Vista? dx10?
I've been following your Vista adventure. Could you offer an opinion on some stuff? Speculation is fine. vista uses the ntfs file system? Dx10 will be practically used in games in what year? Why are no videocards offering dx10 compatibility yet ? I'm building a new rig and am going with proven technology. Dual core, an oc'ed amd 3800 or a dual core4600 ish cpu. 2g 3200 ddr, an x-fi sound card, rebate of $20 helped . My old sblive lasted 5 years, $96 seemed fine for the new one. (Newegg) an nforce 4 MB and a 7800 256 mb card. I see little real world difference in high end Video cards and sli or crossfire is out of my price and reason range. My lcd monitor limits everything to 60 fps anyway. Do you have any thoughts on the crossfire 200 boards? The 480 instead of 580 chipset. Xp pro due to having a network.
The line between real and hype is vague.
Or I'll wait for Conroe final specs and real world tests.
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Congrats on the move up!
Honestly, Conroe's specs should having it literally 20% faster than the 2.6ghz dual-core AMD's. This new pipeline is something that's very impressive. Even some of the guys who've said "Wait and see what AMD is bringing" are starting to rethink it. I read something from Rahul Sood's blog about how AMD was going to have a lot of work ahead of them to keep up, and it's very true.
I started looking around today because there are a few 975X Intel boards that should support Conroe with nothing more than a BIOS update. The Intel desktop board is particularly interesting (the BOXD975XBXLKR on newegg). It's got 3 physical 16x slots, is Crossfire ready, and should support Conroe at launch. You could drop a P4 on there and wait for Conroe, or just go with what we know works.
What works is nVidia. Mainly I say that for the driver support. The Forceware series is incredibly stable and lightweight in comparision to ATI's offerings. Not to mention the nTune software, Coolbits overclocking, and Purevideo decoder. Granted ATI may have a little better product right now, but it's hard to say there's enough performance to dominate anything.
As far as video goes, get a 7900GT 256mb card and strap a Zalman VF-900 on it. Trust me, you'll really thank me for it. Should end up a little faster than the 7800GTX 256mb by the time you're all said and done, for about $100 less. With what's coming out around the corner with HDR and whatnot, you'll like having the horsepower.
For motherboard recommendations, nVidia nForce 4 Ultra is still a pretty good pick. Most all the boards will overclock very nicely, and their BIOS's should be quite mature by now. I've personally always loved the MSI products in the Neo Platinum grade, but Asus makes a great board also. If you just care about performance, the DFI Lanparty's are pretty much the undisputed champs of the OC.
The crossfire boards are just a little sketchy for me so far. I've used a lot of ATI chipset boards while waiting for the nVidia 6150's, and I'll tell you they were not fun. I think the next round of ATI stuff for AM2 should be pretty solid, but I wouldn't go there on 939, not when nVidia makes such a strong offering.