Input?

[Nemesis3]

What do you think of the 3D BLASTER ANNIHILATOR 2 64MB AGP found it for 307 + s&h

What do you think of the ?Lian Li 60 case
Any issues with it and a Asus A7M266?
Is $264 + s&h for it and a Antec 400w power supply about right?

I believe there are problems with Tb santa cruz and win2000?

Anyone using a sblive with Asus A7M266? I know the V(via) designated mobos usually have northbridge related issues with the sblive? Does the ddr Via southbridge mobos(hey all of them are) have problems with it as well?

If both of these are incompatible due to via chipset or win2k, that leaves the phillips and the new hercules card? Any knowledge base on conflicts with them and the new ddr mobo crop?

 

[WileCoyote]

I have the Lian Li PC-60 case and it's great. That is not a bad price for it either. When I bought it a few months ago it was almost exactly that price on www.mwave.com.

The video card is a little pricey, I would wait for a better deal in the Hot Deals forum. It's a great card and with the geforce3 coming out hopefully the price will drop some more (if you can wait!)

The A7M266 is about $160 before shipping, so $100 for a power supply is very expensive in my mind. It might be a good one though. I have an antec 300W with a temp controlled fan that cost $40.

dunno about the santa cruz and w2k
good luck putting your box together, sounds like a pretty solid system.

 

[Nemesis3]

>The A7M266 is about $160 before shipping, so $100 for a power supply is >ery expensive in my mind.
The 264 is for the Lian Li 60 + Antec 400w power supply. Which is 184 for the Lian Li and 79.00 for the Antec power supply. Is that about what you paid for your case?

The geforce 3 debate of to buy or not to buy is one I have been contemplating. Until new games come out I am not going to see much of a performance gain. If I buy a geforce 2 ultra now and buy a geforce 3 later, I spend the time till I by later on a slightly slower card and may spend more money. I..e 306 for a Ultra now and 400 for geforce 3 later is not a good deal as I doubt the geforce 3 will even be the 600 I keep hearing$ So even 300 now and 300 later is not a good deal.

My options are wait for it to be released, and then wait for a couple decent manufacturers to make them. Then wait for them to be reviewed a couple places and then to get in retail stores online. Even buying then could be jumping the gun as a better geforce 3 card could be released even after that time frame. Usually takes quite a while to see a clear "best" card of a certain chipset after the first one is released. As most of you know that time frame might be July + Option 2. Buy a 2 ultra and wait for the card that comes out after the 3. Yep waiting till when the 3 is released to drive down prices on the 2 ultra might be a good move unless it really is released at 600$, in which case there would be very little reason to take the price of the Ultra down. You also have to considered there is the pro(2 version of it?), gts 64mb, gts 32mb, mx 64mb,and mx 32mb versions that have to have some kind of spead price range so maybe the 3 will be 550-600 for awhile

 

[Motero]

I wouldn't go for the 64 mb video card...the 32 is just as good...or wait for the geforce 3 to drive prices down for the ultra.

 

[MasterTech]

Creative Labs is not a good choice for Video Cards. They have spotty driver support and previous "issues" with refernce drivers. Elsa and Hercules driver support is much better. Asus makes high quality cards as well. But upgrading to a newer card may not offer you much more then benchmark bragging rights. Do you games run slow now?

 

[Nemesis3]

I am currently on my 233 laptop so a video card period would be good.

As for why the creative. The reviews I have read said just the opposite.Big company plenty of updates yadda. Plain jane card as far as extra but all I want is a good card. Elsa was quoted as not updating and if you did glasses etc no longer worked etc. Leadtek has problems with lines. Prohpet performed on par with gladiac at sharky, while at anand the gladiac was behind the creative ultra. Hence I assumed... Hey fastest card I have found and didn't seem to have issues in any of the reviews. The prohpet also cost like 123$ more (429) that I found and performs worse.

From what I read the options are prophet(429) or Creative(306)? Any specifics on the issues with the creative? First time I have heard any mentioned. What is the best geforce 2 gts card if I decide to go 32mb?

 

[MichaelD]

Disagree about Creative vidcards not being that great because of their spotty driver support. 99% of all GF2GTS cards use NVidia's reference design for the cards and drivers are pretty much interchangeable.

I have a CL GF2GTS(32mb). It came with cool utility software. But as the new Detonator's came out, and I loaded them, all those cool utilities are now unusable. But that's ok as the latest drivers work better than the Creative drivers that came with the card.

Right now I'm running the 11.0 detonators from Elsa. They work great on my Creative Labs vidcard. Hardware monitor says I'm running an Elsa card. Other utils say I'm running an NVidia card. Who cares? Everything works great.

 

[Motero]

I have a Creative geforce 2 gts 32 mb and it rules! I used 3d Mark 2000 and reached over 7000 with no tweeking. If you get this card, most people only recommend using the Nvidia drivers...I'm using det3 6.50. No complaints and no troubles.