Completely Stuck

[hugo]

Every opinion and recommendation has been different, I need some solid grounding in where to go .

Buying a completely new system and can't see where to go from the videocard point of view.

Probably going to get:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Winchester (939)
Crucial 1GB (2x512MB) DDR PC3200 Ballistix Dual Channel

Now it gets tricky with the motherboard. Do I wait for the nForce4? nvidia or ati? Sli-ready or not? Two 6600s seem to be more expensive than one 6800GT, worth it?

Basically what is the best performance/price way to go

The budget of the system is about 850 quid, about 1600 USD.

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[CleanSlate]

Just get the 6800GT, two 6600's aren't worth the money and don't perform as well as one 6800gt SLI'd. Later you can get a cheap 6800gt to nearly double performance.

Nforce4 may take a while as well, so go for something (if you are impatient) quick.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=845296

~Adam

 

[BossNoodleKaboodle]

Two 6600's in SLi isn't worth doing compared to one 6800 GT or Ultra on a decent AGP board.

 

[hugo]

Thanks for the suggestion Adam.

BossNoodleKaboodle are you suggesting I don't get a PCI-E board/card?

 

[TheGamerZ]

I'd suggest getting a PCIe motherboard just for future proofing, but get a single 6800GT rather than 2 6600GT's.

 

[mentok1982]

SLI right now is not good for anything but the following:

Getting insane scores (over 8,400) in 3DMark05.
Getting more FPS in Domm 3 and Far Cry than any single card. (Other games do not stress 1 card enough to allow 2 cards to do better)

I would do a a motherboard with PCI E. It does appear to be the wave of the future and it will allow this new system to be more future "proof".

If you do want a 939 motherboard with PCI E, most boards require DDR2 memory however there are more coming out that allow you to use regular DDR.

Here is a Gigabyte K8NF-9 for $159.00.


Here is a MSI RS480M2-IL for $169.00.

 

[BossNoodleKaboodle]

I'd suggest getting a PCIe motherboard just for future proofing, but get a single 6800GT rather than 2 6600GT's.

He's not going to be future proofed at all. The CPU sockets will change and then even his PCI-E board will be obsolete. The cost to value ratio of the more expensive SLI boards isn't significantly good to make them attractive. You'll be able to run just about anything at 1280x1024 with AA and AF on a 6800Ultra or even GT. SLi 6600's is a gimmick. Sli 6800's is killer but expensive. There are lots of good AGP boards out there that will hold you over til the real major architecture changes come with the completely new Intel and AMD chips that will be out well before AGP is phased out. Pentium 4 is nearing the end of its life, and AMD is sure to bring a major overhaul when Intel does. The time for super costly upgrades is near, but not here.

 

[Mojo]

Just get a regular 6800GT. You won't notice the difference.