Chem... Need some Advice or at least a direction..

[Mac]

I'm obviously not totally new to the building scene but ,I'm going to get a new system..
I've always been a AMD fan. My only question is some of these new wacky Motherboards. with chipsets now a days

I'm probably going with a 64XP dualcore AM2 socket

I briefly looked at newegg and see everything has a (NorthBridge)
Nvidia.. Nforce Blah Blah Blah....

I'm an ATI man myself so it seems pointless... I'm not at least finding anything that I would call... My kind of Motherboard.. I've been a Abit man, but I'm either missing something or not finding something that says (Buy Me cause I right for you)

Just so tidbits..
Biggest investment will be Video Card( not sure what I want yet) Still pondering
Probably the AMD 4200 Windsor... Will consider other depending on what else I get myself into.
Looking for dual Channel Capability
No plans of OC
2 gigs ram at first 2 more later...
As of now, Still stuck on IDE but will upgrade eventually, I have 4 200 gig IDe drives now and working on parting them to a storage server already waiting for them.

No Plans to SLI... Bells and whistles aren't needed but if they make it a good sell then it would work. Only reason why I'm hitting you on this is cause I have no flipping idea which one I want and its easier to say hey... What do you think?

[{OF}MillerTime]

I believe they just make a chip for the mobo, but it's not video related or requires you to have nvidia video card.

I think.


*btw, congrats Captain

[ChemicalWarrior]

Well there are a few things:

1.) Intel's Core 2 is much faster than the Athlon 64. It'll stay this way till K8L comes out, which is a masssive upgrade of the A64 (K. When this update comes its hard telling, so I'd personally suggest you go with an Intel based system right now. its simply looking to be the better platform.

You can grab a $300 Core 2 and get FX-62 performance for 1/3 the price.

2.) There's a reason why all the high end boards have Nvidia, they're better for the most part. If you're going to go AMD then you'll want something like a Nforce 590. If you're going to change and go with Intel (which I recommend) then you're going to want to look at the 975x I believe is the chipset name.

3.) ATi will be releasing the X1950XTX (X1900XTX with GDDR4 memory at 2.0Gh!!). It'll be the fastest single core card out there. The thing is that we're not to far away from DirectX 10 cards, G80 is some time in October most likely and R600 from ATi is not that far away. So if you want to wait or maybe buy a lower end card for now (say something like the upcoming X1950 Pro, which is based on Rv570) then I wouldnt blame you.

4.) 2GBs of rame, you'll want 2x1GB of course.

5.) Since you have such a large amount of IDE drives then you might have to look at a seperate controller cards. Intel is completely removing IDE support from their chipsets, Nvidia and ATi are slowly phasaing them out. So a board with enough connectors might be hard. They'll be there but not directly in the chipset.

6.) AMD and ATi just merged but its awaiting stock holder approval (no reason why this shouldnt go through) and you wont see benefits of this relationship for another few years.

Basically this: I highly suggest you consider going with an Intel processor, the Core 2 6600 to be specific. It out performs the fastest processors from AMD at 1/3 the price.

Also, if you want to buy the highest end card by the time you build the system then you'll be looking at an X1950XTX.

[ChemicalWarrior]

Oh, Abit has been in really bad shape as of late. So I suggest you not go with them.

Asus though is making some extremely impressive stuff. Probably the best mobo's out there now.

[Mac]

Thanks MT Feels good... now I can put the game aside for a while.

Originally Posted by ChemicalWarrior

Well there are a few things:

3.) ATi will be releasing the X1950XTX (X1900XTX with GDDR4 memory at 2.0Gh!!). It'll be the fastest single core card out there. The thing is that we're not to far away from DirectX 10 cards, G80 is some time in October most likely and R600 from ATi is not that far away. So if you want to wait or maybe buy a lower end card for now (say something like the upcoming X1950 Pro, which is based on Rv570) then I wouldn't blame you.


5.) Since you have such a large amount of IDE drives then you might have to look at a seperate controller cards. Intel is completely removing IDE support from their chipsets, Nvidia and ATi are slowly phasaing them out. So a board with enough connectors might be hard.

Heheh Wow that's more then a mouthful. Lots of goody tidbits. Thanks

I'm mostly thinking Video card so it terms of waiting, I can wait. There is nothing wrong with what I got now. Just thinking about Crysis and NwN2.. (AIW ATI9800Pro) Only cause at the time that was what they had and didn't have the plain 9800 pro but got it for same price back in the day.

The drive issue... I probably won't be putting them all back in.. If anything I'd put at most one in..
I have a Mini itx Setup with Linux I will use them in.


To get me to go to Intel is a tough one. Not that it would be out of the question... I'd just have to dig around. I did help a buddy of mine build a Photo-shop Machine with the Intel Dual core and it does hammer out stuff so I know its good. Was just trying to keep the honor of AMD... I like alot of your points..


Makes me think a little more rather then making it an Impulsive buy.


Thanks Chem

[ChemicalWarrior]

Well, if you're looking forward to Crysis then I really suggest you wait a bit on some of the DirectX10 cards. They'll be upon us sooner rather than later. Of course that also means moving to Windows Vista. As you can not get Dx10 on XP.

[Mac]

yeah looks that way... Waiting is good. Thats means I can save more to get more


Thanks a million..