[WTE_Galway]

Originally Posted by mazex

As a hardware nerd (and developer) I have to add my opinion regarding this subject - no offence! Even though flight sims really are CPU intensive, a cheap GPU can cripple any game - as all games today are very GPU dependent. A CPU of the latest generation never does that. I'm sure you do not mean a Geforce 8500 or something like that, but still...

My advice (if buying today):

* Buy a Wolfdale Core 2 CPU in the 8xxx series. Those 45nm babies overclock like maniacs. Two cores will be fine as it would surprise me a lot if SoW:BoB will gain from 2->4 cores taking the Ghz loss/$ in consideration. If it makes good use of 2 cores, I will be very happy. The midrange darling E8400 costs ~$170 today.

* Buy an Nvidia or ATI GPU of the latest generation for at least $270 - lets say a Radeon HD 4870 if starting in the low end.

* Buy 4Gb of decent Ram for about $150

Calculating the price for the stuff above gives me this prio:

GPU ($270)->CPU($170)->Ram($150)

To complete the chain, add a P45 Mb and a good PSU and the other minor stuff in that cost prio order.

It would surprise me if a rig like that does not run SoW:BoB at medium settings or more, even if it arrives in late 2009. It would loose to much market if a machine like above cannot run it decently. Reviewers would cut it down if the graphics are not in another league than other games out there. They will not make to much fuss about the huge maps as opposed to Crysis little island when writing their sour remarks about 13 fps on a good gaming PC from last year...

That is MY opinion, and there are a lot of other opinions out there

/Mazex

No matter what low end graphics options the game provides you are always going to get idiots complaining their 5 year old rig gets less than 1 fps at max settings.

In someways its politically better to disable the high end settings in a new game. You will disappoint the small number of dedicated gamers with new rigs but avoid a lot of whining


I have always found it odd that people will spend thousands of dollars a year on other hobbies (try joining a major golf club or maintaining a motocross bike or ski boat) but expect to buy a gaming PC and have it remain current with no money spent for 5 or more years.