Wait or Go Ahead? Building New Computer

GearSecond

for the past few months(almost a year, actually) I've been considering building my next computer. I realized if I diverted enough funds to the project, money would hardly be an issue, and I could make a top of the line computer.

My buy, up until a bit ago, hinged on one thing. The GeForce 9 series. With twice the power of a single 8800 Ultra, I figured one was plenty. With me waiting for the card to come out, which according to my source would be October at the earliest, or otherwise sometime in Nvidia's new financial quarter, I eventually decided I'd saved up plenty enough to buy 2 and get a dual-card set-up going.

The only problem? All information relating to it has disappeared. As far as I can tell, one of the cards in the series turned out to be an 8 series, so it seems most of the information was pulled, just in case they had it for the wrong card.

Yes, dual 9's would have been overboard. But I considered it future-proofing my computer. Allowing it to run twice as good as some of the best computers out there, at least, until it became the new 8800.

So with the potential of a release looming, and me holding back on buying so none of my parts would be obsolete by the time the card came out, I need to decide. Dual 8800 Ultras(which some already consider overboard) or try to get new information on the 9 series and wait. If it's worth doing, it's overdoing, but with less information out there now than a few weeks ago, I'm questioning if this is worth the wait.

Bounty1Berry

Well, you could pick a reasonable configuration (Core 2 Duo/Quad, Athlon X2), and a midrange "placeholder" video card (7600/8500 or even lower) now, and then when the 9xxx cards come out, get one then (or better yet, a few months after once prices are more sane).

Odds are the 9xxx cards will still fit into the same PCI-Ex16 slot as the 8xxx and 7xxx cards, unless nVidia wants to massively torpedo their business.

You might lean towards a SLI-capable board, so even further down the road, two 9xxx cards work. AFAICT, all SLI-compatible card pairs will work in all SLI-compatible boards, except for the 7900GX2 which was sold primarily to OEMs who would put it in pre-packaged systems– it was too finicky for prime time, and the rare ULI-chipset based motherboards (now pretty much a historical footnote except that I use one) which could run SLI with specific driver versions, but those drivers only support up to the 7800 or 7600.

One wildcard is that, by the time games come out which can use a 9xxx card to full potential, will there be something far more preferrable? For example, the 6800 cards were hot-running and loud, but the followup 7600GS offered comparable performance but runs cool and fanless-- if you bought a 6800, the 7600 looks damn appealing now.