In case anyone is still replying to the Forum, is £1000 enough to last me about 7 years. Despite reducing graphics to the lowest of the low, would the performance perhaps be good

Neobrio

7 years?!
Ehhh... perhaps a 8800 GTX ($600) and a Intel Quad Core Q6700 (2.66GHz x 4) ($530 in a couple of months) will run the low/lowest settings in 7 years

Thats if the GPU and the CPU are still alive in 7 years, and dont get an ATI if you want your video card to survive 7 years, they tend to overheat more than the Nvidia's (I should know, I've compared their lifespan xD)

And be ready to update to your RAM up to 4GB at the end of those 7 years

Welcome to PC gaming

It depends on what things you buy, if you buy the actualbest CPU/GPU around, you'll probably play highest settings in every game for the next 2-3 years, after that, it will become a mid range system

My 8800 GTX will probably be a mid range card within the next 2 or 3 years, then ill have to get a new card :(
That's the bad thing about pc gaming, but in the other side, a high end pc right now will own the PS3 and the 360 until the PS4 and Xbox w/e comes out ^^

Better get a 1 x 1GB card so when the games start using more than 2GB, you will have 1 more slot to upgrade to 3GB or 2.5GB

But yeah, if you want to max out every game that exists right now, you should upgrade to 2GB
1.5GB will do fine on XP though, but we are already at the 1.5GB line so better get 2GB

About when the games will cross the 2GB line... I have no idea, but perhaps when Windows release their next OS in a couple of years, probably yeah... we will need 3GB ^^

Ialready posted this in a similar thread but it should help here also:

After monitoring many games that requires lots of ram like UT2k4 online, Oblivion, and C&C3 in a 8 players map, and all games at highest details, the RAM usage has never gone past 1.45GB
Full specs in case someone asks: Core 2 Duo 1.86GHz, Geforce 8800 GTX and 2GB RAM at 667Mhz
And dont tell me my processor is the bottleneck, everything runs at max and im waiting for the Intel processors to drop price soon ^^

Im using XP btw, but I would say 2GB is the best at the moment, but after more and more games come out, the usage will be getting closer to the 2GB line

After monitoring many games that requires lots of ram like UT2k4 online, Oblivion, and C&C3 in a 8 players map, and all games at highest details, the RAM usage has never gone past 1.45GB
Full specs in case someone asks: Core 2 Duo 1.86GHz, Geforce 8800 GTX and 2GB RAM at 667Mhz
And dont tell me my processor is the bottleneck, everything runs at max and im waiting for the Intel processors to drop price soon ^^

Im using XP btw, but I would say 2GB are the best at the moment, but after more and more games come out, the usage will be getting closer to the 2GB line

my G80 GTX idles about the same, should I worry?dDFoxy

Idles at 70C? maybe you should, mine idles at 57C and goes all they way to 67-70 when busy o.O

If you dont mind more power consumption and having a bit noisy card go for the HD

(Check the guru3d review, its pretty extensive and should give you every detail)
http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/431/

Oh and i forgot to mention that it goes all the way up to 90 C when playing...which is insane xD
So good luck and i hope they fix those temperature issues with better drivers or something

And if i were you i would go for the GTS... just because ive had bad experiences with ATI cards but maybe its just my luck