The KGB Oracle Forums General Public Discussion (PUBLIC) The Pub New JetStar Gaming Rig

well, vista is going to be unavoidable sometime down the road with dx10 going to be available only for it, so if you can get a copy of xp with a voucher, do it.

RAIDMAX SMILODON ATX-612WBP Black SECC STEEL ATX Mid Tower

ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe Socket T (LGA 775) NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16 ATX Intel Motherboard

2 eVGA 01G-P2-N592-AX GeForce 7950GX2 1GB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Dual GPU Video Card

Antec True Power Trio TP3-650 ATX12V 650W Power Supply with Three 12V Rails

Western Digital 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory

SONY Black IDE DVD-ROM Drive Model DDU1615/B2s

NEC 16X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE/ATAPI

Acer AL1916Fbd Black 19" 2ms (GTG) LCD Monitor

Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 Conroe 2.93GHz LGA 775 Processor

Mine

If you do want to upgrade to vista with a voucher then you probably want to get windows xp media center on your PC and not windows xp pro.

Windows xp pro upgrades to windows vista buisness
windows media center upgrades to windows vista home premium

For most gamers and people who like media features, vista home premium is the better option.

You'd be best to check the Microsoft site though and decide which version is best for you.

For the CPU I agree with Owain. Intel is the best bang for your buck right now and the E6600 is a very good processor at a very good price. Certainly one of the best price/performance processors.

Heidi's PC kicks ass but unfortunatly you arn't getting anything like that for $1500. I'm going to something sweet and saying sod the budget myself sometime in the next few weeks. Hopefully with one of Nvideas new direct x 10 cards the 8800.

Actually the target for Owain's build was $1500, so I know it falls into that range. I wouldn't spend a lot on a video card, as DirectX 10 will be the way to go, and the ONLY DX10 card out now is VERY spendy. More models and lower prices to follow after Christmas I would assume.

Unless someone comes up with a hack for DirectX10 to get it to work in XP x64, Micro$oft will be dragging gamers into Vi$ta, (kicking and screaming maybe).

On the 64-bit front, it's pretty pathetic that many of us have 64-bit CPU's but the OS/drivers/software are dragging ass. I tried XP x64 late last year, couldn't get much to run on it at all. Just my 2-cents.

XP 64 had some issues. It now has many fewer issues, largly because driver support has caught up. I dont think there will be any Vista-only games for quite some time, I doubt there will even be much that uses DX10 for at least 2 years.There will be a couple pioneers of course, but im not seeing DX10 OS support as anything too important.

By the time people "really" want it, I think it will be time to upgrade again anyhow. In any case, cross that bridge when you come to it I say.

If your not getting a GF8800 DX10 card, no reason to get Vista in any case.

I really can't wait for Google to take over the entire computer industry so I don't have to worry about all this Microsoft bullshit... XxXxXXXXXXXxXXXxxxxXxX hate rage rage rage hate omg die MS!

If you can wait until the beginning of the year, go for the quad core machines with a DX10 capable vid card.

Prices on quad core machines with DX10 cards will come down dramatically by feb. of next year.

The performance difference can be as much as 2x today's machines. I am waiting until about then for my next machine, and ofcourse VISTA with it.

Its annoying, ofcourse. Theres a few games out now (medieval total war 2, flight sim 10) that I wouldn't mind getting into, but a quad core with geforce 8800 gtx will run those games at 1600x1200 at 30+ fps, which is what I want.

I wonder if they'll have another OS out before XP is useless. I mean you can still run 2000 and be fine. Which then means couldn't you skip from XP to whatever's after Vista?

The first DirectX 10 game I plan on taking in... EVE Online! of course!

I expect the Vi$ta launch will be similar to XP in that new software will be optimized for it, while older software will not be happy at all running under it (it will be buggy/slow if it works at all). So there will be games that support both Vi$ta (Dx10) and XP (Dx9) - and some that demand Dx10 (likely mostly Micro$oft published games). If you want to play those Dx10 games, you will have no choice but to go Vi$ta *cue evil/maniacal laughter*

Similar to the initial release of XP, there will be an "awkward time" while the software adjusts to the platform. So for the next few years my rig will likely have a selective boot between 2 hard drives, one configured with XP (for older games/software/compatibility) and one with Vi$ta (for the few new games that require it).

Vi$ta IS very pretty - but it likely won't be my main OS until ALL of the software I use runs WELL under it. And as Derid said, perhaps the more-likely option is that Vi$ta is just an awkward stage and we are truly looking for is the NEXT OS beyond Vi$ta. ... NeXT OS? Oh yea that became MacOS X!

As "exploitable" as the "windows OS" has become, I may be ONLY browsing the Internet from a Virtual Machine (VMWare/etc). Especially after my recent personal experiences with a keylogger attack have made Micro$oft's response to exploits less than rosy.