Gimme your opinion of this beauty!!!(computer config)

[Hhhhh]

Hhhhhello to everybody

I need a machine that can do graphics very well (I develop in
OpenGL/DirectX and I also play games), but I need to convince my wife
of the budget i need for it, so i know i can't spend US$2000 on it. I
also wanna get something that won't get outdated too soon, and I would
like to be able to just replace things like the CPU and the videocard
without having to mess around with the rest. I wanna get good bang for
my bucks, and I think I came up with something decent:
Athlon 64 3500
Asus A8V-SLI Deluxe
1GB PC3200
MSI NX6800-TD256E w/ nVidia GeForce 6800 PCIe(not the GT or Ultra
versions)
I just wanted to know two thing:
-Are there any hardware compatibility problems I should know about?
-I know that mobo has 2 slots for PCIe nVidia cards, but is there
enought room for those fat 6800? (I might give SLI a try in the future)
-Any combinations that have better performance for about the same
price? I'm getting all this for about US$900

I appreciate any answer!!

 

[RusH]

I also wanna get something that won't get outdated too
soon

then buy a house, or a painting

I wanna get good bang for my bucks, and I think I came up with
something decent: Athlon 64 3500

3000+ is considerably cheaper, and not so much slower + its also 90nm

Asus A8V-SLI Deluxe

and you said cheap ? everything with "deluxe" screams "You will
pay for loads of things you will never use"

1GB PC3200
ok

MSI NX6800-TD256E w/ nVidia GeForce 6800 PCIe(not the GT or Ultra
versions)

ok

Pozdrawiam.

 

[Bob Knowlden]

I suppose that the board you're asking about is an A8N-SLI Deluxe.

http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socket939/a8nsli-d/overview.htm

(Don't confuse it with the A8V Deluxe, which uses a Via chipset and has a
single AGP graphics slot, rather than the two PCI-Express ones.) The nVidia
nForce4 chipset is supposed to be the greatest thing since the discovery of
fire, but few people have them yet.

The Socket 939 CPU supports dual-channel memory, so I hope that you're going
for two 512 MB PC3200 DIMMs rather than a single 1 GB one.

Are you getting the Newcastle (130 nm) or Winchester (90 nm) version of the
Athlon64 3500+? The N. is cheaper, but the W. is supposed to run cooler.
(That matters more to overclockers.)

Enjoy your new system.

Bob Knowlden

Address may be scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.

 

[keith]

then buy a house, or a painting

Or paint your house. At least that'll last three or four years. ;-)

3000+ is considerably cheaper, and not so much slower + its also 90nm

Saving big bucks on little perforamce is always smart. Where that
line is is a personal issue though.

and you said cheap ? everything with "deluxe" screams "You will pay
for loads of things you will never use"

BTDT. That's what makes life fun! ...spoil-sport!

ok

Cheap enough these days. Staples had the stuff for $75/512MB this week.
Of course they don't deal in Registered stuff, so...

 

[RusH]

A8V Deluxe, which uses a Via chipset
and has a single AGP graphics slot

and non working PCI lock

Pozdrawiam.

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

Bitstring <[email protected]>, from the

and you said cheap ? everything with "deluxe" screams "You will
pay for loads of things you will never use"

Actually that would worry me less than the 'V'.

I have an Asus A7N8X 'deluxe' and manage to use most of the features,
but mine has an 'N' where it should do, instead of that dreaded 'V'.
N-force boards for SLI and 64bit CPUs are now (sort of) available, why
would anyone want a Via one?

 

[daytripper]

and non working PCI lock

Read a recent PCI spec lately? No?

 

[Bob Knowlden]

The PCI lock is supposed to work on the A8V Rev. 2 boards. I'm pretty sure
that it does on mine. (I've had the FSB at 250 MHz.)

 

[George Macdonald]

Hhhhhello to everybody

I need a machine that can do graphics very well (I develop in
OpenGL/DirectX and I also play games), but I need to convince my wife
of the budget i need for it, so i know i can't spend US$2000 on it. I
also wanna get something that won't get outdated too soon, and I would
like to be able to just replace things like the CPU and the videocard
without having to mess around with the rest. I wanna get good bang for
my bucks, and I think I came up with something decent:
Athlon 64 3500
Asus A8V-SLI Deluxe
1GB PC3200
MSI NX6800-TD256E w/ nVidia GeForce 6800 PCIe(not the GT or Ultra
versions)
I just wanted to know two thing:
-Are there any hardware compatibility problems I should know about?
-I know that mobo has 2 slots for PCIe nVidia cards, but is there
enought room for those fat 6800? (I might give SLI a try in the future)
-Any combinations that have better performance for about the same
price? I'm getting all this for about US$900

As suggested by others I think you mean the A8N-SLI... the NForce4 chipset
Asus mbrd. The price of that ($269 at NewEgg) is not what I'd put in the
budget category and it *is* early days for SLI. IOW you are going to be on
the bleeding edge - adding SLI to the mbrd only aggravates any possible
trouble. While it's early days for determining "hardware compatibility"
and PCIe is the preferable way to go for the future, with such a new
product, you *will* likely have to deal with early BIOS issues. It's your
call but at least see what early adopters are saying in the Asus group and
in Web forum discussions.

For the CPU, the 3500+ is the sweet spot... well was until the price went
up by $40-50 on the Winchester part. That's another choice to make:
Winchester 90nm or Newcastle 130nm; I've done one of each and the
Winchester does run ~10C cooler according to mbrd monitor readings. OTOH,
the Winchester has a lower Tcase anyway so better overclocking is not a
given there, if that's what you're thinking of doing; personally I don't.

For memory I went with 2x512MB Crucial PC3200 single sided DIMMs (shown as
"8T" parts at NewEgg) on my MSI K8N Neo2 Plat. Since that is only a single
rank on each channel it will allow adding a 2nd rank if necessary without
going beyond the recommendations to operate at DDR400. With the single
rank I can use the 1T command rate timing which, IME, is the key to getting
high bandwidth: 5.8GB/s on Sandra benchmark for me - not sure how a 2nd
rank will impact that.

 

[RusH]

Read a recent PCI spec lately? No?

spec shmec, without pci lock you cant overclock A64

Pozdrawiam.

 

[Tony Hill]

Read a recent PCI spec lately? No?

Err.. actually I think the whole idea of the "PCI lock" (ie running
the PCI clock asynchronously from the hypertransport clock) is all
about keeping PCI within spec. If the two are clocked from the same
source then you end up clocking your PCI bus way out of spec when
overclocking the processor.

Of course, the term "PCI lock" is a bit, umm.. inaccurate I suppose.
It's not at all a "lock" on the PCI bus, just a different way of
clocking it.

 

[daytripper]

Err.. actually I think the whole idea of the "PCI lock" (ie running
the PCI clock asynchronously from the hypertransport clock) is all
about keeping PCI within spec. If the two are clocked from the same
source then you end up clocking your PCI bus way out of spec when
overclocking the processor.

Of course, the term "PCI lock" is a bit, umm.. inaccurate I suppose.
It's not at all a "lock" on the PCI bus, just a different way of
clocking it.

Using the term "PCI Lock" to refer to anything other than PCI LOCK# signal
functionality would be pretty stupid, but if that's where this was heading, I
can live with it ;-)

fwiw, PCI LOCK# functionality has very nearly been legislated out of
existence, which is why I raised an eyebrow...

/daytripper

 

[keith]

Using the term "PCI Lock" to refer to anything other than PCI LOCK# signal
functionality would be pretty stupid, but if that's where this was heading, I
can live with it ;-)

fwiw, PCI LOCK# functionality has very nearly been legislated out of
existence, which is why I raised an eyebrow...

I was sorta wondering why you were much interested in the over-clockers
and the games they play.