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[Littleberu]

Hey,

I want to buy a new comp, but it's always the video card part that is the hardest.

People recommended me the 6800, the 7800, and then some other peeps said : take ATI, ATI are the best, and blahblahblah.

Now I don't know. What's the difference versus the X850 and the X850 XT? I know there's one, that the XT is more powerful, but is it a big one (is it like Radeon 8500 versus 8500 LE, the LE being less powerful?).

Also, is ATI really better than Nvidia?

 

[teh_pwn]

A couple years ago, Nvidia released the terrible FX serious (Geforce 5), and Ati was the clear winner. So there's lots of people that stick by Ati these days.

I think the X800 series doesn't support a new effect that's going to be used a lot soon (Shader Model 3.0).

 

[DarkAngelYuna]

If you want outdated hardware go with those two ATI cards. If you want something upto date go with the 6800 or 7800 series.

 

[teh_pwn]

The best Ati series is called Crossfire, which I can't find anywhere on sale.

The Nvidia 7800 GT would be a much better choice for the price range you're hinting at:

http://www.pricegrabber.com/p__BFG_Technologies_GeForce_7800_GT_OC_Video_Card,__10804164

High end is the 7800 GTX, which goes for about $100 more.




See for yourself, the X800XT is out of date:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2541&p=5

 

[Cold Shadow]

X800 series = 6800 series
X1800 series = 7800 series

If you can wait, wait for the x1800 cards, if you can't wait get a card from the 7800 serie.
non of these cards are slow, all of them are high-end, only the x800 are 'last' generation.

Also crossfire isn't a card crossfire = Nvidia's SLI, and nobody buys that.

 

[Littleberu]

What do you guys think about this?

 

[CabbageRed]

If you're going to be spending so much on the video card, you may want to spend an extra $100 to get 2gigs of RAM. If you overclock, the 3200+ (winchester) should exceed the 3500+'s speed with relative ease.

 

[pestul]

And get a Plextor or NEC DVD/RW while you're at it. Not that it's a big deal, but you may as well.

 

[Littleberu]

If you're going to be spending so much on the video card, you may want to spend an extra $100 to get 2gigs of RAM. If you overclock, the 3200+ (winchester) should exceed the 3500+'s speed with relative ease.

But overclock also means I need a new fan?

Huh. WTH, I don't even have a fan.

 

[CabbageRed]

But overclock also means I need a new fan?

Huh. WTH, I don't even have a fan.

Well the retail you have there should have a fan but I'd replace the stock sink/fan no matter what so an OEM CPU with this IMHO http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118115 and some silver thermal compound.

 

[rc213]

U shouldnt need a replacement heatsink/fan since the retail cpu's come with a decent one. It can be a bit noisy, so the Zalman suggested earlier is a great replacement. U should probably get a SATA Seagate HD which will probably be the same or even cheaper than it's IDE brother, your chosen mobo has an Nforce 4 Ultra chipset which has great built-in SATA support. Memory is fine unless u plan on gaming alot, then you should probably go for the 2GB pair so u dont have to upgrade anytime soon. Never used BenQ burners, I've always stuck with Plextor/NEC/Pioneer. Other than that great rig.

 

[Ark-AMN]

So, when are ATi's newest cards coming out anyways?

 

[Littleberu]

U shouldnt need a replacement heatsink/fan since the retail cpu's come with a decent one. It can be a bit noisy, so the Zalman suggested earlier is a great replacement. U should probably get a SATA Seagate HD which will probably be the same or even cheaper than it's IDE brother, your chosen mobo has an Nforce 4 Ultra chipset which has great built-in SATA support. Memory is fine unless u plan on gaming alot, then you should probably go for the 2GB pair so u dont have to upgrade anytime soon. Never used BenQ burners, I've always stuck with Plextor/NEC/Pioneer. Other than that great rig.

Should I buy a CD Writer, or is the DVD Writer able to do the job?

 

[element]

ASUS A8N-E Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
2 x CORSAIR ValueSelect 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
XFX PVT70GUDF7 Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive
NEC Black IDE DVD Burner Model ND-3540A - OEM
COOLER MASTER Centurion 532 Black
COOLMAX CR-550B ATX 550W "140mm Fan" Power Supply
COOLER MASTER SAF-S12-E1 120 x 120 x 25mm SuperFlo Cooling Fan
MITSUMI Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive
Microsoft Windows XP Professional With Service Pack 2
Total = $1,427.84 (US) ~ $1,659.44 (CAD)

You really don't need a PSU that powerful (and overpriced). A good 500w or even 450w would work just fine. I have a COOLMAX because it is next to silent. And the case you got came with a PSU, so no need to have two. Find a nice case without a PSU and get a good PSU in addition.

If you are planning on spending that type of cash you might as well get an dual core chip.

SATA HD is nice

 

[Borys]

Take 7800 if you have the cash.

First: lots of Xbox 360 or even PS3 ports will use SM3.0 heavily.

Second: you can always add another 7800 later (when it's $200) and have a really powerful GPU combination.