR2 memory does limit its potential
maybe Abit's MAX line can retaliate back (hopefully)

 

[korsen]

i've seen tons of screens showing it reaching 500+ FSB with a Q6600 at 4GHz with 1.2v off CPU-Z (vcore from CPU-Z is probably off though)

Still... that's music to my ears.
Besides, the Maximus was too expensive (Foxconn w/ DDR2/3 slots was out of stock! :anger

And i've used the IP35-E before and it was an awesome solid board. Clocked Q6600 9x400 with a little vcore bump out of the box 1st try - stable.

Hope to get the same results (better results actually)