Recently I decided that I should tell everyone what my Fall 2008 future proof system might look like. I figure designing two systems(performance and budget) would be a great way to start this tech blog. I did not take budget into perspective when writing this one, just raw real world performance and value. So you wont see $1k over the top processors in here, they are almost always a waste of money. What you will find is a high end system worth the money.
I also want to point people to some of the best hardware review sights I have found so far. The first one is http://www.hardocp.com/ and is, in my opinion, the best site to go to when looking at graphics card benchmarks and overall gaming performance tests. The second is http://techgage.com which I found recently and they do extensive testing on Windows XP, Vista, and Gentoo Linux. The third is http://www.tomshardware.com/ and I recommend them if you can't find a review on the other two sites.
Also, you will notice that all of these sights tend to do tests on overclocking. I obviously overclock my computer but I don't recommend you overclock yours unless you know what you are doing. Just like I wouldn't install a NOS in my car without knowing how to handle the speeds and temperatures. I do however recommend you read the overclocking bits. In my personal opinion it gages the quality and potential lifespan of the chip. If a chip can run stable at significantly higher clocks than it was designed for and maintain good temperatures then the chip will most likely stay reliable longer than one that doesn't. Some people disagree.
Anyway, to the system.
Motherboard and RAM:
Picking the motherboard is probably the most difficult part of building a system. It is also the most overlooked part as well. Even if you have the best processor, RAM, and Graphics Card, a bad or even average motherboard can hinder the system to being a huge waste ofmoney. It also determines what kind of future upgrades you can get before redoing the entire system. Thats also why I put the RAM and Motherboard in the same category. In my opinion it comes down to basics. What will the standards for RAM and Graphics be using in 3 years. The answer is DDR3 and PCI-E 2.0, but its not quite that simple. You may have heard people mention before that DDR2 is slower than DDR. That is really only half true. When most people look at RAM they look at one thing only, the speed. When really they should be looking at both speed and timings. What are timings? Thats what determines how many cycles your RAM has to wait before it can be accessed again.
Let me put it this way. DDR at a clock speed of 400mhz with the timings 2.5-2.5-2.5-7.5 is the exact same speed as DDR2 at 800mhz with timings of 5-5-5-14 and that is the exact same speed as DDR3 at 1600mhz with timings of 10-10-10-28. The faster the ram the more difficult it is for the timings to be low. That is just how it is. That is why DDR2 was thought to be slower until about a year ago when low latency DDR2 showed up from Kingston, Corsair, and OCZ. The problem with DDR is that its max speed (without overclocking or in a select few cases of expensive performance ram) is around 400mhz. the second people came out with DDR2 5-5-5-15 at 1000mhz and low latency DDR2 800 it became faster. The same thing will happen with DDR3 in a couple years. For me it comes down to price and longevity. The fastest DDR2 is about equal speed as that of the current DDR3. DDR2 tops out at around 1300mhz with timings around 6-6-6-18 or for low latency ram there is 3-4-4-15 @800mhz while the fastest DDR3 is either 1866mhz with timings of 8-8-8-24 or at 1300mhz with timings of 6-5-5-15. Getting the 1300mhz DDR2 is not worth it because it is slower on timings and clock for about the same price as the DDR3 1333mhz @ $240 for 2gb. The DDR3 1866 is almost double the price of the 1333 DDR3 with only a minor speed increase. The low latency DDR2 is the best value at only $70 for 2gb but you will defiantly have to buy a new motherboard to get any faster ram. If you are going for budget then shoot for that but since I'm going for upgrade ability then the DDR3 1333 is what I would stick with.
There is also the prospect of the new PCI-E 2.0 standard for graphics cards. All motherboards that currently support it as of this writing are only ddr2 compatible and only give a 2-7% increase in speed so far over PCI-E 1.0. I have a suspicion however that SLI on the Nvidia 9800's will be significantly improved, though I haven't seen any SLI benchmarks for current 8800's. The way SLI works currently is to cut the 16x PCI-E slot into two 8x PCI-E slots, doubling your GPU's but cutting the information transfer on each in half. PCI-E 2.0 Doubles the bandwidth of SLI so that both cards are running at 16x(approx 5GB/sec btw) in SLI Mode. A hunch isn't really a good reason to switch however and anyone not interested in SLI should just stick with 1.0. That being said the best bang for your buck when it comes to motherboards is the Asus P5E3 Deluxe. You can find a review of it http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQxMiwsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0">here. If you brows around you can also find some reviews of that motherboard owning the xfx 780i and evga780i ddr2 pci-e motherboards.
Processor:
For the processor I would go with the new Intel Core 2 Duo E8400. Yes it is a dual core. I have yet to see any reason that a quad will EVER ever:reve be needed in the next four years other than for pointless boasting rights. Unless you are rendering Pixar quality 3D movies stick with a dual core. This graph from tech gage shows how little performance gain you get from a quad core in Crysis, the most advanced game graphically to come out yet. It has actually been future proofed with very high and the hidden ultra high settings so that the graphics and physics remain relevant for up to two years from now.
See? No gain. actually the dual core I recommend has an average fps slightly (minimally) higher than the $1000 quad core for about 1/7th the cost. to read that full review and find out exactly why I recommended that chip go here.
