Well, Im upgrading... and while I've always built my own systems, Ive never built a 'gaming' system... the whole SLI, 3d grafix cards, etc sort of confuses me...

so, this is the mobo/cpu combo Im getting (Purchasing little by little as my budget allows):

AMD ahtlon 64 X2 5200+ (have already)
ASUS M2N4-SLI mobo (have already)
2 250gb SATA hd
2gb Corsair Dual Chann TWIN X memory (have already)
Planning to run XP Pro
Planning to run 22" lcd, with possibly adding 2 more monitors (for triple setup)

I dont play many 3d games... Not sure I will, except I might dabble in flight sims. but mostly it will be for driving games.

Questions are:

Do I really need 4gb? I figured if it seems problematic, I can just add another 2gb later.

Grafix card?
I looked at a bunch of tests/benchmarks and comparisons. it seems to me that the 8600GTS overclocked ($219) is a decent performer for the price. but most everyone here goes for the 8800gts ($400) or gtx ($550)...

My thought was to try the 8600 gts now... and pick up an 8800 later when and if I upgrade to 3 monitors. will those two cards work together in SLI? or do they have to be the same type of card (ie both 8600 gts?)

You dont need 4GB of memory now thats for sure unless you work with huge files in photoshop or in 3D rendering programs.2GB is fine for at least 1.5 year.

There are going some nice deals regarding 8800GTS cards which are not really 400dollars!!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ ... &CMP=OTC-pr1c3grabb3r

http://www.buy.com/retail/prod ... gory=Comp&dcaid=15890

I would get the 640MB version for future games and especially for your resolution. 320MB might be sometimes not enough especially for some games later on.

I bit the bullet and went for a EVGA 8800GTX card in the end.
Im about 2 weeks from building... Well, it'll be built before then, but Im waiting on a desk I ordered which wont be here until then.
I'l let everyone know how it goes :crossing fingers: and try to get some benchmark #'s.

Well, not going good so far...
Got the memory, cpu & mobo built... went to do a burn-in, and the mobo was acting all erratic. would boot 1 out of 5 times. guaranteed to never reboot after saving settings in bios, guaranteed to never reset. acted like it did with fans going, led on, etc... just never came on.

After a day of messing with different memory chips and vid cards and tech support, its in a box with RMA on it. in a week I should have the new mobo, as well as the rest of my system... so we'll see how it goes.

I got anxious and bought a replacement Gigabyte Motherboard rather than wait on the defunct Asus RMA.

Everythings up and running...
Hopefully some future readers will find this comparison info helpful.

OLD system (Intel Celeron 3.2g, BioStar MoBo, ATI Radeon X1300 (AGP, 256mb), 1GB DDR
I can only monitor cpu temp.
Idle Temp: Cpu 41C
Max Temp: Cpu 56C (During benchmark tests)
PcMark05: 2126
3dMark06: 676

On my old system, I would get about 45 fps max on LFS, but would drop down to around 15 fps at the start or in real heavy traffic. Avrage fps with a few cars around would be somewheres around 25-30 fps.
Microsoft flight simulator was unbearable.


NEW System: AMD5200+, Gigabyte MoBo, EVGA 8800GTX (PCI-E, 768mb), 4gb DDR2
I can monitor cpu cores and grafix card temps;
Idle Temps: Core1: 36C, Core2: 34C, GrafX: 64C
Max Temps: Core1: 46C, Core2: 43C, GrafX: 77C (During benchmark tests)
PCMark05: 6316
3DMark06: 9492

I realized during my first benchmark, that my brand new SATA harddrives were horrible in speed. I had to re-install XP, this time installing the RAID drivers during the install (I didnt realize this was necessary even though i wasn't using RAID), and then everything was up to spec. I probably should've gone for the Athlon 6000+, but oh well...
The difference, is amazing. LFS with everything turned on (Inlucding all the bells and whistles in the nvidia software), and full resolution gets me around 65-70fps average (100fps if traffic is light, down to around 50 on the start). The details blow me away, as I never realized there were little things like the patterns in the taillights of the cars before! Temperature on the card & cpu doesnt raise hardly at all compared to the benchmark test temps.
Flight simulator runs smooth with all the features turned to super high quality.

overall, well worth the investment. I know it wont make me faster, but it's alot more pleasant to drive and experience the details in this game. This system should last my gaming lifestyle for a while.

What CPU do you have? How many RAM modules?

The 6000 is imo a bit crap because the cheaper E6600 is the same speed.

If you've cranked up the AA, try setting it to "High Quality" in the drivers and add some custom textures, but your next upgrade should be a new monitor

athlon 64 x2 5200+ (mentioned earlier).
4 modules (2 pairs)
23" widescreen lcd monitor.

I'v turned everything as high as it will go in the nvidia control panel.

I'm using the hi-res sky, and track textures...

Well, you could overclock and make it a "6000" quite easily, but A. I dont know if your mobo will and B. AMD's don't like 4 sticks of RAM

Quote from Jakg :

AMD's don't like 4 sticks of RAM

sorry for partially hijacking your thread Robby,but Jakg,care to explain this?

AMD memory controllers tend to get "overloaded" by having 4 sticks of RAM, and usually they then run the memory at 333 MHz (rather than the 400 MHz most memory runs at), and they set the memory to "2t" rather than 1t, which looses 5%-15% performance.

At least that's in the 939/DDR1 days, i hear the E6 revision 939 chips have a little better Memory Controllers (but the E6's are, afaik, all dual cores, but the singles are dual cores with the second core disabled, and this seems to be their only redeeming feature!). Not sure about AM2/DDR2

Hi-Jack away... I'm always learning when it comes to computer stuff.

The motherboard is a gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4. The ram is 800mhz. Everything you said above is gobbledeegook to me (suprise! lol)

I dont feel comfortable OC'ing... perhaps someday.
but what I did find was this: http://www.ocworkbench.com/2006/gigabyte/GA-M57SLI-S4/b2.htm

Seems like an ok mobo, although the fact you can't go above 300 fsb is perhaps the most retarded BIOS limitation i've ever heard of, but then that only affects "1337z0r overclockz0rz" like me anyway.

If you don't feel comfortable then fine, you've got a kickass PC that plays LFS with ease, congrats!

Yeah, Ive had no luck with Motherboards...
The first one I was looking at (Asus) has issues with the temperature 'sensors' (or whatever). So when you use their incredibly easy OC AI, it winds up shutting down due to high temp readings (which are inncaurate).
To boot, the damn thing was erratic as hell, so I returned it...

But I think this gigabyte board is ok for the moment, since I'm not too much into overclocking... yet.

please DONT use software to OC, it's less stable and could corrupt windows, BIOS ftw

Oh no, it wasnt software (on the asus board) it was a bios feature...
Just pick a multiplier, and it 'supposedly' automatically adjusts everything else. My guess is, (if it works even) that it's not as good as a 'manual' OC, but for boneheads like myself, it's probably just the ticket. Barring of course their innacurate temp readings causing instability with it lol

iirc most Asus mobo's have an "Ai Overclock" feature which is your run of the mill OC, but it uses way too much vCore (i'm using the same vCore that it picked, and i'm running a 40% overclock!) and it can cause instability with value ram (dividers).

EDIT - In case you haven't geussed, i'm an overclock WHORE, i have an AMD 3700 pumping away at 3.07 GHz, a 40% overclock - imo overclocking doesn't require any skill, just a brain big enough to spend about an hour "reading up" carefully.

I'm fairly sure the 4 stick AMD problems disappeared with the AM2 platform.

GL with the new rig, it sounds pretty sweet.

BTW, 23" WS LCD running 1920x1200?

Ooops typo. 22"
currently at max resolution of 1680 x 1050. But I havent had a chance to get comfortable with it or play with the resolutions a whole lot yet... I was too busy looking at all the details.
Its a westinghouse, bought at a local walmart which ended up being pretty decent for me... its got dvi, vga, s-video & component inputs.

Cool, i've got a 22" viewsonic, its a great size. Hope you enjoy it, that GTX should be good for quite some time.