Preparing to build gaming comp, but what about 64 bit processors?

[vfrex]

I'm getting ready to build my college/gaming computer. I was ready to buy a reletively expensive and powerful machine. However, I decided to look into the AMD's 64 bit processors a bit more. I read an article suggesting that pc game designers are more than ready to move towards 64 bit processors. Furthermore, nvidia will be releasing nforce3 motherboards which will support amd's 64 bit processors AND have an agp graphics slot. According to benchmarks I viewed at this site, the operaton (sp?) will blow away current processors.

To make matters worse, I read a report on another website describing exactly what 64 bit processors mean. It also included a quote from an unreal tournament developer suggesting that they are going for 64 bit support and or requirement on the next 2 releases. Perhaps I read it wrong, and games requiring 64 bit processors are still far off.

So heres the real issue. The idea behind buying a powerful gaming pc is that it will easily handle the games of today, and will be able to handle the games of tomarrow for as long as possible. I would hope that an expensive powerful system would run games lag free for two years. But what if a 64 bit revolution is almost here. My understanding of it is that 64 bit processors for gamers will be in within a half year. (that is guess work, so please point it out if I am wrong). Once these systems are readily available and are within a reasonable price range, which seems to happen pretty quick with new technology, there will no doubt be games that embrace this cutting edge technology. So, spending a lot on a system now might get me a year of running the top games, but then, unlike usually aging technology, I hit a brick requirement wall. I could upgrade motherboard, cpu, and ram if need be,,,but then I also have a year old video card that is nowhere near top of the line.

So should I aim for a system that will run games of today, but will be outdated very quickly, leaving me money to upgrade to 64 bit and top of the line technology in 1 year?

Or should I just go for top of the line technology now, just with a cheaper processor? Then just make the mboard and processor switch in a year?

Any other options?

 

[mechBgon]

Welcome to the Forums vfrex

The quote from the UT developer was probably the one in which Mr. Sweeny says that they're looking to migrate to mandatory 64-bit for development of the games, not to play them. He said he expected to see a blanket boost of 10 to 15 percent from running a 64-bit version in actual gameplay, if I recall correctly.

As far as I'm aware of, nForce3 will initially show up in workstation boards that require Registered ECC memory and support the Opteron. Later the Athlon 64 will show up and I expect nForce3 will support that too, probably with unbuffered non-parity memory like most of us use now (cheaper).

If I were you, I would go with a mid-line system and focus on getting the best video card that fits your budget. 1Gb of RAM seems to be where games are going, or some of them anyway, so don't corner yourself by filling up all your DIMM slots with little modules or something. A Pentium4 2.4C or AthlonXP 2500+, paired with an i865 or nForce2 Ultra 400 board respectively, and 2 x 512Mb PC3200 modules, seems like a good foundation. Throw in the best video card you can afford, and upgrade to a 3.0C or a 3200+ later when the price is too good to resist

 

[ElFenix]

game developers aren't going to suddenly drop the vast majority of the market (and what will be the sales leader for at least a few more years to come) for a niche 64-bit platform.

 

[vfrex]

Music to my ears. I really appreciate your guidance in this. Thanks

 

[DaveSimmons]

As said above, game playing will not require a 64-bit CPU for many years. No game company would be stupid enough to release a game that won't run on the 99.99% of the market that will still be 32-bit. Even when AMD goes 64-bit intel will still have a larger market share and will still only be selling 32-bit CPUs for desktops.

Wait at least another 10 days for the release of the P4 3.2 GHz though, as it will hopefully drive down the price of the 3.0C and 2.8C. If you read any of the benchmarks you'll also see that you do want a P4 for games and not an XP 3200+ which is slower (for games) than a 2.8C P4.

After the 3.2C is out it will be wildly overpriced for the tiny speed bump over a 3.0C, so a 3.0C or 2.8C is what to get if not overclocking (or only slightly overclocking). The extra 200 MHz of a 3.2C will almost certainly not help in stretching the life of your machine.

With a 2.8C or 3.0C and an 128MB ATI 9800 Pro (or maybe an overpriced nvidia fx5900) you'll be able to play Doom3 and Half-Life2 well, and games released over the next couple of years. Even then you might just need a new graphics card.

 

[dakels]

IBM PPC970 64 bit chips for the new Mac G5 is supposed to be 32 bit backward compatible. Maybe new 64 bit software will also be able to run in a legacy mode which will run on 32 bit systems. If thats possible as IBM has already proven, that would make a helluva lot more sense then excluding most of your market. When have you ever seen new groundbreaking technologies for the mass market exclude compatibility with legacy technologies. It makes no sense because people will not all rush out and replace everything they have to adopt it.