NEW COMPUTER

The board does have dual pci-e. The X800gto is not sli capable. I dont think its worth the money for what masos trying to do. He could though in a couple of years make that an upgrade. The board has alot of room for growth. IE dual core, higher speeds and the sli.

S

If I were you, I would wait for Intel's next processor to come out. Its going to be 65nm, so it would be a heat demon like before, and the new Memron mobile processors which are supposed to be slower are putting a hurting on AMD. From what I know from the industry, and a few people who I know "who are in the know" about June/July Intel intends to make AMD cry. I haven't heard anything from the AMD side, but Intel is talking about a brand new architecture and even the possibility of quad cores this summer.

Personally I might be replacing my one of my current machines when that happens:

Machine 1 (Game machine):
P4 3.4Ghz LGA 775
ASUS PGAD2 (925xe) If you get a MoBo, get an Asus with a cooling plate on the back.
2 Gigs DDR2 Ram
2 x WD Raptorr 72G HD's. Raid 0.
6600GT PCI-e 128.
DVD+/- RW

That machine is almost a year and a half old now. So it needs to be updated in another 8-9 months

Machine 2: (Internet machine)
P4 3.0 (478)
Intel 865 MoBo
1 Gig DDR Ram
120GB Maxtor SATA HD
DVD +/- RW
DVD-Rom
ATI 9600XT (WORST CARD EVER!)

If you want my opinion. If you bought a machine for gaming, I would go AMD Dual Core. Intels dual core offering is currently not up to par, but if you wait a few months it will be and more. I am also going Intel in hopes that the Mac OS will be hacked/availble for the PC once Intel based Macs come out around june. I happen to love the Mac OS, but don't have the $$$ to get a power mac currently.

On hard drives, if you can afford a western digital raptor drive, these things are speed demons. Love'em. They do make a difference, and are the fastest drives out by around 20-30% still. Nothing competes unless you go SCSI.

As for Graphics cards, the 6600GT is the best bang for you buck, or you can wait until Nvidia releases the 7600GT. Right now they don't have to because they have ATI beat on the high end with the 7800 series, and the mid series they have the new 6900 varient out with the 6600GT bringing up the back end. Bang for the buck they own ATI right now. Not saying ATI doesn't have good cards out, but nVidia has them for value.

On the subject of cases, this is why I build my own machines. Antec puts out some nice ones, and there are a few others out there as well. Alienware used to use antec's, and still does to my knowledge. A cheap case will almost always result in heat, sound, or space issues down the line. On top of that they cut your hands up when you work in them. A couple extra bucks is always nice here.

As for powersupplies, don't skimp here. Tomshardware did a P/S round up a few months ago. Their results were actually quite surprising. About half of the P/S's out their failed their stress tests. Some blew fuses, and nearly caught fire. If your pumping out 500-600W of power on a new machine, get a good power supply for safety reasons. I happen to be an Antec man here as well.

In short, Sergon's pointing you in the right direction with AMD. I would good duel core what ever way today, as many programs are getting SMPC support. Call of Duty, Quake, Doom all got patched for it. Far Cry as well to my knowledge. This will also give you PCI-e on your machine, which is a must. IDE is dead, AGP is dead, and so is a VGA connection. DVI is about the hottest thing out there. I got a 20.4" Samsung 204T hooked up DVI. It is so sweet.

G/L with you new machine.

Its about time intel put out something revolutionary. It's been a long time. They have been an evolutionary comapny for too long. I dont care which company you go with. In the current scheme of things AMD is a better gaming cpu atleast price/performance wise. I build both types of computers for family and friends according to what they want. At the time I built mine the newest thing was the A64. I have had very good luck with this machine and I can honestly say this was the first machine I was actually "Impressed" with.

If you want to go with intel by all means do so. I was just making the suggestion from my experiences. I am not a Zealot for either company. AMD did overtake Intel in the X86 market this year and that is from the price/performance they can provide. If this new cpu intel is putting out is reasonably priced and rocks I will probably upgrade to it when the upgrade time comes.

S

so adding two video cards that are different wont add anything to a machine???

For example. I took apart my old computer added it to my wifes. She now has a DVD player, 2 hard drives, 2 gigs total ram, and a new 5700 Geforce. Would it be beneficial to install a 5600 and a 5700 at the same time??

also on Hard Drives the dif between 7,200 RPM vs 10,000 RPM .... does it create a heat increase ??? and how much does it affect the system?

No it wont be beneficial unless its the newer cards that support sli and the board has to as well.

Check these links out

Hard drives
http://www.storagereview.com/

Video/SLI

Ati
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2432
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2541

Nvidia
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2258
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2442
S

If you go sli Im sure youi will need a bigger power supply as well.

S

As well as the connectors for PCI Express cards.

Well Im a happy camper I managed to pick up one of these off ebay for $160. Ill let you know what I think of it next week.

http://www.onsale.com/onsale/shop/detail.asp?dpno=603323&store=onsale&source=bwbfroogle&adcampaign=email,bwbfroogle&wt.mc_id=bwbfroogle

S

Nope.

Heh the card came in yesterday. Its one of the ones that can be flashed up to XTPE levels and the full 16 pipes. Flashed it and it worked like a charm. I will need some better cooling if I wanna run it up that high but im very very pleased with my ebay purchase. I basically got a $400 card for $160.

S

Nice, I didn't know there were still a bunch of those out there.

http://stores.ebay.com/Dealtree-Inc_Computers-Office-Products_W0QQcolZ4QQdirZ1QQftidZ2QQtZkm

The same place I got mine from. If your interested. Ill probably get the Zalman cooler and clock the shhit out of it.

S

Got a Zalman coming in next week off ebay for $30. So im good to go.

S

Yup Tyler built Neanix's comp and its great. I think we basically got the same stuff as an alienware that cost about 4 grand more than what we paid. I need a new computer now but I hardly ever do any gaming so I'm just going to get one of the dell xps. So when i want to game i'm able to. But all we did was tell Tyler how much we wanted to spend and he got us the best of everything he could for that much, it worked out really well.

You guys have basically the same machine I do and Im in no hurry to get rid of this one. I upgraded the video card and it should be good for another couple years.

S