Thoughts about a future update

[iQue]

Didn't want to hijack Jazzy's thread so here it goes...

I've been saving money for a good while now, both for buying games and a new system. I was going to stick with the system I have now for maybe another year, it still has very good performance and there isn't a game that I can't play, but my family needs a new computer and I want the money. They have agreed to buy it from me for 4000 SEK, I don't really want to take any more money for it considering it's my family. If you add that up with the money I have now and the money I get from my allowance etc I might have around 9-10000 towards the summer, hopefully I'll get some more monies at my birthday too.

(10000 SEK = £830, $1200, 910 €)

Just wondering if it's even worth hoping to get an i7 system towards the summer, or should I wait until next autumn somewhere? The cheapest i7 I could find was this (i7 920) at , how good does it compare to say a Q9950? Would it last a few years, without being painfully slow? I know i7 overclock well, how high could this baby go?

Any tips on what gfx cards that might be around then? I've seen the GTX295 has some badass performance, anyone knows the trends or when ATI gets their HD5xxx series out?

Hopefully I'll figure the rest out when it's actually time for me to buy it... the only things I don't need are a monitor, mouse, keyboard, and speakers.

And my last question, how much do you think I could sell this system for? Works perfectly, plays source 2008 games perfectly on DX8 (some lag on DX9 lower settings) and older games work really nice. Really nice system for those that don't game much. I just need to get the sound working... :laugh: I picked it together from parts from 2-3 different computers.

AMD 64 Athlon 2,6 GHz (singlecore)
512 mb RAM (not sure of speed yet, haven't checked lately)
40 GB Maxtor (but I have another 40 GB drive laying around)
ATI Radeon 9550 SE 128 mb (good enough)

I might actually get some more money by helping my family to sell their own computer later, you know, for professional assistance and support

[Wizrdwarts]

Re: Thoughts about a future update

Whoa, that site has a great search bar lol. Type in parts and results come even before you hit enter.

For a higher end system, I would definitely get the i7 920 since it's cheaper than the Q9550, and i7 outperforms Core 2 clock to clock. You'll need DDR3 RAM though, and I have no idea how expensive it is in Sweden. Right now the only mobos for i7 are X58, which are the high end SLI/Crossfire ones, and later P55 will come, but those won't support the LGA 1366 i7s.

As for selling your old system, I don't know, but I can post in the appraisal section for you on OCN if you want.

[iQue]

Re: Thoughts about a future update

Thanks for the reply :) The RAM price ain't too bad but together with a new mobo, sheesh. I hope the prices go down at least a little bit towards the summer.

As for selling your old system, I don't know, but I can post in the appraisal section for you on OCN if you want.

If you want to, sure. Don't have an account there so it would be appreciated.

[Wizrdwarts]

Re: Thoughts about a future update

Okay if you want a thread on OCN, I'll need more details, RAM type (DDR, DDR2?), does it come with an OS, other drives (btw is the HD IDE or SATA?), mobo (probably not that important for a low-end system but still good to know), etc.

Is this the proc you have? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...AMD-_-19103239

[iQue]

Re: Thoughts about a future update

Should be that one, but I can check for sure when I check the RAM speed etc. It might take a while though so if this thread dies I'll just PM you.

[Wizrdwarts]

Re: Thoughts about a future update

Here: http://www.overclock.net/appraisals/...ml#post5368988

Tell me if you want to change anything or to reply to anyone.

[iQue]

Re: Thoughts about a future update

Just say that I'm not interested in selling it there, just want the approximate value for it. I can't get hold of all the info now because it's not plugged in, doesn't have any monitor right now, and you can only get so far by reading the stickers.

I'll try to sell it at an auction site here in Sweden where I successfully sold my nvidia 7500 LE for $30

[Eagle101]

Re: Thoughts about a future update

I dunno about I7s very much, i say imho keep your comp for a little longer till price cuts are in range, about gfx the 295 can eat out half your budget i too want to see the HD5 series!

[megawhompertoo]

Re: Thoughts about a future update

as is ever the case, the high end stuff (i7+mobo) is at distinct cost-advantage for anyone on a budget.

clearance/used (i realize some folks have a religious issue with used parts, and i recognize some valid reasons why) parts, i.e. a 965p/975/x38/x48/35/45 chipset mobo and a decent C2D (e6400/6600), 4 gigs of DDR2 ram @1066, and an hd4870 may only set you back 250-400 USD (depending on who you buy from) by the summer time, and it'll still wipe the floor on most games.

throw in a psu, top-of-the-line opty (the BEST place to splurge a little is on optical drives, imho, i still have a pioneer DVD-R/RW from ~five years ago that still works wonderfully and is still reasonably fast), and a pair of 500 gb hd's, and you're at another $250.

add your case d'jour. don't bling it out, or find one of these on sale (good psu included, recently as low as $79 in the states on sale):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129024

and you'll have an awesome system on the cheap for a great long while. the price/performance difference between DDR3 and TWICE the ram of DDR2 in the near future makes DDR3 a choice for early adopters and folks with lots and lots of money (credit) to throw around.

that's somewhere between $500-800 USD, and there is no consumer productivity software it will hitch on (unless you're running pairwise DNA alignments, compiling, or heavy video editing). get an overclocking board, though, and push those clocks to at least 3.0ghz :)

[iQue]

Re: Thoughts about a future update

Would it last as long as 5 years then maybe? I'm off to uni in 2,5 years and won't afford much then. Will a lot of DDR2 RAM be better than a little less DDR3 RAM? When will the current Quad Cores start to get a little outdated? I know it will be hard to get a system to last for that long... but I don't have many options.

Note that I'm pretty much only are going to play games, and the occasional video editing and photoshop (which isn't that demanding). I play a lot of Crysis both online and offline and would love to get great performance on highest settings. We'll see what's around when I decide to buy my new parts.

If I decide to get a "old" quad core I can definately get a more expensive video card and so, maybe a ATI 5xxx card once those are released, but how much RAM is reasonable? If we consider that it's going to last very long, is 8 GB good or overkill if it's DDR2?

Thanks for all the replies, I might just afford it to the summer holidays anyway

[Jazzman]

Re: Thoughts about a future update

8 gigs is overkill

i have 4 gigs and i always use less then 50% of it. with 2 firefox windows, xfire, 5 steam windows and photoshop open it uses <50% :p

[megawhompertoo]

Re: Thoughts about a future update

Would it last as long as 5 years then maybe? I'm off to uni in 2,5 years and won't afford much then. Will a lot of DDR2 RAM be better than a little less DDR3 RAM? When will the current Quad Cores start to get a little outdated? I know it will be hard to get a system to last for that long... but I don't have many options.

Note that I'm pretty much only are going to play games, and the occasional video editing and photoshop (which isn't that demanding). I play a lot of Crysis both online and offline and would love to get great performance on highest settings. We'll see what's around when I decide to buy my new parts.

If I decide to get a "old" quad core I can definately get a more expensive video card and so, maybe a ATI 5xxx card once those are released, but how much RAM is reasonable? If we consider that it's going to last very long, is 8 GB good or overkill if it's DDR2?

Thanks for all the replies, I might just afford it to the summer holidays anyway

specifics on prices in summer are extremely hard to predict in the winter. there will be some price cuts, but the difference FIVE years from now between a good overclocking c2d (e6400/6600/or a current non-i7 quad) and an i7 (roughly 1 generation to 2.5 generation) will be negligible, if the past has any bearing on the future. we may all be running Via cpu's by then and eating Haitian mud burgers...who knows...

tat weren't too politically key-rect. i'm just saying the future is uncertain six months from now, let alone 5.5 years.

for the price, for a 64-bit os, YES, more ram > faster ram above 4gb. in fact, unless you're doing some of the things that are very cpu-bound, raising ram speed/bandwidth makes for marginal impacts on real-world performance.

that might well change with new apps and games, but again, its very hard to predict the future FIVE years out. i remember when i thought that there was no way that bloatware OS's and intel could ever outstrip a 6gb hd, 384mb of ram, and a 500mhz blazingly fast cpu.

my bet (and i made it with my own money--see my system) would be to spend on last gen/clearance/decently priced stuff now, and start saving incrementally for good stuff 5 years from now.

anytime you try to play the "i'll buy the BEST now in hopes it will hold for the future", you lose to my granny with an athlon thunderbird as far as price/performance goes, lol.

[iQue]

Re: Thoughts about a future update

anytime you try to play the "i'll buy the BEST now in hopes it will hold for the future", you lose to my granny with an athlon thunderbird as far as price/performance goes, lol.

lol, yeah I've realised that now.

Quad Core + awesome gfx card + a crapload of ram = good enough