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Is this the right choice?

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Greg1221

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Im looking to spend about 1k-1200 dollars on a new computer to build. I will be using it primarily for gaming and to keep it as future proof as possible with the ability to upgrade it. Here is what i have so far:

This barebones from Tigerdirect: Asus P6T X58 Barebone Kit - Socket LGA1366, Intel Core i7 920, 12GB OCZ Gold DDR3-1600, 1.5TB SATA2, Clear Side ATX Mid-Tower, 650W

This graphics card to go with the barebones:
XFX GeForce GTX 260 Video Card - 896MB GDDR3, PCI Express 2.0 x16, SLI Ready, (Dual Link) Dual DVI, HDTV, FREE Far Cry 2

This Optical drive:

Sony DRU-V200S/BR DVD Rewritable Drive SATA - 20x DVD±R, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW, 8x DVD+R DL, 12x DVD-R DL, 12x DVD-RAM, 16x DVD-ROM, 48x CD-R, 32x CD-RW, 48x CD-ROM Black

And lastly because of the terrible reviews of the 1.5 seagate baracuda hard drive, to prevent it crashing and dying, im going to get the Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EADS Hard Drive - 1TB, 7200, 32MB, SATA-300, OEM

Is this a good decision, if not, what should i replace/add?

Thanks.
 
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If you are looking for "future-proof" i say don't buy ANYTHING yet...

The main reason is that Windows 7 will be starting out on DirectX 11, and no present card supports DirectX 11.

So by the end of this year everyone (game designers included) will be going Win7/Dx11 route, and an upgrade now will leave you with a system that wont really style then.

That's just how I see it.

I'm not upgrading 'till Win7 has soaked in officially, then I'll look at what way hardware is going.
 

h3llb3nd4

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and i5 is going to come out soon:)
 
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Greg1221

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The only problem is that i need to get a new one soon since this computers PSU and hard drive keep failing me =/
 
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If you are looking for "future-proof" i say don't buy ANYTHING yet...

The main reason is that Windows 7 will be starting out on DirectX 11, and no present card supports DirectX 11.

So by the end of this year everyone (game designers included) will be going Win7/Dx11 route, and an upgrade now will leave you with a system that wont really style then.

That's just how I see it.

I'm not upgrading 'till Win7 has soaked in officially, then I'll look at what way hardware is going.

i beg to differ, for one dx10 and dx10.1 cards will still be able to run dx11 games. and with dx10.1 cards having more compatibility with dx11 than dx10, they're expected to run better. I believe it's through software emulation or GPGPU that will allow dx11 to run on dx10/10.1 hardware. So getting a card now will not leave him in the dust when dx11 is released. You also need to consider when a dx11 game will actually release, dx10 compatibility was around much longer before dx10 games actually started being published, and games are still built around dx9 then features are added to make it dx10. So i really don't see dx11 and a logical reason to postpone a build.

Greg1221: i'd build the rig, that's plenty future proof, the only thing you'll need to upgrade in a year is the GPU. everything else will stay solid for quite some time. CPU's are way ahead of current games' ability to utilize them.
 

h3llb3nd4

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Video Card(s) NONE!! Beat that!!
Storage 500GB SAMSUNG SATAII, 250GB SAMSUNG SATAII and o'l crappy 4gb maxtor
Display(s) ACER X223W Q
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Audio Device(s) REALTEK ONBOARD
Power Supply GIGABYTE 460W
Software Win 7 x86 build 7022
Benchmark Scores Super Pi 1m 17.000 :(
But I would go for the Corsair 750 as your PSU:)
 
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There is no "future-proof". The setup you chose looks good and will last for quite some time.
 
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Greg1221

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Thanks guys! I think im going to make the jump and buy this baby =) Quite the improvement over my Dell E310 which cant run aero and gets 10 fps in wow
 

h3llb3nd4

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Power Supply GIGABYTE 460W
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Benchmark Scores Super Pi 1m 17.000 :(
Ahh so you've been saving for a long time!
G/L with this build:toast:
 
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i beg to differ, for one dx10 and dx10.1 cards will still be able to ......

Dude - Emulation support is OLD OLD NEWS.

It's not worth it to buy a card NOW for full price that will have to limp along on emulation support, and loose most of it's resale value in a few months.

DX11 cards are going to be out a LOT sooner than you think, for almost the same price as current cards, and emulation DOES eat into your performance.

Beyond that the newer cards have FAR better memory spec and regardless of WHAT DX VERSION YOU USE - newer games even based on DX10 or even DX9 - will slowly be increasing their texture payloads and that will soon be breaking present cards performance down - DX11 cards will have far better memory bandwidth and will still outperform present offerings.

The ORIGINAL question was "...primarily for gaming and to keep it as future proof as possible..." the very definition of the question is to seek advice with the longest potential lifespan. You do NOT accomplish that by buying hardware that you KNOW is based on an already technically outdated spec, that is guaranteed to be replaced within a few months and is still costing full price. Hence the entire point of my post - Wait until a proper DX11 card is on the shelf.

I feel that any reasonable person looking at all of these facts may find them a PERFECTLY SOUND reason to delay an upgrade, and I know of MANY who are. To somebody who likes to use a top end video-card but can only afford to replace theirs once every year and a half or two (a VERY VERY LARGE segment of the gaming market) Buying a DX10.X card NOW would be ill-informed.


Edit : 10FPS in WOW :\ - eek - perhaps a sooner upgrade IS in order - If there's spare cash.
 
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ATI is the only company with 100% Shader DX11 support. The only thing it doesn't have in hardware and what makes the HD3/4 series incapable of being labeled as an DX11 supporting card is the Tessellation Unit. Its the main reason Nvidia doesn't have DX10.1 support... because they emulate that using the CPU.

Hope that clears some things up. I hope MS doesn't consider this infor I gave out a bit much... but you need to know this. There also appears to be 2 diff versions of DX11 on the horizon... the full featured version is just "DX11" the 2nd version which will cater to Team Green is DX11X. No final word on if that will continue but there is 1 API per camp. The standard DX11 is about 15-20MB smaller than the Team Green's. So my guess is they are gonna put up some emulation since Nvidia can't even get a Tesselator working correctly AGAIN. ATI has had it mastered since R500 (X1000) and anyone with Vista and DX10.1 will notice that difference since it WILL use the R500s Tesellator. /end rant...

lol. :rockout:
 
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i am also considering a build soon
i will however upgrade as soon as i cannot run the latest games on max settings
not gonna upgrade cards for something like "Tessalation"
 
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