Adding up the cores..

[Choupolo]

I've been reading up on a few of the new developments in the PC hardware arena lately, since I'm thinking of building something fairly beastly near the end of the year. My current rig (Intel Northwood 2.8G@3.2G, 6800GT@412/1.05, 1G RAM@460MHz 2.5-3-3-6), has lasted me over 3 years, and even though it's still going strong, it's on it's way out.

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Intel's Conroe looks as though it's going to be amazing, and 'reasonably' priced as well (that is if we're to believe the Intel controlled benches that have been released so far.. :P ) I was wondering what AMD's answer would be since their flagship gaming proc, the FX-62, had pretty much just come out and seemed to be a lot more expensive. Well it seems they do have a potential answer..

Basically they call it 4x4, which will make use of 2 FX-62s! Heh, great answer guys, who's going to buy 2 procs at such a high price (£700+ in the UK), apart from the insanely rich/just insane?? I disliked the idea of SLI for the same reason, but I suppose people have bought into that. Perhaps AMD's new chip revision coming early '07 may be a better answer for me, but it might be coming out too late for my needs.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060...60602-6977.html

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Then I was reading about nVidia's new gfx card, the (X1900XTX beating) 7950 GX2 1Gb. And it seems they're trying to pull the same trick. The 7950 is basically two 7900GTs strapped together into one card, thus using one PCI-e slot. However, it's at least a little cheaper than an SLI setup (£408 compared to £270*2). Still, maybe there'll be bandwidth issues when using one PCI-e slot compared to two. Apparently only OEMs have the right to build quad core-sli machines though according to nVidia (probably so they can charge a premium! ). I'm just wondering how long till 'dual core GPU-dual card-quad sli'? :bucky!:

http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q2/gefor...x2/index.x?pg=1
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/06/0...7950_gx2/1.html

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All this was just making me think, where are we heading exactly? 4 cpu cores, quad-sli gpus, physics procs etc etc. Adding up the cores, it all just drives size, power requirements, price, and development costs right up. Sure we'll get one beast of a PC that can run Far Cry at 1000fps, but would I be willing to pay £5000 to play that? My first PC build cost me £900 with a few hundred extra spent on some new RAM and gfx card over the 3 years. My old Northwood 2.8G cpu was enough to last the whole time with a little OCing, and that cost me a whopping £150, heh. So a £1400 processor solution is no doubt a bit hard to swallow! Are we really getting to the limit of what one processor can do?

One thing's for sure, the cost of gaming is skyrocketing. Thoughts? :dennis:

[KamisoriX]

Have ya read that Intel new chips are called Core2Duo




looks kinda dumb but nomore pentiums for you guys

lalala
oinkoink

[Choupolo]

Yea it's a bit of a dumb name, heh. But then again so is Wiii! :P

I'd love to sit in a room all day and come up with dumb names for products. That'd be such a cool job! B)

Mass market gaming will always be aimed at people with £1000 or $1500 priced computers. PC gamers will never ever need to have uber-rigs to play games, because the market isn't simply every going to be there. ID, Crytek and Epic will aim there highest settings at people with these machines, because of market saturation. Enthusiast gamers who enjoy high-resolution gaming (30" Apple Plasma) at Extreme HD-TV resolutions are a very narrow market segment and they only need behemoth machines with dual cores and dual/quad-gfx, so they can play something like FEAR or Oblivion on top resolutions of 3500x1400 at playable framerates.

You will be fine with a dual-core 64-bit CPU, 2GB of RAM and a £250-450 GFX/Physics setup.

[Choupolo]

Yea you're right. The one I specced up recently came to around £1600 though, which is still £700 more than I payed 3 years ago at a similar level back then. A decent 64bit dual core can cost between £200-700 compared to the £150 it was for a near top spec consumer proc last time. It's really the processors that've shot up in price since my last build.

Maybe it's just this 4x4 thing really that's made me conscious of the whole double/quadrupling up trend that's being pushed recently. I know dual processors have been around a while, but it's never been as prominent as it is now.

[KamisoriX]

actually all those 64bit/tripplequad core things are totally unecassery because there are hardly any apps using it's potential. And the few ones that do have worst performents than the standart versions.

PS: yes Wiii does sound kinda funny but Wii sounds freaking sexy dude

[Choupolo]

That's what's confusing me. They were saying how 4x4 and quad-sli would be the ultimate gamer rig, but how does 4x4 help gamers at all if nothing supports it or even needs it?? Probably wouldn't make any difference over a standard FX-62 for games. (But it would encode MP3s really fast! How we all hate how slow that is.. :P )

I think AMD are just scheesed off at Intel for flaunting Conroe across the internet with those rigged benchmarks, and diverting attention away from their precious FX line, heh.

[TheAtticBoy]

Hardware products nowadays could be turning into the next pokemon card game, "I got 10 graphics cards you've only got 5"
All this Quad-SLi and Crossfire technology is starting to look like a complet gimmick to rake in all the money these companies can get, unless someone can put me right and say the technology is absoutely amazing.
What i don't understand is how a high spec PC cannot smoothly run demanding games, look at this:

Processor: P4 3.2Ghz HT
RAM: 1GB
Sound card: Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty Edition
Graphics Card: ATi Radeon X1600Pro 512MB
Hard Disk 1: 120GB Seagate
Hard Disk 2: 120GB Maxtor

F.E.A.R runs reasonably well on medium graphics, but to even mention the thought of High quality textures and soft shadows i get the fps plummetting below 30fps

Please help!! :bucky!:

[Cow]

Choupolo is right. The cost of gaming is starting to skyrocket. Every time I look at myself building a PC cabale of running the 05 games at highest settings, it looks to cost over 1500$. Not to mention it will be outdated in several days. Another issue here is the "bleeding edge". Sure, you can build a blazin fast PC for 3000, but in a month or less, it will not be the best anymore! I think the answer here is, save your money and build a 2000 Vista PC so you will be futureproof'd as far as that goes. I was gonna buy a Wii and buy some more ram, but now Im just gonna stop upgrading my degrading PC and save it for Vista, DX10, etc.

I started playing City of Villains again recently...but man it is painful to play
On the Lowest graphical settings, at 1280x1024, I get freezes!! Come on my setup is definately dated but this game came out in october of last year!

Specs:

AMD 3400+
6800GT@Ultra
1gb ram (i know, i need to get some more :/, but im saving for a vista PC)

[Liber8or]

Originally posted by TheAtticBoy@Jun 13 2006, 12:53 PM
F.E.A.R runs reasonably well on medium graphics, but to even mention the thought of High quality textures and soft shadows i get the fps plummetting below 30fps

Please help!! :bucky!:

Soft Shadows is a serious performance hit in F.E.A.R, even when people are benchmarking the latest GFX Cards using F.E.A.R they disable Soft Shadows. IMO i dont find them THAT dramatically effecting on the image. You are better off sticking on High Settings and leaving the Shadows Off...

After all, a game like F.E.A.R needs at least 40 FPS to see it in its fast paced glory, with High Settings it will look really nice with a good FPS...

Hope this helps...