3D or No 3D?

[Ownaholic]

Hey everybody, I'm brand-new here, and I'm just looking for some good opinions on 3D gaming.

I'm building my own computer for the first time in my life, and I figure now is the perfect time to incorporate 3D technology, if ever.

I just want to know if you guys think 3D is worth the high cost of implementation; for both modern-day games, and future games over the next 5-6 years. (That is how long I plan for this rig to last, given the high-end technology that I will be putting into it)

I think it would be so awesome to be able to play WoW and Starcraft 2, among other games, in 3D. It might be the final push to make me go PC primarily for my gaming rather than console, because the idea of looking down a sniper scope in 3D just sounds spectacular. And could you imagine playing Dead Space 2 in 3D? *shudder*
I guess there's always movies too, provided that I get a blu-ray player.

I've searched online, and I've read mixed feelings about it. From what I've read, it seems that the few who have tried it, love it, and those who haven't, just don't like the prospect at all. I've read both that it increases overall game immersion, and I've also read that it actually can take away from immersion and severely hinder your accuracy.

Is it because the more hardcore gamers don't really care much for the idea, or is it rather because the high cost of entry is feeding their resentment?

The problem is that I've honestly never seen anything in 3D before, aside from stuff like Virtual Boy back in the day (which gave me headaches after prolonged exposure, but I think that was because of the angle you had to sit in to use it, and the poor technology of the system).

I don't have any friends that have any 3D technology, so I can't really sample the technology anywhere up close and personal. I doubt it would bother me or give me headaches now, since the technology has gotten so refined, but my main concern is that it will just end up being a novelty rather than a practical component of my regular gaming experience.
I don't expect to use it every single time I play a game, but it would be nice if it turns out to be so good that I'd feel the urge to turn it on every other day or so (if not more).

In layman's terms, is the high cost of 3D gaming hardware (the extra $100 for a 120Hz monitor versus a regular 60Hz monitor, and the other extra $100 for the nVidia hardware) worth it?

So tell me your 3D gaming experiences, and let me know what you think I ought to do. I really want to give it a shot, I just don't want to waste $200 on technology that I'll hardly ever use. My best friend who is also a gamer thinks it's just a dumb novelty gimmick, while my non-gamer girlfriend thinks it would be pretty neat.

Thanks a million guys!

 

[jonnyp11]

first thing to note is that it's more than 200 buck tech, closer to a 300 buck gpu, or 2 over 100 bucks, a expensive monitor, a good mobo and psu, and either a i5 or i7 to wrap it up with todays best cpu's that can handle all this, and your looking closer to 1k for the pc and more for the monitor.

 

[Ownaholic]

first thing to note is that it's more than 200 buck tech, closer to a 300 buck gpu, or 2 over 100 bucks, a expensive monitor, a good mobo and psu, and either a i5 or i7 to wrap it up with todays best cpu's that can handle all this, and your looking closer to 1k for the pc and more for the monitor.

That's a bit of a farfetched price, from what I've researched lately.
My $200 extra price tag comes from the fact that an nVidia 3D kit is roughly $100, and the difference between the monitor I've been looking at, and an equivalent 120Hz monitor is $100; = $200 extra total. I would not be changing anything about my build, which is pretty solid on it's own.

I would say that the AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition Thuban (And Realistically, an AMD Phenom II X4 955 would be plenty), a GeForce GTX 550 Ti, and 8 gigs of RAM, is plenty sufficient to run 3D at an optimal level. There is no need for a $300 graphics card, unless I'm trying to hit ultra everything.
And when 3D is off, that GPU is perfectly sufficient to hit ultra settings on most modern games. With it on, I'm betting medium, to medium-high settings.

 

[jonnyp11]

true i guess, right now if you can i'd w8 untill late september or whenever we get real bulldozer specs, cuz currently intel kills amd, 2500k beats that in almost everything but en/decoding, and games threaded for more than 4 cores, if there are any, idk thow, but also ivy-bridge is supposed to be on 1155 i think, it or sb-e i know, which will most likely beat bulldozer.

 

[linkin]

^ mate you need to do more research before giving people incorrect information.

Bulldozer has a hinted "mber 19th" release date which could be sept, nov or dec, but there is still no official release date that the publics knows of.

Secondly, Intel kills AMD in everything, including encoding, except for bang-for-buck. A 2500k on newegg is $219.99, a 955BE is $119.99 - that's $100 less for 75% of the performance. Intel is sticking with 4cores/8threads for a while with higher IPC (instructions per clock) Where AMD is overing more overall cores with the same performance per core as the X4 chips (irrelevant with bulldozer around the corner though)

SB-E should be on 1155, It's mainly just a die shrink though. Ivy Bridge is Socket 2011 and again from what I've heard is just a die shrink and tweaks, which should still bring better performance than SB-E and SB.

Apart from that, we still know nothing of SB-E or Ivy or Bulldozer performance, nothing reliable anyway, so saying that one thing will beat another when they both aren't released yet is pointless.

As for the OP, 3D is a needless cost and performance hog for what it brings. When they can do it properly with little added cost and little performance hit, it gets interesting to me.

 

[jonnyp11]

where are yall getting the mber, and btw why would the bulldozer giveaway on amd's site say winners draw between like september 9 and something i think, i haven't seen it there but someone told me bout that.

 

[linkin]

where are yall getting the mber, and btw why would the bulldozer giveaway on amd's site say winners draw between like september 9 and something i think, i haven't seen it there but someone told me bout that.

From the comic that has been floating around the web and looked at by various pc and review sites. Some corny AMD comic, on a note in one panel it has "mber 19th" on it, which apparently is a hinted release date. Can't know for sure.

Oh and proper spelling and grammar is really helpful as well