Buy now or buy later

[Mirsky]

Odd question; I just bought a new car for the wife on the understanding that I could get a new PC... hey married life is alot like horse trading.

Anywho - I have about $1500 for a new PC and LCD screen but I'm not entirely sure if I want to get one now or wait until the end of the year when the quad cores come out. Then I can pick up a dual core at a discount.

My current PC is sufficient for my needs at the moment... even though BF2/POE2 kicks its ass and some of the new game videos make it whimper mightly.

So the question is, buy now or wait until later for some price drops?

Oh and has anyone had issues with their 7900 series cards? I was reading some reviews and there's been talk of a lot of them artificing after the burn in period.

[Noirceur]

Odd question; I just bought a new car for the wife on the understanding that I could get a new PC... hey married life is alot like horse trading.

Anywho - I have about $1500 for a new PC and LCD screen but I'm not entirely sure if I want to get one now or wait until the end of the year when the quad cores come out. Then I can pick up a dual core at a discount.

My current PC is sufficient for my needs at the moment... even though BF2/POE2 kicks its ass and some of the new game videos make it whimper mightly.

So the question is, buy now or wait until later for some price drops?

Oh and has anyone had issues with their 7900 series cards? I was reading some reviews and there's been talk of a lot of them artificing after the burn in period.
I would suggest waiting, if you can basically do everything you need to do with your current system. I haven't really heard anything bad about the 7900 series...then again it hasn't been around very long.

[Agent Law]

The 7900 series has been around a while.

Apparently, NVIDIA is set to release their GeForce 8 series cards later this year.

[Noirceur]

The 7900 series has been around a while.

Apparently, NVIDIA is set to release their GeForce 8 series cards later this year.
How long? I thought it was released in the last year.
~Edit~
No more derailing threads...no more derailing threads.

[Agent Law]

It was released earlier this year (March 2006). Of course, subjectively, one would view that as a very short time, but in terms of computer tech, it is about average. Any problems that would have been there would have shown up by now.

-e-
I also read about the artifacting problem with the 7900. It was a reason that made me wary.

[StandingCow]

could spend a bit and go to dual core.. *shrug* prices are comming down still I think.

Nice improvement on multitasking, for me listening to music, playing wow, and browsing the net.

[Agent Law]

Just make sure each core is fast enough for single-threaded applications, or else you end up with something shitty for gaming. =/

[Mirsky]

I was looking at the E6600 in the current Intel line up but I think I'll wait til the quads come out and snap up a faster dual core cheaper

[spartan]

You could probably get another year out of that rig if you pushed it. You may want to consider waiting - if you can that is - for Vista and DX10 cards until building a 100% new system. Unless you're like me and get an upgrade itch every summer, that's probably your best bet at getting a fully futureproofed system.

[Captain Colon]

I'd wait...I dunno when DX10 is coming out, but if you're waiting to get a dual core on the cheap anyways you might want to wait to nab a DX10 card too...or a high-end DX9 card which should also be pretty cheap by then. By the time a good DX10-only game comes out (look how long it took them to make BF2 after DX9 cards came out) you'll probably be in the market for a new video card anyways. Or maybe developers will have learned a lesson from Valve and make their games backwards compatible with DX9 so you'll be set for a good long time.

[siddy]

Ya, DX10 seems to be something to wait for.

Beyond that, though. Dual-cores are already pretty damn cheap. Quad Cores, although they look nice, and all, have very little practicality, at least for gaming. While games for dual-core processors (with a few exceptions) are JUST coming down the channel now, it might be quite some time before quad cores will be the standard for gaming.

If you're happy with the rig that you have now, and can run your games fine, it might be an idea to wait a bit for DX10.

[Agent Law]

I'd wait...I dunno when DX10 is coming out, but if you're waiting to get a dual core on the cheap anyways you might want to wait to nab a DX10 card too...or a high-end DX9 card which should also be pretty cheap by then. By the time a good DX10-only game comes out (look how long it took them to make BF2 after DX9 cards came out) you'll probably be in the market for a new video card anyways. Or maybe developers will have learned a lesson from Valve and make their games backwards compatible with DX9 so you'll be set for a good long time.
Most developers will release their games to work on DX9, but you won't get all the fun trinkets a DX10 card will hold. Supposedly, DX10 is able to display graphics up to eight times faster than DX9. That seems kind of dubious, though.

[Mirsky]

Well I guess fate decided it... last night we had a protracted brown out before a total power loss and my PC was on for too long before I could hit the off switch on the wall. It looks like somethings gone bye bye as the PC won't power on, when I plug it in I don't even get the diagnostic light on the motherboard.

I suspect my PSU has gone tits up which is a damn shame as it's an Enermax and less than a year old!

Does anyone know how to test a PSU without having a multimeter ? I can connect it to a fan to test but that wont start unless I do something.. IIRC I have to short two pins but I don't want to make matters worse... any ideas?