Next Gen ( Vista, Directx10, Quatro, etc. ) Discussion

As much as I wish it was true, I'd beg to differ.

How about this

we compare everything on

4GB DDR2 Performance SDRAM at 800MHz - 4 x 1024MB and Dual 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7950 GT - SLI Enabled

core 2 duo > athlon > core duo > pentium d

Yeah the brand new Core 2 Duos are beating the Athlon AM2s in nearly everything. So much, that I'm even going to go Intel soon. You can think that the Athlons are better all you want, but your still wrong.

Pretty Accurate. The thing was AMD was beating intel for 3 years, Intel has now just caught up, lowered prices competion is great for the consumer.

I'm a big fan of Amd but I go with the best price / performance ratio when going with a new pc within my budget.

The Next battle (at least with cpu's) will be Quad Core Cpu's will do and which can do it better Amd/Intel.

Also Duo core video cards may take off (2 cards will give you 4 gpu's... that won't be used effectively for some time).

Also "Physics" processing aka a stand alone card or using spare processing of he video cards gpu should take off as well.

hehe, im already using a PhysX Card with my 2x ATI Radeon x1900XTX CrossFire

I hear AMD are coming out with a kickass Quad Core this year... *drool*

Even if Intel offered the best price/performance, i'd STILL stick with AMD.. i dispise intel (yeah, ive had more than enough problems in the past..)

I believe the PhysX cards are useless right now as only one or two games use it (Most use Havok i believe? correct me if im wrong)

Quad SLI looks damn sexy (Even though when i upgrade im going back to ATi) two GX2's is hard to resists though i must say. I prefer ATi though as they had the tray tools which was a dream for overclocking

Oh, while im on the subject, if anyone could help me out with one simple thing id like a little Q answered; If i OC my BFG 7800GS with a lifetime warranty a little bit (say from 400 ->450 core) would i void the warranty? Thanks

I won't perpetuate the arguement over which chip manufacture builds a faster chip, as they are pretty equal in most cases, depending on what you're looking to run on it. In gaming performance (these are the most current bench-tests running with optimal boards) Intel has a slight margin, but not big enough to say they are superior, where they suffer more in video editing, photoshop benchmarks over an AMD comparable.

We have 3 quads on-hand currently, one from AMD, 2 from intel. They both will require board upgrades and they both are fairly solid performers. We also are running an intel dual-quadcore (8 proccessors in a sense) mac with these chips and the perfomance is steller.

It's hard to say how strong WinVista will be, it's still pretty buggy with RC1 and does not run in directx 10 full without forcing the SDK inside any of the gaming apps, nor do any offer a release thus far to test. So directx 10 has some major on-paper advantages, but it will need to prove itself in real world testing. I'm running Vista RC1 on a dual core 915 with a 1.5 gigs of RAM and it's nice and spunky, even as many of the drivers are randomly bugged. I'm far from running top-end machines at home and am still getting a 4.5-5.0 in the performance tests, so i imagine it could be even spunkier. All the test machines here at work are running stripped down versions of XP pro.

As far as vid cards, we recently (within days) received the lastest offerings from ATI and Nvidia, dual Crossfire/SLI cards on a single slot, offering the ability to run 4 GPUs at once. Preliminary tests are showning that ATI is still the speed champ, but time will tell.

yes, in 99% of cases Over Clocking Voids the warantee, unless its sold as an over clockers card, and states that you can over clock it happily etc.. in other words, if your un sure, dont bother

besides, the performance gain from 400-450 will be pointless, you may gain the off 1 fps here and there, but its not worth it in the long run..

I'm running vista, and idling with just trillian, firefox, and music playing I'm running at: 13-25% of an AMD64 3700+ processor, and 604 MB of ram. So really if you're looking at a new computer, Id go ahead and make sure you have at least 1024 mb of ram, a dual core processor (preferably the intel core 2 duos because of their cost effectiveness), and a good video card. Also, buy it about a month after vista comes out and you have DX10 hardware in there too and most vista security-related bugs are sorted out..

since Directx 10 is Vista ONLY, I am terribly worried that GW a game whose engine has already been updated for the latest Directx from launch will suddenly cause all their previous chapters system requirements to jump to Requires Windows Vista by going to directx 10.

I just hope that the switches still work to play the game on directx 9 as it does now for directx 8. cause I personally know for a fact there is going to be a large populace that will NOT be buying Vista because it is by far too expensive to be worth the bother unless they are getting a new machine so they get it at the OEM discounted prices.

I have tested GW on Vista RC1 and it works fine... but of course that is using DX9... Please don't change it overall anet. This would be disastrous in my opinion. Vista is at least two years away from market saturation and becoming reasonable in price for the equivalent of windows 2000 functionality in the OS (as far as networking, and User and security options). In other words Home version are hardly worth anything to a power user and they will not be happy with less then ultimate in most cases... and the fact is that is too expensive...

Microsoft made the same mistakes with XP home and pro. Home was garbage with many many thing missing from the OS that are required for a power user. now they are doing the same to Vista saying its a benefit when in reality it has nothing to do with anything except extorting more money out of people that KNOW how to use a computer and give the barest of min to those that do not have a clue.

it won't be a problem, don't worry.

BFG's warranty covers overclocking, so far as you don't blow it to hell.

GW will be fine on Vista-I'm typing from it now.

There's a lot of hype and speculation going on in here.

DX10-for now, forget it exists. The cards keep getting pushed back, and while they certainly are spectacular, they're most likely 4-5 months off (Anything much further and I'm bound by NDA) and could be pushed yet further.

DX10 will be incredible, but the hardware has a MAJOR change in functionality to accomodate the new engines. There are no pixel or vertex shaders, they are "unified" shaders that can be whatever they need to be at that point, and can switch on the fly. The technology to do that is rather complex, and will be Vista-only, but that's honestly not a bad thing.

Right now, if you want to make a good upgrade, the best thing to do is pull yourself to 2 GB of RAM. That's what we use here in my shop as well as at home (considering they're both the same place, of sorts) and it is the single biggest factor in general smoothness and usability. Next would be a dual-core processor, after that video card (third in line, not first) and after that, start looking at power, airflow, and storage systems. Building an awesome Core 2 Duo system and saddling it with a generic power supply, a cramped, poorly ventilated case, and a slow PATA drive (which not all of them can even take anymore) will lower usability greatly and can put your components at risk.

The next-gen stuff (K8L, Woodcrest, Kentsfield, DX10) are all well and good, but the truth is that they are still only as good as the infrastructure they are based on. Don't think slapping any of these parts by themselves in a machine will make it a magic go-fast box from the far future. Read the review setups-it's about the total machine, and not just the sum total of its parts.

My future wish list involves a K8L for my current board, a replacement for my Elpida D9 fatbodies in a 4x1GB config, and watercooling. Past that, I'm not too arsed about the new stuff. Would like a faster card, but this one is loud enough, thank you very much.

This game does NOT need a powerful system. Any recent proc, even old cards run this game beautifully. My laptop runs this fine - 1.6GHz turion x2, ati 1150 (x300) graphics. It can run maxed at 1280x800 and I wont notice any skipping - it's a fantastic engine. Compared to my desktop, it's nothing, And i'm saying that to explain that the laptop isn't good because i'm used to low end crap, but because it is capable enough to run this game smoothly. My desktop is a pentium D at 4.51GHz with x1900xt flashed to x1900xtx @ 700//1600. Both have 2 GB of memory, so i really can't say how this game runs with low memory.


As for architectures, netburst - pentium 4 and pentium D is dead. The only reason to buy it now, is to save on costs while prepping for core 2 duo (not core duo) or core 2 quadro (aka kentsfield).

The new architecture is NOT the same as the old pentium 4's and dual core (think 2 cpus) pentium D. Its a rework of core duo, which was a rework of the pentium-M - a pentium 3 derivative, using some tweaks from pentium 4's line - e.g. micro ops fusion, branch prediction.

If you want to test on vista, here's the link to download the public RC
http://download.windowsvista.com/pre...nload-5728.htm

Now dont get me wrong - even if you're stuck on single core pentium 4's above 3.0GHz, or 754 athlon 64's you'd be fine for most games. Games today put FAR more pressure on the videocard than before. There's some exceptions, but it's not a lot.

Any engine implementing dx10 can use a switch to implement lower direct x levels.

anthlon x2 and the original core duo were scary close. Look at laptop benches and you'd see it. You dont feel the difference, but doing long encoding, or gaming (since the pentium M it's been established as a gaming chip) there's a bit o difference.

AMD's quad cores would be towards servers. Expect 2x2 or 2 dual core chips in a package for regular consumers (though this means consumers need a dual core 1207 socket f server board...)

Not always possible.
1. sli wont work on all boards
2. The top single cards are the 7950GX2 and x1950xtx. However, the 7950GX2 is not compatible with all motherboards, because the motherboards need to be able to handle the pci-e lane switching mechanism the 7960GX2 uses to control 2 cards. Nvidia's top single card after this - the 7900GTX is actually faster in most games than 7950GX2 with using 2 in sli, though, at 8xAA the 7950GX2 overtakes it.
3. you cannot run 4GB of ram on xp. XP uses 32 bit memory mapping and PAE(physical address extension), although for anything other than enterprise server, PAE is just used for data execution prevention, leaving the addressable limit as 4GB. The problem is, every device's memory is mapped to the same 4 billion addresses xp can use - so if you're using 512MB graphics cards, and a 256MB xfi, you're already down to 2.75GB addressable space.
you can try 64 bit windows, but drivers for 64bit are not nearly as mature.
Memory space is going to be the most immediate difference a 64 bit os will make. 2GB is getting common enough to look ahead.

As for naysayers on core 2's dominance, the e6600 topples the fx-62 in most areas, including games.

DX10's unified shader architecture, CAN be implemented on current designs. instead of moving data through a pipeline - to textures, then vertex shading, then pixel shading then raster, permitting data to move back to the previous stages of the pieline. This is nvidia's approach (and the approach of the xbox360 which boasts the features of unified shaders)

You guys think this is a good pc to handle all the next gen stuff?

directx10 and everything?


Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Extreme X6800 2.93GHz 4MB Cache 1066MHz FSB
Operating System (Office software not included): Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 with Service Pack 2
Chassis: Alienware® P2 Chassis - Space Black
Chassis Upgrades: Alienware® AlienIce™ 3.0 Video Cooling + AlienFX™ System Lighting + High-Performance Liquid Cooling - Astral Blue
Power Supply: Alienware® 700 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply
Motherboard: Alienware® Approved NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI Motherboard
Memory: 4GB DDR2 Performance SDRAM at 800MHz - 4 x 1024MB
System Drive: Extreme Performance (RAID 0) - 500GB (2 x 250GB) Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7,200 RPM w/ 2 x 8MB Cache
Storage Drive: Additional Storage Drive - 250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7,200 RPM w/ 8MB Cache
Primary CD ROM/DVD ROM: 16x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Drive
Secondary CD ROM/DVD ROM: 16x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Drive w/LightScribe Technology
Graphics Processor: Dual 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7950 GT - SLI Enabled
Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 204B 20.1" 5ms Flat Panel - Black
Sound Card: High Performance 7.1 Audio - Standard
Speakers: Logitech® X-530 5.1 70-Watt Speakers
Keyboard: Alienware® USB Full-Size Keyboard
Mouse: Alienware® Optical 3-Button Mouse with Scroll Wheel

u will need a freakin nuclear power plant for that baby

Alienware - pfft! Over Priced POS's.. You could build the same machine yourself ,for quite a bit cheaper, Save yourself some $$ and do it that way....

and personally I dont like intel or nVidia.

and you should use Raid 5 or 5,0.. NOT Jsut raid 0, because if one of your drives die, you loose everything ( as it is spanned over both drives, nothing is complete, you have 1/2 on each drive) i learned that the hard way..

Also, why go all-out on everything else, and just get a standard 7.1 Sound Card, go for an SB X-Fi Fatal1ty or something like that...

as for that, why is everyone comparing to the FX-62?? thats not what I was comparing too :\

It's FAR more over the top than necessary and STILL cannot "handle" direct x 10.
You NEED a direct x 10 capable GPU, and vista. No current card can handle dx10, so no pc today will run dx10.

you REALLY don't need a $1000 cpu. Even the lowly e6300 is more than enough. If you're on a mid range or better cpu - not exclusive to core 2 duo mind you - you're pretty much set. Just ensure you have pci-e to upgrade the video card, and 2 GB of ram at least.

You're FAR better off going with a cheaper cpu - say an e6600, and using a 7900GTX or x1950 (or 2!). The 7950GT lies between the 7900gt, and 7900GTX in performance. The x1900xt/xtx/x1950xtx range from a touch slower than the 7900gtx, to a little faster.

Even then the 7950 is a good card, it's just the proportion spent on cpu:gpu should be more on the gpu side for a gaming machine.

That setup is an overkill for this game...

A question about AMDS Onboard GPU. Will it be equal to Intels integrated cards? Else i wont be too happy. Also i read in the PCGamer article this is something for much later on, And the two are parterning for servers or something. Ill confirm this when im back at home