[pest]

To answer the original question, its really a personal decision if the FX55 is worth the extra cash. Both the FX55 and the 4000+ are very expensive. If you are already spending that much, the extra may not bother you.

In repsonse to a couple other statements made - the intel chips used to be better for video processing, but the FX55 ended that. Intel is now 2nd fiddle across the board to AMD.

The 90nm winchesters have the potential to be good overclockers, but they have turned out to be hit or miss. Inconsistentcy of the on die memory controllers seem to be to blame. Overclocking is always a crap shoot, but the winchesters are even more so.

If you really want to roll the dice get the 3000+ winchester. The good ones overclock to the same speeds as teh good 3500+s. But if you do draw a poor overclocker, the faster chipss will still be fast. The 4000+ will be fast no matter what. My 3500+ winchester is only a moderate overclocker, and it still reaches 4000+/fx53 speeds with a minimum of fuss (but not nearly what I hoped for).

Either ram listed above is fine. Both have their benefits. The corsair will have tighter timings at stock and medium overclocks, the ocz will overclock with more ease - less voltage and little need to mess with the timings or memory splitters.

That case only comes with 2 spots for fans. A 120mm exhaust and a 120mm intake. A single exhaust if ususally more than plenty for stock applications. The value of that case is the quietness of the the power supply and how it is matched to the passive air intakes. If you are replacing the powersupply and planning on adding additional fans above the two stock placements, i would consider getting a different case all together. Maybe the coolermaster wavemaster. It may server you purposes better. If you do go with teh sonata and soundproof it, make sure you dont cover the passive air holes on the sides.

I would recommend the diamondmax10 250mb 16mb cache harddrive. Smae price as the raptor, only a hair slower and 3 times the storage.

SLI mobos will require pci-e video cards.

[Jin-Roh]

Originally Posted by pest

To answer the original question, its really a personal decision if the FX55 is worth the extra cash. Both the FX55 and the 4000+ are very expensive. If you are already spending that much, the extra may not bother you.

In repsonse to a couple other statements made - the intel chips used to be better for video processing, but the FX55 ended that. Intel is now 2nd fiddle across the board to AMD.

The 90nm winchesters have the potential to be good overclockers, but they have turned out to be hit or miss. Inconsistentcy of the on die memory controllers seem to be to blame. Overclocking is always a crap shoot, but the winchesters are even more so.

If you really want to roll the dice get the 3000+ winchester. The good ones overclock to the same speeds as teh good 3500+s. But if you do draw a poor overclocker, the faster chipss will still be fast. The 4000+ will be fast no matter what. My 3500+ winchester is only a moderate overclocker, and it still reaches 4000+/fx53 speeds with a minimum of fuss (but not nearly what I hoped for).

Either ram listed above is fine. Both have their benefits. The corsair will have tighter timings at stock and medium overclocks, the ocz will overclock with more ease - less voltage and little need to mess with the timings or memory splitters.

That case only comes with 2 spots for fans. A 120mm exhaust and a 120mm intake. A single exhaust if ususally more than plenty for stock applications. The value of that case is the quietness of the the power supply and how it is matched to the passive air intakes. If you are replacing the powersupply and planning on adding additional fans above the two stock placements, i would consider getting a different case all together. Maybe the coolermaster wavemaster. It may server you purposes better. If you do go with teh sonata and soundproof it, make sure you dont cover the passive air holes on the sides.

I would recommend the diamondmax10 250mb 16mb cache harddrive. Smae price as the raptor, only a hair slower and 3 times the storage.

SLI mobos will require pci-e video cards.

You write a lot of smart-looking stuff. oOo:



I have always been told that AMD is best for "cheap" gaming, not so much because of it's performance, but it's cheaper, or something like that. eek:

[pest]

[quote="Jin-Roh":3c317]I have always been told that AMD is best for "cheap" gaming, not so much because of it's performance, but it's cheaper, or something like that. eek:[/quote:3c317]

Yes, but ever since the A64 line came out, AMD has taken over the best gaming at any price and best all round performance at any price titles. And it still offers many of the best gaming values as well. They are the only choice for me.

Things are gonna get uglier for intel before they get better. SLI preformance will probably be better on amd's as well since nvidia doesnt have an nforce chipset. AMD will probably beat them to dual core cpus also.

[Short Hand]

Well here is my revised decision.

-Thermaltake® Xaser III VM3000A SKULL Steel ATX Case w/ Window w/o Power supply $144.99
-AMD® Athlon™ 64 - 3500 - 512K L2 Cache (Socket 939) 90nm Retail Box $349.99
-Zalman CNPS7700-Cu Heatsink & Fan $74.99
-Asus® A8N-SLI Deluxe, Socket 939, NVIDIA nForce®4 SLI™ Chipset w/ PCI Express x16 (ATX) $264.99
-OCZ 1Gb PC4000 DDR EL Dual Channel Gold Revision 2 Edition (2 x 512Mb) (OCZ5001024ELDCGER2-K) $354.99
-120 GB Western Digital® Cavier™ SE SATA-150 7200RPM 8Mb OEM $109.99
-Panasonic 3½ in (1.44Mb) Floppy Disk Drive, Black $9.99
-Asus® Extreme EN6800TD w/256Mb DDR & PCI-Express Retail Box $549.99
-Vantec Stealth 520W Aluminum ATX Power Supply $129.99


Regular Price: $1989.91
Best Price: $1937.84

pest or anyone have any critiques about this video card ? (I changed the case after researching it more after yourp ost etc. Is the vantec powerful enough to keep everything going well ? including my video card all the fans, hd's + the slight overclock ill probably run. ? I would hope a 520 watt psu would be enough....

[geRV]

I think you'd be better getting a 6800gt rather than that card, cant seem to find any reviews on it but a gt probably wouldn't cost all that much more.

[Short Hand]

is that asus card not the ultra ? I don't think it is the GT.

[geRV]

Nope its not an ultra

http://www.overclock.co.uk/customer/pro ... ctid=18149

Ultra clock speeds are around 425(core)\550 memory (1.1ghz dddr)

The clocks on that are 350\300 (600mhz ddr)

[pest]

That card is a GT.

I would stay away from asus nvidia cards. They the one distributor for the 6800 line that uses deceptive naming standards. Kind of dissappointing for a comany of asus' reputation, but if you get anythig from them, make sure you verify the specs. An Ultra should have 400mhz core speed.

520w should be plenty, but that psu just had a really poor review in maximum pc. They recommend the Antec neopower 480 over anything else. They also like the ocz powerstream 520 which is very similarly priced to the vantec.

[Short Hand]

Thermaltake® Xaser III VM3000A SKULL Steel ATX Case w/ Window w/o Power supply $144.99
AMD® Athlon™ 64 - 3500 - 512K L2 Cache (Socket 939) 90nm Retail Box $349.99
Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu Heatsink & Fan $59.99
Asus® A8N-SLI Deluxe, Socket 939, NVIDIA nForce®4 SLI™ Chipset w/ PCI Express x16 (ATX) $264.99
OCZ 1Gb PC4000 DDR EL Dual Channel Gold Revision 2 Edition (2 x 512Mb) (OCZ5001024ELDCGER2-K) $354.99
120 GB Western Digital® Cavier™ SE SATA-150 7200RPM 8Mb OEM $109.99
Panasonic 3½ in (1.44Mb) Floppy Disk Drive, Black $9.99
On-Board AGP Video built-into motherboard $0.01
OCZ 520W Power Stream ATX Power Supply - Supports P4 (OCZ520ADJ) $159.99
Regular Price: $1454.93
Best Price: $1415.21

and the video card

thinnking about buyiing one from pricewatch form a seller with a good rating.

[Short Hand]

Quickly help me find the cheapest pci express radeon x800xt and 6800 ultra cards, from somewhere that ship to canada .

[Akuma]

Why are you getting that shitty overpriced Thermaltake case? The only good product they ever made was Tsunami which is only $100. I got it for Christmas and it's an incrdible case. I had the Coolermaster Praetorian before that and it was also a great case for ~$100,

That motherboard doesn't have onboard video. So subtract that one cent.... eek:

Good luck with finding at PCIe 6800U or X800XT...

[geRV]

Shouldn't be too hard to find, the demand for those cards is in agp variation not pci-e. UK online stores have quite a few of them.

[pest]

I dont know who ships to canada. The 6800ultra pci-e are very difficult to find. I read that since there are very few pci-e mother boards out, both nvidia and ati havent produced many of the current generation of cards for pci-e. And of the ones they did produce, the pc builders got first choice. The x800xt is easier to find, but no platinum editon pci-e cards have been produced yet. They have said all of the PEs went to satisfy AGP demand. I use pricewatch.com to find scarce parts, but again, I dont really know who does and doesnt ship up north.

[Mr.Buttocks]

Originally Posted by geRV

Shouldn't be too hard to find, the demand for those cards is in agp variation not pci-e. UK online stores have quite a few of them.

Raaaawr!

[Short Hand]

Originally Posted by Akuma

Why are you getting that shitty overpriced Thermaltake case? The only good product they ever made was Tsunami which is only $100. I got it for Christmas and it's an incrdible case. I had the Coolermaster Praetorian before that and it was also a great case for ~$100,

That motherboard doesn't have onboard video. So subtract that one cent.... eek:

Good luck with finding at PCIe 6800U or X800XT...

that is in canadian dollers, and its the only case for the buck there worth it, the rest were all lian li's and they rang in way to high. I found a x800xt by power color or gigabyte, one of the 2. It looks like a good buy so hopefully if they still have them at the end of the month, ill dish up the money and buy it. I am guessing the difference between the platinum and regular xt version is not that huge.