Out of the loop;questions about modern computer hardware

I'm a bigtime computer geek, but due to lack of time, money and just general side-tracking, I haven't had time to keep up with every aspect of PC hardware for the past 6 months or so. My PC is getting a bit outdated and I'd like to upgrade to a new motherboard, processor and some new RAM. So, that said, I have a few questions for any tech-savvy people out there who have been keeping up with the times.


1 - What are some of the best "bang for your buck" processors, motherboards, RAM and power supplies on the market these days? I'm looking for stuff that will last, perform well and prevent myself from breaking the bank.

2 - Is tri-SLi worth it yet? Do enough games support it to actually make it a viable option? I was considering putting 3 cheaper, but still effective cards in a tri-SLi motherboard, such as a few 512MB 8600 GT or something. This is a long-term goal, but if tri-SLi is actually useful enough, I want a motherboard that supports it.

3 - Are the AMD/Crossfire motherboards worth it? I used to be an AMD/ATI kinda' guy, but these days NVidia and Intel are completely destroying them. I've come to accept this because benchmarks don't lie and they all say point in the same direction these days. So with that in mind, despite that they may be a bit behind, are they still worth it? The priceower ratio seems like it may be appealing, but I don't really know if I should just spend the extra $20-30 per part and go NVidia/Intel or if I should save the money and go AMD/ATI.

4 - This one is completely random, but it's grabbed my attention lately just to see if technology has advanced far enough yet. Is it possible to run Crysis at max resolution on max settings at a stable framerate yet or are people still having trouble even with ridiculous $15,000 towers?


So, that's all for now. I look forward to hearing your replies. Thanks in advance.

Also, for the record, my current machine is not by any means behind the times. I've not had trouble running anything just yet for the most part and Crysis even runs fine on high settings at 1280*1024 resolution, which is fine by me because I don't have a crazy monitor at this point in time and I don't even really like the game. However, my processor appears to be a bottleneck. I think that's the issue anyway, but that's another reason why I'm here posting right now. A few things are really screwy. Only 3 games have experienced the same problem I've been having: Weird stuttering. In Oblivion, grass freaks my PC out. It stutters like crazy. In Monster Madness, random skipping happens, but it seems timed. Like, the exact same timing every time it skips. It's like every 2.5 seconds or so, the game freezes for about 1/3 of a second. It's the same kind of stuttering I experience in Oblivion, but it's to a lesser extent. The third and final game that experiences this problem is BioShock, but it's not the entire game; Just the water. The game runs at 60 FPS fine all maxed out with vsync turned on at 1280*1024 resolution, but the water stutters the same way as Monster Madness and Oblivion. Everything else looks and runs fine and it doesn't even freeze the entire screen when water stutters in BioShock. Just the water skips, like clockwork, at the same timing every time. In BioShock it's more like 1/8th of a second skips. It doesn't look too terrible, but it's still there and that bothers me. Other games run fine, like UT3, CoD4, TF2, Stranglehold, TimeShift and many others. It's just those 3 games that have given me problems, which makes me believe it may not even be my hardware, rather something with my software. I've tried 4 different versions of the NVidia drivers, but that doesn't fix the problem. I've also tried XP with this machine, but it made no difference, so I just went back to Vista to utilize DX10 when possible. It just doesn't seem to make much sense to me that those games have weird errors when they appear to run completely fine otherwise and more specifically, the fact that the error is the exact same thing across the board.

So, why am I telling you this? I'm curious. If anyone out there knows of a possible software fix for any of those 3 games, my graphics drivers or anything else that may resolve my problem, I'd be more than greatful for your help. Otherwise, see my above questions. I'm going to upgrade my motherboard so that I can upgrade my processor, which is currently only a Pentium Dual-Core 1.6Ghz. It's cheap, but the motherboard I have, which slips my mind right now, doesn't support much else in terms of multicore processors.

Thanks for reading.

You probably know more than I do, but I'll shoot out some things I've observed.

You're totally right, Intel/Nvidia are destroying AMD/ATI...in every meaningful way.

The Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 chip is great bang for the buck - 3ghz, 6 or 8MB L2 cache (not sure), 45nm, and I assume heavily overclockable like all the other C2Ds. I think prices hover around $200, which is what I paid for the E6420 like 6 months ago (4MB, 2.2 stock).

There's a bunch of new motherboards coming out - I think the 790i from Nvidia and the Striker motherboard is a great performer too. I always had good luck with the Asus P5K series or anything in the P5 line. Great overclockers.

As for Tri-SLI, I'm not too sure if games are really able to utilize all of that yet. I could be wrong, but I don't know if it's worth it at this time, especially since you're going to have to pay a premium for a compatible motherboard.

[quote name='Chrasilis']
1 - What are some of the best "bang for your buck" processors, motherboards, RAM and power supplies on the market these days? I'm looking for stuff that will last, perform well and prevent myself from breaking the bank.

2 - Is tri-SLi worth it yet? Do enough games support it to actually make it a viable option? I was considering putting 3 cheaper, but still effective cards in a tri-SLi motherboard, such as a few 512MB 8600 GT or something. This is a long-term goal, but if tri-SLi is actually useful enough, I want a motherboard that supports it.

3 - Are the AMD/Crossfire motherboards worth it? I used to be an AMD/ATI kinda' guy, but these days NVidia and Intel are completely destroying them. I've come to accept this because benchmarks don't lie and they all say point in the same direction these days. So with that in mind, despite that they may be a bit behind, are they still worth it? The priceower ratio seems like it may be appealing, but I don't really know if I should just spend the extra $20-30 per part and go NVidia/Intel or if I should save the money and go AMD/ATI.

4 - This one is completely random, but it's grabbed my attention lately just to see if technology has advanced far enough yet. Is it possible to run Crysis at max resolution on max settings at a stable framerate yet or are people still having trouble even with ridiculous $15,000 towers?
[/QUOTE]
1) For processors, it's very debatable but I would go with a quad core intel processor (I bought a Q6600 for my computer I just built). I figure that by the time games require a speed faster than a single core can provide, they will probably start supporting multiple cores. Having 4 cores also helps with multitasking, and isn't much more expensive than a dual core. For motherboards, it's really just a matter of finding one on sale with the features you need (SATA/IDE/RAM slots, audio features, overclocking ability, SLI). I would just check newegg and read reviews. For RAM I just look on sites like dealspl.us for sales. You can frequently find 2 GB of DDR2-800 ram with 4-4-4-12 timings for $20 or less (usually from Crucial, Patriot, or Corsair). For power supplies I would either look for sales like with RAM or check newegg for highly rated supplies. You just have to make sure the wattage and the amps on the rails are high enough (for SLI I would go with at least 800 watts and at least 40-50 amps on one rail). Also make sure to only go with reputable brands (Thermalright, Antec, and Corsair are all good).

2) I would go with 1 or 2 8800gt cards before getting 3 weaker cards. The 8800 gt is still the best deal you can get (now you can get them for under $150 each). Triple SLI is OK but it's more important to have one good video card than several weak ones.

3) They can be worth it if you don't want a high end system. They really don't have anything to compete with high end intel and nvidia cards.

4) With triple SLI 8800 ultras and a top of the line processor you can get barely playable frames per second in Crysis (15-30 frames per second) at 1920x1200 and maximums settings. So no you really can't play it very well yet.

1) if you are looking for advice on your rig it would be best to post your stats. There i a big difference between building a rig from scratch and doing upgrades

2) Regular SLI is a huge waste of money, why would triple SLI be worth it?

3) no

4) The best hardware out can run at about 1-3 fps

Just to clear a few things up, only the 8800gtx?, ultra, 9800gtx, and gtx280 can do tri-sli. The others dont have the dual pathways.

[quote name='Chrasilis']I'm a bigtime computer geek, but due to lack of time, money and just general side-tracking, I haven't had time to keep up with every aspect of PC hardware for the past 6 months or so. My PC is getting a bit outdated and I'd like to upgrade to a new motherboard, processor and some new RAM. So, that said, I have a few questions for any tech-savvy people out there who have been keeping up with the times.


1 - What are some of the best "bang for your buck" processors, motherboards, RAM and power supplies on the market these days? I'm looking for stuff that will last, perform well and prevent myself from breaking the bank.

2 - Is tri-SLi worth it yet? Do enough games support it to actually make it a viable option? I was considering putting 3 cheaper, but still effective cards in a tri-SLi motherboard, such as a few 512MB 8600 GT or something. This is a long-term goal, but if tri-SLi is actually useful enough, I want a motherboard that supports it.

3 - Are the AMD/Crossfire motherboards worth it? I used to be an AMD/ATI kinda' guy, but these days NVidia and Intel are completely destroying them. I've come to accept this because benchmarks don't lie and they all say point in the same direction these days. So with that in mind, despite that they may be a bit behind, are they still worth it? The priceower ratio seems like it may be appealing, but I don't really know if I should just spend the extra $20-30 per part and go NVidia/Intel or if I should save the money and go AMD/ATI.

4 - This one is completely random, but it's grabbed my attention lately just to see if technology has advanced far enough yet. Is it possible to run Crysis at max resolution on max settings at a stable framerate yet or are people still having trouble even with ridiculous $15,000 towers?


So, that's all for now. I look forward to hearing your replies. Thanks in advance. [/quote]

1. 8400 Dual Core. Get a nice CPU Fan and overclock all the way to 4ghz.
2. SLI is ok, but the best Single Card is the way to go.
3. ATis new 4870x2 is suposedly faster then the 280gtx. Intel is spanking AMD though, but Intel is also having a pissing contest with Nvidia on alot of things.
Nahelm boards will only be avialable with intel chipsets and not Nvidia sets. Things could change though.
4. Crysis can be run at 1920x1080 with dual 9800gxs. Its not 15k its more like 1k in graphics cards. It will run at 40fps with everything turned up.