[DBAN]

I was wondering which graphics cards are future proof for 1+ yrs? Obviously the top end ones but some are too expensive to consider. What are some characteristics to look for when buying a graphics card that you want to keep for a while? The games I'll be playing are all the new releases like HL2, FEAR, Bioshock, Assassins Creed, TF2, etc. Thx.

[Dave Hybrid]

9800's when they come out, think I read end of Jan.

[Cew27]

the 9800 will be out in june i heard

[alex]

I dunno. I'm having my doubts about DX10 cards fullstop, regardless of the spec of the thing.

Here's why: We've been hit before regarding a new version of DX. I think it was 7 or 8. Anyway nothing was really released, game wise, until the next version of DX was due to be released. Now the cards for (lets say dx7 to stop confusion) dx7 games had the grunt to play the new version of dx games, but they couldn't fully support them because of the new version of shader model as an example. And people are also being blindsided by the fact these dx10 cards fully support dx9 and are, for the high-end cards anyway, better than they're previous iterations (8800GTX more powerful than 7900GTX).

And let me tell you something you may or may not know: There is no, repeat no, true dx10 game on the shelves yet. That's right, not even Crysis. DX10.1 will also only be available with Vista SP1. Will your cards be compatible? No idea. They might be, not saying they won't but I simply haven't looked around yet. And I bet any answers you'll get will either be pure guesswork or ambiguous.

I get the distinct impression Microsoft have used the release of DX10 to make some of us purchase an os that wasn't ready for release, and still doesn't give the performance in games (despite all the promises) that XP does.

You want my opinion? Wait. If you can't wait, then hope. Lets just hope dx11 isn't just around the corner and we won't get screwed on our super duper hyped dx10 cards because they don't have support for shader model 5.0 or whatever is next after 4.0.

[Cew27]

the 8900 will be out mid this year and the 9800 will be out end of 2008 early 2009