System opinion and advice required.

[Byzantium]

I have been a long time reader of these forums but this is the first time i have been moved to register due to the release of some impressive hardware and some exciting new developments such as PCI-E etc.
I know the regulars on this forum constantly recieve posts asking for opinions etc and i do try to keep up on all the information that is given and i do use the 'search' feature regularly but i will ask this question now as it is always nice to recieve views on ones own personal system.Ok stop babbling and cut to it...

Last September i built this system:

P4 3.0c 800 FSB
Hercules 9800XT
2x512 Corsair XMS in Dual Channel
MSI Neo2 865 FISR Mobo
WD Raptor HD
Audigy 2

I have been impressed with the latest benchmarks of the newer ATI/NVIDIA hardware on the latest software and iam wondering whether either of these are worth upgrading to while keeping the rest of this system or am i better off keeping this set up and doing the whole lot sometime next year?
Where does my best upgrade path lie? Would a Mobo/CPU upgrade now yield better results with the 9800XT or vice versa? or am i wasting my money upgrading this system which i had imagined to be adequate for all the forthcoming releases?
I know asking for the life span of the current hardware is probably an unanswerable question but i would just like to hear the opinions of people with more experience than myself regarding the the latest hardware and their impact on todays games and their worth in releases in the near future.
Apologies for the long post and many thanks in advance to the people who take the time to answer.....

ByZ..

 

[Mr5oh]

I don't see any reason to upgrade your system. Yes there is some newer, slightly better stuff out, but the small performance gain isn't going to justify the price. With cars its like this, No matter how fast you are, there is always someone faster, ALWAYS. Your computer is the same way. There will always be something a little better than what you have.

Again with the cars, your computer would be like a Porsche 911 $80k, sure you could get the little better Ferrari 550 for 200k, but you aren't really gaining anything for a lot more money.

Unless you really have money burning a hole in your pocket, its my opinion you should hold off for a little longer. Your PC should be more than capable of playing all the new games, and should be for sometime. By this time next year there will be stuff out that would be a huge jump in performance in what you have now. This makes more sense than spending $500 for a video card, that is slightly better.

Plus who knows what will be out in only a few months, maybe something really worth upgrading too.

My Desktop: <A HREF="http://Mr5oh.tripod.com/pc.html" target="_new">http://Mr5oh.tripod.com/pc.html</A>
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[Byzantium]

Thanks for the swift reply Mr5oh.
Your post is a hard one to discount and i agree really with everything you say.I think it has been the huge jump in performance offered by the new top end cards that have taken me by suprise.
I was aware when i built this system that the 9800XT represented the last bit of performance being squeezed out of the 9800 line of cards and iam concious of the fact that i have built the system at the end of that particular product cycle.
Imo the biggest games in the near or far future will be released this year.The Rome Total Wars,HL2,Doom3 etc etc and i was just tempted to upgrade to make the most of these releases rather than upgrade for nothing forseeable next year.
Bah..I know your right.I'll try to stay more involved in these forums and learn what i can and try to judge the best time for another upgrade in the future based on advances on more than just the graphics front.
Many thanks for your input....

 

[FiL]

indeed, i have a GF4 Ti 4200 128Mb, and only now with Doom3 is there a game where my card is seriously lacking.

With your fast processor and 9800XT you can run Doom3 with a lot of eye candy and great resolution, so where's the problem? there isn't one...hold out for another 12-18 months before you upgrade the graphics card

 

[Byzantium]

Many thanks for the reply FiL.
I thought i had learned my lesson a few years ago about upgrading for one or two games specifically.I guess not...

 

[Obtuse]

If its any consolation, my friend's comp has a 9800 pro and Doom III runs very well on it.

"It's too late now anyway. That song is stuck in my head and the only way to get rid of it is to blow it out. With a bullet!! - Carl

 

[Byzantium]

Thats good to know Obtuse.Doom 3 will be out here this Friday and i'll look forward to trying it out after all the hype and mixed feedback.To be honest Rome Total War is the game i'am most looking forward to playing this year and i cant see it being half as difficult to run as the likes of
Doom3.Not from a graphical perspective anyway.
I have no problems with the 9800XT at present,i think it's a great card,i was just a little taken aback by how good the new line up was.Still thats progress and that can only be a good thing....Thanks for the reply....

 

[priyajeet]

Yup, u already got the best advice. U have a good card from a very good manufacturer. Keep it. And u still have one of the best mobos out there that even defeated 875 mobos. U have a very, infact best HDD around and really fast memory. Also upgrading just for Doom3 is pointless, u ll notice ur card will work better than nvidia for other games.
Next year u ll see the new Intel processor with 64bit instructions, new DDR2 memory with new PCIE cards supporting SLI. This is what u should look for in your next upgrade, and should look for next year when these platforms are in mass production.

<i> <font color=blue>Futile is resistance,</font color=blue><font color=red> assimilate you we will.</font color=red> </i>
<b>Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.</b>

 

[Byzantium]

Excellent..Thanks for the little insight into the up and coming priyajeet.
I think there is just something more alluring about new graphical hardware that makes you want to buy it at the expense of the rest of your system,forgetting that the so called more mundane components have just as bigger impact in their own way on the overall performance of your system.
The other up and coming features/advances you mention are really interesting and i will endevour to do a little reading up on them if i can find some material.I think a little more reading on the evolution of these things as oppose to a few weeks of reading before buying a new system will enable me to make informed choices about my current and future system based on things other than game benchmarks.Many thanks again for your time......

 

[priyajeet]

Ok this is psyc advice. If you are itching to buy a new graphics card, I would say GO AHEAD. Its better to have a peace of mind rather than regretting. I know money is spent this way, but I prefer peace of mind. I also have a problem of that, getting too excited about new stuff. It lasts till I buy the item or till I forget about it.

Yes these new cards are tempting and yes I am buying one of them. But my old card isnt as powerful as your so I would think twice if I were you.

But then again, if u r itchy and dont mind spending money I would say go and buy it.

<i> <font color=blue>Futile is resistance,</font color=blue><font color=red> assimilate you we will.</font color=red> </i>
<b>Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.</b>

 

[Byzantium]

Iam lucky in a way because i have someone who is willing to pay £200 for my 9800XT which will be around half of a new card here in the UK.The 6800 ultra being around the thick end of £400 when it eventually becomes widely available.
I suppose the next question is - Will the rest of my system be a good enough partner to the 6800U or the X800XT?
I know that most CPU's will provide a bottleneck of some sort to these cards but will it be so much so that iam wasting my money?
Also is there any card between the two that would be a better partner to the rest of my system over the other?
I try to avoid gaming benchmarks when choosing hardware but at the moment they are difficult to avoid or ignore.The Nvidia appears to be favourite at the moment but is it really as black and white as it seems and are differences that much of a gulf in real terms?
Thanks again for any opinions or suggestions...

 

[priyajeet]

as long as u have a powerful psu, i think ur sys will be fine handling the new cards.

<i> <font color=blue>Futile is resistance,</font color=blue><font color=red> assimilate you we will.</font color=red> </i>
<b>Hard work has a future payoff. Laziness pays off now.</b>

 

[Byzantium]

At the moment i have an Enermax 460w Psu.Hopefully that willbe enough.
I will look into this further.Thanks again priyajeet you have been a big help...