Actually buying a new computer this timeFollow

But he's *right*! Why can't you just *see* it?

He's right about the fact that CPU's are good, and getting a good one is often worth it. But I think he's coming at the perspective where he's saying spend a little more to get the good CPU, while most of the rest are saying, if it comes to a trade off, to get the best gaming experience now, it's better to pay more for the video card then the CPU.

Yeah, that's the thing: anyone who does work on their computers *will* upgrade individual components all the time. If not, then you're just buying a new computer every three years and shouldn't be opening the case.

Yes. This exactly. The issue being "best gaming performance". Most people get far too caught up in the latest video card hardware specs and forget that the games they want to play "right now" likely don't use most of the features that card has and which the one $100 cheaper doesn't. The graphics hardware industry has been leading the software cycle in this area for a number of years now. They put hardware into their cards to manage graphics processes, then wait a couple years for the coders to write code to make use of the hardware. Sometimes the coders never do, or it never works right when they do anyway.

Within reason, a faster CPU with more cores will always be of benefit and will lengthen the usable lifespan of your computer. Buying a graphics card much beyond a mid-range level isn't going to be of much extra benefit today, and depending on code adoption of the acceleration features in the hardware itself may not *ever* be worth it. You're better off buying a card in which 99% of the hardware is usable by the games you're playing and which has a greater cost/performance value than going for a higher end card which doesn't have either of those. Doubly so if this is at the expense of a better CPU or MB (or both).


In the example system Kao wrote up, the card he recommended is more than capable of playing any PC game at a high resolution and with all the software features you want turned on. It's likely going to continue to be that capable for the next couple years. There's not much gained by spending more on a "better" card, and the price jumps involved get significant. I'm taking a position based on the situation at hand. I more than acknowledge that in theory, under different circumstances, you'd want to spend more on a graphics card and less on the CPU. But that's just not the case here.

Context guys! They replace components (which I said), but usually don't upgrade the CPU in place with the same board. Given the integral nature of CPU and Mainboard, it's usually best to think of those together as a single unit and buy/replace them together. You can upgrade the CPU later I suppose, but you're almost always going to be better off buying the best combination of board/CPU you can get at the time based on price and not dealing with it later. Big jumps in CPU usually come with changes in sockets and board chipsets anyway.


Obviously, you're free to do this however you wish. I've just seen a lot of people say they're going to upgrade the cpu later, and never do. And it's quite apparent that performance gains versus price over time in the graphics card industry strongly recommend to a bargain buyer to stick in the mid-range and just upgrade every 2-3 years rather than spending anything more thinking you're getting a better gaming system. Certainly, you should never do this if you could spend that money on something which will actually last you longer.

This is just my opinion, but I do think that buying the best cpu/board combo you can and using it for as long as possible makes sense financially, while buying something closer to the minimum video card that can run the games out today to your satisfaction also makes sense financially. There are certainly price point breaks to pay attention to, but in general, when you apply those principles, you realize that even though it may seem like you get more bang for the buck buying the minimum CPU and the maximum GPU you need in your system today, it ends out being the exact opposite in the long run.

There's a rapid loss in gain on bang for buck in the CPU market over time, and a massive gain in the GPU market. Take advantage of those facts when planning out a computer purchase.

Yes, gbaji, you are entitled to your second-hand opinions and economic theories.

So you mean the last time you played was several months before they released Ultra Mode?

Ok, then maybe you should STFU until you know what you're talking about. kkthx~la

City of Heroes in Ultra mode is going to want a 285 GTX or two. Adding a second 9800 GTX+ in SLI mode if your box supported it would also to get you there. In your situation you do have a very slight processor bottleneck, but the match is close enough that eventually adding the aditional ram to your system would make it a wash.

Regarding motherboard swaps, it really depends on the processor price structure. I am not a good example of a typical computer part consumer, but on average I see most people swap a CPU out once before the board is replaced. During the transition from Pentium IV to Pentium D to Core 2, the sockets stayed the same but the chipsets changed so often that you really had to pull the board to make an upgrade worthwhile. Ram was dirt cheap, seitching over from DDR, to DDR2 to eventually DDR3 usually wasn't much of an issue, and getting those USB2 ports, or the ability to go from an AGP to a PCI express video card usually meant that the motherboard upgrade was almost a requirement. With Core 2, things stabilized for a bit longer, and I did see people swap processors a few times. Especially going from Pentium D to Core 2 since that was such a leap in raw capability, if the motherboard had the 945 chipset, people were all over those. It really depends on how pervasive the underlaying board technology is. Once the majority of printers started requiring USB 2.0 to function correctly, that forsed Quite a few people to upgrade who otherwise probably wouldn't have. ironic given the average cost of a printer. The PCI express video card, and the vanishing of the AGP 8X cards forced another shift.

260 GTX's don't really give you much over the 9800 GTX+. $50 more gets you faster ram and a larger transfer bus, but the core clock is actually slightly slower than the 9800 gtx+. The CUDA implementation on the 26GTX is certanly much more robust, so if you do anything that takes advantage of that (video editing, photoshop) the 260GTX is definitly worth it, but for gaming you don't get that much more performance out of the 260. Not saying it is a bad card, the 9800 GTX+ is just a really good card for the price. I have a 9800 GTX+ in the media PC downstairs and a 260GTX in the secondary box next to this one, and I get basically the same framerates on most games. The pair of 280 GTX SST's in this rig on the other hand demolishes both those cards singly or in SLI mode. That next step up in performance definitly comes at a premium though. For me, that was worth it. At $125 for the 9800 GTX+, 2 of them would run you $250 but give you about a 40-45% boost over a single 260 GTX if you are running a large display. The price will drop on the 9800 GTX's before too much longer, jsut before they disappear from the market. You could get one, wait, then snag a cheap one later, or you could go for the 260 GTX now and try for a second one of those later. I'd probably go the latter route given my habits, but a gamer on a budget could do well the other route as well.

[img]http://www.geeks3d.com/public/jegx/200806/pcper-gpu-z-geforce-9800-gtx+.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.geeks3d.com/public/jegx/200809/geforce-gtx-260-core216-gpuz.jpg[/img]

You're probably right; I think I was looking at an overclocked 260 on Newegg when making comparisons.

Any thoughts on ATI? Specifically, the HD 4000 series.

At the mid range cards i'd give the edge to nvidia,

I wouldn't, but there are legitimate strengths and weaknesses to both. nVidia's drivers are generally better supported by game developers, including "support" by intentionally crippling ATI's function calls to make parity.

ATI is probably the better general value proposition in the mid range, but if you're annoyed *at all* (I'm not, but most people are) by occasional issues, pay the slight premium for nVidia.

I have a 4870 in the PC I play games on most, and I've never had any real issues. The occasional poorly coded AA hook that crashes games, but nothing that made me regret buying it. I play at 1920 x 1200 (With an overclocked Dual Core Allendale E2140 at 3gh (on stock cooling, thank you, thank you)) usually at max settings with the occasional AA glitch or issue with a particular game. The GTX+ obviously performs worse (and it should it's a lower end card) but particularly suffers at higher resolutions. Either one would be fine for most games, though. I don't really have advice on the current GPU market.

For those of us who would want something pre-build, Any recommendations?

If you want pre-built you should go to a site like http://www.ibuypower.com/ or http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/

If you are asking if you should get an hp or a dell, I have no ******* clue.