should I buy a new desktop???

[terminator02]

I bought in 2004 a dell xps notebook with the MR9800 graphics card. it runs everything pretty well, but I am overworked and underpaid and demand the best in 3d gaming. I was going to go with an SLI rig, but I feel with the next gen of consoles coming out relatively soon, I would be foolish to spend an obscene amount of money on something that will look inferior to a 400 dollar xbox xenon. Would I be better off just using my xps for now and holding off on the sli rig until better processors and better duel graphics cards are out? I know the fx55 will have a successor soon and the 6800 ultras have been out for some time now. Looking to gain some insight on my dilemma.
Dave

 

[Phil]

I'm not sure you'll find a lot of answers in this forum here. I suspect most users like myself here don't bother too much with PC gaming at all... i.e. I have no idea what's even out sans Half Life 2 and a couple of others to make gaming on PC even worthwhile to my time.

IMO, with next generation starting early pretty soon with Xenon - I'd say give it a wait. At least til E3 when more information is likely to surface.

 

[Acert93]

Buying a PC just for games is an expensive proposition. It sounds like you have a nice Laptop though!

As for the games, well, I think the next year the PC is going to be heads and shoulders above everyone else. If Xenon launches in fall 2005 like we expect I doubt it will have a huge library of games. On the other hand, if you compare the top of the line games out now, and expected to come out soon, well it seems the PC is just a great place to game right now and for the next year.

Recent PC Titles worth checking out:

Rome Total War
Warhammer 4k Dawn of War
Sid Meier's Pirates!
Sims 2

World of Warcraft
Everquest 2

Half-Life 2
Chronicles of Riddick
Call of Duty United Offensive
Far Cry
UT 2004
Painkiller
Doom 3 (cannot think of many console shooters better)
Tribes Vengance

Soon coming games to keep your eyes on:

Battlefield 2
Brothers in Arms
Kotor II
FEAR
Stalker
Matrix Online
StarWars RTS
Maybe Elder Scrolls IV?

And a ton of good racing games are out or are coming out. The question is can you afford to blow the money on a PC gaming rig. My brother just built a system (AMD64 skt939 3200+, PCIe MB, 1GB RAM, 250GB HDD, 6600GT, case, silent PSU, DVDRW, WinXP Pro) and it came up to ~$1100. You could cut off a good chunk by going down to something like:

3000+ 754 ($145), Cheap Case/PSU ($40), 512MB DDR 400 ($70), AGP 6600GT ($200), AGP MB ($65), 80GB HDD ($60), old version of Windows. That comes to $580 but you would still need KB/MS/SPK/Monitor.

Obviously the questions for you are: Do you only play games on the PC or would it be used for email, browsing, shopping, work, etc... The other question is: Are there PC only games out now, or coming out, that you want to play.

The PC has some awesome games out right now (HL2, WoW, RTW are not going to be exceeded on the consoles any time soon it appears) and also some great looking games coming over the next year or two.

It just depends on how much money disposable income you have and what games you enjoy. I enjoy PC gaming because of the high resolution of the monitor and free online play for the games I play. But some people do not like PC games much or FPS so the PC may not be best for you. That is something you have to decide for yourself