DeadOnShot

Okay, So i've been out of the game for quite some time now, and haven't been keeping up with what hardware is doing for about a year. Blasphemy, I tell ya, but school and work took priority over gaming.

School is letting up, and I get my degree in about a year and a half and the workloads keep getting lighter and lighter and more project oriented, thus leaving me time to play games again!

Anyway, the old rig is getting rather outdated (AMD 3000+, 1gb DDR Ram, X800 XT, yeah its pathetic) and I decided I was going to take the plunge and build a new computer.

So far I have came up with:

Intel E8400
Gigabyte Motherboard (don't remember which, but I believe its P43 or 45)
2 Gigs of RAM, more to be added later.

I want to play the new games at a DECENT graphics setting, I don't care about being able to max everything out, I will care about that when I'm in a career that pays well, and not a dinky part time college job.

So I'm stuck at this problem, What video card?! I've researched and researched, and have yet to come up with anything compelling to go either nVidia or ATI's direction.

What would you guys recommend? I'm not wanting to spend a ton of money on a card, less than less than or equal to $400 give or take some change. I keep looking at the 9800GX2, but everything I read about them says they are problematic and give everyone a hard time.

But at the same time, the GTX 2xx series is out, and those seem to be performing quite well. But the 280 is ridiculously expensive.

I'm willing to go SLI or Crossfire, if it absolutely proves itself to be more cost-effective or just absolutely blows the other options out of the water, other than that, i'm sticking with single cards for awhile, unless its GX2, but thats different.

So, personal opinions aside, as I've been out of the game for so long and don't know who is doing better, what is best recommended for a SUB-$400 card?

Sorry for the long post.

Fred_G

Well, I am new to the Nvidia side of the GPUs. Why not just pick up a couple of cheap 8800GT GT's, and run them in SLI. Should cost you less than $300 or so for both of them. Should get you up and gaming. Oh yeah, they run the Folding at Home Program like crazy! I am accepting members who want to join my Pimptastic Folding team, or start your own team.

Or just say heck with it and get your game on!

Newegg.com - EVGA 512-P3-N801-AR GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards Card

Fred_G - User Summary - EXTREME Overclocking Folding @ Home Stats Fred_G's folding stats.

Just noticed you want a single card. Check out the ATI 3870X2 card. I get around 16k in 3D Mark 06 with one of them and a Q6600. They don't fold that great, but game well.

E

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RBIEZE

9800 gtx's are dirt cheap right now.

Newegg.com - BFG Tech BFGE98512GTXOCE GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards


heres one for $179.00

Newegg.com - KFA2 by Galaxy 98TFF6HUFEXX GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

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DeadOnShot

Quote: Originally Posted by RBIEZE 9800 gtx's are dirt cheap right now. Newegg.com - BFG Tech BFGE98512GTXOCE GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards heres one for $179.00 Newegg.com - KFA2 by Galaxy 98TFF6HUFEXX GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

Wow, I didn't realize the 9800GTX had came down that much. Two of those for SLI would be cheaper than a 9800GX2. Now to look up some specs for them in SLI.

Anyone know if there is a price drop coming for the 9xxx or 2xx series anytime soon?

Edit: Wow, I'm really impressed by the HD 4870, now i'm kind of thinking about one of those now. What's the release date for the 1gb version? I can't seem to find it anywhere. Plus, it's cheaper than the 9800GX2, a bit more umph than the 9800GTX, and all of them are crossfire capable, so scaling wouldn't be hard, just a purchase of a new motherboard and a new card if I decided I want to jump up and run crossfire.

DeadOnShot

So instead of making a new post for something on roughly the same topic.

I'm having some issues deciding on a motherboard. I'm not going to totally go on the cheap with it, but I'd like to not go over about $150 for it. I keep going back to Gigabytes, but its just because I've had good experiences with them in the past couple builds I have done for friends. Back when I was still really into the loop and knew what was going on, I generally went with Asus or MSI.

Anyone have any recommendations? I'd like PCI-E 2.0, one slot is fine. Not too concerned with firewire and I won't be overclocking. I just want something that has some decent performance and is stable.

Anything anyone can think of for the sub-150 range?

reflux

My thoughts:

The 9800GX2 rocks, I have one and I've had no trouble from it. You can pick em up for £230 in the UK now, so if you lived here I'd definitely recommend you one! But there are a lot of options to choose from. At the moment, the best bang for buck setup is probably two HD4850s in CrossFire. These will be faster than one GTX280 and cost a lot less. The GTX280 only performs about on par with the 9800GX2 in most games, and makes more noise and produces more heat. Which is weird.

As for mobos, you'll want a P45 board. Gigabyte are a solid brand; my X38-DS4 is a great board. I've had good stuff from Asus too. The Gigabyte EP45 series are good, as are Asus P5Q series. The bios' are a bit immature at the moment though, so performance isn't quite as good as the P35 boards sometimes.

Unfortunately now is a bad time to be building a PC, because Intel's next generation CPUs are right around the corner. The launch of 'Nehalem' has apparently been brough forward, and because Intel are using a new socket and DDR3 only, you'll have to upgrade three expensive components to move to the new platform, come October.

Rumour control: Intel Nehalem launch brought forward | News | Custom PC

It depends when you need a PC really; Core 2 will be to Nehalem what A64 is to Core 2 now; adequate, but not nearly as good.

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DeadOnShot

Well, That's no good. I was wanting to get a computer up and running in the next month or so. But if there's a new Core 2 coming out, I may think about waiting. I've heard about the new Intel chip, but I hadn't put much thought into the implications of it coming out.

On the other hand, I'm not looking at building a massive rig that is going to play everything I throw at it with full graphics settings and massive resolutions. I just want to play whats coming out, I'm not too concerned with pushing the limits on everything. I don't plan on spending more than $900 for the whole rig, including a case and PSU. I think I will sit around for a bit and see what happens with prices and whatnot.

Any clue what socket the new chip will be? I've noticed a couple of 775 boards that support DD2/DDR3, so if it rolls out as a 775, I may just go ahead and make my purchase.

Anyway, thanks for the info. Much appreciated.

godling

Quote: Originally Posted by DeadOnShot Any clue what socket the new chip will be? I've noticed a couple of 775 boards that support DD2/DDR3, so if it rolls out as a 775, I may just go ahead and make my purchase. Anyway, thanks for the info. Much appreciated.

I've heard rumors (nothing solid) that the new chip will be a new socket altogether. I hope not, but ... there it is.

As for a cheap, good-performer in the mobo category, I bought this one a couple months ago to run my e8400 rig, and it's down to $75 now:

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-P35-S3G LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

-godling

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GrandpaNoob72

I ordered a GX2 for my new build, and have been happy with it ever since I first fired it up and got to playing.

Games like Crysis and Call of Duty 4 run smoothly at high spec settings.

If money is a sticking point, though, you could go with an 8xxx or a 9xxx (like the 9600) series.

Not very "up" on the ATI cards... Been kind of an Nvidia loyalist, they have yet to do me wrong...

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