i presume i'd want a nforce4 chipset.. i'm not sure which boards are OC friendly or not.. i've found a few reviews out there. i assume Abits are.. found a review on a Foxxconn that is.. any other suggestions?

7/27/2006 9:52:19 AM

This kind of depends on how extreme your OC plans are. Do you just want to push your CP 5-15% or do you want infinitly tweekable voltages and FSB speeds to get every bleeding cycle you can.

7/27/2006 10:32:07 AM

thats a good question. nothing crazy. i'll be using a Venice 3000 which from what i gather is a pretty great OC'er. so i dont want a mobo thatll restrict it. i'll just be using a regular hsf.. although i guess i could buy a better one if it was worthwhile

7/27/2006 10:54:02 AM

DFI are the best overclocking boards out there right now.

But I would suggest the Asus A8N-SLI Premium. Asus makes quality boards.
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2661&p=13
Foxconn doesn't perform as well as it would appear according to these benchmarks.

7/27/2006 11:08:56 AM

hrmmm yess.

hrmm know the diff off hand between the Premium, Deluxe, and nothing? Newegg.com has some open box ones for $69,$72, $92 respectively.. They still have a 15day warranty.. worthwhile or no?

I'd like to keep it under $75. SLI seems cool... hrmm is it really effective?

7/27/2006 11:21:33 AM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136163

DFI Ultra Infinity. bahah onlything better than that is the Ultra Inifity +1.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136163

maybe i don't need SLI. its unlikely i'll play many games really. i jsut want GTR and GTR2 to kick ass

7/27/2006 11:27:48 AM

^reviews on that DFI are horrible reliability wise.

open items have nooo accesories. so itll probably be easy to avoid that

7/27/2006 11:35:29 AM

yeah you don't actually have to use SLI, but the boards with it tend to be built better for OCing.

I looked at that price point and didn't see much of anything great. Maybe
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130491
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128268
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813135003

If you'll do open box, then
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131517R (lean more towards this because its SLI)
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136152R

7/27/2006 11:43:55 AM

is the difference between nforce4 and nforce4 Ultra performance related or just features, etc?

7/27/2006 1:43:08 PM

get back to work, slacker

7/27/2006 1:44:50 PM

dfi lanparty nf4, any of the boards you choose, all oc very well

7/27/2006 2:10:11 PM

* AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice 2000MHz HT Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3000BPBOX (N82E16819103537)
* BIOSTAR TForce4SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard (N82E16813138272)


combo for $168. *shrug*

7/27/2006 2:31:16 PM

ABIT KN8 SLI NVIDIA Socket 939 ATX Motherboard and an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.20GHz OEM Processor

$179 after $50 rebate at tigerdirect..


its funny how things start out simple, but quickly get complex and expensive

7/27/2006 2:33:46 PM

why not wait until the game goes gold before you upgrade - get the same shit for cheaper or get better shit for the same price...upgrading for a demo makes you a noob

7/27/2006 2:35:03 PM

thats not a bad point.

7/27/2006 2:41:45 PM

There are feature differences (most notably NVfirewall which is crap) between nForce4 vs. nForce4 Ultra. Also, Ultra has TCP/IP acceleration and support for 3 Gb/s SATA.

7/27/2006 3:18:35 PM

ooookkkkkkk how about this:


BIOSTAR NF4ST-A9 Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

$64.99

XFX PVT42EUDE3 Geforce 6800 XTreme 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail


$134.77 - $35.00 Mail-in Rebate

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 2000MHz HT Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3500BPBOX - Retail

$97.00

Subtotal: $296.76 minus rebate.

that outta get er done good enough, eh? coming from an Athlon 1800XP and a geforce FX 5200 it outta be a pretty big improvement, eh?

7/27/2006 4:42:02 PM

you just want to spend money

7/27/2006 4:47:42 PM

my friend/housemate got a new computer and i'm jealous. i thought mine was snappy until i tried his.

but yeh.. ironically i could spend $300 on a computer to play racing sims... or i could spend $300 on a track weekend..

7/27/2006 4:54:14 PM

danny if you're going to replace motherboard and proc why bother with 939?

oh i guess you'd have to buy DDR2 if you went to AM2 eh? hrm

7/27/2006 4:55:58 PM

yeh... i have a two 512mb sticks of ddr400 stuff that id like to keep using if it makes sense

7/27/2006 4:59:16 PM

but uhm you work for one of the biggest SDRAM manufacturers in the world....don't you get employee pricing or something heh

7/27/2006 5:06:42 PM

thats where i got this ram

but nah, we don't many deals. we're R&D, so unlike the fabs, there arent a whole lot of modules laying around

7/27/2006 6:02:05 PM

May as well gets a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103562 instead of the Venice. It'll be quite a bit faster, especially for multitasking. Mine just arrived yesterday and its already dropped 10 bucks from the day I ordered it. Dual core ftw.

7/28/2006 9:24:48 AM

eh i gotta draw the line somewhere i guess. i dont think i need dual cores. not a bad price though i suppose

7/28/2006 9:29:42 AM

you know you don't need any of this shit - why draw the line?

7/28/2006 10:13:13 AM

yeh i do, man. i wanna be a hax0r like you guys My gf will dump me if i dont improve my weak 266mhz FSB speed soon.

i havent touched my computer in 3 years, whats $250 to last me another 2 years?

7/28/2006 10:20:53 AM

i haven't upgraded my pc in 3yrs and it runs fine

you won't be happy with your $250 upgrade and you'll end up spending another $150 in the end - that's my prediction

7/28/2006 10:24:58 AM

why? you don't think i'll see an improvement? my game runs like poop right now

7/28/2006 10:31:01 AM

if it runs like poop i doubt you are going to resurrect it with 250 - what are the min/recommended requirements for the game?

7/28/2006 10:37:39 AM

Quote :

"System Requirements =================== Minimum Specifications ---------------------- Operating Systems Microsoft Windows XP Home/Pro Processor 1.8 GHz Intel Pentium IV or 100% compatible Memory 512 MB RAM Hard Drive 400 MB free hard disk space 3D Accelerator DirectX 8.1 compatible graphics card with 64 MB memory Sound Card DirectX 8.1 compatible Input Keyboard and Mouse DirectX Version 9.0c Recommended Specifications -------------------------- Operating Systems Microsoft Windows XP Home/Pro Processor 3 GHz Intel Pentium IV or 100% compatible Memory 1 GB RAM Hard Drive 400 MB free hard disk space 3D Accelerator DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics card with 256 MB memory Sound Card DirectX 9.0c compatible Input DirectX 9.0c compatible force feedback steering wheel DirectX Version 9.0c"

I'm barely at the minimum requirements. and sims are realy CPU intensive ontop of their graphics (DX9).. so it needs some grunt i think. W/ the new setup i'll be above the recommended

7/28/2006 10:41:04 AM

your video card was 256mb+? i thought you were getting a sub-par budget card

7/28/2006 10:44:59 AM

i just want a computer that runs... consistently.

7/28/2006 10:47:50 AM

^ upgrade your rabbit wheel

7/28/2006 10:48:42 AM

old card was 128mb geforce FX5200.

new card will be 256mb.. and now i'm leaning ATI's way since i've read ATI kicks ass on the ISI engine used in all these racing sims. nvidia for reason runs poorly in this case. *shrug*

someone find me an ATI card for less than $125. or explain how the heck theyre model numbers work..

7/28/2006 10:58:25 AM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102668

Radeon X1600XT for $129.. 256mb DDR3, 12 pipelines.. snappy core and mem speeds.

7/28/2006 11:00:06 AM

128bit pipes

7/28/2006 12:46:27 PM

ugh this shit is redonkulous

7/28/2006 1:26:46 PM

geforece 7600GT! that looks hawt for $135 after rebate. yess

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_geforce_7600_gt_performance/page2.asp

7/28/2006 1:31:42 PM

ATI

Family - X (which means 10 using roman numerals), 9, 8, on down
Series - 9, 8, 6, 3 (higher is better)
Model - Letters denote this

So, X1900XTX - family 11 from X +1, 900 series (the highest), XTX (highest model) generally the more X's the better (stupid marketing)

Nvidia does things the same way

Geforce 7900GTX - family 7, series 900, GTX model.

Look at comparisons of graphics cards online at
http://www.tomshardware.com
and
http://www.anandtech.com

7/28/2006 1:59:05 PM

oic, thanks.

it looks like the 7600GT is a solid card and OCs like a mutha. i'm pretty sure im gonna go w/ it.

7/28/2006 4:18:45 PM

I've got a ASUS A8NSLI and it seems to overclock decently, but then again I haven't really OC'd much since the 1.33 T-Bird was king . It would boot and run ok at 3500+ speed with a massive 120mm zalman copper HSF. I have a .25 process 3000+ and 2 512 sticks of patriot (read: cheap) dual channel DDR. I'm also running a single 7600GT. Mine runs HL2 full graphics at 1024 smoothly, and lost coast at 800x600 full graphics smoothly. I really like the A8NSLI. I bought it about a year ago just after it came out and it has been rock-solid stable and fast. Great memory controller, great onboard sata controllers, (2) 1 gig NICS, optical out, nice bios and a crap load of accessories. The 7600GT also seems to OC pretty well, but again haven't really done too much of that. If you get SLI you can always upgrade to another 7600GT when you need the extra graphics power. Anyone remember SLI voodoos?

7/31/2006 1:59:33 PM

I'm sure someone else here will elaborate on SLI being the incorrect term for the vodoos.

7/31/2006 3:15:27 PM

How about for the 5500?

as far as the original voodoos:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3dfx#Early_history

and the voodoo 2:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3dfx#SLI

[Edited on August 1, 2006 at 6:32 PM. Reason : Forgot to mention...90nm, not 25nm lol]

8/1/2006 6:29:27 PM

holy shit this runs good. i'm playing GTR2 at 1280x1024, full level 4 AA, all details set to max, and i'm still in the 70fps range. its so smooth and solid its making me nausious.

DIZAM!

8/3/2006 9:52:00 PM