So I decided to upgrade the rig this week...

[GhostSheets]

Well I may have done a little more than an upgrade. I got carried away. The only thing I didn't buy was a new case.

Here's the goodies:

CPU: AMD Phenom 9950 125W Black Edition - $160 on New Egg
Graphics: BFG GTX280 1GB - $429.00 Originally, $314 When you add it to your cart.
Mother Board: ASRock AM2/AM3 780GXE, SLI, 16GB Mem max - $79
Memory - (2) 2gb 1066 DDR2, another (2) on the way. Bout $110 for all 8 sticks.
HD: (2) 300 GB 10kRPM VelociRaptors - $460
PSU: XClio 1200W SLI - $259

Just got everything fired up tonight. This thing is a beast.
Installed Vista 64Bit and it's buttery. I've yet to run the rating tool but I'm hoping to come in with a pretty good number.

Installed Far Cry 2 which I also just bought. Put all the settings to Ultra High, 8xAA and kicked it off. Silky smooth. That is one superb gaming engine. Almost as good as the CoD4 engine.

Just figured I'd share my splurge story. I'm having fun with my new monster.

Happy Weekend all :D

[swiftdraw]

Mmmm, that's not bad at all, other than the Vista bit :P

[GhostSheets]

lol. I was going to go Xp 64bit until this morning when I read a review on HardOCP about their Far Cry 2 performance on Vista. They said the DX10 instance out performs the DX9 one. Downloading Sp1 now before I find out for myself.

Everything has been very smooth so far *knock on virtual wood*.

[privatedonut21]

I'm getting the itch to do the same, just wish I had the money. It's getting to be time to upgrade my CPU/Mobo/RAM and I was hoping to jump to one of those new Intel Core i7's but right now buying the whole new platform would cost about $600 minimum. So I'll wait a bit yet, hopefully the prices on X58 motherboards will come down as thats the majority of the cost at the moment.

Anyway, congrats on the new rig, consider me thoroughly jealous.

[Syl]

Vista 64 is actually the best system for gaming. XP can't use DX10 and a lot of the newer games benefit immensely from it.

What's your monitor?

[heyitsjohn]

Sweet baby Jesus, I'm running Far Cry 2 at 1680x1050 on very high all around on my rig, but you went all out. I must say, if 'money ain't a thang,' I'd have a rig like yours. Well done good sir.

I hope you enjoy Far Cry 2 as much as I am. Despite the negatives, FC2 is the best shooter/adventure game I have ever played.

I'm jealous of your 8 gigs of RAM - let us know if you see a difference between 4 and 8. With that statement, I'm off to nom on some fucking pepper turkey and play Far Cry 2

[GhostSheets]

Vista 64 is actually the best system for gaming. XP can't use DX10 and a lot of the newer games benefit immensely from it.

What's your monitor?


This article outlines some great points in the FC2 DX9 / DX10 comparison war.

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTU5MywsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0

I love Hardocp.

My monitor is a Samsung 226BW. At the time I bought it, it was the only 2ms monitor out there. Don't know if that has changed yet. I'd eventually like to go 26 or 30 for gaming.

The second set of 2gb sticks and the second GTX280 are both coming in today.

I will fire up FC2 now to get some results while I have only (yeah, only. lol. God I make it sound like 4gb is a bad thing) 4gb in here.

I've never had a PC this balls out before so this isn't normal for me.