SLI and Crossfire make absolutely no sense unless you're going for ultra-high end performance regardless of cost and you get 2 high end cards right away. The buy-one-card-and-add-another-later approach just doesn't work out. By the time you add another card for SLI there will be a single card out there that will trounce your older SLI cards and cost less than the 2 of them as well.

For less than ultra performance, SLI/Crossfire doesn't deliver either. 2 midrange cards don't equal one high end. It just doesn't scale that way.

ah ha! see, newegg's PSU calculator told me 650 would suffice. there's a deal for -$100 on a 1K PSU when you buy the second case i linked, IIRC (and if it's still available). either way, better PSU, check. some of the reviews for the Antec Nine Hundred case suggest getting one with modular cabling, since the PSU mounts at the bottom of the case instead of the top.



well to be honest, i was planning on keeping the option of SLI open for future upgrades. on the other hand, i've heard that SLI and Crossfire only add marginal improvement for the cost (basically it's something you do if you've got money to burn).



sweet! honestly i think keeping the door open for SLI is probably a pipe dream and a waste of money for me, so i should just go with the better chipset. one nice perk about these chipsets, they open the door for faster memory. definately can't afford DDR3 but with the nvidia chipsets DDR2 800 was the best available from what i could find.

okay, i've got more window shopping to do  and oh to be sure i'll be getting XP Pro. i really just don't want to deal with Vista.

thanks Craig! btw i've been curious, the "HB" isn't for Huntington Beach, is it?

You sometimes have to be sure about the benefit when going for the latest and greatest stuff. I've gotten burned that way before. For example, as Kryo mentioned, I sort of went out of my way to upgrade to SATA 3.0GB some time ago and found I got no increase in disk speed. It turns out that disks can only fully utilize SATA 1.5GB speeds anyway. Another example, I got a marginal increase in tested memory speed going from DDR2-400 to DDR2-800. You would expect it to be double but, as mentioned before, things just don't scale that way. Don't get too hung up on getting the very fastest architecture out there. In some cases, you can pay a lot of extra money for a marginal increase in visible performance.

I would be fine with the DDR2-800 right now. The 1066 is more expensive and the benefit is marginal. DDR3 is still pretty new. It's expensive and the motherboards that support it are pricey.

Yes, they are. I always give the video card top billing in my builds. I usually skimp on the processor. However, next build, I'm going to skimp a little less on the CPU. I dug in a bit too deep last time.

Just wanted to clarify, the 750W minimum power supply is only required for operating *dual high-end* video cards. I'm running a PCP&C 450W which is fully capable for any single card, single CPU system. However, PCP&C uses continuous ratings so that would be more like a 600W for a maker advertising peak ratings.


No, but I lived close to there in Seal Beach for a time. The HB is my last two initials. I've just never been able to come up with a good handle. Hehe, it's amazing I actually came up with a couple game characters to use.

I wouldn't bother with 64 unless you have a specific reason for using it. Driver support isn't as good, and some software doesn't get along with it.

Hehe, none taken. One of the things I do that me keeps from spending *too* much money is to sell the old parts on eBay. For instance, I'll probably get a couple hundered for the 8800GTS so I'll only need to dish out about a hundred to make up the difference for an 8800GT. eBay usually does pretty well for computer parts if they're not too old. If that wasn't the case, I'd be doing these builds only once every few years. It's worth it for me to have the latest hardware all the time. The way it works out, the budget system I build tomorrow ends up being equivalent to the pricey top-the-line system I could build today.


Yea, the 8800GT is a super hot seller right now and it's listing over retail. However, my favorite video card maker is eVGA and you can buy it online from them right now at retail. Though, I imagine the price will drop below that at retailer sites in a few months which is prefect for my schedule.

For a less expensive card, I'd go for the Radeon. Low-end GeForce GPU's are really slow. I had a 7900GT die on me and put one in my system while the failed card was out for warranty replacement. I couldn't do much other than email and web browsing with it.

All retail boxed CPUs come with an HSF. Unless you're doing serious overclocking, the standard HSF is plenty good enough on current-gen chips.

heh thanks for bearing with me guys, again i'm really thankful. like i said, it's like being a kid in a candy store - it's nice to have more level-headed folks telling me when i might really be over-doing it.

that doesn't mean i won't over-do it, but it does mean i'll make a more informed choice if and when i do. to admit the truth, some of the 'bling' components kinda appeal to my vanity

  now that's what i call bling!

i was checking this one out: GIGABYTE GH-PCU22-VG

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also, i think i might just go ahead and get this 8800GT since it comes with a free copy of Company of Heroes. and while this one has only half the memory, it also comes with the game and is only $100 after rebate.

stupid dyslexia! i thought that was another 8800. guess that was way too good to be true. yeah, i decided i'll probably just suck it up and get an 8800.

btw rls669, i like the look of your machine, the dominant blue light with hints of red here and there. very swank.

edit: so i was just browsing case modding gear for S's & G's... check out this system i found on xoxide.com: WWW Link. the UV + green is just amazing.

Embird, i'm probably not the greatest expert along these lines. i'm personally going to avoid Vista until there's absolutely no support for XP. at that point, i'll consider Vista vs. Linux.

i've also read that Vista comes in four flavors: super lame, standard lame, premium lame, and Vista ultimate. it might be worth it to spend the extra money for the ultimate version, but you should also probably get a more informed opinion.

I've actually got the P31 version of that Gigabyte board in my wishlist. The only difference between the P35 and P31 boards is the number of peripherals they support. Speeds are the same. Since I only run a couple hard drives and only need a couple USB ports, the P31 is sufficient for me. Why pay for stuff I'm not going to use.

I've got an ASUS board in my sytem right now. I'm not particularly impressed and don't really see why they're so popular. Their web site isn't anything special either. When it comes to OEM websites, eVGA kicks their behinds. For the last few years, my favorite motherboard maker has been EPoX, but I haven't been able to get them lately. The last one I had (with the nForce 4) really scored on the benchmarks. It was a great board, and stable too.


I think the onboard sound codecs makers use these days are not all that great. You may want to look into an add-on card. I settle for the onboard sound mostly because it's convenient, but I'm not real picky about sound anyway.


Before the 65nm process, I used a better HSF than what came in the boxed CPU. However, with the lower power consumption of these new 65nm and 45nm processes, it's really overkill unless you're into heavy overclocking. Looking at my 65nm Athlon, it's running at 102F right now with the stock HSF. Before that, I was lucky to see temps that low with a good after-market unit.

Re the operating system; the big advantage of Vista is that is supports large amounts of physical and virtual memory. I believe (not positive) regular ol' 32 bit XP can provide up to 2GB to an application and supports up to 4GB of physical memory. Unless you have applications that require large amounts of memory, I don't see why XP shouldn't be able to do whatever you need it to. Also, there's DX10. It's supported only by Vista which I think is a ploy on Microsoft's part to force people into upgrading (using the term loosely here). From the screenshots I've seen, it looks like a bunch of hype to me. I really can't tell that much difference.

With respect to GC2, it's been getting memory optimizations for TA so it should be fine with XP. Even with DA, I've not had any trouble lately with 2GB of physical memory. BTW, if you don't know this already, get a matched set of two memory modules so you can take advantage of the dual channel memory architechture newer motherboards support. You get a big boost in memory throughput that way.

Re 32 bit versus 64 bit; to take full advantage of 64 bit processing, I believe you need to be running 64 bit applications along with a 64 bit processor and operating system. Personally, 32 bit has always been adequate for me. Also, drivers are generally more developed and more widely available.