consults hardocp
Alright, it appears I was somewhat overestimating the 7900 GT, though not too much. Still, that doesn’t change my point… better to have good performance both now and later, for cheaper, rather than to have amazing performance now and moderate performance later at a higher price.
Actually, I’m vaguely planning on saving my pennies and going for a whole system upgrade once mainstream DX10 cards and Vista (so I can actually use said DX10) are out, and the bugs get ironed out.
I second that.
I would like to add that not even the latest graphic cards will run all the recent games at high resolutions with everything maxed out. Some compromises have to be made.
It’s really quite simple: The retail price for the latest cards (roughly $500?) is artificially high in order to make money on buyers who wants the best regardless of price (these cards usually drop $100 in the first 6 months). The rest of the market is in the $100 - $300 price range. If you’re on a budget that’s something to keep in mind. There’s always going to be some new and better hardware around the corner, the question is how much you’re willing to spend on each generation, and how much you can get for your old card when you buy a new one.
A few last things… The whole, “something new is coming” argument is old hat and generally doesn’t hold water. There is always something new coming. You could literally keep waiting for years. Granted, there are times when it might be good to hold off a month (say right before the Core2’s were released or right before PCI-E was introduced). I haven’t read anything earth shaking coming in the next month or two that isn’t already covered by the OP (Vista upgrade, DX-10 compatible video card).
Another problem with upgrading the video card a year or more down the road is that PCI-E 2.0 is expected to be released 2007Q3. The higher end video cards will jump to that spec. They will be backwards compatible (from what I’m reading), but it could create a bottleneck at the bus.
So, say the OP really wants that 8800GTS, but the upfront price of the new machine is still too high to swing right before Christmas. The OP could always purchase a 7900 based card from EVGA. EVGA offers a Step Up program where you can upgrade to a higher card in the next 90 days and get your full purchase price deducted from the price of the new card. So, buy the 7900 now. If you’re playing Oblivion and it looks like a slide show, Step Up to the 8800GTS. The only drawbacks are that you will have to pay full retail price for the 8800GTS and you will have a week of down time since EVGA doesn’t cross ship.
You really should go check out some benchmarks on the 8800 series cards. They are amazing. A single 8800GTX routinely beats out 2 7900GTX’s in SLI or 2 X1950XTX’s in Crossfire. A single 8800GTX can run Oblivion (about the most demanding game on the market right now) maxed out at stay above 30fps in just about every resolution but 2560x1600 (that’s 30" widescreen land there). A pair of 8800GTX’s in SLI can even run that.
I know I’m sounding like a shill here and I don’t like it. It’s just once in a while a product hits the market that is so much better than its competition that it is worth paying the premium of adopting early. YMMV.
Thanks guys. Based on advice here and elsewhere, and based on another look at the money, and based on the probabiltiy that really all I need is a 8600, and also I need to see what the ATI counterpart to the 8xxx cards ends up doing, I’ve decided to hold off for a few months. Til May actually. (Some more money will be freed up in my budget at that time, my workload will be going down, and hey, my birthday’s in May.)
Shit, I hadn’t heard about that. This means that come May, I’ll be thinking “Wait, I should just wait til PCI 2.0 comes out!” Dammit dammit dammit. :smack: 
-FrL-
Heh, I agree. 
It’s a new architecture (I’m still drooling). Still, by your logic you might as well buy two 8800 GFXs and SLI them. That’s $1.200 right there. My point is that when on a budget you should take care to get the most for your (limited) money, and high end graphic cards do come with a heavy premium.
No, that wasn’t what I was saying. At the end of my last post, I was basically just drooling over the GTXs. For the OP’s case, two GFXs would add about $1000 (NForce motherboard, bigger power supply, plus the cards) to the cost of the machine over a single GTS. A single GTS will run any current game at the resolution the OP stated, plus give some headroom for future games. It also will have better image quality and DX10 support.
Anyway, where’s that “beating a dead horse” emoticon? 
Sounds like the OP is in pretty much the same situation I am in - my display is a 19" LCD that maxes out at 12801024. I could upgrade my old 7800GT to something much more capable, but then I’d also need to drop £500 on a new panel to see the difference. At 12801024 (perfectly playable and looks good, but quite low-end nowadays) a 7950GTS wouldn’t even be breaking into a jog. The benchmarks here at HEXUS are all at 16001200 or above, and Anandtech show it hitting 93FPS at 1280960 in F.E.A.R.
Personally I’d go for the 7950GT or the 7900, ditch the liquid cooling and soundcard. The PCI-E 2.0 thing is irrelveant in the medium term I think - there won’t be an acceptable installed base for another six months to a year after release, and it’s not as though 16x PCI-E 1.0 is running out of headroom anytime soon.
Definitely ditch the water cooling. I just bought an E6400 which I’m overclocking from 2.1 to 3.2 GHz on air cooling without a problem. This site lists the specs for many overclocked systems, most of which are using air cooling. If you’re not going to overclock, the stock fan that comes with the retail version is more than enough.
(Although you might consider overclocking – it’s ridiculously easy to get a large boost out of the low-end Core Duos. I normally don’t bother, but here it was too good an opportunity to pass up.)