[Bob-san]

Some of your recommendations aren't very good in any case, to be honest. That board isn't too great unless you must have SLI support - the DS3 overclocks much better for a similar price - and the 8600 line has pretty much flopped, being soundly beaten in most games by previous gen cards in the same price brackets. Their prices will certainly fall over the next few months, but right now they're not worth buying.

The soldering issue is more for Quad-core users, both SLI and non-SLI, I... think. I read up from somewhere that you have to unsolder a certain resistor (and solder a 500-[forgot the unit] variable resistor in its place, in order to get better overclocking from those processors.)

This sort of thing would be specific to some particular board. I highly doubt you can use the same procedure on all of them, especially ones with different chipsets.

nForce 650i motherboards don't overclock quite as well as P965; generally they get up to about FSB1800; where they max out. I said either 8800GTS or 8600GT; they really cut back too far on the specs on both of those. The 8600GTS ought to have had 64 stream processors, 256bit of either 256mb or 512mb memory. The GT ought to have had 48 stream processors, 256bit of 256mb memory. Also, the 8500GT ought to have had 32 or 48 stream processors and 128bit of 256mb memory. They cut back all the specs by about half; the GTS and GT have 32 stream processors and 128bit of 256mb memory, the 8500gt has 16 stream processors. Just to think... I was looking forward to a major upgrade over my FX5200.

Anyways; I was going cheap for DX10 support and possible future SLI. Thats more the path I plan to take, though I want to go with an 8800gts 320 instead.

Basically you're yelling at me for recommending an SLI board and DX10 graphics cards even when I at least gave a different card as well for DX10. 

I won't revise my recommendation for three reasons:
1) He already made a purchase.
2) It was great for at least DX10 support and possible SLI.
3) The RAM I recommended won't go much beyond 800mhz (400mhz FSB; aka FSB1600) when the chipset can go a bit beyond that (450mhz FSB; aka FSB1800)


**I haven't seen a good review for the P6N SLI FI yet; most companies try to sling the higher-priced boards over the lower-priced boards. Looking back now I'd probably say Asus P5N-E SLI.**

[Scooby_Doo]

and the 8600 line has pretty much flopped,

Agreed, and quite a disappointment.  I should just probably wait for R660 or nv 9000 series.

[Bob-san]

The 8300's probably won't be that bad for the price; 16 stream processors for not-very-much.

[CP5670]

nForce 650i motherboards don't overclock quite as well as P965; generally they get up to about FSB1800; where they max out. I said either 8800GTS or 8600GT; they really cut back too far on the specs on both of those. The 8600GTS ought to have had 64 stream processors, 256bit of either 256mb or 512mb memory. The GT ought to have had 48 stream processors, 256bit of 256mb memory. Also, the 8500GT ought to have had 32 or 48 stream processors and 128bit of 256mb memory. They cut back all the specs by about half; the GTS and GT have 32 stream processors and 128bit of 256mb memory, the 8500gt has 16 stream processors. Just to think... I was looking forward to a major upgrade over my FX5200.

Anyways; I was going cheap for DX10 support and possible future SLI. Thats more the path I plan to take, though I want to go with an 8800gts 320 instead.

Basically you're yelling at me for recommending an SLI board and DX10 graphics cards even when I at least gave a different card as well for DX10. 

You're getting overly defensive. You seemed to be suggesting that he cancel his order in favor of the stuff you listed, so I simply wanted to indicate that it wouldn't be worth going through all that.

Besides, there is no point in buying something just for DX10 support when there won't be any DX10 games around for several months. Although the 320MB 8800GTS is a much better choice, at least as long as you don't go beyond the 12x9/12x10 resolution. As for SLI, as I mentioned earlier, it's only worth considering for the top end GTX cards.

[Bob-san]

nForce 650i motherboards don't overclock quite as well as P965; generally they get up to about FSB1800; where they max out. I said either 8800GTS or 8600GT; they really cut back too far on the specs on both of those. The 8600GTS ought to have had 64 stream processors, 256bit of either 256mb or 512mb memory. The GT ought to have had 48 stream processors, 256bit of 256mb memory. Also, the 8500GT ought to have had 32 or 48 stream processors and 128bit of 256mb memory. They cut back all the specs by about half; the GTS and GT have 32 stream processors and 128bit of 256mb memory, the 8500gt has 16 stream processors. Just to think... I was looking forward to a major upgrade over my FX5200.

Anyways; I was going cheap for DX10 support and possible future SLI. Thats more the path I plan to take, though I want to go with an 8800gts 320 instead.

Basically you're yelling at me for recommending an SLI board and DX10 graphics cards even when I at least gave a different card as well for DX10. 

You're getting overly defensive. You seemed to be suggesting that he cancel his order in favor of the stuff you listed, so I simply wanted to indicate that it wouldn't be worth going through all that.

Besides, there is no point in buying something just for DX10 support when there won't be any DX10 games around for several months. Although the 320MB 8800GTS is a much better choice, at least as long as you don't go beyond the 12x9/12x10 resolution. As for SLI, as I mentioned earlier, it's only worth considering for the top end GTX cards.

I'm saying that if he really thinks his order was not quite as good, he might want to do that. A P965 board (Gigabyte P965-S3) would be about the same except has better overclocking. Buying for DX10 support actually is a good idea; though true it will be several months for DX10 to come around, you don't want to buy a DX9 card right now and end up throwing it away or selling it at a loss. If you do the EVGA Step-Up, you could probably keep a DX9 card (maybe the GeForce 7900GS, $155) until the better 8800/8900's come out. More power for less price, though many people were disappointed because they were waiting for R600 to push down prices on the high-end cards; they bought, wanting to step-up, though it was over 3 months between purchase and the yet-to-be-released R600.

If he wanted to cancel, he could. I was taking an indication by the:

I just made my purchase this morning. I'll provide details on it later (in class now, on break XD).

Asyikarea seemed to be a little less-than-satisfied of his own order after my recommendation.


I would still like to hear about how it went, Asyikarea.

[CP5670]

Buying for DX10 support actually is a good idea; though true it will be several months for DX10 to come around, you don't want to buy a DX9 card right now and end up throwing it away or selling it at a loss. If you do the EVGA Step-Up, you could probably keep a DX9 card (maybe the GeForce 7900GS, $155) until the better 8800/8900's come out.

Well, it has never been a good idea to give much weight to future performance when buying video cards. The trend with the last few DX versions has been that games start making use of it a year after the cards that initially support it are released, and actually start requiring it another year later. In other words, there is a lag of one or two generations. In the case of the 8600s, if you end up in a situation where you got a DX9 card and have to sell it, you would have to do the same with the DX10 one simply because of the poor performance.

[asyikarea51]

Sigh, it certainly is a mish-mash I admit. Far better than the things I used to run, but still an improper mish-mash in any case.

I give thanks to my relatives for financial support either way; still happy to have a new system. Not forgetting that my previous systems were always laggers, even when they were new...

Also, I bought this finicky IDE to USB wire thingymajig (with power cable too), but the drives don't get detected... (Insert bang wall emote here - anybody can help me out? Unless I'm really unlucky and all my 200gb worth of data is GONE... ) Other than that, I need to go reclaim some change on Thursday thanks to a bad PSU... And I think I betrayed myself a bit, find out why below... (Insert another bang wall here)


Thermaltake 850W
Gigabyte N680SLI-DQ6 Note to prospective CoolerMaster RealPower Pro 850W buyers - this board throws a start/stop fit with this power supply. The shop swapped the power two times, then they gave up and tested out the Thermaltake, which worked like a charm. Now I have to go claim my ten dollars =|
Kentsfield 6600
2GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800
Leadtek 8600GT TDH 256mb
Single 500GB HDD (Not sure of brand)
Some random LG 20x DVDRW (The shop didn't sell the Lite-On one I was after.)
Some random CoolerMaster casing
Stock aircooling all-round
XP Pro SP2

[jr2]

What is that IDE to USB thingy?  Go look on eBay for an external drive enclosure.  Mine's a versa-drive, it works nicely (will prolly need a fan soon, but that's after a year, and the fan is supposed to be easily replaceable).

EDIT: BTW, LG DVD burners FTW! 
EDIT2: http://search-desc.ebay.com/enclosure_USB-2-0_W0QQcatrefZC6QQfasiZ1QQfromZR10QQfrtsZ600QQfsooZ1QQfsopZ3QQftrtZ1QQftrvZ1QQftsZ2QQsacatZ70818QQsascsZ2QQsbrbinZtQQsbrsrtZd

[asyikarea51]

Some sort of two-headed plug (one side Floppy. one side IDE), and at the other end of the wire is a USB plug. Also has a power adaptor to it to connect the power for the IDE HDD. The idea was to get the 200gb out from the old drives and stuff it all into the 500gb one.

Haven't got it working, though... Or I could just open up the case and plug the HDD in myself, but I don't want to mess it all up by mistake... (considering the results of my previous efforts, I've become extra paranoid...)

edit2: Damn boot.exe virus thingy... now the only way I can access my mobile hard disk is by using the Explore function... double-clicky gets a Boot.exe missing... gack help... (insert bang wall here)

[jr2]

1.

Code: [Select]

[img]http://209.85.12.236/5024/118/emo/bangwall.gif[/img]
2. Get a normal external enclosure like mine.

[IceFire]

Buying for DX10 support actually is a good idea; though true it will be several months for DX10 to come around, you don't want to buy a DX9 card right now and end up throwing it away or selling it at a loss. If you do the EVGA Step-Up, you could probably keep a DX9 card (maybe the GeForce 7900GS, $155) until the better 8800/8900's come out.

Well, it has never been a good idea to give much weight to future performance when buying video cards. The trend with the last few DX versions has been that games start making use of it a year after the cards that initially support it are released, and actually start requiring it another year later. In other words, there is a lag of one or two generations. In the case of the 8600s, if you end up in a situation where you got a DX9 card and have to sell it, you would have to do the same with the DX10 one simply because of the poor performance.

True...on the other hand...the very first DX9 card to market, the Radeon 9700Pro was a real gem.  Despite it being the earliest on the block for DX9 capability it was still taking on DX9 games a few years later.  I'd still have mine if it hadn't gone to the big pixel shader fest in the sky.

[asyikarea51]

Well not that it matters, but I got that funky connector working.

Sadly the first two parts of my main 120GB drive are gone - now they just show up as RAWs after a chkdsk report of 17 bad sectors. Managed to recover some of the stuff that I lost, but as far as things go, I've lost anywhere from 40-70GB of data that I can never get back.

Running chkdsk again just gives me reports that the program can't read the partitions (and I think the entire drive too, even though the final partition is somehow surviving).

[jr2]

Google up UBCD4Win, that has some good tools on it.  Burn a copy, boot it up, and check under the drive recovery sections.