Vista whuh? It's on the way.

I was debating whether to upgrade to Vista now, or wait until I upgrade my base system platform which will probably be next year some time, or late this year at the earliest. I wanted to buy the retail copy of Vista because I wanted to be able to transfer it to the new platform, but I also knew I wanted to put it on a high-speed hard drive.

Then I realized that the OEM version of Vista Home Premium goes for $110 on NewEgg. Retail copy? $240. So, I can buy the OEM version, and when I ready to upgrade I can just buy another OEM version and it'll still be cheaper than buying the retail version. What's more, I can keep my current system longer... possibly much longer.

Ha!

I'm Just Gaming!

This blog has been about PC hardware for the most part, so it's actually really nice that I have been able to take a break from all of it. My performance is first-rate, and I couldn't be happier with how everything is looking, sounding, and performing.

But, upgrades are the norm, and I am at least considering some upgrades, if not necessarily decided on them.

First, I will at some point get a faster hard drive. If I do actually decide to get Windows Vista before I build my next system, I would rather do a clean installation than upgrade; besides, I'd definitely want a 10k drive for my next system, so it would make sense to get one whenever I grab Vista.

Second, I've had my eye on a dual-core processor. I've always maintained that dual-cores have been pretty unnecessary, at least for gaming. However, threaded games are becoming more common, and there are other uses for dual-cores. Since AMD's Socket 939 processors are becoming pretty inexpensive now that the socket has been discontinued, I figure I might go ahead and grab a cheap dual-core before these chips become impossible to find. That might give me a slight performance boost.

Now, although these are like I said "basic" upgrades, that's still a fair bit of cash, something in the league of $700 for Vista Home Premium, a dual-core processor and a 150GB high-speed hard drive. So, this naturally raises the question of whether I really want to spend that money instead of just waiting until I build a whole new system. I mean really, although I'm excited about Vista and DX10, I'm not exactly seeing a major need for an upgrade. I watched a DirectX 10 trailer for Crysis, and I couldn't tell any difference between the DX10 footage and all the old DX9 footage. I'm sure there is a difference, but I don't know just how earth-shattering it will be, so I'm hesitant to make any expensive upgrades.

The flipside though is that the end cost isn't actually that bad. The new drive and Vista will be in my new PC anyway, so I'd just be buying them sooner instead of later. Obviously if I wait until later this year or even early next year, a 150GB Raptor drive will be a little cheaper, but not dramatically so. Also, I can sell my current processor to kill about a third to half of the cost of the dual-core chip.

I think what I may do is just take my time and save money, rather than rush into any upgrades. Honestly, my current performance is absolutely stellar. I have no complaints whatsoever and no current reason to upgrade. I do want to make the move to Vista at some point, but I'm currently perfectly satisfied with Windows XP. I'm going to be saving money, looking at the viability of all these upgrades, looking at my next build, and weighing all my options. In the meantime, I'll be enjoying this great PC.

What matters in a gaming rig is your graphics card

I've always maintained that a lot of the hyped-up technologies, like multi-core processors and high-speed DDR2 RAM, are basically overblown in terms of their effects on gaming performance. The most important thing by far is the graphics card. Forget synthetic benchmarks – what matters is real-world performance. So, I did a little test today.

I went to Guru3D.com, who did a review of the 8800GTS and 8800GTX. Their test system was an Intel E6800, 680i motherboard, Corsair Dominator DDR2 RAM (CAS 4 @ 1142mhz), and the cards in question. Using the in-game test for FEAR (all max settings, 4xAA, 16xAF), in 1280x960 they scored an average of 112 fps for the stock 8800GTX and 82 fps for the stock 8800GTS.

I ran the same test... my system is an AMD 4000+ @ 2.94ghz (single core), OCZ platinum DDR 500, A8N32-SLI deluxe, and an 8800GTS clocked at 660/2000. Using the exact same settings (all max in-game settings, 4xAA, 16xAF), I scored an average frame rate of 101 with the texture filtering set to "high quality" in Forceware. Using the default "quality" setting, which is probably what Guru3D used, I scored an average of 102 fps.

Ironically I think a dual-core or a higher-speed CPU would have helped me score even higher, only because my max frame rate was capped around 255 fps. An E6800 would raise the max frame rate somewhat, which would raise the average slightly (it wouldn't affect the minimum frame rate, which is GPU limited). However at 100+ fps we're well past what any monitor can physically display or what the human eye can perceive anyway, so it's kind of pointless.

What About Higher-Resolution Gaming?

It took some tracking down, but I found a second FEAR test, this time at IT-review.net, done with 8xAA. For some reason 8xAA tests in FEAR are hard to find. Increasing AA has the same effect on performance as increasing the resolution, so I thought it'd be a good comparison.

Their test system was 680i, Intel E6700, OCZ 1000mhz DDR2 RAM and an 8800GTX. At 1280x960, all max, 8xAA and 16xAF, they averaged 81 frames per second. To my surprise, my overclocked 8800GTS actually beat them, scoring an average of 88 frames per second at the same setting.

Both of these systems are cutting edge, and mine is considered yesterday's news. In any benchmark those systems would blow mine away. Yet with my overclocked 8800GTS, I scored 20fps higher than than Guru3D's stock 8800GTS score, and 7fps higher than IT-review's 8800GTX score! All those expensive components – 680i board, high-speed low-latency RAM, high-speed dual-core processor – didn't have much of an effect on their performance. Granted this is just one game, but when you consider the cost difference between my system and theirs, it gives you an idea about where your priorities should be when you build a gaming rig.