Buy a video card now or wait?

[jeputi]

Hey fellas!

Been thinking of purchasing an x800 pro VIVO, and do the BIOS flash thingy.
BUT should I wait till the next round of cards come out and drive prices down? Or wait and spend some extra dosh on a 512mb card? I guess the cheapest 512mb card will be down on speeds (from other reviews) so is worth going a fast 256mb card instead?

Few questions there, any good suggestions will be rewarded with a swift kick in the nads! If you're lucky.. Eheheh! =D

My specs:
GN400Pro Board; 2600+ Barton AMD; 9800 Pro; 2x512mb Corsair 3200;
480W Antec; Antec 1000AMG Case

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Buy a video card now or wait?

Your machine will barely take full advantage of an X800, and games won't take advantage of 512MB for a long time. If you wait, upgrade your entire computer. If you want a big jump in gaming performance in the near future, getting it now wouldn't be a bad idea.

[jeputi]

Re: Buy a video card now or wait?

Hmm.. So to really make the x800 sweat I should at least get an AMD 64 3200 / P4 equivalent? Ye I think I'll wait - upgrade me whole system later on, and prices can only come down.. :D

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Buy a video card now or wait?

Good plan. Wait a while and dual-core will be cheap. You'll be able to get a dual-core system with PCI-E and not lock yourself in with upgrading option su much.

[jeputi]

Re: Buy a video card now or wait?

Do you think dual-core will be noticeably more powerful than a fast single processor?
I think there are some debates floatin around? Guess will wait and see... Do you know when the next round of cards are comin out??

But imagine the games there will be soon that will take advantage of SLI 512mb cards insync!! =O

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Buy a video card now or wait?

For gaming, dual-core won't be faster until engines with multithreaded support come out. When they do, dual-core will be a lot better. It's also better for just about everything else, unless you don't do any sort of multitasking. Once gaming and other applications that work better with a fast single core become multithreaded, dual-core will completely take over the market.

Realistically, dual-core will probably do better right now anyway. Unless you run a clean, well-tweaked system, an Athlon 64 X2 4800, for example, will outperform the higher-clocked FX55. By "clean, well-tweaked system," I mean you don't have any software other than Windows and drivers installed. That means no antivirus, software firewall, spyware detection programs, or any of the many other types of trayed and background programs that the vast majority of gamers run while gaming. I personally do game without any of that, but I'd go for dual-core if I could afford it just so I didn't have to.

As for 512MB cards, I wouldn't expect any serious FPS improvement for 18-30 months. You might see better loading times or fewer/shorter in-game loading pauses in the more intensive games, but right now the only engine in a game currently availabe that even takes advantage from 256MB of VRAM is Doom 3, and even there, it's not a huge advantage.

When the next cards are coming out is anyone's guess. ATI and nVidia will both make claims as to when they are, and I think nVidia already has (assuming ATI hasn't), but I wouldn't trust them. ATI is notorious for paper launches, and nVidia isn't much better. In any case, I wouldn't really be too concerned if I were you. It's long enough away that you probably won't want to wait, and there won't be much advantage to waiting. The 9800 Pro hadn't moved down in price until just a little while ago. In fact, they were priced just under $200 before the X800/6800 generation started, and went to around $220 for over a year after the X800s/6800s came out. It took a huge drop in 6600GT price just to bring it down. My point is that waiting for the next generation won't get you any advantage unless you want to wait a long time. Besides, the high end of the current generation of cards isn't even used fully by current games, and most of the upcoming engines look like they'll perform better than the Doom 3 engine.

[jeputi]

Re: Buy a video card now or wait?

Ye good points there mate. Price, as always, is a big decider and when I upgrade, I suppose you go for the best components you can in a budget..
I thought dual-core meant two seperate cpu's on the mainboard, but they're actually in the one housing aren't they? Wouldn't heat be a problem there?
And definitely, a lot does depend on game coding - some is ****e, some is great, utilising VRAM much better.

Thanks for the quality response Yawgm0th, it's what keeps these forums doing well! ;)