[djbass]

A little advice from someone who's been down this path recently.

My current specs:
Processor: Intel Core2 Duo - E6600 (2.40GHz, 1066MHz, 4MB cache)
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate (64bit) - English
Memory: 4094MB 800MHz Corsair DDR2 SDRAM
HDD: 550GB Western Digital Hard Drives Non RAID (2x150GB - 10000rpm, 1x250GB - 7200rpm)
Graphics: Leadtek nVidia GeForce 7600 GT 256MB
TV: DViCO Fusion HDTV DVB-T Pro
Optical1: Sony 16x DVD+/-RW Dual Layer
Keyboard: Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard
Mouse: Logitech G5 Optical Mouse
Soundcard: Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Fatal1ty Pro PCI Soundcard

As it is I'm currently happy with my rig, the only future potential upgrades will be a quad core and a 9 series card when it is released.

Some potential pitfalls with your chosen configuration:

Memory, or 'beware the 4GB trap'. I made the jump not so long ago of running 2GB in Vista 32bit to 4GB, thinking it was a nice round number and an easy way to get a little better performance increase. What followed was weeks of hell and system instability.

Its been noted already that 32bit OS's can't normally address anything more than 4GB. In Vista since some resources are reserved it usually shows up as 3.5Gb, however not all systems and particularly memory are created equal, some people even with 4GB report only 2GB still showing up.

You can try tricks such as enabling PAE (which incidently is on by default anyway if your processor supports DEP). However it doesn't magically give you access to all that extra ram, in some cases it doesn't even make a difference all.

Enter the 2GB virtual address space which all 32bit programs are subject to (even under Vista 64bit). It wouldn't matter if you had 2GB or 64Gb of memory, Vista artifically boxes programs to only allow them access to 2GB at most. So while more memory will certainly benefit you if you are running multiple programs, the benefit in terms of gaming is significantly less. For most games this wont really be a problem, depending on how it was programmed, but quite a few of the higher end games were hitting this 2Gb roof with alarming speed (Supreme Commander and the BF2/2142 series are of note). What made matters worse is that video memory (the memory on your card) is factored into the mix as well, so if the game you are running sits just under the 2GB mark, throw in the 512mb ram on the card and suddenly your over the limit and the game goes down in flames. There was a hotfix to try and resolve this issue, but once again people have had mixed results.

Back to our magical 4GB number. I don't recall the specifics but there is something relating to how 4Gb of memory is handled that was causing instability on some systems (mine was one), which meant in my case at least I was subject to random freezes and sudden rebooting. If you had any amount under or over that number it meant you dodged the bullet.

The solution in the end was to re-install with Vista 64bit (which fortunately both editions come standard with Vista Ultimate). I thought that would be the end of my woes but alas it was not, the magical 4GB number would ruin my day again.

It turned out that something in the way that the Creative X-Fi drivers addressed memory conflicted with systems running 4GB of memory. Some people reported instability or in my case a very loud and painful buzzing static sound from the speakers. There was nothing I could do at the time other than to rip the somewhat expensive soundcard out and result to onboard sound in hopes Creative would release a fix someday. Several months later they did, and supposedly in the latest batch of drivers the issue has been fixed. Having had a flawless and pleasant experience in the previous months minus the card I haven't been keen to give the new drivers a try so I can't report on the results.


The next component worth mentioning is the video card. As pointed out already I would not waste your money on a 8 series card unless you can get a super cheap bargain basement price on it (no really, anything short of it-fell off-the-back-of-a-lorry pricing just don't bother). The 9 series is coming in due time and it really is worth the wait. My 7600GT looks long in the tooth compared to todays top spec cards, but I bought it intentionally instead of an 8800GT because I knew I would get more bang for my buck, and this was back in January 2007 long before the 9 series was even a prototype. So far with the exception of Lost Planet it has handled everything I have thrown at it. Given they have boosted the 7 series with the likes of 7900GT now it makes them even more value, especially when I gaurentee you'll be drooling over the 9 series when they do come out.

The other thing to consider is that especially with Vista, DX10.1 is going to be the next big thing. The current crop of 8 series cards are not true DX10 architexture, they were originally made for DX9 spec then later retrofitted for a not even out of beta yet DX10 spec.

The WoW factor is really going to kick in when we start seeing the next line of true DX10.1 spec GPUs.