If your a benchmark junky go for the GTX if your a gamer get the GT. GTX has 4 extra pipes and higher clock speeds. BFG and eVGA are both good brands. If you do get a BFG card spends the extra couple bucks and get the BFG OC edition.

I'm with Cpt. Planet about the GT vs GTX.

But as for brands, XFX gives a great package with 3 games(Far Cry, X2, MotoGP2) and I think they are offering Quake4 when you buy it now, when I bought my XFX it was CoD2, but eVGA has a very nice stepping up program, say you get a card and within however many months they release another killer card and you want you can trade it in and pay the difference for the new card.

XFX 7800GT: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150124 (looks like they raised the price $10 again)

eVGA 7800GT: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130256

The GTX will definitely get you better performance, but at 70 vs. 80fps, you're not really gonna notice a difference.

Was gonna say get the 7800GT and for that price go the SLi route, but looked up your mobo and realized it only has one x16 PCI-e slot. If you want the best bang for your buck definitely get the 7800GT. If you are performance crazy, go with the 7800GTX. However, that card is very expensive....I think the cheapest I've ever seen it is 449.99 at newegg for the MSI version
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127182
However, XFX and BFG have been the top performing brands around, and they tend to give ya goodies with their cards. They are, however, more expensive than eVGA, PNY and such since they tend to overclock their cards and give them better cooling. It's up to you m8.

Quote: Originally Posted by RedRozeWolF I'm with Cpt. Planet about the GT vs GTX. But as for brands, XFX gives a great package with 3 games(Far Cry, X2, MotoGP2) and I think they are offering Quake4 when you buy it now, when I bought my XFX it was CoD2, but eVGA has a very nice stepping up program, say you get a card and within however many months they release another killer card and you want you can trade it in and pay the difference for the new card. XFX 7800GT: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150124 (looks like they raised the price $10 again) eVGA 7800GT: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130256

My brother got that exact XFX 7800GT card for his new rig for Christmas. Of course it had to be RMA'd Overheated and such...

well..that's the one i have, installing it friday ith the arrival of my new psu, hope i don't run into any problems

Well... If you stay at stock speeds for a while & observe mainboard/CPU/GPU temps closely,
next to the voltages on the rails of the PSU... You'll get a pretty good idea if your 'rig is running
stable & cool... after that... it's just "gradually" increasing the memory & processor speeds of
your GPU... be sure to check temps & voltages, especially after load, before you increase again...

I know... it takes some time.. but it will save you a lot of troubles...

Sound cards really start with the Audigy 2... that one is quite affordable, besides sounding great,
it saves precious CPU load..... If you stick with Creative, anything above it will just amaze you!

TDR

I'd reccomend an eVGA 7800GT (Quake 4 free when registered), and a Creative XFi Platinum as it is newer, better-sounding (according to what i've read so far) but as a bonus - supporting many features absent from the ZS line and even a (rather negligable) bit cheaper. >> All together 494.89 shipped..

One thing you guys missed, he is only using a 2.8GHZ Pentium D, and they do not have enough power to properly feed a GTX, they are ALOT slower than AMD when it comes to gaming, I would say that would be the equivalent to a Sempron 3100+ in gaming

I have seen charts that reflect how much the newer cards are being limited by the CPU, when the CPU is "Slow" the performace in a GT and GTX are almost identical!

A 2.8GHZ FX-57 cannot even properly feed a pair of 512MB SLI GTX cards, even when the cards arent overclocked, the framerates realy jump when a FX-57 is running at 3~3.5ghz.

Gimme a few and I can bench 2GHZ (about equal to his Pentium D) against 3GHZ with my older 6800's, even at stock, you will be amazed at the difference!

Quote: Originally Posted by $SOLID$ Necro One thing you guys missed, he is only using a 2.8GHZ Pentium D, and they do not have enough power to properly feed a GTX, they are ALOT slower than AMD when it comes to gaming, I would say that would be the equivalent to a Sempron 3100+ in gaming I have seen charts that reflect how much the newer cards are being limited by the CPU, when the CPU is "Slow" the performace in a GT and GTX are almost identical! A 2.8GHZ FX-57 cannot even properly feed a pair of 512MB SLI GTX cards, even when the cards arent overclocked, the framerates realy jump when a FX-57 is running at 3~3.5ghz. Gimme a few and I can bench 2GHZ (about equal to his Pentium D) against 3GHZ with my older 6800's, even at stock, you will be amazed at the difference!

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This is very true with most video cards. In 3DMark05, boosting the CPU speed only 90Mhz (2.7 from 2.61) got me an extra 200pts on my comparably wimpy X700 Pro!

This is why i'm considering getting a Dual Core Opteron in the near future, since they overclock SO much better. I've seen some people at 3.0Ghz stable with them.

I saw that you also asked about sound. The Soundblaster X-Fi will absolutely blow your mind if you are looking for a good card.

I have 3 BFG GT OC Cards, one 6800 AGP and 2 7800 PCIe. Love em. And they have lifetime warranty. What more do you need? Some others might have more stuff bundled, but let's face it, 99% of the time you either already have the stuff that is bundled or won't use it.