Making a return to PC, need advice please..

[boardy]

Hiya guys,

As many of you know I sold my P4 3.4EE for a G4 Mac a few months ago. Well I have now decided that I miss being able to post things on here to do with PC's and asking for help from you lot when I'm having my off days hehe.

So I am making a return with hopefully the following -

DFI nF4 SLi-D mobo

3200 Winnie (Stock cooler )

Tagan 480W SLi PSU

2x6600GT's in SLi

Money permitting I may go for the 6800GT's but these may be out of my budget at the mo. I'm also waiting the new gen cards and don't really want to spend loads only to do what I did last time and have to sell up for a new one or two as the case is now a month later lol.

What you guys recon? I have a £600 budget for the mobo, PSU, proc and cards. Any other suggestions would be kewl, but I want to stick to SLi.

Cheers

Boardy

 

[imported_mrbios]

in about 2 weeks or so there will be new venice cores so (even if your not planning on overclocking) wait for them, they will be the same price as current ones just with SSE3, new mem controller, the usual

2x6600gts are the same performance as a single 6800gt/ultra, so its probably a better idea to get a 6800GT/ultra then upgrade to a second one if you want it in the future

how long did you last on the mac? i find an afternoon on my dads mac torture

 

[boardy]

Oh right, I've been out of it that long I didnt even realise there was a new revision of core coming up lol.

I did think about the single 6800GT but its the same price and performance of the 2x660GT's in SLi and fancy giving SLi a go. That way I get to test a new tech with the same sort of money spent lol.

I actually still have the Mac lol, using it now. I'm not getting rid of it because I use it for work. I jst miss the old fun days of overclocking and seeing what I can push outa things . I'll look into the 6800GT route again though but they all seem more expensive than the 2 6600GT's.

Cheers

Boardy

 

[GoLLuM4444]

6600gts cost between £130 and £170 and 6800gts cost upwards of about £250 each. The performance of 2 6600gts is virtually the same as one 6800gt. Choosing between them should really depend on whether you think you will ever get a second 6800gt if you opt for one in the first place. If you just want to try SLi and don't intend to upgrade the graphics for a while go for the 6600gts.

Also I have to agree that you should wait for the venices.

Any thoughts on RAM? I have some RAM I'm trying to offload (hint hint) (It's 1Gb OCZ Gold PC4000 2.5-4-4-7 and 1gb Adata Vitesta PC4800 3-5-5-9).

 

[Firelord]

I believe CPC did a SLi thing a issue back and it came out that in nearly everything a single 6800 GT had the edge...

PLus with SLi still not supported properly in all games in some games you will only get the power of a single 6600GT...

 

[boardy]

Thanks for the info guys, keep it coming i appreciate all of it and by no means am I dissregarding any of it. I've been out of the scene for a while so kinda lost track of everything.

As far as the GFX goes I just want to try SLi really with an intention to get the latest SLi core when it hits the shops so want a budget solution and the 6600GT's seemed to provide that. I see what you are saying about the 6800's though but it's twice the cost for 2 and I then have to offload those to get the new ones. With the 6600GT's I can build either a low spec SLi system or 2 low spec PCI-X sytems for something .

What do these new Venice chips have in store then? any reviews online yet? Also wont the shops be kinda offloading the Winnies before selling these? I just don't want to wait for a month only to have a Winnie drop on my doorstep anyway lol. Any info on these would be great cos as I say this is the first I've even heard of them .

Also Gollum what you looking at for that RAM? and how does it clock?

Cheers

Boardy

 

[GoLLuM4444]

The venice chips are not much different from the winchester ones except for the addition of sse3 instructions and the ability to work with prommies. Also they've tweaked the memory controller. I hadn't clocked the ocz much before I upgraded to pc4800 but 2.5-4-4-8 (or maybe it was 7) is pretty good for ddr500 so i think it would clock pretty high with some looser timings or tighten up at lower frequencies (depending on what you want). I'd let it go for about £140, which is pretty good considering it costs £200 new. Although any sensible person would take the vx for the same price so its not worth that. The Adata pc4800 would go up to about 330 htt on my a8n-sli (2t only) but the voltage wont go much higher than 3.2 even with my cap mod. I'm sure it could go further at around 3.5-3.6. I would have to ask for closer to £200 as they're hard modules to find in the UK, the only place I've seen them they're £240 new. PM me if you're interested. I'm sure with ur DFI board (great choice) they'd both clock pretty well. I'm getting one myself soon so I'll try them out at higher voltages.

 

[Master_G]

the ability to work with prommies

That's not actually guaranteed, on XS it seems that the cold bug still exists at lower temps, and that means that there could be problems with other chips, like we have now with winnies, some work fine on LS's and GT's, but others dont take it at all, so i wouldnt count your chickens yet, not until these chips hit the stores and we can see the results from more than a handful of chips.

G

 

[GoLLuM4444]

Well alright but the fact remains that if he ever intends to use a prommie on his new chip he'd be safer with a venice.

 

[imported_mrbios]

That's not actually guaranteed, on XS it seems that the cold bug still exists at lower temps, and that means that there could be problems with other chips, like we have now with winnies, some work fine on LS's and GT's, but others dont take it at all, so i wouldnt count your chickens yet, not until these chips hit the stores and we can see the results from more than a handful of chips.

G

got a link? im interested in this seeing as i planned on getting one to replace my cold shy winnie

 

[boardy]

Will I really notice any difference over the Winnie? I'm at most going to be watercooling this, maybe TEC but i VERY much doubt it on the CPU anyway. Phase Change is too much for me to get into again at this stage and when I do go back into it I'll be on an FX chip for sure .

Whens the due date for the Venice? I may end up getting one by default if I keep getting delayed payment dates lol. Also any links to reviews and results with this chip would be kewl please.

Cheers

Boardy

 

[HARRY]

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=56313

i might just get one if i have the spare cash lol

 

[boardy]

OOOO now that's tempting me to wait lol. Only thing is I doubt I'll get any where near that with air cooling on a 3200 or 3500 . That said could definately be worth waiting for as its only a few more days acording to the XS forum.

Also think in the future I'm gonna go water cooling. I know TEC's are not possible on the GPU's, only standard water but whats the best AMD64 water block available? That doesn't cost stupid amounts. I've always used 1/2" Tygon aswell but think I'll change down to 3/8" cos it's easier to work with. Would it be better to use 2 loops for the CPU and GPU's or just run them off the same loop?

Cheers

Boardy