New system, CPU/Motherboard Combo??

[jbino]

The upgrade bug has once again bitten me, looking for a complete overhaul here. Current systems is a P4 2.4c (800Mhz FSB), Abit IS7 motherboard, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro All-In-Wonder and 2x256Mb of Kingston Hyper-X (I believe 333).

Looking to clean house and build an Athlon 64 based system with the capability for having PCI express based SLI. Right now thinking of something along the lines of a Athlon 64 3500 (939) (the Athlon FX chips are a bit pricey for what I want to spend). Some questions.

1. Seems the 90nm socket 939 stuff is what everyone is going with, thoughts?

2. Seems the most popular board is the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum however I don't believe this is a SLI capable board. I know Nforce4 is starting to show up. Is that the chipset to go with right now for an Athlon 64 chip and if so, board recommendations please.

3. I'm guessing DDR 400 memory is where I should look, thoughts?

Lastly, Thinking of a GeForce 6600GT to start with which should offer a nice jump in performance over my 9800 Pro right now, and adding a second one in SLI when prices drop sometime in the future. Good/Bad idea?

Oh yeah, I'm primarily gaming and doing some light multimedia type stuff. Thanks!

 

[slurmsmackenzie]

you seem to be uninformed about your choices in regards to expectations/considerations. to go amd, get pci e, and sli you must go 939 90nm and you must go nforce4. that limits your choices to about three motherboards at this point. if you must go amd, i suggest waiting for a couple of months til more boards get out there and are tested by those respected in the community. asus has had a very stong showing with all of there recent flagship boards with both intel and amd, so when the smoke clears, i expect their board to be one of the top performers.

your processor choice is a good one (3500+ 939) and i'd get at least a gig of pc3500 or better.

 

[Waylay00]

Originally posted by: jbino
Lastly, Thinking of a GeForce 6600GT to start with which should offer a nice jump in performance over my 9800 Pro right now, and adding a second one in SLI when prices drop sometime in the future. Good/Bad idea?

You won't see that much performance gain over a 9800pro (maybe 1-3 fps). If you are going to fork out $200 just get a 6800 non ultra. One 6800 NU is better than two 6600gt's in SLI.

 

[sreams]

You won't see that much performance gain over a 9800pro (maybe 1-3 fps). If you are going to fork out $200 just get a 6800 non ultra. One 6800 NU is better than two 6600gt's in SLI.

Not necessarily. It depends entirely upon what game we are talking about, and how extensive shader implimentation is. A 6600GT SLI setup is significantly faster than a single 6800NU running Doom3 at high resolution. In fact... it's about 15-20% faster than an X800 XT.

-S