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
- 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