[Calindor]

Well if you look at those benchmarks...the 4850 CF is getting like a 45-70% increase over a single 4870 or GTX280..let alone the increase over a single 4850 which is probably ~100%. I think the whole "cf and sli is a bad idea/problematic" is more from a year or two ago...it seems to be the way of the future, and keeps getting better.

I just cant justify getting a 4870 when for $100 more you can get 4850 CF, which is on par with 4870CF, which costs $200 more + a beefy PSU you would need for only a 3-5 FPS increase over 4850CF. 9800GTX SLI is an option as they are the same price, it comes down to whether NVIDIA or ATI cards run better on Aion.

Yes Q9450 is a great processor, but I wont be playing 2 games at the same time. Watching movies was never a chore for a dual core. The most I do is render pvp and guitar movies on vegas, but when doing that I dont play games, I'll watch a movie or just go afk...So, is the bonus you would get from a Q9450 in a MMO really worth it over an E8400 (which is like 60% the cheaper), which I could easily OC to 3.6ghz?

7200 rpm hard drives are still limited significantly by their minimum load times compared to a 10k raptor. A raid 0 setup on 7200 rpm will still be slower than 1 raptor + a storage hd...and raptors in raid will ofc be the best.





And yes a 4870 or certain spec might be able to walk all over Aion at 60fps or something...but mass pvp. L2 can drop by 80%...Tabula Rasa can drop from 90 to 30 fps..etc. It might be hard to imagine if you've never done something like it...loading a town of afk people is nowhere near loading a large group of characters all moving around and using animations.