AMD Setup

Bobo

banned
Well you could order pretty much everything except the video card(s), because it seems that we are set on everything but that.
 

PC eye

banned
If the offer for free shipping beats the costs of the same items ordered from another vendors with lower prices you would calculate the total by that. At times the shipping and handling costs will tally for items ordered at different times while costs can still get up on one time orders as well. But for what you are after you don't have to go with any top of the line video card just for a 1 to 2hr. daily game session. The reviews always seem partial mainly due to the favor shown towards one model over others. But there are adequate cards out there using either ATI or NVidia softwares. Your decision.
 

Cab00se

New Member
well it still sorta matters because if I got crossfire over SLi it would be a different motherboard is all.

I was thinking just getting the 7900GT for now and another later in SLI but if you think just get one now and maybe by x-mas even get a new dx10 card then maybe I'll just get a non-sli board and get a x1800xt or something? I hear that card has better anti-aliasing than the 7900GT although there again just hearsay most likely
 

PC eye

banned
You still have to with what is best for your wallet as well as long term usage. The rest of the hardwares already look good the way they are. It's now choosing the best card for your model board within reason. Later when prices see a drop you can spend the extra to go after higher end performances.

The thing most noted in games is not so much the particular card as is memory and system temps. If you run a system all day long and then start gaming the temps will climb fast. Your hardwares are then being loaded. Plan on cooling as well as what card(s) you end up with. A periiodic run of a good memory tester like memtest can save a few headaches by spotting things early like failing dimms or the need for reconfiguring hardwares. As for the X1800XT read some reviews on that model as well.
 

Cab00se

New Member
yea, thanks pceye, you are very knowledgeable and I hope by the end of this I can return the favor to someone else who needs some help.

with the DFI lanparty board though, I read some reviews that seem to think its a OCers board and since I dont really necessarily do that, and there are sometimes issues I've read about with it,

would this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813123246
be any better because it's cheaper and seems to still have everything I want.

looks like there's some good ram up for 130-150 dollar range some are just that cheap but some are after mail-in-rebates which are always iffy. the G.skill ones are http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16820231047
just that cheap with 2.5-3-3-6 which seems to be as fast as the Corsair XMS with heat spreaders.

Bear with me in the next week lol
 

Cab00se

New Member
I just heard about how if the board I buy is only 8x PCI in each slot then the card will run slower until I get SLI if I only have one card as opposed to just a one slot board running at 16x is this true?

Also, the person who said that recommended http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131568

seems a lot more expensive but he said it was really good.

Also, the case I was going to get has the window but he strongly recommened getting the non-windowed one so that it has the cooling vents over the GPU and CPU. How important is this?

Lastly, he put some doubt in my mind regarding the AM2 and DX10 cards, basically said if I buy now it will be obsolete by x-mas and not last me.

How true is any of this?
 

PC eye

banned
Essentially twin cards at 8x supposedly double the bandwidth. A single card on a PCI-E 16x board can run upto 16x when the support is there. The Asus model board seen on the link is one of the latest models with the SLI capability. Asus does have a knack for being a little ahead of other brands. Other then a few bad boards getting out they generally hold a good standard and receive some great reviews. Plus you can save nearly $50- here at, http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=BA22016

As far as the DX10 cards being obsolete by the end of the year is rederic since Vista will be using that when released this summer. The cards you are currently looking at while browsing around are still DX9 capable. You have to remember one thing here that Vista is the OS that will require DX10 not XP. And you will be able to run DX10 on DX9 cards like you could DX9 on DX8 cards since it is a simple upgrade of the DirectX capability. The games you see online or in stores have a minimum of DX9 while many available will DX8. The most you would see at that time is some newer models being marketed.
 

Cab00se

New Member
so essentially you're saying that 7900 series will be fully capable of running the DX10 upgrade but it was not originally built for that but will still function well. (Although I don't know if my school will allow us to upgrade to Vista anyway because they want us all on XP pro for networking stuff).

And I suppose you like that board as well then, I might have to get that from mwave then because newegg seems a bit expensive for the first time ever. Maybe there will be a sale or something. The more I hear about ASUS everyone seems to think they are the best way to go for mobos so I will probably lean towards them, DFI sounded good initially but I don't plan on doing any extreme overclocking maybe just a minor amount for the GPU so it's ok.

I assume the X2 will be comparable to the AM2 in speed and not be that much of an increase or am I mistaken about that?
 

spraybottle

New Member
Let, me join this conversation :)
As for your question on X2 being comparable, here is a review I found:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2738&p=4
From there you can see if there's a difference.
As for your board, yeah, that is a nice motherboard. To tell you truthly, I'm quite dissapointed that Newegg had a higher price than the website shown, as I'm a Newegg fan boy. But, as things go, always buy from the cheapest places! Although, you should note that the thing is going to arrive at a different time than all the other stuff that will be bought from Newegg
 

PC eye

banned
Some of those dual core models stand out. Personally it's still a toss up between an Asus or MSI board that will see an Opteron 185 2.6ghz cpu on it. That will have to wait until the price drops a little after January 1st however. The one thing that makes Asus a preferred brand is the easy access to support for updates and utilities.
If you go with an Asus like the one there be sure to look on the board cd or go to the utilities section for the PC Probe V2 or whatever number is there at the time. It's an excellent temp monitor with an adjustable overheat shutdown bar with an audio alert that lets you know if something starts cooking. You set that where you want the max to be and... beeeeeeeep! will let you know. Asus also has an auto shutdown overheat protection circuit in there for the cpu.
 

PC eye

banned
spraybottle said:
Let, me join this conversation :)
As for your question on X2 being comparable, here is a review I found:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2738&p=4
From there you can see if there's a difference.
As for your board, yeah, that is a nice motherboard. To tell you truthly, I'm quite dissapointed that Newegg had a higher price than the website shown, as I'm a Newegg fan boy. But, as things go, always buy from the cheapest places! Although, you should note that the thing is going to arrive at a different time than all the other stuff that will be bought from Newegg

Hey TigerDirect used to be the main vendor around here. They did have an excellent return/exchange policy. But mwave was spotted some time ago and the price war began. Sometimes you had to go back and forth since one would have a better deal on this and the other had a bargain on something else. Never had problems with either. But price shopping is what is always done here first.
 

spraybottle

New Member
Hehe, pricewar... Of course that would be better for us as the prices would drop... :) but what about Newegg? Everyone loves newegg.. I mean it litterally has the words "new" on it!! But, I guess I should start looking at other websites also for the price differences...
 

Cab00se

New Member
yea because honestly, I just configured my system on mwave, actually a little bit better even for like 100 dollars less in the end.

Not that with a few deals come 2 weeks from now newegg couldn't be the one in charge.(get it?)

anyway, interesting to look for different prices all around.

Thanks for the article about the AM2, that pretty much helps me make my decision that it doesn't off that large of an increase and I would rather have my computer ASAP this summer so i'll stick with X2 4400 Toledo.

I think I'll look at some ASUS and MSI boards and make a final decision this week or next week and then choose a card based on the board I like, although right now it looks like I might do the 7900GT because the increase in performace to the GTX just doesn't show itself at my LCD monitor's 1280x1024. Which incidently, looked absolutely horrible and I was going to replace at 1024x768 but then tonight after I read your article about "native resolutions" I tried the native 1280x1024 and it looks like night and day. Just breathtaking but of course the 512mb of ram and the x300 SE are killing the fps but I see potential.

So all that remains is to link it with a beefy rig. any thoughts on the case window/no casewindow and vents on GPU. I really like windows but if it will hurt performance I can rethink it I guess.
 

PC eye

banned
I haven't ordered from Newegg as of yet. But I have seen price differences there at times to compete with the other vendors when looking there to locate an item. One place that lists the different prices for an item seen at the various vendors they list can be found at: http://www2.shopping.com/xCH-computers
 

PC eye

banned
Cab00se said:
yea because honestly, I just configured my system on mwave, actually a little bit better even for like 100 dollars less in the end.

Not that with a few deals come 2 weeks from now newegg couldn't be the one in charge.(get it?)

anyway, interesting to look for different prices all around.

Thanks for the article about the AM2, that pretty much helps me make my decision that it doesn't off that large of an increase and I would rather have my computer ASAP this summer so i'll stick with X2 4400 Toledo.

I think I'll look at some ASUS and MSI boards and make a final decision this week or next week and then choose a card based on the board I like, although right now it looks like I might do the 7900GT because the increase in performace to the GTX just doesn't show itself at my LCD monitor's 1280x1024. Which incidently, looked absolutely horrible and I was going to replace at 1024x768 but then tonight after I read your article about "native resolutions" I tried the native 1280x1024 and it looks like night and day. Just breathtaking but of course the 512mb of ram and the x300 SE are killing the fps but I see potential.

So all that remains is to link it with a beefy rig. any thoughts on the case window/no casewindow and vents on GPU. I really like windows but if it will hurt performance I can rethink it I guess.

Gee I just got done helping someone on this one. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16811133132 But there are a number of links for a custom as well as non custom cases to browse through. http://www.advanceddesignky.com/cases.cfm
http://www2.shopping.com/xGS-Custom_Cases~NS-1~linkin_id-8000856~r-1~CLT-INTR
http://www.dealtime.com/xPP-pc_cases-Custom_Cases-cabinet_form_factor_mid_tower:confused:
 

Cab00se

New Member
well Pceye you might have finally won me over, after reading a review my roomate just gave me in MAxiumum PC and they gave it a 9/10 as opposed to 8/10 for the ASUS, plus the ASUS doesn't have nearly as good as reviews as the MSI on newegg.

And the price lol.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813130037

hopefully that's a good one because it makes my wallet happy.

We might be one step closer gentlemen (and ladies).

And I don't know if I really wanna spend that much on a case I like the Centurian's price and quality
 

PC eye

banned
It's certainly a good model with the best price as well. TigerDirect was the highest at a $208- price tag. I can tell one for sure here is that MSI will be given a serious look for the case here. While I have been favoring Asus I see the specs on MSI keeping up. If you do go with that model here's the update and general support link to hold onto. http://www.msi.com.tw/program/support/download/dld/spt_dld_detail.php?UID=710&kind=1 I generally favor having three pci slots. But the specs look worth the effort. As far as cases go you can spend a small fortune on custom jobs at times. But whichever one you go with make sure to leave some room for expansion and even some extra cooling down the line. I also seem to have the feeling that you right on top of what you will want to see.
 

Cab00se

New Member
ok, finally back from college and ready to go and what happens but Conroe is about to be released and kill AMD.... sigh... now I have to look into this.

Everytime..:rolleyes:
 

Praetor

Administrator
Staff member
Basic needs are a computer and a new monitor because the current 15" LCD screen hurts my eyes
How so? LCDs dont have refresh so there's no flicker-greivence.

Note that I only want one video card now and I will get another in a few months to complete the SLI.
I wouldnt advise that ... in a few months, a new card is prolly gonna be better than your SLI setup (well that and your GPU isnt going to be the only bottleneck)

but I'm sort of torn between SLI and Crossfire,
Then "you wont notice" :) This will be especially true since anything you buy now in preparation for SLI/CF will be obsolete by the time you complete it

Also, how crucial would it be to have a toledo say 4400 over a 4200 Manchester X2 cpu
Not at all. In fact i would personally advise against it. AMD chips (for the time being) are not cache bound and as such you wont notice an earth shattering performance jump.

I was reading some more about this this morning and some say that having one card is better than the SLI gains of two lesser cards.
Phew, save me the trouble of convincing you

Well I would recommend the 7900GTX over the x1900xtx. They are about the same price.
If you're doing a singlecard config, the Radeon box (all other things being constant) will outperform the nVidia card (that and offer FSAA+HDR which nVidia doesnt have)

but the x1900xtx is so loud
LOL it's not that loud

would you recommend 7900GT SLI over one 7900GTX or are you just saying one 7900GTX for now or just in total?
Well if you're getting a 7900GTX vs 7900GT now, the SLI box will outperform ... but it also depends on when you plan to go SLI

If you can spend that much money on a PC don't screw it up with a cheapy mobo. The one I mentioned would be the minimum.
Another board to consider is the ASUS A8R-MVP [RX200CF] ($95.99) which is cheaper and offers more

Well I have always seen SLI get better reviews than Crossfire,
Yes but we also all know that nVidia ... um ... pays better ;) Furthermore, assuming that for equal settings nVidia cards outperform ATi cards .... nVidia cards cant do FSAA+HDR so it's no competition there.

Find me a review that says Crossfire is better than SLI, and I might change my mind.
Wow you're credibility went out the door ;)

that I like having a window in my case
Then cut one :)

As far as choosing between Crossfire and SLI look over some reviews on the performance levels on each before jumping on anything too fast
Although to be honest, in 6 months, when he plans to actually goto SLI/CF, things will be different :)

Will that Centurian case be big enough to hold it ok?
Yes.

with the DFI lanparty board though, I read some reviews that seem to think its a OCers board and since I dont really necessarily do that, and there are sometimes issues I've read about with it,
They're good boards in general, just a few nuisenses here and there. You can avoid problems by reading the info and buying memory that is known to work with it :)

I hear good things about Abit model boards while not being the OCer's Dream.
It's a solid board there but nothing spectaular. I'd say the A8R-MVP offers more value (including the option for Crossfire) for $10 more.

The one thing that makes Asus a preferred brand is the easy access to support for updates and utilities.
As a ASUS fan myself I have to disagree: when their site is up ..it's great, but ASUS has a lot of "maintenece" time too. MSI doesnt have the same peak performance as ASUS in terms of download server performance but also doesnt have the annoying downtime too

It's an excellent temp monitor with an adjustable overheat shutdown bar
It doesnt offer shutdown ability. Just alarm ability. This is a good thing because software can be easily buffer overflowed :)

Asus also has an auto shutdown overheat protection circuit in there for the cpu.
(cough) so do MSI boards. (cough) so do most freaking boards

after reading a review my roomate just gave me in MAxiumum PC and they gave it a 9/10 as opposed to 8/10 for the ASUS, plus the ASUS doesn't have nearly as good as reviews as the MSI on newegg.
Four important things:
1. MaxPC also
  • Rates the Raptor74 as having "decent capacity"
  • Rates the LG Super Multi GSA 4082B a 6/10 (rightfully so) ... but gives it this rating for the wrong reasons: lack of support for virtually unused DVDRAM rather than poor burn quality and lifespan
  • Rates the Sony GSMC520 a 9/10 because of poor text reproduction and the NEC Multisync FE2111 a 9/10 ... because it's biege :rolleyes:
  • According to them, only AMD has support for NX
Good job MaxPC

2. Newegg reviews are done by .... non-professionals. Nuff said

The point is, just because a review says something is good doesnt mean it is ... do some research and use reviews as guidance with a grain of salt. (case in point: THG did an incredibly stupid thing like run a AthlonXP without heatsink and it went on fire ... but THG failed to note clearly that the cause of the fire was a failed motherboard sensor ... now add fanboys that dont know diddly about computer hardware and we have a recipie for a near-fanatic AMD-chips-light-on-fire craze)

but Conroe is about to be released and kill AMD
Conroe is an integer monster. Not necesarily a FP powerhouse :)
 
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