Upgrade advice

[isma]

I want to upgrade my rig for january and I want to know your advice between those two choices :

1) Keeping my current mobo : Abit AW9D-MAX
Intel Q6600
Two HD3850 512mb in crossfire

or

2) Asus Maximus Formula X38
Keeping my current E6400 (overcloking it to 3.0Ghz using CPU
Level Up, unique to Asus)
Two HD3870 in crossfire

I want the best performance for games and I know that choice # 2 is a lot more expensive than choice # 1, but then again is more future proof than #1.

But I don't know if the prices difference is worth the increase in performance and...Nehalem is coming late 2008/ early 2009 but not sure if I will be able to upgrade again at that time.

Thanks for your advice !

 

[Dangman]

I'd go with #3:
- Keep your current mobo and CPU,
- Two HD 3870 in Xfire.

At most, the Yorkfield and Wolfdales will yield a 10% performance increase over current C2D CPUs. If you don't plan on upgrading for a year or two after this, then get the Q6600. If you do plan on upgrading within next year, just keep the E6400 and try to OC that.

 

[Abu Som3a]

^^^
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1031660107#post1031660107

Here's your new dilema.

If you wait until say Feb.'ish for a reasonably priced Penryn, you might not find stock til Mar. Then Intel's new architecture which will be a HUGE advance will be right around the corner. So you're going to want to wait again!!

Remember Intel's "tick tock" strategy.

Lets look at it:
TICK # 1: they perfected the 65nm process with P4 & Pentium D's. (just a shrink + cache)
TOCK # 1: they make Core 2 Duo (new architecture) leaps & bounds forward, then slap 2 of them on a die for Quad still part of the tock.

TICK # 2: they perfect the 45nm with a shrink of Core2 ie: Penryn. (simple shrink + more cache)
TOCK # 2: Nehamlen (sp?) will have an integrated memory controller. Remember how big of an advance it was for AMD to go from Athlon XP to Hammer?! Its was almost all due to the on-die memory controlller.

So TOCK # 2, I think is going to be HUGE!!

My complete guess: We'll start over again back down to 2 1/2 Ghz range. Like when Pentium D / 4 went to 65nm, they had it cranked up to near 4Ghz.
Core 2 is now capable (though not stock clocked yet) of 4 Ghz with 45nm. Now they're going to go with a new even higher IPC core with an integrated memory controller, we'll probably
be back down to 2Ghz'ish, but the chips will be like 50-100% faster clock for clock.

You don't need to upgrade now, especially since you won't upgrade again for a relatively long time.
I'd say keep the CPU/mobo till Nehalem gets released. Also wait for next-gen video cards before replacing your 2900 (unless you can sell it for a good price, then you may upgrade to 8800gt)