I am upgrading my PC to a AM2 64X2 6000 with an ASUS crossfire SLI motherboard. Right now I am running a XFX 7900GT and plan to use it on new PC. Is it worth the money to buy another 7900GT and run SLI? I am building this for 95% gaming usage. I also plan to stick with XP Pro for now. Thanks
If you haven't already bought the CPU and Motherboard, don't. Core 2 Duos make far better gaming PCs. As for SLI, not IMO. You would be far better off getting a single, better graphics card like an HD3870 or 8800GT. It also means you can use a cheaper motherboard, with a better chipset, such as these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115029 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128086 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161218
I was told that since I am not running Vista that going to anything higher than a 7000 series video card would be a waste of money because of the Direct X version. Just what I was told.
Nope, the next gen Directx10 can only be pulled off by the latest cards, and the HD3870 even supports the as-yet unreleased DX10.1.
How about this setup: Not sure on RAM yet and might keep my 7900GT for now. Trying to keep this under 500 dollars.
The three components I listed come under $500, but if you want an entire PC replacement for that, then you'll obviously need to downscale a bit. The motherboard you've chosen is more expensive, and imo isn't really as good as its gigabyte counterpart. Since as I've already mentioned SLI isn't really worth it (especially with 7900GTs) there's no need to have an SLI board. The E8400 CPUs are fast, but they're not good overclockers, and have experienced a lot of problems early on. The E6750s overclock wonderfully and are much more reliable. Note: to add URLs, don't add the square bracket URL thing to the beginning and end, literally just paste the link right in and they'll work.
e8400 is amazing overclocker i seen people runnin it on 4ghz on air with no problems ,with bettwer cooling u could take it 4.5 with ease u just need a good motherboard to make that happen ,and for 7900gt sli u are better with 8800gt u can get it really chep now or ati 3870 more cheaper and later u can save money for another one ,and dont buy amd now stick with intel with new build
funky22: not for long you don't. The people who do that have to change their CPU every couple of weeks because they fail due to electronmigration. You can get an E6750 to near 4Ghz on air without any issues, but with the E8400, despite its higher initial speed, 4Ghz is difficult to achieve in such a manner that the CPU won't go up in smoke.
Thanks for all the great info. I don't really overclock anything I buy. As much as I game I probably should but I just don't take the chance that it might tear it up or be unstable. I have always bought ASUS and had good results, maybe it is time to try something different. Do I even dare ask ATI vs nvidia video? My goal was to get a MB, CPU, HDD to add to the one I have and do RAID 0, and 2G of RAM for under 500. Maybe I need to re-think this....
I never used to overclock my systems either, even my Athlon64 X2 stayed stock, and by the time those came out overclocking was relatively easy. It was after seeing the monstrous gains you could get out of the core 2 duo that I became an overclocker, and it makes such a difference to how my PC performs. At its stock 1800mhz my CPU is alright, but not that snappy. At its current 3150mhz it absolutely flies, and that helps with game performance significantly. A 75% overclock on a CPU that can be achieved in less than a minute of tweaks is ludicrous, and is something that past-generation overclockers would only have dreamt of. As for the board do to do it with, most of the folks here at after dawn are recent Gigabyte converts as their performance is exceptional, both for overclock potential and features. Asus boards are good, but only the really expensive ones - the midrange ones have proven soso in terms of build quality of late. On the ATi vs nvidia graphics front, it kind of boils down to personal preference. I typically elect and recommend ATi hardware because it offers superior image quality, but nvidia hardware will offer improved performance, but also at increased cost. Single-chip ATI cards go up to £130 for an HD3870, whereas nvidias go to £210 for the 8800GTX, which is 30% or so faster than the 3870. As for the dual systems on one card like the HD3870X2 or 9800GX2, for the 3870X2 not being able to shut down the 'spare half' of the card is going to wreak havoc for games that don't like crossfire, and the 9800 is prohibitively and unnecessarily expensive.
After all your guys great info I have pretty much decided to wait a little longer and bump up the budget. Here is my wish list: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=N82E16813128083 http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=N82E16814130318 http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=N82E16820220241 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115029 (Need help on overclocking when purchased) http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=N82E16822136195 (adding to one I already have to run RAID 0) Hope this will be a good gaming system. If you see something I should change let me know. Shooting to do this in May. Thanks again for all the great info.
The EP35-DS3P is a good board, just beware that it has a 16+4 PCI express bus, not 16+16, so for ATI Crossfire it'll be slightly slower than usual. If you're not planning on using crossfire, you may as well get the DS3R instead. The graphics card is fine, but the RAM is a little over the top. You'll probably do just as well with this stuff: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145043 The hard drive is fine, but DO NOT use RAID0. It is thoroughly inappropriate for almost all systems.
So is that a slower bus speed on that board and RAM? A fellow gamer told me that RAID 0 is helpful when it comes to load times in game. Not true or has adverse affects as well?
Adverse effects for most games. RAID0 increases transfer rate, so you can load large files much quicker, but increases access latency, so if there's lots of small files (often the case with modern games) it'll be even slower than before. That and the caveat of half redundancy - if one drive goes, all your data's gone from both drives. RAID is only realistic if you can afford to spend lots on a proper RAID card, and have numerous hard drives.
heya! It's being a while, anyway, Should i get 2x 9600GT (it outperforms HD3870 x2 most of the time) or should i get 9800GTX (reviewers say it's not worth it) so which option is better?
The 9600GT pair is a good combination, but it's lead over crossfire has diminished massively now ATI's drivers are making better use of crossfire at long last. If you're sticking with lower resolutions though, the nvidia route is still the better one - I'd recommend getting the pair of 9600s, they'll easily beat a 9800GTX if SLI is working properly. Just make sure you get a decent SLI motherboard.
Indeed, and a lot of them not very good. Gigabyte don't make socket 775 SLI boards, I'm curious to know why.
