Is it smart to upgrade?

[Justgetmein]

I'm talking about right now, I have money saved and for me 1k dlls is a lot of money and it's hard to make it.

I wanna upgrade from a crappy pc but should i wait? I was reading this article "The year of the upgrade" ATI and Nvidia will release new DirectX 10-compliant hardware, Those pricey new dual-core chips should drop in price dramatically as AMD and Intel churn out more of them and introduce newer generations. AMD will also undergo a transition to DDR2 memory, which will pretty much make any DDR-based motherboard obsolete.

When Direct 10 comes were you be able to play the games with direct 9?

Will DDR2 or AM2 make much of a diference?

If i get a 6800 GS will i survive at least 2 years?

Long story short, Is it smart to upgrade?

 

[Dngrsone]

I wouldn't bank on DirectX 10 and DDR is still going strong.

It will take some time before the majority of new games will require DirectX 10... that is, when it actually somes out.

If you are looking for a future-resistant (there's not such thing as future proof ) gaming system, then invest in a 939 motherboard with PCI-e and Dual channel DDR. If you can find DDR2, then go for it, but you'll be paying.

Of course, that will entail buying a 939 processor, a PCI-e video card and DDR (DDR2) RAM, so you'll be paying regardless.

 

[Axman]

You've got some waiting for all of that to start.

DX10 may be delayed along with the Vista delays (though it may not, that's still unspoken), but AM2 is scheduled for, what, June 9th? The microchips are essentially the same as 939 processors otherwise, but we may see price differences and higher clock speeds at the high end. Where 939 overlaps with AM2 on budget gaming, that's not likely a concern. Bang-for-buck, it might just even be better to go with 939.

DDR2 will not really translate to a performance difference, but in manufacturing terms, it may be cheaper.

Socket 939 will stick around for some time, especially paired with a chipset that supports PCI-Express, and what boards don't? (Sure, there are many, but they're not in much availability or production.) Because it's not the processor or the chipset, but the video card, which is responsible for DX10 compatibility. Which, historically, should run DX9 games without issue. It's not as though you can't play Half-Life on a 6- or 7-series nVidia card.

These video cards are not, as I said, on the market yet. But a video card probably isn't going to last you more than a year, anyway. Processor and RAM, quite possibly four, but not video cards.

 

[Source]

Games companies arn't stupid. When DX10 comes out you will see games companies producing games in DX10 coupled with a DX9 renderer similar to how we see DX8 renderers in games currently. Over a considerable ammount of time DX9 will be phased out but I would suggest that would be years as opposed to months.

Obviously DX10 should have, if what has been written is to be believed, better graphics overall, but games companies are not going to alienate the gaming public by releasing games that a majority of the public arn't going to buy because they don't have DX10 cards.

DDR2 is not going to drastically improve performance as the memory bandwidth is really always going to be limited to the underlying CPU frequency either through HTT or FSB as both components would ideally always want to 'speak' to each other at the same speed to prevent a bottleneck. EG: If your AMD CPU has an underlying frequency of 200mhz (obviously not OC'd) then the best RAM you could match the CPU up with is always going to be DDR400 which also has an underlying frequency of 200mhz.

Going off the subject, does anybody know what frequency the AM2 chips are going to be running at? Are they going to quad pump like the Pentiums or are they going to raise the CPU core frequency? Probably quad pump???