Advice on new gaming rig?

[Nlaplaca]

Hello all

I am planning on building a new machine and wanted to post my setup here to
see what other people think. I have been out of the game for a while and
have not kept up with hardware trends like I used to. Anyway here it is.

Asus a8n-sli deluxe - $165
Amd Athlon 3500+ Venice - $220
Nvidia 7800GT - $400

I will be using the DDR-400(1 gig) that I currently have as well as the rest
of the hardware. a couple questions. How much of a boost would I get from
running 2 cards in sli mode? I was thinking I would add another card a
little bit later.Not sure exactly what card I want yet. I just know I want a
7800Gt. I understand you must have 2 identical sli enabled cards for sli to
work. Is this correct? Another plan was to wait for the fx chips to come
down an swap the venice out when that happens. Sound like a good Idea?

 

[Cuzman]

Nlaplaca wrote:

" How much of a boost would I get from running 2 cards in sli mode? "

Read this review of the 7800GT. It includes SLI benchmarks.
http://www.3davenue.com/1369.html


" I understand you must have 2 identical sli enabled cards for sli to
work. Is this correct? "

Yes, and they need to have the same BIOS version too. That's why buying
one card now and another later could become problematic. Also, if you
intend to use a 2x 7800GT SLI setup through into 2007 or 2008 then you
may find that new games are wanting (as yet unreleased) shader models
and DirectX versions that aren't supported by the 7800GT. You might
find your performance in those games is then less than that of one brand
new $200 card.


" Another plan was to wait for the fx chips to come down an swap the
venice out when that happens. Sound like a good Idea? "

Maybe, but it depends what the market situation is at the time you
intend to do that. It may well be that AMD remove all FX chips from the
market except for the newest and most expensive. Also, by the time you
upgrade it could be that most newly-released games can utilize SMP, and
therefore an X2 3800+ (currently $374 at Newegg) will be better than an
FX for gaming.

Anyway, you can overclock a Venice 3000+ to levels that aren't too far
from the overclocking potential of an FX-57. An unlocked multiplier
doesn't hold as much currency on socket 939 as it did on socket A.

 

[Nlaplaca]

Yes, and they need to have the same BIOS version too. That's why buying

one card now and another later could become problematic.

Well I ordered everything. Not sure if I will add a 2nd card in the future
or not. But if I do is there a flash utility somewhere? I have flashed the
bios on motherboards plenty of times before but never a graphics card.

Nick