With all the new games coming out, some of you maybe thinking of upgrading your hardware.

Some of the more demanding games to come out are Bad Company 2, Modern Warfare 2 and even WoW uses quite a bit of juice in large raid encounters at high resolutions.

I was reading up on the new ATI cards and came to the conclusion that they aren't worth buying in to.

Why you ask?

Well, the performance gains are good and they are faster than the current generation Nvidia cards, but Nvidia will be releasing it's 300 series graphics cards some time later this year. More than likely, they will 1up ATI once again. Although Nvidia is arriving to the party late, they won't be missing out on much, because current games haven't required much more than their current chipsets can't handle.

There are currently NO directX 11 games out, nor can we expect to see any for the next year. Even though ATI already supports DirectX11, there is no great benefit in owning a card that supports it. As far as I know, Windows XP does not support DirectX 11 and most users will need to upgrade to Windows 7 in order to see the benefits.

It's not as if a bunch of game devs supported DirectX 10.

Here is a list

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_DirectX_10_support

Honestly, the only game on that list that I still play is Eve Online.


Further more, the current Nvidia chipsets handle modern games just fine. A good setup appears to be running two GTX 275's in SLI over having a single 295.

Read:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-sli,2298.html


A real value appears to be running two GTS 250's in SLI. You can pickup a GTS 250 card for around $139 each. Depending the on the resolution you run, one maybe enough to hold you over until the 300 series cards arrive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130514&cm_re=gts_250_evga-_-14-130-514-_-Product

Here is a round up on what is available this month.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,2521.html

Why Nvidia?
Better driver support, native linux drivers, more frequent driver updates that address game performance issues.


Thoughts?

I upgraded to an nvidia 9800 back just before Conan came out...and it is stil the best card I have ever owned.


The problem that I have found with ATI cards is Heat....well that and the crap drivers that catalyst keeps putting out.

Fuck ATI. I had 2 cards from them in the past and both burnt out in 3 months...always glitchy. Things may have changed from 4 years ago....but I am super stoked with my EVGA's.

IMO the EVGA and BFG cards are the best companies to buy video cards from. I've never had an issue dealing with either and the step up program on their cards is a nice perk.

I added one of these to my rig today, dropped my temps significantly over the Blue Orb that I was using.

It's a good alternative to traditional liquid cooling, same benefits and less mess.

http://www.guru3d.eu/article/corsair-h50-cpu-cooler-review/


Best Buy has it on sale for $59.99, well worth it.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Corsair+-+Hydro+Series+H50+CPU+Cooler/9503771.p?id=1218115623560&skuId=9503771&st=corsair%20h-50


http://www.youtube.com/user/CorsairMemoryInc#p/f/20/FAyfHz92cq8

hrmmm I may need to get this for Sativa's new box we built for her...her shit locks up while playing any games after a few minutes...

For $59 at Best Buy, it's not much more than a high end heat sink.

Works great, after you install it.

It's a bitch to install, but since you've worked with computer hardware lots then you should be fine.