New system now or wait for Vista?

Sorry if this is a cross thread, but I started this on General Hardware. n00b mistake, sorry....

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I just got some year end bonus money and am due for a new system. I'm looking at a total cutting edge system with an x6800, a 680i mobo, dual 8800GTX in SLI, etc.
I've thought about building myself, but honestly, I just want a fast system with no hassles. My uses are for gaming (flight sim X), Photshop with massive file sizes and some video editing.
At this point I've narrowed it down to the following vendors:
Overdrive
AvaDirect
Maingear
I've priced comparable systems with the usual suspects, Voodoo, Alienware, Falcon, Widow, Puget but dollar for dollar, component by component, the first three seem to be a better value.
I've got money burning a hole in my pocket and would like to pull the trigger and order before Christmas, but I'm hesitant with Vista looming around the corner. So my questions are:
1. Should I buy now and wait for Vista SP2? or will Vista be stable/mature enough out of the box?
2. Everyone is offering a coupon for Vista once it's released, would I be better off waiting for systems to ship with it?
3. What do you think of the 3 system builders I am considering?
I appreciate any advice.

~Stevo.K

If I were in your shoes, I'd say go ahead and take advantage of the joys a system will bring you now, then upgrade to Vista in 60-75 days. You'll get to make the switch on your own schedule, and have a rocking system until the time for you is right. There is not a thing wrong with XP, and I'd hate to have to wait.

This is a good problem to have!

Randy

Velocity_Micro said:

If I were in your shoes, I'd say go ahead and take advantage of the joys a system will bring you now, then upgrade to Vista in 60-75 days. You'll get to make the switch on your own schedule, and have a rocking system until the time for you is right. There is not a thing wrong with XP, and I'd hate to have to wait.

This is a good problem to have!

Randy

Click to expand...

Of course that coming from a person that just tried to get you to buy something which should be taken with a grain of salt (no offense dude) I would wait for Vista to come out and more budget wise Nvidia 8000 series cards. But if you have a really crappy then buy the parts online b/c they are cheaper and give you more hands on experience. It is your call.

Vista SP2? Good lord man, such a thing won't appear for 3, 4 years. Where do people come up with these crazy ideas?

My personal opinion, if I had a pocket full of money burning a hole? I'd piece out the best components I could find and build it myself. None of those other companies, not a one, can do it better than you can, really. Note I said that's my personal opinion, but that opinion comes from having built over 4,900 PCs from the first screw to the last, every component, including the OS and tweaking it for performance, etc.

If you have to get one from one of those other companies, get the best you can and save some money. With companies like Alienware and Falcon, Voodoo and a few others, you'll pay more for the same hardware the others can sell you for less. You'd pay a premium price for the name and really, that would be a waste of money.

If you want to end up using Photoshop with massive images, the first thing that comes to mind is going to be a 64 bit edition of Vista. With a 64 bit OS, you'll still have nearly 100% compatibility for 32 bit apps you most commonly run and your games too.

Photoshop presently still is 32 bit native but Adobe is working on a 64 bit native version also which would offer tremendous boosts in performance, most notably the ability to access incredible amounts of RAM, well past the 2GB per app/4GB system max that 32 bit OSes currently are limited to. When you can have that kind of RAM - over 4GB installed and functional - editing super hi-res images becomes a piece of cake compared to how most machines these days will choke on such things.

So, to cover your questions:

1) If you've got that kind of money (you didn't mention amounts), I would say go for it now. Vista is just fine as it is, and that will only improve as time goes by. For the moment, the only version of Vista that you'd be able to purchase right now would be Business, of course. It'll be well into 2008 before Vista Service Pack 1 comes out, so again as I already stated, you could be looking at almost 2010 before Service Pack 2 appears if ever. I wouldn't let a service pack issue or some theoretical bugs stop me from building a "Godbox" of my own, especially if I had a pocketful of money just dying to be spent.

2) If you wait to get Vista, that just keeps you behind the learning curve. While everyone else will be running it and more knowledgeable about it, you'll come on board a bit later than most and have some catching up to do. It's not a big issue, however, so this also wouldn't be something that would stop me from buying a machine now.

3) As for the specific system builders, maybe if you'd post the actual configurations you're considering and the pricing they're asking for, or provide links to the "shopping carts" so the people reading this thread might be able to offer opinions, that would help.

You can get a lot of useful info from a place like this forum, but in order to do that you gotta give us a bit more to work with.

Hope this helps...

Velocity_Micro said:

If I were in your shoes, I'd say go ahead and take advantage of the joys a system will bring you now, then upgrade to Vista in 60-75 days. You'll get to make the switch on your own schedule, and have a rocking system until the time for you is right. There is not a thing wrong with XP, and I'd hate to have to wait.

This is a good problem to have!

Randy

Click to expand...

I second this idea... All the hardware you would get in a top of the line from Velocity Micro or one of the other vendors on your list will fully support Vista. You would only be dependant on driver support which *should not* be a problem.

If you've got the money to spend I'd do it now. There's no reason to wait any longer.

Okay, let's get specific here. I'll post the quote numbers for the various vendors for those that want to look at the details and pricing.
Overdrive: quote 62335
Velocity Micro Proposal 24488-17148
avadirect.com Quote #AVA-306161
Maingear doesn't save quotes, but their price and specs are similar to avadirect

Here are the system components, (cases and cooling vary by company)

Lian Li v1000Custom
liquid cooling
1000W PSU
x6800
680 Sli mobo
4gb Corsair DDR2 800
150 Raptor
2x750 Seagate
16X lightscribe
Plextor DVD 18x
2x 8800GTX 756Mb (XFX)
X-Fi Platinum
XP Pro
OC'd - LED lighting bundle
3 year warrantly

Back to the issue of Vista. My hesitation is this: I've been riding the Windows train since version 3.1 (that might be before some of you were born!) and systems always ran more stable when the OS was native, rather than an upgrade over an existing OS. Vista may be different, but there's always some issue to be resolved on the upgrade.
Some of you will say wait and the prices on these top end components will come down, but in response, newer better faster stuff will be out and I'll want it! It's a never ending cycle.
BTW, when is Vista actually scheduled for release?

stevo.k said:

Okay, let's get specific here. I'll post the quote numbers for the various vendors for those that want to look at the details and pricing.
Overdrive: quote 62335
Velocity Micro Proposal 24488-17148
avadirect.com Quote #AVA-306161
Maingear doesn't save quotes, but their price and specs are similar to avadirect

Here are the system components, (cases and cooling vary by company)

Lian Li v1000Custom
liquid cooling
1000W PSU
x6800
680 Sli mobo
4gb Corsair DDR2 800
150 Raptor
2x750 Seagate
16X lightscribe
Plextor DVD 18x
2x 8800GTX 756Mb (XFX)
X-Fi Platinum
XP Pro
OC'd - LED lighting bundle
3 year warrantly

Back to the issue of Vista. My hesitation is this: I've been riding the Windows train since version 3.1 (that might be before some of you were born!) and systems always ran more stable when the OS was native, rather than an upgrade over an existing OS. Vista may be different, but there's always some issue to be resolved on the upgrade.
Some of you will say wait and the prices on these top end components will come down, but in response, newer better faster stuff will be out and I'll want it! It's a never ending cycle.
BTW, when is Vista actually scheduled for release?

Click to expand...

vista was released on november 30th to busines worldwide, including mine. retail availability will be january 30th.

stevo.k said:

Back to the issue of Vista. My hesitation is this: I've been riding the Windows train since version 3.1 (that might be before some of you were born!) and systems always ran more stable when the OS was native, rather than an upgrade over an existing OS. Vista may be different, but there's always some issue to be resolved on the upgrade.
Some of you will say wait and the prices on these top end components will come down, but in response, newer better faster stuff will be out and I'll want it! It's a never ending cycle.
BTW, when is Vista actually scheduled for release?

Click to expand...

so install xp now, and when vista is released on jan 30, format your damn drive and install your (free) copy of vista. i dont understand why you would have to wait until a certain operating system is released until you buy new hardware. thats kind of like saying "well i am going to wait until deer season to buy my new motorcycle" the 2 things have pretty much zero to do with each other.
and the other guy with the learning curve thing? has someone told you that vista is going to be different than xp, except in the way it looks and dx10? i thnk the time of the learning curve will probably be about 20 minutes. did it take anybody weeks to learn xp after switiching from 98se or 2k? why is there suddenly so much toenail biting over this os? unless you are going to run the 64bit version theres probably not even much reason to switch yet. its not like you are going to be able to buy dx10 games for a long time, anyway. and its not like you will be able to buy dx10-only games for about 10 years.

It's no use for you to wait until Vista comes. The hardware you're getting is more than enough to handle it, if you're worried about the OS being "native" dont worry, just backup all your stuff and do a fresh install whenever you want. Upgrading the OS isn't the only way.

Just buy the system you like the most and forget about Vista!!!

Okay, let's forget about Vista being an issue. Rather than start a new thread, any comments on Overdrive, AvaDirect or Maingear? Sorry Velocity dude, your comparibly equipped system is over $500 more than those guys. Those three come pretty close on specs and price.

Umm... Dismissing Velocity Micro because of a minor price difference is like saying I'd like to buy a Kia instead of this Lexus because its cheaper. You are saving money, but just try and get the cheap one fixed...

And between OPC and Maingear, I have a lot of trouble swallowing that VM is more expensive.

Jason_Wall said:

And between OPC and Maingear, I have a lot of trouble swallowing that VM is more expensive.

Click to expand...

Don't get me wrong, that does not mean he should buy from us if he just doesn't want to, but it's not because we are more expensive, just have more to offer that might not appear on this list. I'm cool with that.

Not trying to crap this thread, but defending my honor. Back to the issue, I'd still suggest buying now regardless of the vendor he goes with, for the reasons mentioned by several others.

Any "free" copies of Vista from the Express Upgrade program won't actually get into your hands till practically mid-March or April from all the current signs; yes Business is available now but most people won't go for it since it lacks a few multimedia features. Again, Vista Home Premium is more akin to MCE2005 and Vista Business is more like XP Professional, with Ultimate throwing in all the stuff from both and the kitchen sink to boot.

Get yourself a PC and have fun with it. Upgrade to Vista when you get your hands on it - and I agree with the poster(s) above: an in-place upgrade is a bad idea, period, in all situations. It might work, but going from XP to Vista is a major major thing. Start fresh and clean with a bare hard drive or partition and install Vista brand new.

You'll never regret it.

Man, between Overdrive and Maingear, that's a tough choice (I think AVADirect is a different league).

I say flip a coin.

Randy, after all the talk here I had another look at Velocity and you are indeed very competetive with the others. I'm looking at the Signature edition but I have some question about the hard drive setup. If cost was not an issue, what would be the ideal hard drive config for someone that has a lot of apps, including photoshop plus a ton of digital images. I'm thinking one Raptor for the OS by itself, a RAID 0 for appications and a RAID 1 array for data for a total of 5 drives. What is the advantage of 4xRaptors in a RAID 0? Is that faster than what I'm proposing?

4 Raptors in our RAIDStorm array are indeed the fastest consumer drive config on the planet, period. The controller features 256MB of dedicated memory and blows away the onboad raid.

For your purposes, a 2x150 Raid 0 and a 2x750 Raid 1 would be the ideal mix of performance and safety at an "affordable" price. RAIDStorm would be a better performing solution, but you'd want to add an external 500GB USB/firewire drive for backup and deep storage. A single Raptor and 2 x 750 would be my third choice, as you were mentioning earlier. The Gamers' Edge might be a more comparable system to the other competitors you listed, and the setup is hundreds less expensive than the Sig, which goes through Chris' development lab and we all pour over it for many days.

Velocity_Micro said:

4 Raptors in our RAIDStorm array are indeed the fastest consumer drive config on the planet, period. The controller features 256MB of dedicated memory and blows away the onboad raid.

For your purposes, a 2x150 Raid 0 and a 2x750 Raid 1 would be the ideal mix of performance and safety at an "affordable" price. RAIDStorm would be a better performing solution, but you'd want to add an external 500GB USB/firewire drive for backup and deep storage. A single Raptor and 2 x 750 would be my third choice, as you were mentioning earlier. The Gamers' Edge might be a more comparable system to the other competitors you listed, and the setup is hundreds less expensive than the Sig, which goes through Chris' development lab and we all pour over it for many days.

Click to expand...

OMG , thats a beast ! I could just imagine having that kind of HDD power, even if it's never really used. Just having it would make one drunk with power, lol.

Velocity_Micro said:

4 Raptors in our RAIDStorm array are indeed the fastest consumer drive config on the planet, period. The controller features 256MB of dedicated memory and blows away the onboad raid.

For your purposes, a 2x150 Raid 0 and a 2x750 Raid 1 would be the ideal mix of performance and safety at an "affordable" price. RAIDStorm would be a better performing solution, but you'd want to add an external 500GB USB/firewire drive for backup and deep storage. A single Raptor and 2 x 750 would be my third choice, as you were mentioning earlier. The Gamers' Edge might be a more comparable system to the other competitors you listed, and the setup is hundreds less expensive than the Sig, which goes through Chris' development lab and we all pour over it for many days.

Click to expand...

Your webite 'info' panel on the RaidStorm reads "RAIDStorm™ arrays bring a dedicated 500MHz processor with 128MB of DDR memory"
Yet you indicate 256mb above. Which is it?

Buy your pc now. I have heard rumors that prices will increase once vista comes out. You know, it's new, and they can charge more for it. It may only bee a 100$ difference, but hey, you could put that towards wiring or something instead.

simple! definitely wait. save the text

forLian Li v1000Custom
liquid cooling
1000W PSU
x6800
680 Sli mobo
4gb Corsair DDR2 800
150 Raptor
2x750 Seagate
16X lightscribe
Plextor DVD 18x
2x 8800GTX 756Mb (XFX)
X-Fi Platinum
XP Pro
OC'd - LED lighting bundle
3 year warrantly

You picked a great system there? What Monitor would you be using?

I'd wait. Even though my PC is gonna be replaced, I'm going to buy a dual core opty raise the ram to 2gig and leave it be. Got 3K+ in the bank, so I am ready!

Good question (your original post), though the issue is moot for me since I just received my new computer (with XP). I would also like to recommend Velocity Micro. I just bought a PC from them and while I haven't had it long enough (only a couple of days) to make a fair judgement, I read up about them before I purchased and they seem to be quite good (price, quality, support).

Good luck!

I recently just bought a maingear watercooled system about a week ago...
theres some pics up here http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1129540&page=6&highlight=maingear...
and just finished installing vista... im loving it... haven't slept all night but no complaints so far except an issue with nero but im sure they'll release a fix for that soon...

steveo....with the system specs your going for i def. suggest you go with maingear... and have them overclock it for you.... they got my e6600 at 3.6 stable and said i still have some headroom to go higher... give em a call and talk to one of they're reps... i guaranty you wont be dissapointed...