ATI/AMD

I was thinking maybe it would be better to upgrade to the XFX Radeon HD 5870 .

I was thinking maybe it would be better to upgrade to the XFX Radeon HD 5870 .

From now on i think im gonna get an XFX card since they have lifetime warranties
But what should i get?
ati 5870, 5970 or nvidia 470 or 480? Im planning on getting a new computer by the end of the summer.

The ATI 5970 is the last one, it's like you have two cards in one but expensive, if i was you i would go with the XFX Radeon HD 5870.

Yeah the 5970 has 2 gpu's in it instead of one, so it's like running crossfirex with one card. if you actually get 2 of those and run crossfirex, it's essentially running 4x crossfirex. Do that and you have the most powerful gpu setup currently available. brownman posted a video about it a while back showing the benchmarks with it, and with a core i7 and 4gb of ram, they got over 140 fps on call of duty modern warfare 2 with settings turned all the way up in 1920x1080 res

I know all of that and it is what i'm thinking about to do.

I was thinking maybe it would be better to upgrade to the XFX Radeon HD 5870 .

From now on i think im gonna get an XFX card since they have lifetime warranties
But what should i get?
ati 5870, 5970 or nvidia 470 or 480? Im planning on getting a new computer by the end of the summer.

For something cheap and reliable, the nvidia 470. its 360$ in Canada and it owns

I was thinking maybe it would be better to upgrade to the XFX Radeon HD 5870 .

From now on i think im gonna get an XFX card since they have lifetime warranties
But what should i get?
ati 5870, 5970 or nvidia 470 or 480? Im planning on getting a new computer by the end of the summer.

For something cheap and reliable, the nvidia 470. its 360$ in Canada and it owns

I'm going to wait till I find out more. Just learned from a website that Intel is developing a brand new Architecture that will make Socket 1366 obsolete. It will support 8 core cpu's, but prob wont be introduced until 2011.

With all these new technologies coming soon (SATA 6gb/s, USB 3.0, Firewire 1600, 6core and 8core cpus, Nvidias 2GPU GTX 495[rumor] to rival ati 5970) I dont want to rush into buying a brand new computer and then miss out on some of these.

Having said all that, I know I can't have the latest and greatest, but I want to have some flexibility.

Money is not an issue. Working Full-time now at a well paying job so can afford to go up to $2000 (for a system) already have the monitor, but may consider setting up dual monitors since i have them at work and want them for my personal computer aswell.

Currently my goal is:

Asus Socket 1366 Motherboard with USB 3.0 , eSATA
8 Gb RAM (2x4) DDR3 1066 (with 4 DIMMS free - 6 DIMMs total on most 1366 mobos)
Intel i7 960 3.2GHz (6 core 970 3.2-3.3GHz expected to be released Q3 2010)
ATI 5870/5970 || Nvidia 470/480/495
If a decent size (500GB SSD drops in price may consider getting one as my C:\) then use a 1.5Tb or 2Tb as a media drive.
850W PSU or greater...maybe get a 1000W to support dual or quad gpu support down the road

(Right now this would add up + $2000, but I'm hoping prices drop a little.

Intel i7 960 3.2GHz (6 core 970 3.2-3.3GHz expected to be released Q3 2010)

Intel already has a 6-core i7 out. The Core i7-980X Extreme: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115223&cm_re=intel_i7_980x-_-19-115-223-_-Product


Only issue, it's $999

if you wanna read about it, good article here: http://techgage.com/article/intels_core_i7-980x_extreme_edition_-_ready_for_sick_scores/

Not an issue.

Intel i7 960 3.2GHz (6 core 970 3.2-3.3GHz expected to be released Q3 2010)

Intel already has a 6-core i7 out. The Core i7-980X Extreme: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115223&cm_re=intel_i7_980x-_-19-115-223-_-Product


Only issue, it's $999

if you wanna read about it, good article here: http://techgage.com/article/intels_core_i7-980x_extreme_edition_-_ready_for_sick_scores/

Yeah i knew about that one... this rumoured 970 is either $600 or $700 dollars... so i may wait for it to decrease in price... similar to how the Q6600 did when it was first released (was about $600 then dropped to 300)

From now on i think im gonna get an XFX card since they have lifetime warranties
But what should i get?
ati 5870, 5970 or nvidia 470 or 480? Im planning on getting a new computer by the end of the summer.

For something cheap and reliable, the nvidia 470. its 360$ in Canada and it owns

I'm going to wait till I find out more. Just learned from a website that Intel is developing a brand new Architecture that will make Socket 1366 obsolete. It will support 8 core cpu's, but prob wont be introduced until 2011.

With all these new technologies coming soon (SATA 6gb/s, USB 3.0, Firewire 1600, 6core and 8core cpus, Nvidias 2GPU GTX 495[rumor] to rival ati 5970) I dont want to rush into buying a brand new computer and then miss out on some of these.

Having said all that, I know I can't have the latest and greatest, but I want to have some flexibility.

Money is not an issue. Working Full-time now at a well paying job so can afford to go up to $2000 (for a system) already have the monitor, but may consider setting up dual monitors since i have them at work and want them for my personal computer aswell.

Currently my goal is:

Asus Socket 1366 Motherboard with USB 3.0 , eSATA
8 Gb RAM (2x4) DDR3 1066 (with 4 DIMMS free - 6 DIMMs total on most 1366 mobos)
Intel i7 960 3.2GHz (6 core 970 3.2-3.3GHz expected to be released Q3 2010)
ATI 5870/5970 || Nvidia 470/480/495
If a decent size (500GB SSD drops in price may consider getting one as my C:\) then use a 1.5Tb or 2Tb as a media drive.
850W PSU or greater...maybe get a 1000W to support dual or quad gpu support down the road

(Right now this would add up + $2000, but I'm hoping prices drop a little.

hmm, atleast wait for the i9, (expected $300-$400, 6-8 cores, Q4 of 2010 or Q1 of 2011)
They're also working on the geforce 485 which will top the ati 5970 at about $550
I think I also remember reading that the geforce 470 can beat the ati 5870.
Also, i read somewhere that you can have up to 12 cores in the LGA 1366
Rumor has it that they're already working on the core i 11, but they're thinking of renaming it also, I think this may be the thing that you were talking about. It also, i believe will be a new socket. (8 cores) I think it may be introduced in 2011.
Thanks for the decent info, I may wait to build a computer next year, with intel's new tech.
Im planning:
Asus Socket 1366 Motherboard with USB 3.0 (Asus definately makes the best boards)
6, 8, or 12 GB of corsair dominator RAM, 6GB is $200 (onsale at tigerdirect!)
Core i9 (intel rocks)
geforce 485 (so does Nvidia!)
I may also get a small 80GB SSD OR a 150 GB velociraptor just to boot windows and a 1.5 TB HDD for everything else (79.99 at tigerdirect)
1000 Watt PSU (already have, cost was $120)
Nvidia 3D vision kit ($250)
Battlefield:Badcompany 2 - $50 (LOL)

- The 480 out performs the 5870 slightly (but for $100 cheaper, ATI is worth more.ATI HD5970 is still KING... Check out the HD 5970 Toxic edition, has 4GB ddr5 vRAM, and oc'd gpu... but goes for $999.). The 470 is not as powerful.
Your thinking 12 Threads on the cpu. Intel i7's use Hyper Threading so each core can do twice the work, hence Quad cores have 8 Threads and 6-cores have 12 Threads
- OSX RAM or whatever its called I saw was ~ $200-250 for (2) 4GB [8gb total] sticks of slower DDR3 ram at Canada Computers...wait until the summer and it will be much cheaper.
- Makes sense that the i11 will be 8-core and on an entirely brand new socket making 1366 obsolete (not until 2011-2012 though i.e. codename: Sandy Bridge)
-Also, theres a general rule of electronics... Harddrive capacity doubles every 6-8 months (or that price halves for older models - so a $1000 750GB ssd now will cost $500 in 6-8 months, or we'll see 2TB ssd will be available for consumers)

Here's the deal with waiting for the next CPU/RAM/whatever to come out. You will always be waiting. Once the i9 comes out, then you'll be waiting for the i11 (or whatever comes out next) so that the price of the i9 will drop or so that you can get the i11 and have the best thing on the market. Right now the only worth while breakthrough out is USB 3.0 and SATA II. That's because these are break through's that will last a few years, not a few months. If I dropped $4000 and built the best desktop known to man right now, in 3 years it would be in the upper mid-range market. Computer technology is constantly trumping itself. That build that I setup for Crimson would run any game out now or that will come out for the next year. Most likely the only upgrade he would have to do within the next two years would be to CrossFire the 5770 or he could swap out the i5 setup with an i7. The only reason I could think that you would need anything more than that would be if your running the 6 monitor Eyefinity or if you were doing some ridiculous HD video editing (at which point your looking at a business workstation, not a client PC).

I don plan on getting the latest or greatest.
My budget is $2000 max
usb3.0, esata, and sata 2 (6gb/s) are all requirements i want for a motherboard.
if a value i9 cpu comes or reduces the 960 series i'd consider getting it. But i dont plan on shelling out $3000 for those extreme enthusiast gaming rigs, gaming is not the only thing on my mind when i comes to computers.
Earliest i'd get this is end of August

- The 480 out performs the 5870 slightly (but for $100 cheaper, ATI is worth more.ATI HD5970 is still KING... Check out the HD 5970 Toxic edition, has 4GB ddr5 vRAM, and oc'd gpu... but goes for $999.). The 470 is not as powerful.
Your thinking 12 Threads on the cpu. Intel i7's use Hyper Threading so each core can do twice the work, hence Quad cores have 8 Threads and 6-cores have 12 Threads
- OSX RAM or whatever its called I saw was ~ $200-250 for (2) 4GB [8gb total] sticks of slower DDR3 ram at Canada Computers...wait until the summer and it will be much cheaper.
- Makes sense that the i11 will be 8-core and on an entirely brand new socket making 1366 obsolete (not until 2011-2012 though i.e. codename: Sandy Bridge)
-Also, theres a general rule of electronics... Harddrive capacity doubles every 6-8 months (or that price halves for older models - so a $1000 750GB ssd now will cost $500 in 6-8 months, or we'll see 2TB ssd will be available for consumers)

YEP.
Corsair RAM FTW.
I may be building a new comp this year.
Mainly, the only 2 bad parts in my computer is the mobo and GPU
So i could buy a new Mobo for $60 and get the geforce 470...
But Im working in the summer and may be getting $1000, so its worth buying a new computer. AND because my computer is still decent, Im handing it down to my brother and my dad is gunna help pay for a new one