Need help selecting hardware

[nexeruza]

Building a new system...

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb
Rosewill RP550-2 ATX12V v2.01 550W Power Supply
CORSAIR XMS2 2GB DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz

What I'm torn about is whether to go SLI or not with these options...

$200 each (1) or (2) - MSI NX8800GT 512M OC GeForce 8800GT 512MB
$130 each (1) or (2) - MSI NX8800GTS 320M OC GeForce 8800GTS 320MB 320-bit

$90 GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX All Solid Capacitor Intel Motherboard
$150 ASUS P5N-D LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard

From the benchmarks I've seen the 320M 8800GTS seems to be a great value for only 130 dollars. However I may need to upgrade my power supply to something with a little more power and 2 SLI plugs? I haven't done SLI yet so I don't know much about it. Also I'd have to spend more on a motherboard and I'm not sure how great the 750i chipset is. I don't want to flop 225 on a new SLI MB unless the performance is going to really be worth it. Is there a single graphics card solution that would be more efficient than whats listed above?

Help please, I'm not on a tight budget I just want to get the most bang for my buck, I don't like spending 30% extra money on %10 extra performance. Any suggestions about these options or any others would be appreciated.

Also I plan on overclocking the Wolfdale to about 4ghz or wherever it is happy.

 

[Bateluer]

I'm not a big fan of SLI, so I won't suggest you go that route, definitely not if you're not experienced. Go with the 8800GT, it should run fine with your power supply as a single card. You might be pushing it with SLI though.

 

[happy medium]

Best bang for the buck? And sli?

ram 50$
e8400 @ 4.0 200$ If you can find 1
Evga 750i Ftw motherboard 180$ Newegg
2-- 9600gt's in sli (faster and cooler then the 8800 320mb) 228$ after reabate or 280$ outright. Newegg
Corsair 620 watt psu about 100$

810$ for a top tier system.

 

[Sutareteiru]

honestly I had a SSC 8800gt which can be found for less than $200 and it ran everything almost perfect, its a really great card. As for the motherboard, believe it or not, check out the evga b stock, good warrantee and i think they got a 680i for about $139.



Good Luck!

 

[nexeruza]

Thanks for the replies, if the 9600GT's are better than 320 8800GTS then I'll definitely pay a little extra for those. I noticed in the comments on Newegg that many said the 8800's run really hot which I've found can be problematic so thats a nice alternative.

Looked at the Evga 750i Ftw on Newegg its running 199 right now, which is pretty close to X38 prices, is it worth the extra cash to go with the latest chipset?

 

[ther00kie16]

Actually, for $200 you can get a 8800gts 512mb. But that may be overkill depending on what you are going to play and what resolution you are running at. 1920x1200 and up you should definitely get at least a 8800gt that overclocks well (some get to 750+/2000+). 1680x1050 and you might get by with a 9600gt. Currently, between $120 9600gt, $150 8800gt and $180 8800gts (all after rebate) you can't really go wrong with any of them in terms of performance/dollar. However, you need to choose the right card for the performance levels you want.
I personally would go with a 8800gts because the dual slot coolers will allow for a very good overclock (up to 800mhz). However, if you can wait a bit, prices will fall (the 8800gts fell from $200 to $180 just a few days ago)
newegg 8800gts for $178

 

[nexeruza]

I'm thinking about either a 22" or 24" monitor, the thing about that is the native resolution, I want the 24 for 1920 x 1200 but its 100+ more for an extra 2 inches. I'd love to play crysis at sick settings but we've all seen how that game eats hardware and it seems a bit silly to spend upwards of 500 dollars extra for one game to run a little bit better. Normally I wouldn't consider SLI but as of late it seems somewhat cost effective, other than the extra amps needed for the power supply, the SLI chipset motherboard, and the cost of an additional card. I haven't built a new puter in 5 years so I'm really out of the loop with the latest stuff, I read articles all the time but thats different than actually building systems and working through their issues and seeing real world performance. If SLI truly does offer up significant performance gains for modest cost increase I'll definitely go that route, thats really what I"m trying to figure out here, from the guys that do this every day.

 

[happy medium]

Originally posted by: ther00kie16
Actually, for $200 you can get a 8800gts 512mb. But that may be overkill depending on what you are going to play and what resolution you are running at. 1920x1200 and up you should definitely get at least a 8800gt that overclocks well (some get to 750+/2000+). 1680x1050 and you might get by with a 9600gt. Currently, between $120 9600gt, $150 8800gt and $180 8800gts (all after rebate) you can't really go wrong with any of them in terms of performance/dollar. However, you need to choose the right card for the performance levels you want.
I personally would go with a 8800gts because the dual slot coolers will allow for a very good overclock (up to 800mhz). However, if you can wait a bit, prices will fall (the 8800gts fell from $200 to $180 just a few days ago)
newegg 8800gts for $178

If your gonna go the single card route then yes the Gigabyte p35 with the 9600gt (8800gts if you need higher resolutions) is the best bang for your buck.

Keep in mind that intel is comming out with a new motherboard socket in 6/9 months and the board will be obsolete in a year.

I"m going with the cheap Gigabyte p35 board with a 2160 overclocked,cheap ass ram and a 8800gs to get by till the new socket comes out.

By the end of the year there will be cpu's and gpu's that are allmost twice as fast as today, and motherboards will require ddr3 memory also.

 

[ther00kie16]

happy medium has a point. Nehalem will be a new socket. So if all you need is 3ghz, you can save yourself $100+ and overclock a 21x0 to over 3ghz (3ghz is even doable on the stock hsf). You could put that $100+ towards a 24" and a 8800gts (which will be good enough even for Crysis at moderate settings). And if you need, you can always get another 8800gts in the future (for less) for SLI.
It's kinda tricky now cuz not only is there a new socket coming out for Intel, but nVidia/ATi will be coming out with new cards in 2 months. And nVidia seems worried about ATi's dual gpu card that should beat the 9800gx2. And on the whole, crossfire is less buggy and has more features than nVidia.
Fudzilla

 

[nexeruza]

Excellent replies, think you guys have answered my questions well, there is no hot shit ultimate setup right now, everything has pro's and con's and thats what originally brought me here. I don't upgrade too often so I'll probably invest in a setup that is the best I can get right now and fuck the future I remember when I bought the motherboard for this computer i have now, NForce 2 athlon 2600+ I figured I'd throw a 3200+ in later for an upgrade and that'd last me a bit longer Haha, thx guys.

 

[ther00kie16]

Originally posted by: nexeruza
Excellent replies, think you guys have answered my questions well, there is no hot shit ultimate setup right now, everything has pro's and con's and thats what originally brought me here. I don't upgrade too often so I'll probably invest in a setup that is the best I can get right now and fuck the future I remember when I bought the motherboard for this computer i have now, NForce 2 athlon 2600+ I figured I'd throw a 3200+ in later for an upgrade and that'd last me a bit longer Haha, thx guys.

haha, don't diss nforce 2 + athlon xp.
I still game on asus nforce 2 + athlon xp 3200 + 9800pro.
COD4, CS source, BF2 on 1920x1200 no problem. Only thing I'm pissed about is Assassin's Creed won't freaking work without shader 3.0 or higher. A couple months ago, I though I saw minimum req's somewhere being 9800pro, but I guess I'm wrong.