I have been working with MP for about a year now, with a 1.8G Athlon and NVidia 7600GS card with Vista and would like to upgrade my system. It seems that single core is not enough even if you have Hw acceleration.
My current system Is too noisy, occasionally freezes, has jitters and cant cope with HD, so it looks as though I am going to have to build almost completely afresh, though I would like to re-use some of the TV cards I have invested in and have space for DVBS2 card when I need it. I dont think I can get away with less than 3 PCI slots so it looks like I cant go mATX.
I dont want to skimp, but equally dont want to spend more without reason.
I want a single seat which is dedicated to MP, at least 1080i HD over HDMi (cos that what my TV accepts). I would like to put sound down the HDMi, but also already have a 5:1 surround sound system
Questions are:
1 Intel or AMD CPU (or this purely a religious matter)?
2 Do I gain anything by going more than 2 cores and should I go for the faster or cheaper/cooler ones?
3 I am likely to go for graphics on the mobo and am thinking about the Nvidia 8300 - or should I go the AMD graphics route.
4 XP or Vista?
Any thought and/or mobo recomendations welcome.
Regards Colin
My current system Is too noisy, occasionally freezes, has jitters and cant cope with HD, so it looks as though I am going to have to build almost completely afresh, though I would like to re-use some of the TV cards I have invested in and have space for DVBS2 card when I need it. I dont think I can get away with less than 3 PCI slots so it looks like I cant go mATX.
I dont want to skimp, but equally dont want to spend more without reason.
I want a single seat which is dedicated to MP, at least 1080i HD over HDMi (cos that what my TV accepts). I would like to put sound down the HDMi, but also already have a 5:1 surround sound system
Questions are:
1 Intel or AMD CPU (or this purely a religious matter)?
2 Do I gain anything by going more than 2 cores and should I go for the faster or cheaper/cooler ones?
3 I am likely to go for graphics on the mobo and am thinking about the Nvidia 8300 - or should I go the AMD graphics route.
4 XP or Vista?
Any thought and/or mobo recomendations welcome.
Regards Colin