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DX10 GPU questions
Smilingoat
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
im building a new desktop in january, ive stated that before, right now there is only one DX10 GPU out (the 8800) if im not mistaken, ive been told there will be several others out in january, including some from ATI. i just need to know if this is firm, and if its worth the extra cost to get the dx10 cars, ive heard its more of a physics engine for developers and wont really show as much of a difference between dx8 and 9.
personally i have no idea, i just want to make sure the system will be decent for about the next 4 years. im getting the 2.4ghz dual core intel, and then im kind of split with the gpu right now, i dont know if i should get a dual card set up now with previous gen cards, or get a single new gen card and upgrade it to dual this summer.
i just want it to last as long as possible, without getting too outdated, also im not sure what the new cars have over the old ones (if much)
any links to info about all the new cars would be great.
thanks
edAt:
lol, cars = cards, im a huge car fan and my hands are used to typing cars far more than cards, didnt even notice i did it until i read the post over.
personally i have no idea, i just want to make sure the system will be decent for about the next 4 years. im getting the 2.4ghz dual core intel, and then im kind of split with the gpu right now, i dont know if i should get a dual card set up now with previous gen cards, or get a single new gen card and upgrade it to dual this summer.
i just want it to last as long as possible, without getting too outdated, also im not sure what the new cars have over the old ones (if much)
any links to info about all the new cars would be great.
thanks
edAt:
lol, cars = cards, im a huge car fan and my hands are used to typing cars far more than cards, didnt even notice i did it until i read the post over.
whos havin butt-seks
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I'd guess while yes, you will still be able to play games, just dont expect to run them at 1600x1200 with all the bells and whistles at 60fps in four years. Maybe two years, tops. But you will still be able to play any game quite well enough for years to come, especially backed up with a good amoutn of ram and a good processor. I would suggest buying one now, Wait until march, at the very least, imo. I know it sucks, but $650 right now is too much and you will feel stupid when in a matter of weeks, the price will continue to roll on down.
And the 8800GTX/GTS single pretty much smokes all the previous cards in SLI/Crossfire from the previous gen, and that's before you start running things in Dx10 which should be a lot better.
And you'll probably manage about 3-4 years with an 8800gtx I think, The 9700 came out in 2002 and you could have played pretty much everything that's come out so far at a reasonable setting even today (1gb, 3200xp and 9700pro).
As for waiting I really don't think the new ATi card is going to make the 8800 look slow. It sounds more optimised for Dx10 but until it actually hits then it's pretty much guesswork. There's no harm in waiting but if you want to put money down now then I don't think you can go wrong.
anyway, is there just not much info out at all about these cards? ive never had to wait for a card, every time ive built a computer its been well into the generation so i had plenty to choose from... i just dont want to waste my money... also you can dual these new cards later on down the road right?
4 years after we got the 7200, UT2k4 was the last game I could really manage with it.
actually that was only 3 and a half years.
Be smart, think economically.
also im not huge into the newest FPS's so most likely ill be playing games like AoE4 or whatever...
I used to buy the $300+ cards (GF3 and GF4 both right after release) thinking they would be more future-proof, but they're not. The only reason to get them is if you want to play *today's* games at the highest settings.
I do think it's good to get decent components - the rest of your system sounds like what I would do right now if I were building one.
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I'm pretty sure games like Oblivion and Everquest 2 are exceptions rather than the norm.
I think it's a very interesting topic, I was thinking about this yesterday. So I'd like to get a confirmation also.
haha made you look
Yes, but Oblivion doesn't even play well on a GF5. Can most current games play properly on a 4? I am not a huge PC gamer anymore, so the only two recent ones I have are Oblivion and TR:Legend.
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The 8800gtx is a monster physically. You might need to buy a deeper case just to fit it in. I'm pretty sure the 8800gtx stomps all over every sli setup out there right now so if you want absolute pure performance and can afford the cash, and have a large enough case then go for it. Personally, if I had to have a dx10 card right now, I'd just get the gts and overclock it. It isn't as feature rich but you can get it running damn near as fast as the gtx without even changing the stock coolilng. If you can't afford it, you probably can't afford a fast sli setup either, so you might as well just get a single card like a 7900gt or x1900pro.
First, Microsoft has very clearly stated that DX10 support will not be available outside of Vista. I don't know about anyone else here, but I don't touch a new Microsoft OS for at least the first year after release. A DX10 card would be useless to me for the intermediate future, because my OS won't support DX10 for quite some time. The OP may be more willing to live on the bleeding edge, but that doesn't really matter from a market perspective, because I think the majority of game consumers will also be slow to upgrade.
The second thing to consider is that there are as yet no DX10 games, and there won't be for at least a little while. Even once DX10 games come out, you can bet your bottom dollar that they will include a DX9 render path. That's going to be the case for quite some time to come. Game companies aren't going be willing to drop DX9 until the majority of their target market supports DX10, and I don't think that's going to happen for two years at least. I don't even think we'll see a killer DX10 title until at least a year after Vista releases. Look at the Xbox 360. It came out a year ago, and we're only now starting to see the kind of titles that make people say "Ok, now this is next-gen". I expect a similar sort of lead time before we start seeing DX10 titles that make gamers say "Ok, I need to upgrade and get me some of that".
Based on all of that, my feeling is that it's simply too early to be buying a DX10 part. I think you'd get more bang for the buck with a single DX9 card. Keep the money you save, wait for the second generation DX10 parts to come out a year from now, sell the DX9 card (which should still have decent resale value at that point), and then go balls to wall for a DX10 card.
re: dx10, wait and see ATi's offereing, then sell card and purchase new one accordingly
Building a system to "last" (play most/all games) for 4 years is possible, but by the end of that stretch it will likely be worse than a recent low end system. It would be smarter to build a decent computer now, and another in 2 years. As far as ATI's DX10 card, the expected release date is January 2006, but if that goes like some of ATI's other recent launches it will "come out" in January, start getting reviewed in March, and might be actually available for purchase in July. DX10's improvements over DX9 are somewhat behind-the-scenes (the prime example being Unified Shader Architecture), but there is also the addition of geometry shaders, which will likely result in some nice visuals (see videos of nVidia's Geforce 8 demos). Lastly, don't get SLI. Unless you're building an absolute top-of-the-line money-is-no-object system, SLI is not a good idea. For the price of two previous generation cards in SLI you can get an 8800GTS (or GTX) which will perform as well or better, add DX10 support, use less power, and generate less heat and noise.
The Geforce 4 series was trumped by the not-much-later released Ti series. The Geforce FX series was just a trainwreck until they got the architecture right with the 5950-esque series, the Geforce 6 series was missing features (video encoder, for example), trumped by the later "ultra versions" and had mediocre (for it's overall power) PS 3.0 performance. Regarding SLI: If you run multiple monitors, SLI will not work simultaneously with a dual-monitor setup. You have to go into the video control panel to enable/disable multimonitor and SLI.
Point of the story is: If you're wanting to run dual monitor and have room to upgrade, a single card (with single gpu) is the way to go. That being said, history has shown that first-run hardware is never the way to go, especially when it introduces radical new architectural changes.
I bet that DX10 support is going to be like Doom3 when it was originally designed for the Geforce 3. It will take so long that by the time DX10 support finally comes into full effect, the current DX10 cards will be miserably obsolete.
Unless you have a burning itch to upgrade, I recommend waiting until the more refined and bug-fixed 8850s or 8900 series cards come out, or wait until you've actually got your hands on a real DX10 game to make the switch. Otherwise you'll just be beta testing Nvidia's card for them.
Please continue.
haha made you look
Tell me solider, where has this thread been and where is it going?
The 8800 cards are very expensive ($450 for the GTS, $650 for the GTX) and although they do seem to perform much better than the previous generation there are no competing products, so it's possible that ATI will offer better value, or at least force the 8800 prices down.
When upgrading to an SLI setup you don't get new features that new cards might offer and often it isn't much cheaper than just getting a single new card.
There's also a risk that games written only for DX10 will just not work on DX9 hardware. Its also supposed to run "8 times faster", or so MS claims.
AoE, which you mention, in its 3rd installment actually uses SM3.0 a lot, which was sort-of new at time of its release; it runs like crap on my X850XT PE, which supports only SM2.0 but still offers good performance in other games.
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