To build now or wait

I want to build a new PC because my 1.2Ghz thunderbird just laughs at me when I try to play fry cry on decent settings. I was all set to buy a P4 3.2C with an Asus P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard and 1Gb of DDR 400 Corsair XMS ram. But now that PCI-Express is coming out I was wondering if I should build now or wait a few months.

You buy 3.2C how long before your next upgrade?

BTX won't take off

AMD's dual-core sex fights due in 2005

Pci Express will do nothing for a few years. Looks like the P4c will be the best thing from intel for a while.

>The consensus seems to be buy now.

Oh, don't be too confident. The "wait until hell freezes over" mob is just not awake yet, but they will soon start posting why you should wait for price drops, faster DDR2, improved PCI-E cards, more mature boards, 90nm chips from AMD, etc.. they will come, I promise.

>I was all set to by the P4 but everyone here has got me
>thinking about an a64

You should. If gaming is your thing, there really is no reason to go for a P4 now. And if gaming is not your thing, there is still precious little reason.

> Is there a significant performance gain between the 3200
>and the 3400?

Do you consider ~5% significant ? Do you consider $120 extra significant ?

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

Lol, i'm not really an avid P4 fan, i use whatever works the best in my price range at the time. I have an XP1900 machine witha 9800p and a P4 2.6c@3.1 machine with an X800 Pro. I like both of them. If your looking for cheaper, the P4's are a little cheaper now, at least the C's, and as far as performance, most of the time they are within 5%~10% of eachother. So, a 3.0c is fairly close to a A64 3000, i don't think you would really notice any diff unless 7 or 8 fps makes a big diff to you(if your runnin 30 fps then it might, but a 9800p with a cheapo p4 2.0a can run HL2 at max settings around 40 fps average). Go with whatever suits your wallet, just remember to be careful when picking out ram for an A64, they are picky, make sure you read the toms article so you get a good combo.

P4 2.6c@3.1, OCZ DDR533, Abit IC7-Max3
(my vid is shameful, a 3D Prophet that can't run games, lol)<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Captain_insano on 06/19/04 03:32 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

Right now I have a nvidia FX 5200. I basically bought it because it was cheap and my geforce3 broke.

I plan on getting a X800 after I upgrade the cpu, ram, and motherboard.

Buy the X800pro. You can OC it to XT speed. Plus more.