New motherboard, CPU and GPU combination - advice needed!!!

**savage** · 29-09-2006, 07:24 AM

The MB bundles I will pick from are probably ones from this page...
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/bundles.html

**Clootie** · 29-09-2006, 01:11 PM

Now I would definetly go and buy "Intel Dual Core 2 Duo 6300 - 1024MB - ATX" and GeForce 7900GS. But looks like this will not fit in 400 pounds.

**tux** · 29-09-2006, 06:15 PM

what about this (from ebuyer.com):

AMD with quite a nice processor

111290 Athlon 64 4200 Dual Core 2.2GHz
113976 ASUS M2NPV-MX SKT AM2
091124 Kingston Valueram 2Gb 667MHz DDR2

that comes to ¬£346 including VAT and shipping.

or we could go to intel with an older processor

107617 Intel Pentium D 805 Dual Core 64 bit
114964 MSI 945GZM3-L
091124 Kingston Valueram 2Gb 667MHz DDR2

that comes to ¬£302 including vat and shipping but the motherboard also supports core 2 duo for a future upgrade.

both have onboard graphics cards and depending on what you want to do, i would wait to get a graphics card (or get a cheap one like an x1300 at ¬£40) until the dx10 cards are out.

also bare in mind that the core2 duo processors are quite new (well a few months old) and amd havnt released there new processors yet but its been said they are compatible with the AM2 motherboards

**savage** · 29-09-2006, 07:07 PM

I gather the graphics card need to be PCI Express, does it have to be SLI?

**tux** · 29-09-2006, 07:10 PM

yes the graphics card will need to be pci express. sli is decided by the motherboard and is only available with nvidia. crossfire is ATI's version but is a bit more complex, you wil lneed whats called a master card and then a normal card

**savage** · 06-10-2006, 09:31 PM

When are the Dx10 cards due out?

**tux** · 06-10-2006, 10:16 PM

not too sure. vista is released january-ish and that has dx10 so i suspect shortly after that?

dx10 aparently wont be released for xp (due to the new graphics driver model in vista)

**savage** · 06-10-2006, 10:39 PM

hmm may just get a cheap graphics card until then. What real advantages are to be gained by sticking 2 Sli Graphics cards in my new MB?

**WILL** · 07-10-2006, 12:02 AM

Hmm... I'm currious as to who is going to create software that is DirectX 10 required and when that will start to happen.

I personally am not going to touch Vista. It looks all nice and all, but personally Linux is the way to go for me. Esp. once I hit school hard.

'Till then I'm sticking with XP.

**tanffn** · 07-10-2006, 05:59 AM

SLI means that you can buy 2 cards of the same type (being both PCI-X+SLI) and connect them to work together.

An highend GC costs as it is way too much and using too in parallel is nice and all but I don‚Äôt think its worth it.
I always buy a new computer every 3-4 years, and every time I do I buy one-two-three generation older then the one that was announced (calculating the speed per $$ ratio)

The spec of my computer is AMD 64 3500+ (notice the +), 1GB ram (2 sticks, CL2.5, take advantage of the hyper-transport), GeForce 6600 (PCI-X) 256MB, MB with NForce 4 bus controller.
It works great with all the games I‚Äôve tried, true that in the options not everything is set to *extreme*