Sulphur on 5/10/2008 at 23:57
I've got a question. I've been pondering upgrading my rig because it's getting a li'l creaky in its old age. The machine in question is an Athlon 64 that's been overclocked to its knees since they day I got it, 3 years ago. What can I say, I'm a hard task-master. :devil:
Right now I've got my eyes set on an E8400, which is very tasty given its price-performance ratio (not to mention its overclockability). That and the Radeon 4870 seem like a very potent combination right now.
However! We know that Intel's going to release Nehalem by the end of the year or so, and that's going to necessitate a whole new flavour of motherboard. As well as DDR3. Bleh.
I know that some of you folks keep up to date with what's in the pipe as far as tech goes. So, my question - and you already know it - is should I wait for the Nehalem chips? Will they be as big a step as Conroe was? Or is this going to be merely incremental, in terms of what I'm going to be running? (Which is mostly games and movies.)
I'm kinda confused on what Intel's focusing on for the next generation of chips, so I'd really appreciate the help.
Bjossi on 6/10/2008 at 01:15
How much more do you think you can squeeze out of your system? Are you struggling to run the newest games on medium settings?
I have an AMD64 X2 4400+ and a Geforce 7900 GTX, games like Crysis and STALKER Clear Sky run fine on med/high settings. With this in mind I should be able to last for another year or two before the low settings start to lag. What is going to backfire quicker is the 2 GB memory though, longloading times and stutters will be more common coupled with in-game lag when the rest of the hardware just can't cope anymore.
If you could wait for Intel's Nehalem release, processors would go down in prices big time. Evaluate your computer like I did above with mine to see if you absolutely need to upgrade soon or you can squeeze some more out of it. Nehalem is the target I keep my eyes on.
Sulphur on 6/10/2008 at 06:46
Mine's a rickety old bag of a system. 3200+ 64 and a 7600 GT.
While I can run tons of stuff on it, trying out bleeding edge games like SupCom, Crysis, Assassin's Creed, etc. would be a terrible idea. Stalker: SOC runs pretty well with full dynamic lighting; I haven't bought Clear Sky yet, because I'm pretty sure it'll run like shit.
I suppose waiting for Nehalem makes sense as long as I don't want to play the above right now.
Thing is, if Nehalem is just a slight step upwards, I was considering going for the upgrade right now - an E8400 at ~$170-$200 isn't too bad on the wallet. But maybe patience is a virtue, huh?
bikerdude on 6/10/2008 at 10:20
Intel
* 2.66ghz Nehalem 8mb cache quad core - £266 (the slowest one)
* Intel X58 motherboard - £250
* 3x Sticks of DDR3 1066 - £210 (tri channel - NB. have to use a minimum of 3 sticks of memory!)
* Total to upgrade to a Nehalem - £766
AMD
* 4.0ghz Deneb FX80 6mb cache quad core £220
* Amd FX790 mobo - £130
* 2x DDR3 1066 - £150 (dual channel)
* Total to upgrade to a Deneb - £500
And the rumors are the Deneb setup will be as fast or faster...!!!
biker
FYI: Stalker- CS will not run well on your system, I have a GTX280 and will all the setting on high(DX10), I have had to lower the res from 1680*1050 to 1400*1050.
Sulphur on 6/10/2008 at 18:56
Thanks Biker. That sounds sweet. AMD's back with some serious competition this time, eh? I hope that means good things for the market, price-wise. I'll take your advice and hang on, then. Makes far more sense. :)
And thanks for letting me know about Clear Sky. I'm not touching it unless I've got better hardware to run it on.
Bjossi on 7/10/2008 at 10:40
Quote Posted by Sulphur
I haven't bought Clear Sky yet, because I'm pretty sure it'll run like shit.
It runs pretty well for me with the config I used in SoC, I hardly ever see lag.
But perhaps budget cards will see more of an impact with the updated engine, dunno really.
Sulphur on 8/10/2008 at 07:34
I doubt it'd run very well, Bjossi. I've taken a look at some of the benchmarks, and the game is a fair bit heavier than SoC.
Plus, I want them God rays! I'm not playing Clear Sky without 'em! :cheeky:
Thanks for the link, Biker! I also did a little digging around, and it looks like Nehalem's more of a server-centric update to the processor architecture, so it possibly might not see as much gains in raw performance. Looks like Deneb's going to be burning bright in this next round of the processor wars.
