Anandtechs p965 Motherboard Roundup - Core 2

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Great roundup with part2 on the horizon. They really like the Asus p5b-e revision 1.2 and the Gigabyte DS3 for this round.

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2860&p=21

Also a good comment in the article about overclocking and gaming performance. Thier point is invest in a good gpu for the biggest bang and overclock towards the end of your cpu's lifecycle. I agree with this but... I tend to start overclocking my cpu after I have had it for a few months to start squeezing more performance out of it.

Our opinion is that unless you are benchmarking to impress your friends and colleagues or are not GPU limited then there are few real gaming advantages to overclocking a system with the latest components. This basically means that to a certain degree you should invest in a very good GPU first and then start looking at the platform components based upon your timeline for keeping the system. Over time overclocking can become advantageous as you upgrade the GPU and simply overclock the system to improve CPU and memory performance. This can help extend the life of your main system components while allowing you to spend your money wisely during an upgrade cycle. Of course, there are those of us who throw this entire theory out the window (Ed: the author does this everyday!) every time a new component is introduced.

[Naix]

When are dx10 cards going to drop? And do you need vista to use them?

I r nub

[Porkinator]

No directx 10 cards yet
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/10/18/ ... _graphics/

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When are dx10 cards going to drop? And do you need vista to use them?

I r nub

Soon naix, but to answer your question yes and no. You can still use them for directx9 games, that is all the ones you play now, in xp but you would need vista to run directx 10 games, which are nonexistent atm but will be flooding us early next year including biggies like crysis (farcry2), ut2k7, and Duke Nukem

[Naix]

Alright, so does that mean i will need vista for the new games coming out early next year? Or can i wait a while , but still be able to play them? Right now, i have my eyes set on that x1900xt which seems to do fairly well compared to higher priced ones. But i will have to get a good look at the new dx10 cards to see if they are worth it.

I guess my question is, do i have to get vista to play the upcoming games...

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Alright, so does that mean i will need vista for the new games coming out early next year? Or can i wait a while , but still be able to play them? Right now, i have my eyes set on that x1900xt which seems to do fairly well compared to higher priced ones. But i will have to get a good look at the new dx10 cards to see if they are worth it.

I guess my question is, do i have to get vista to play the upcoming games...

No nub! You just won't be seeing the dx10 enhancements. You can play most directx8 games on your direct9 card can't you?

[Naix]

What enhancements are you talking about? Natural male enhancement? Please explain, and remember....

I r nub