New computer

[The Me]

My last homebuild was an Asus SK8V MB, an AMD Athlon 64 FX53 CPU and an
Nvidea Geforce 6800 ultra 256mb . My system is at the end of its upgrade
path. Where do I go from here? What MB, CPU, Graphics Card and Power
supply combintion should I go with now? Im a gamer and am fond of flight
fims. This may seem like a dumb questions, but I really dont know where to
start, Intel or AMD. I want to go SLI. Any advice would be helpful.

Tom

 

[John Weiss]

My system is at the end of its upgrade path. Where do I go from here?
What MB, CPU, Graphics Card and Power supply combintion should I go with now?
Im a gamer and am fond of flight fims. This may seem like a dumb questions,
but I really dont know where to start, Intel or AMD. I want to go SLI. Any
advice would be helpful.

For performance, the Intel Core2Extreme is king. If you want to save $1000 or
so, the Core2Duo E6850 is pretty close, or you might want to look at the
Core2Quad... AMD MIGHT have the edge in price/performance, but you'll have to
shop around.

My new MoBo is Gigabyte P35 DS4. It supports 1033 MHz FSB, DDR2, and the coming
45nm CPUs.

My gfx are ATI, so I don't know about nVidia.

For PSU I went with Antec Earthwatts.

 

[Paul]

My last homebuild was an Asus SK8V MB, an AMD Athlon 64 FX53 CPU and an
Nvidea Geforce 6800 ultra 256mb . My system is at the end of its upgrade
path. Where do I go from here? What MB, CPU, Graphics Card and Power
supply combintion should I go with now? Im a gamer and am fond of flight
fims. This may seem like a dumb questions, but I really dont know where to
start, Intel or AMD. I want to go SLI. Any advice would be helpful.

Tom

A Q6600 (G0 stepping) is a quad core at 2.4Ghz. It costs $280.
It can easily be overclocked to 3GHz. And that represents a
saving over buying a quad core that runs at 3GHz out of the box.

Microsoft FSX (flight sim) has a Service Pack 1 out, which improves
performance. One claim is, that it makes good use of a quad core,
via multithreading. Not all games will do it quite as well. Many
older games will only make good use of one or two cores.

The most powerful processor just announced, is the Intel QX9650.
This is a quad that overclocks to over 4GHz and AFAIK this is the
first 45nm processor being shipped. But the asking price for these
will likely be quite high, and not worth the bother. The one for
$280 is a much better option at the moment, at least until lower
binned 45nm processors are offered next year.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/10/29/first-inqpressions-intel-qx9650

I would not recommend SLI. Try to get a single card instead. Take
a browse through the Newegg.com video card listing, for some prices.
The latest card introduced, is an 8800GT, and offers a bit
less performance than the 8800GTX. If you are after an extremely
large resolution output, then perhaps SLI is the only way to
do that well (because a single card simply isn't enough).

The best way to gauge your purchase, is to find a benchmark
for the game you have in mind. And see what frame rate they
manage to achieve, with the hardware they've got.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Fitz]

I would not recommend SLI. Try to get a single card instead. Take

a browse through the Newegg.com video card listing, for some prices.
The latest card introduced, is an 8800GT, and offers a bit
less performance than the 8800GTX. If you are after an extremely
large resolution output, then perhaps SLI is the only way to
do that well (because a single card simply isn't enough).

The best way to gauge your purchase, is to find a benchmark
for the game you have in mind. And see what frame rate they
manage to achieve, with the hardware they've got.

HTH,
Paul

I'm using a BFG 8800 GTS OC 640MB. The performance with a single card is
excellent- very smooth. 60 FPS sustained in Half Life 2 Ep 2 with 8X AA
and 16X AF, all other features maxed. Also played BIOSHOCK (DX10) and
performance was excellent. The GT or GTX models would increase
performance over my GTS, but so far, I'm pleased with my choice vs cost.
Using the Windows Vista (64 bit) Experience Index, my processor is the
weak link - an AMD AM2 5200 (it scored a 5.1 of a possible 5.9). The
video maxed out at 5.9. Personally, I rather have the 8800GTX than 2
GeForce 7 series cards in SLI. Make sure to get a good power supply- I'm
using a Corsair HX620 (600W, 3X 12V rails at 18A per/ total rating of
50A)- the GTX card has 2 power connectors vs the GTS's 1.

 

[peter]

less costly but just as good if not better alternative
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3140
peter