New PC.. for Ultra Mode

OK... so my 9 year old dinosaur of a PC that i run on the lowest possible settings just to avoid headaches from low framerates finially died. I've been looking forward for the moment for a while as I couldn't justify a new PC as long as the old was still did what was needed (gaming isn't really seen as needed to my wife).

So.. thanks in no small part to Father Xmas's guide and a few other posts in this forum I'm, I've learned a lot about what I had lost track of in the last 10 years in the computer hardware world and am ready to start putting a machine together.

The way I see it, since this is a gaming machine (don't tell my wife), step one is pick a graphics card then build the machine around that, looking for combo deals and packages that get me the best deal from there.

Here's my delima. I'd hate to shell out $1200+ for a machine (and software packages) and not be able to run ultra mode. I looked around and don't see any specific recommendations as to what card I need to run Ultra Mode. I realize since Ultra Mode doesn't exist yet, you guys will be guessing and not have experience to back it up.

However, your guesses will be infinately better then mine. So please...guess/recommend away. What whats the minimum card you think i'd need to reasonably be able to play all aspects of this game in ultra mode?

Actually, Positron put out (preliminary) information (pre-holidays) on what would run ultra mode. Copied into the Paragon Wiki:

After demoing the Ultra-mode at HeroCon, one of the most frequently asked questions we have been receiving is “what are the video cards you recommend to get the most out of Ultra-mode?” With the holiday season coming up, we asked the programmers in charge of implementing the features of Ultra-mode what they would recommend. We would like to forward this information on to you so you can better work on your holiday shopping lists.

If you are looking to spend under US$100, then an NVidia 9800 GT is your best bet. For AMD (ATI/Radeon), we don’t have enough of these cards at this price point to get you good data. This would be the minimum card for enabling all the features, only at reduced quality settings.

If you are looking to spend between $100 and $200, the Radeon HD 4890 and GeForce GTX 260 will do you well. We don’t have numbers from the Radeon 57xx series yet to verify if that is better or worse though. This would end up somewhere in the middle of Ultra-mode quality.

Finally if you are going to spend over $200, the GeForce GTX 285 is an excellent choice. We don’t have numbers from the Radeon 58xx series yet. This would be able to run Ultra-mode with the quality maxed out (except we have no data on Anti-aliasing, so caveat emptor when it comes to that specific feature).

Note: This is based on our current internal testing and might change by the time Going Rogue is released. Also, a video card is not the ONLY thing you should take into consideration. Your PC having a decent processor and memory will also enhance your performance. As we continue to test and get more information available we will update you. I hope this helps, and happy holidays!

Personally, I put a Radeon HD 5770 into my new system - we'll see what happens when I fire that up.

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Excellent. I hadn't found that article yet.

While we're at it... suggestions on the version of Windows to get? ... assuming I'm going to be able to find somewhere to give me options.... I get the sense from posts here and elsewhere that Windows 7 isn't friendly yet.

Not sure where you get that sense - some people have problems. But some people had problems on Vista, some had problems on XP. Overall, yeah, it works on Win7 (I'm running it on Win7 Home Premium x64 now, and have run it on Win7 since the public beta, pre-release candidate, without issues.)

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Posi edited his post to include

Yeah sounds like the 5770 is going to be solid in the Price/Performance area. The 5750 might even be adequate. But there is a chance that Nvidia will release new cards before Ultra-mode comes out. Which could mess with prices and suggestions.

On the Windows 7 front I have been running it on all of my computers (even my netbook) since beta without any problems. I would absolutely suggest it over XP and more so over Vista.