New Computer

[Nyarlathotep]

I was hoping to hold off buying a new computer till after Spore was released but since my current systems chose to kill themselves and Spore seems to be following the Duke Nukem release schedule I have found the need to alter my plans. That being said I figuired I'd guage the opinions on a few broad questions:

Vista vs XP: My name purpose for any system is for gaming and I know that currently XP is superior but I wonder if anyone knows for how long and by how much. I'd like to avoid needing to upgrade to Vista for at least two years if I do go the XP route? Any opinions on this? (I know hard answers won't really be possible)

Quad Core Vs Dual Core: Does quad core really make any difference in performance?

Ageia PhysX Gimmick or real thing?

[Burt]

Vista vs. XP.

Only real benefit to Vista is DirectX 10 support - which I suppose isn't something to be discounted considering all the uber games utilising it in the near future (BioShock, Crysis, etc). Most people would probably tell you to stick with XP, but I'd say go for Vista. It aint as bad as folks make it out to be.

Quad vs Dual.

Quad won't give you any benefits in gaming for a few years yet. Go with Dual.

Ageia PhysX: Gimmick.

[fluffmonster]

Many hardware vendors have yet to catch up with Vista, so driver quality/support is spotty. Doesn't mean anything is wrong with Vista specifically, but it does make for headaches that don't happen under XP. I wouldn't even consider Vista until the first service pack is released anyway.

Otherwise, Burt has it spot on.

[Swift]

Vista vs XP: My name purpose for any system is for gaming and I know that currently XP is superior but I wonder if anyone knows for how long and by how much. I'd like to avoid needing to upgrade to Vista for at least two years if I do go the XP route? Any opinions on this? (I know hard answers won't really be possible)

Ehh...i have been running Vista since my upgrade a few weeks ago and i am yet to have a problem. Nvidias drivers seem to be up to scratch now, and that is the main thing you need to worry about on a gamer PC...apart from the games not working, but ive not had that issue either

For what it is worth though, the US Justice Department has let slip that microsoft are still working on SP3, which is not due until 1st half 2008, so XP has a bit of life left in it yet.

Quad Core Vs Dual Core: Does quad core really make any difference in performance?

Depends, do you like to have a huge penis or a truly gargantuan one?

Ageia PhysX Gimmick or real thing?

Now? Total gimmick. Virtually nothing supports it, and those that do utilise only a fraction of what it will be able to do, to the point it is nearly unnoticeable when compared to a system without it. Once the card comes down in price and more developers offload larger chunks of physics work to the card, it will be a more worthwhile investment. Skip it for now

[Grand Fromage]

Vista vs XP:

If Vista is ever necessary, it'll be a while off. Stick with XP.

Quad Core Vs Dual Core:

Not really useful to do quad now, though I hear HL2 will have support for it soon. Most games are just starting to use dual cores. I'd go ahead and get a motherboard that will be able to handle a quad upgrade later, though.

Ageia PhysX

Gimmick for now. I have a suspicion that with quad and more core processors coming out, it'll get passed over in favor of just using the bonus cores for physics processing.