need advice choosing video card for a new system

[dhir]

hey to all ,
this is my first post. I am plannin on building a gaming desktop for
myself . these are a few parts that i have thought of fitting.
450 power supply.
athlon 2700+
dfi nforce2 lan party mobo
512 corsair or ocz low latency 2700 ddr ram
9800 pro or FX5900

now my question is why do all those nvidia cards have big ass cooling
systems while ati only uses puny fans on the GPU. its seems that ati runs a
lot cooler or ati doesnt care if the temps get a little high. the only ati
9800 pro card that i have come across which had a good cooling was hercules
9800 pro which had a badass fan and heatsinks on the memory modules as well.
does anyone have that card already or can tell me something about its
performance and stuff or u think i should get a 9700 pro which would
definitely be cheaper than 9800 pro and they arent that different as well.

[D.A.]!@#Bourne
"To kill or not to kill .......... that is the question"

 

[Ben Pope]

hey to all ,
this is my first post. I am plannin on building a gaming
desktop for myself . these are a few parts that i have thought of
fitting. 450 power supply.
athlon 2700+

I'd grab a Barton 2500+ and overclock it.

dfi nforce2 lan party mobo

nForce2 yes... df who?

512 corsair or ocz low latency 2700 ddr ram

Get PC3200 and whack the FSB up to 200MHz.

9800 pro or FX5900

I quite like my Crucial 9800 Pro.

now my question is why do all those nvidia cards have big ass cooling
systems while ati only uses puny fans on the GPU. its seems that ati

Thats a very good question... not one I've thought about.

The ATI R350 core is fabbed at 0.15micron with about 107Million transistors
and clocked at 380MHz
The NV35 core is fabbed at 0.13micron, but has 130million transistors and
clocked at 450Mhz.

Based on that info, I really wouldn't expect that much difference in
temps... the smaller process (usually) means that it will run cooler, but
the increase in transistors and clock speed tend to balance that.

runs a lot cooler or ati doesnt care if the temps get a little high.
the only ati 9800 pro card that i have come across which had a good
cooling was hercules 9800 pro which had a badass fan and heatsinks on
the memory modules as well. does anyone have that card already or can
tell me something about its performance and stuff or u think i should
get a 9700 pro which would definitely be cheaper than 9800 pro and
they arent that different as well.

I got the 9800 Pro over the 9700 because the pixel and vertex shaders are
better... I'm hoping this will start coming into effect with HL2 and Doom3.

I replaced my PIII 450 with Voodoo3 a couple of weeks ago... my hardware
tends to last

All I can say is that the 9800 Pro runs bloody hot... with a Zalman ZM80A-HP
(490g of aluminium - some serious heatsink) on there, and the side off the
case, it was too hot to hold onto for more than 10 seconds. Side is back on
the case with a fan blowing across the top of it - haven't checked it's temp
since, but expect it to be more manageable.

Ben

 

[[D.A]!@#Bourne]

thanx for ur advice. DFI is an upcoming mobo making company and according to
www.tomshardware.com it won the competition between ten athlon mobos. i was
thinking of getting an asus mobo but this has more features in it so i am
going to get this. but is 3200 worth the extra money coz i read the reviews
and at some points 2700 actually beats 3200 in the tests.

 

[Ben Pope]

thanx for ur advice. DFI is an upcoming mobo making company and
according to www.tomshardware.com it won the competition between ten
athlon mobos. i was thinking of getting an asus mobo but this has
more features in it so i am going to get this. but is 3200 worth the
extra money coz i read the reviews and at some points 2700 actually
beats 3200 in the tests.

Not if you run the FSB at 200MHz as well.

If you run RAM and FSB out of sync (e.g., FSB at 166, RAM at 200) then
yeah - you can get a degradation in performance. But with an nForce2, there
is no reason to do that, just run the FSB and RAM at 200MHz - then adjust
the multiplier to your preference.

Ben

 

[J.Clarke]

thanx for ur advice. DFI is an upcoming

Actually, DFI (Diamond Flower International) is an old and
well-established manufacturer. Way back in the mid '80s when I was
moonlighting building machines for the local cloneworks the owner bought
"white box" boards from a number of suppliers. There was one particular
board that we, the techs, liked because it always worked and never gave
us any trouble. Those boards had a quality control sticker different
from the ones on any other board we encountered, so we took to calling
them "QC boards". Some time later when DFI started selling branded
hardware in the US I came across one of their boards and there was that
sticker.

I've still never had a problem with a DFI board, however they have
typically been priced somewhat above the market. If that has
changed recently that would be good to know.

DFI is not as well known as some of the other manufacturers because they
have never been particularly aggressive about the retail market.

mobo making company and
according to www.tomshardware.com it won the competition between ten
athlon mobos. i was thinking of getting an asus mobo but this has more
features in it so i am going to get this. but is 3200 worth the extra
money coz i read the reviews and at some points 2700 actually beats
3200 in the tests.--
[D.A.]!@#Bourne

"To kill or not to kill ....... that is the question"

 

[Bratboy]

LOL, DFI has been around for some time, 15 yrs or so at least hehe its not
Up n Coming hehe. I bought boards from em yrs ago. The boards I got thru
them were all good performers in my case at least.

 

[[D.A]!@#Bourne]

oops !!! my bad ppl . obviously u can tell that my knowledge in the pc
history is comparable to that of Ali G. but talk about the latest stuff . i
found out that i can flash the bios of a 9800 non pro to 9800 pro without
any probs. man its like a birthday present or a fantasy come true . i drool
getting dreams of playing counter strike with a steady fps of 100 .