What hardware can you upgrade now?

[Toxin]

Like the title says. What hardware can you buy that you will be able to use with now (with AMD64 and Intel P4) and later (with AM2 and Conroe)? In respect of gaming.

Stuff I can think of:

Soundcards: The Creative X-FI series should last you for a long time since very few games (if any) fully support it right now.
HDD: Seagate 750Gig (OK fine not really for gaming but come on 750Gig!!)
Decent mouse/keyboard/joystick/gamepad/headphones/speakers

What else can you get if you plan on upgrading the main stuff (CPU, motherboard, G-card etc) later?

 

[feo]

U forgot RAM..some nice logitech speakers maybe

 

[dualmeister]

Big widescreen LCD monitor (as long as it has HDCP support)

 

[killadoob]

7900 gtx should do the trick for a couple of months till the 8150 quad sli hits our stores hehe

 

[Toxin]

U forgot RAM..

Unless you're using DDR2 now (which I'm not ) buying decent RAM won't be a good idea now.

some nice logitech speakers maybe

Hmmmm....... Logitech Z-2300. *drools* Maybe.

Big widescreen LCD monitor (as long as it has HDCP support)

Viewsonic VX922. *more drooling* Tho I don't know if it supports HDCP....

7900 gtx should do the trick for a couple of months till the 8150 quad sli hits our stores hehe

My 6600GT works fine for now. Running BF2 with AA x4. I can't complain.

 

[killadoob]

yea i got the same card and i run everything medium with lighting low 4 x AA
and 100% view distance

but im about to sell my stuff should be getting the 7600 gs hopefully

 

[dualmeister]

I won't buy another graphics card till DirectX 10 hardware is out.

It's new a good time to buy PC stuff to be honest. There's always something new and improved around the corner.

The one part on my PC that's lasted so far is my keyboard

 

[killadoob]

dual you will be saying that for next 10 years

so you are never going to buy new things?

 

[ZuBS_]

Agree, always something better comming out soon

 

[nGAGEd55]

dual you will be saying that for next 10 years

so you are never going to buy new things?

true, but it isn't as if there's going to be a new intel chip after conroe within the next year at least

 

[mic_y]

well, point being, if it won't be a new intel chip it might be a new AMD chip. Or even some new company decides to join the market out of the blue, and their proccesor is 10x more powerful, and consumes only 5W under load.

That is the problem, there is never a shred of certainty in the IT industry as a whole, and something changes all the time. This in my mind is not a reason not to upgrade, but it does make choosing when to upgrade quite hard.

 

[Scooby_Doo]

+ directX 10 cards are here soonish, not every day that happens...

 

[Toxin]

Does anyone have like a vague idea when the 8series nVidia cards are coming out? Rumours/links whatever.

 

[nGAGEd55]

Does anyone have like a vague idea when the 8series nVidia cards are coming out? Rumours/links whatever.

I dont really know, but i'd guess they'd be out round about when Vista is released.

 

[Sapphiron]

Buy CPU motherboard and memory in 3-4 months time. Conroe and AM2 will be fully available then

Buy Graphics next year JAN-FEB. DX10 cards will be available then.

Rather buy 2 320GB 7200.10 Seagate drives and RAID 0 them. Double the performance and a 2/3 of the 750GB's price.

STUFF YOU CAN BUY NOW.

Logitech G7 mouse

Logitech G15 Keyboard

Stay away from Creative X-fi. Sound Quality is no better than Audigy and there are PLENTY OF BUGS that creative has forgotten about and will never fix. Rather buy an Audigy for about R300-R350 for a Audigy 4 for about R650

I second the Logitech speakers. Z2300 is best 2.1 out there.

Creative has launched their new Active Noise cancellation Headphones. Cant wait to get my hands on those.

Stay away from the Viewsonic VX922. Response times below 8ms are overkill. Rather look at the VX2025WM 20" widescreen. The Native resolution is a massive 1600 x 1050. It thrashes the VX922 on image quality, viewing angle, size and everything else except it is slightly slower at 8ms. No use in the image being changed quicker if you cant make out the image.

MMM what else.
You can get youself a good power supply now. Just make sure it has EPS12V for the upcoming CPU's. Enermax Liberty I think is the best Value EPS12V PSU out ATM.

Also get youself a good case now. Antec are exceptional quality. Look for a Antec SOLO or a P180

 

[pupa]

Only fools would upgrade now before Christmas. New technology is coming and even if you cannot afford it then the old technology will be cheaper to make way for the new, not that the new will be much more expensive if going by by the looks and rumours abound. I will but wait and see. Only the Rand can stuff it all up that will compel me to buy sooner than later!

 

[PearlJam]

BUY NOW!!!

The rand will go over R8.50 to the dollar. Buy the best of everything you can.


Only jking. As been said before i also believe there will never be the right time. Buy good stuff that is a bit old (few months) and save lots of money or pay the premium price of latest released products which is old again in 3 months time but will still be good stuff. This is like taste in music, everyone has their preference (or budget).

 

[Toxin]

All right, here we go.

Buy CPU motherboard and memory in 3-4 months time. Conroe and AM2 will be fully available then

Buy Graphics next year JAN-FEB. DX10 cards will be available then.

I think I'll get myself the DX10 card but won't upgrade to the Conroe or AM2 just yet. I'll give them about a year or so to get all the problems sorted out.

Rather buy 2 320GB 7200.10 Seagate drives and RAID 0 them. Double the performance and a 2/3 of the 750GB's price.

Yeah, I guess so. But come on man ONE 750Gig DRIVE!!!

STUFF YOU CAN BUY NOW.

Logitech G7 mouse

Got the G5.

Logitech G15 Keyboard

Check.

Stay away from Creative X-fi. Sound Quality is no better than Audigy and there are PLENTY OF BUGS that creative has forgotten about and will never fix. Rather buy an Audigy for about R300-R350 for a Audigy 4 for about R650

Audigy4…… check. But I can't think that the X-FI would be a bad choice or that Creative wouldn't fix any bugs there are. And reviews I've read say the quality was much better. But at the moment it probably is overkill since there aren't really any games that can utilize it fully.

I second the Logitech speakers. Z2300 is best 2.1 out there.

/me puts Z2300 on my "to buy" list

Creative has launched their new Active Noise cancellation Headphones. Cant wait to get my hands on those.

My logitech set should be fine for now.

An LCD will be the last thing I buy at the moment. A new PSU is not a bad idea. Right now I've got a Coolermaster CM Stacker so I'm sorted there.