A system to last another 3 years?

[Vamp]

I got my current system in 2004, an AMD 3400+, gig of ram and Geforce 6800 GT.

It's handled me well over the years but now it's time for a new baby.

I'm looking at this:

ASUS P5N-Delux 775 ATX M/Board
nVidia nForce 750i SLI Chipset
2 X PCI-E 2.0 16x Graphics- SLI
2PCI Slots, 1PCI Express 1x Slots
4 X Dual ChDDR2-800Mhz Dimms
IDE & 6 X Sata2 ( Raid )
Integrated Gigabit( 1000 ) Lan
Integrated 8 Ch Sound - S/Pdif out
Integrated Firewire, E-Sata
Aerocool Zero Degree ATX Tower Case
Front USB-2, Audio, Aluminum Front Bezel
1x 12 Cm & 1 x 25Cm Case Fans,
UV active acrylic side panel
Coolermaster Extreme Power 550Watt Power Supply
12V Dual Rails, Super Quiet
Overclocked Intel Quadro Q6600 CPU - 2.4 Ghz Quad
Overclocked to 3.0GHz
8Mb L2 Cache, 1066Mhz ( OC 1333Mhz ) FSB, 64 Bit
Coolermaster Hyper TX-2 CPU Cooler
4Gb DDR2-800 Mhz Ram ( 2 X 2Gb Dimms )
500GB Seagate Sata2 Hard Drive, 7200Rpm, 32MB Cache
New Sapphire HD4870 512Mb, 256Bit PCI-E 2.0 16x Card
3600 Mhz DDR-5 Memory, 750Mhz Core
800 stream processors
( Pixel Shader Engine + Vertex Shaders)
Direct X 10.1 compliant, Shader Model 4, HDMI

How do you rate it would fare? I mainly use my system for video editing and audio work (music production/sound to film etc) but am also quite a heavy gamer.

Over the years I've gotten used to playing games with AA and AF off at 1024X768, but with that sytem would I be able to play games at pretty much the highest detail settings albeit the same resolution?

Is the Geforce 280GTX a more worthwhile buy than the HD4870, or should I stick with the ATI?

[clocker]

Both the 775 socket and the Q6600 have already had their three years in the sun and are about to be discontinued.
I'd wait six months and see what's what.

[clocker]

Both the 775 socket and the Q6600 have already had their three years in the sun and are about to be discontinued.
I'd wait six months and see what's what.

[Detale]

nehlams?? Skultrails? What else C

[clocker]

nehlams?? Skultrails? What else C
Not sure, haven't been paying too much attention.

The problem with buying a s775 system now is parts availability in a year or so.
Just look at s939...you can't buy ANY motherboards for them anymore (well, one or two really shitty ones maybe) so you're fucked if the board dies.
Same thing is going to happen with this platform.

[apextwin146]

Both the 775 socket and the Q6600 have already had their three years in the sun and are about to be discontinued.
I'd wait six months and see what's what.
I guess u hvnt seen the latest Q6600 results .. They are better performing than the new 8400 .. will post a link as soon as i remember it ..
As for update now is not the time .. You should probably wait till Jan end .

[clocker]

What "new" 8400?
I've had two 8400 Wolfdales and a Q9300 and much preferred the speed of the Wolfie over the theoretical advantages of the quads.
If Intel's new integrated memory controller provides the same performance boost that it did for AMD, I'd consider that a reason for an upgrade but that remains to be seen.

I'm hoping to make my next hardware upgrade coincide with the release of Windows7...might as well bite the whole enchilada.

[apextwin146]

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=770

[clocker]

Umm, OK...what's the point?

I admit I didn't read the whole article but the results for the e8400 and the q6600 looked pretty close to me.
Furthermore, why was the e8400 limited to 3.6GHz?
Most of them will easily hit 4GHz and higher with decent cooling, that was the whole beauty of the chip...cheap and insane OC capability at low voltage and heat.

At any rate, the point is moot- both chips are being phased out.

[apextwin146]

I was trying to say that Q6600 is still a good buy if you want to upgrade if u r building gaming machine as the new gpu will choke on dual cores presently available and rest of the quad cores arent VFM ..

[clocker]

You're entitled to your opinion.

[Vamp]

Should I rather go for the Intel Core2 Quadro 9300?

[kondrae]

9300 - if you have the extra bucks, sure. it runs cooler, more OC and has more cache. wont see a big diff though.

i also read that intel's nehalem will be much better for video stuff, but not games (http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=480)
nehalem will launch end of this year/next year so prices will fall for the prev. gen. stuff
maybe u should wait before the full upgrade

[Detale]

Both the 775 socket and the Q6600 have already had their three years in the sun and are about to be discontinued.
I'd wait six months and see what's what.
I guess u hvnt seen the latest Q6600 results .. They are better performing than the new 8400 .. will post a link as soon as i remember it ..
As for update now is not the time .. You should probably wait till Jan end . I own both 8400 and 6600 The 6600 on my main rig and the 8400 on the HTPC. True they are about the same but the wolfie has 1333 FSB instead of 1066 and can OC WAAAAY better , as previously said it's cooler and uses less juice(elec), so it has more advantages than the quad as of now. The 1366 nelhams that are coming out so the price will come down on the older stuff that IMHO is still fantastic so deff wait till at least Jan Feb to get anything.



I'm hoping to make my next hardware upgrade coincide with the release of Windows7Oh I'll be right there with you on a side note i read somewhere that the Apogee GTZ will have a bracket to support 1366 sockets :) maybe I'll be finished with the loop by then. Again you rock with the recomendations man!


might as well bite the whole enchilada.
MMMM enchiladas

[peat moss]

I was trying to say that Q6600 is still a good buy if you want to upgrade if u r building gaming machine as the new gpu will choke on dual cores presently available and rest of the quad cores arent VFM ..


I smiled reading this as that's the chip I have , in a year I'll by a new mobo , Cpu , ddr3 memory and new video card . I'll keep my case and PSU and start all over . :dabs:


By the way that was not a dig as I read all the Overclockers boards and read about the new chips and ddr3 memory before my purchase of the Q6600 about 6 months ago . The ddr3 memory has a problem with multitasking ? WTF !