It's 18 months since I built this rig, and there's still nothing really worth upgrading for. There's the "new" i7 930, which is essentially the same as the 920 really - maybe I could reach the same speeds with 0.2v less or something... like wow. There's Fermi and the 5970... but neither are massively more impressive than my 295 at my screen res. There aren't even any cases that I yearn for, and I still love my Lian Li. I'm bored. 18 months is generally upgrade time for me, but seriously... there's nothing worth breaking out the credit card for. I still love my Dell 2405, despite it being PVA (it profiles awesomely). I have plenty of RAM.. plenty of storage. I had a slight fix when I built the server... but apart from that, I'm craving that awesome feeling of seeing a massive performance boost, whether needed or not. We need some ubergear to be released!
Yeah.. I know, but my C: drive is 147GB at present, so, to retain some space for a decent swap file (and I sometimes have massive swap files when working Premiere) I'd need to spend a great deal. I could move my apps onto another HDD, but then I lose the advantage of fast map loads in games, and speed in PS and Premiere. In fact, if I strip down my boot partition to make space, then the only remaining advantage is fast booting. Seeing as when I'm at home, I wake up, switch on then go make coffee, I don't care if it takes 5 minutes to boot I want the next big step in CPU or GPU. Remember when Conroe came out, and we were all on S939?.. it was like I want that. I guess you're right though. It's either SSD or a nice IPS screen... but neither fulfil the awesomeness famine I feel at the moment.
i think you should look at a Dell 3007WFP-HC a good ssd or even look in to water cooling your pc, you could then boost your cpu to 4.4ghz probably on water and super quiet and what about the new intel 6 core processor? that is definatly something new which has extreme performance
I was not and still am not impressed by the Core 2 Duo... I mean, my computer was purchased Jan 2006, the CPU was out in mid 2005. And just about recently SOME game is showing difficulty running on my system. I run all my games including Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 at 1920x1200, max max settings (except for Crysis). What is the point of a Core 2 Duo, when my desktop showed no sign of problem all these years. In fact I am debating now if I want to switch to a Core i7, or look into overclocking my CPU. Anyway, I suggest to get a nice 24inch high end monitor, like the Dell 2410, or if budget allows U2711, for spectacular colors, amazing view angle, pre-calibarted (sRGB and Adobe RGB) monitor with a wide variety of inputs to plug your gaming consoles, including your old ones (has component and composite), and has picture-in-picture and side-by-side picture-in-picture. It also looks awesome! And for grater system performance, go with a nice SSD.
Exactly. 6 cores? err... $$$$ That's why. A 3007... Hmmm... can you still get them new? I should have watercooled this from day one. I'm scared to invest in water cooling a 18 month old rig. You know something new and shiny will come out just after I buy all the water cooling bits. Still... worth pondering. Hmm.. lack of Phys X puts me off. I know there's the beta driver that allows for hybrid, but that strikes me as a workaround rather than a complete solution. I mean at teh time, it was a huge leap in raw number crunching. I remember at the time, I could get the magic 30 second barrier in 1M Super-Pi with my FX60, then Conroe appeared at a lower clock speed, and did 20 seconds. It was a major revamp in architecture, and efficiency. If I upgrade screens, I'd want a hardware 12bit LUT. We've been through this before . Once calibrated, a screen without a hardware LUT dithers badly. If I upgrade to a better 24, it has to be the NEC LCD2490WUXi. Struggling to justify the upgrade to another 24. Once calibrated, I'd put this 2405 against your 2410 for accuracy, even if the gamut is narrower. Accuracy is more important for me as a Photographer. SSDs are too small and expensive. I'd have to move all my apps and games off to another drive, thus losing any advantage I'd have gained.... except for boot times. Paying £300 to lower my boot times is ridiculous. Water cooling or huge screen are appealing most at the moment.
I think the latest solution was more official than a work around tho the ongoing saga doesn't inspire confidence. Personally id rather have eyefinity than physx or 3d for that matter. If Nvidia release their version then that would be a better solution then. Might be worth waiting for that. You could always build me a cheap system since my PSU seems to have died yesterday so my PC is being tested to see what damage has been done =p lol
The biggest performance boost you'll get is probably from an SSD. I bought one at the beginning of the year and it's definitely one of the best purchases I've made!
Things seem to be slowing hardware wise . Might have something to do with the world economy or diminishing returns . Going from 4 to 6 cores is a third more not a 100 % increase as 2 to 4 .
Watercool a pair of GTX 480's. Given a 480 is ~=~ 295. Or buy one now, save for another one. you'd not get the same scaling from another 295 In gaming hardware terms? Consoles
Im in the SSD camp, its not just boot times but the whole "feel" of your PC that improves when the OS responds instantly.
Ahahahaha...Priceless.. get out of your house! there is a beautiful world there waiting for you! full of hot chicks, starbuck's and a whole lot of interesting books to read!
I climb mountains, see the beautiful world all the time, bang many hot chicks and have read countless interesting books... and I still spend most of my time on the PC
Whatever you do it's going to cost a fair amount of money to move from what you have. I have a similar rig ... I went the SSD route alongside a fresh install of Windows 7. My system is certainly more sprightly in day-to-day use and much quieter. It satisfied the bug for me. Your only other real option is 5870 crossfire or GTX480 SLI, but that's crazy expensive and I'd just wait. I wouldn't do SLI 295s even if you can find one ... never heard of quad SLI ever working well.
Been all over the world.... Married one.... at least a book per week I'm sort of wanting a new screen now... it's the most "tangible" upgrade experience... I'm still chewing this over.
i know sound card? keyboard? mouse? maybe look into some hifi stuff it is so worth the money and the difference is massive
