Time to upgrade

[Jimbatron]

It's been just over three years since I got my trusty PC with a Core Duo processor, and it's served me well, but in the next month I am having a think about buying a whole new machine.

 

It's not specifically to play this game, but with EFLC being released next month, I want to be sure my new rig will run my favourite game fine - I'm also looking forward to the prospect of being able to crank up the graphics settings.

 

The hardware I'm thinking of getting shouldn't in theory be a problem. My current PC can cope fine on medium to high settings, and the one I'm going to buy will be much better. Although I haven't finalised my decision, I'm currently thinking of the following components: an i7 960 (3.2 GHZ), 6GB DDR3 Ram, and a GTX 280 2GB graphics card. As I say, this shouldn't have any trouble coping - in theory! However, we all know GTA IV is a very fussy game. If anyone has a similar spec to this already, I'd be keen to know what performance you can get, and if there are any issues.

 

My bigger concern is software. Having looked through this section, I've noticed a lot of people with high end PCs are suffering from poor performance, and it appears there is one common factor - Windows 7. Again, if anyone can offer any advice on this issue it would be most welcome. Ideally I want to get the most current opperating system - but I'm thinking either getting the Ultimate Edition (from what I understand this allows you to run application in XP mode), or a second hard drive that has Windows XP installed. Also, I'm guessing I ought get the 64 bit version to take advantage of new hardware - but does whether you have this or the 32bit version influence game performance?

 

Comments are most welcome - even if it is to tell me (politely) I'm an idiot and all my concerns are unfounded!

[LCstuntman]

I think this would be better suited in the Tech & PC section; you'll probably get more replies there too.

 

Anyways, I run AMD and ATI, so I won't be able to answer your first question. But I have Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit and it runs great on my rig, so I think you should go with Windows 7. Which version you get is entirely up to you; it depends on what features you are actually going to use, but you should no doubt go with the 64bit to take advantage of all of your RAM.