Updating my Son's computer for Christmas

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Norske Division

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Hello Hard Forum Users,

I just found out that I'm getting a pretty sizable Christmas bonus this year, and I'm thinking of spending about $3,000 of it to get a new computer for me and my kids. My old Athlon MP 2600 GHZ setup seems a bit slow on the newest games which me and my son like to play such as Doom III. I also figured since all this new technology is coming out right now it seems high time to update. My current display is more than sufficient, so I'll be spending all of the money on components within the computer case.

In the past I've been a strictly Intel guy as that's what we've standardized on at work, but now AMD seems to the better purchase. The athlon 64 FX-55 looks like a decent CPU for gaming, but I'm wondering if it's possible to put it in a multi-processor configuration as I often run multiple virtual machines for testing. I'm also not sure if the Radeon X800 XT Platinum or a Geforce 6800 Ultra Extreme is a better purchase. Also, are these cards ever capable of recording broadcast HDTV signal?

Independent of which video card I buy I would like to get two of them in a PCI-E SLI setup, but I'm also unable to find any dual CPU motherboards which support this. Also, I don't like to waste money, so how much RAM should I buy to maximize performance but not waste money?

Thank you for your help,
Kjeld Hvatum
 
ok well the SLi mobos should be out by x-mass (i hope)
CPU looks fine id get a gig o mem with that 2x 512MB or even 2GB 2x 1GB
as for vid card the 6800 is only game in town atm for SLi and your best bet is dual GTs or Dual Ultras the Ultra EE is fue and farbetwen and runs 700-800 for one card
as for SMP your looking at the Optrons and socket 940 and useing regested mem
not that great for gaming but one FX55 is going to be uber any why then you can just wait it out for Dual core in 6 months and pop one of them in if you want your also going to need a BIG PSU some thing in area of 600w to be safe
 
As far as I know, Athlon FXs cannot be run in dual...you need Opteron chips for that. If you want SLi, you'll have to go with nVidia at this point; ATi does not currently even have public plans for a dual-video card interface (though it's pretty well known that they're working on one, just nobody knows when it's expected to come out). As far as recording HDTV goes, you'll need a TV tuner card that can process HDTV signals; the ATI HDTV Wonder is one of the only ones I can think of that can do that, and even then, I'm not fully aware of its recording capabilities.

I believe there is one company that makes a dual processor, SLi motherboard, but I'm not aware of which one it is. Not one of the major ones, that's for sure. You'd probably be best advised to wait for SLi to mature a wee bit before you get it, because it's been well documented that that are some niggly software issues with getting it to work.

And finally, I'd recommend at least 1GB of RAM. If you go with a dual Opteron setup, I'm pretty sure the RAM has to be ECC and Registered, so keep that in mind...ECC and Registered DDR400 can get pretty expensive.
 
How wonderful.

Well, there are no dual CPU boards that support SLI and never will be -- it is exclusive to the nforce4 chipset.

I'd recommend just going with the FX-55 and two ultras in SLI. You can only put Nvidia 6800 cards in SLI currently -- the XT-PE cannot do it. Good luck finding two PCI-express Ultras though.

Make sure you have a super-beefy power supply. I'd say the Pc Power and Cooling Turbocool 510 Deluxe is your best bet -- it's expensive (about $220 before all the options), but it'll do the job (oh, and more watts doesn't mean better).
 
FX-55 is pretty much unbeatable at almost anything. Unfortunately, "multi-processor" and "gaming" don't go together very well at the moment.

For SLI PCI-e, you need to wait for an nforce 4 motherboard, and you have to use nVidia 6xxx series graphics cards to do it. Dual 6800 GTs would be all the power you could use, really... you'd be limited by the FX-55, or any processor in the near future.
 
The Nforce 4's that support dual graphics cards , aka SLI mode, will be out soon.. but maybe not in time for christmas. just have to wait and see.

as far as dual cards you need 2 6800 ultras and make sure if your going dual processor and dual video cards to get a very very powerful powersupply.

id say a 500 W at least..

b/c your system is going to be sucking down some juice w/ all those processors, ram, hard drives, and Graphcis cards raging.

man.. i wish my dad got me something like that for Christmas.

Then again, i did get the ultimate hook up with an Nintendo with zelda, ikari warriors, mario, gyromite and that damn robo Rob. i damn near played zelda to the point of melting.
 
http://forums.pugetsystems.com/viewtopic.php?t=912

i know they're motherboards (the Asus A8N-SLI) are gonna start comingin today(12-10-04) I believe the video cards (6800GT PCI-E ) should start coming in around monday.

Just thought you might be interested in hearing that some places are trying to get SLI stuff out for christmas.
 
your gonna want a X800XTpe vivo for HDTV! :D


best available. 6800's no workie!
 
Adopt me :eek:

Dual processors for gaming isn't going to do as well as one FX-55.

Wait for the NForce4 boards (a week or so from coming out supposedly) and get one card for the time being and get a second when you can. That's the beauty of SLi :)

Also get reaaaallly fast memory. and a good powersupply....don't forget raptor's or audigy2 soundcard :)
 
I read some daft BBC survey that suggested that 80% of families argue over the computer, so make sure you keep the old one, maybe dropping in an nVidia 6600GT to keep it relatively on-pace for gaming ;)
 
I must agree with some of the previous posters; dual CPU workstations and high-end gaming rigs are still best kept as two different machines. My advice would be to wait untill after x-mas and grab that AthlonFX, two gigs of good memory, a 680GT PCI-E (two of them if you have the $$$), an Audigy2 ZS, and enjoy knowing that you've got one of the sickest rigs you can put together, allbeit with only 1 CPU.
 
yup 2nd that and then just wait for Dual core when that comes out slap one of them in there and BAM 2 CPUS hehe
 
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