building new system

[laughingnome]

im currently building a new system, heres what ive got so far.

processor: AMD Athlon 64 x 2 dualcore

motherboard: Gigabyte S series

power supply: 720watt Atrix

i need some advice regarding graphics cards, its going to get 4 gigs of ram.

cheers
stu

[-ash-]

Hey Stu,

I'm currently using a 7900GS 256mb RAM. Does the job for me at the moment.

Most people seem to recommend the NVidia 8800 as best bang for the buck at the moment.

I'm interested in your choice of CPU though. I've got an Intel Dual Core 6600. If I was building today I'd go for the Quad Core 6600. Any particular reason for the AMDs?

[laughingnome]

thanks for the help Tony.
over the years ive had both intel and AMD and to be honest ive never seen any real difference in performance.
im not much of a hardware guy, i just go with what works.
this will be my 3rd gigabyte AMD combo, im currently running an intel system.
right here right now computor componants are dirt cheap, i need a big power supply a good graphics card a good mobo and plenty of ram, dualcore chips are pretty much being given away so ill have one for now

regards
stu

[-ash-]

I see where you are coming from

[edit - clicked submit too soon ]

I agree that in the past there wasn't much to choose from - in fact a couple of years ago I was going for AMD. But then the Core 2's came out, I waited a bit and got the E6600. Glad I did. Nice and cool; so I put it in a nice case with quiet fans and power supply with a 7900GS cooled by heatsink. the whole thing is whisper quiet, which is just what I wanted.

Of course things may change but, at the moment, I think the Intel Core 2 chips give more bang for the buck.

If you haven't already bought bits I would recommend checking out the Q6600 which would also give you 4 cores and seems to be what most people consider the sweet spot for price/performance at the moment.

Okay, enough about that, you asked about graphic cards not CPUs

[laughingnome]

Tony thanks for your input,
dont worry about rambling OT i dont mind going OT
dualcore is being phased out so nows the time to pick them up cheap also its a lot faster than what i currently have.
the chip is a stop gap upgrade anywho ill upgrade later this year to a quad core,thanks for your advice on that.
i kinda figured it would be an 8800,well that can wait till the end of the month

regards
stu

[-ash-]

Okay that's cool. I only upgraded to dual core at the beginning of last year. Would like to get at least another year out of it. By then I think we'll have 8 core processors, so I'll see a big jump for my next upgrade cost.

[Wася]

Stu, I hope you told about 4GB of regular RAM, not video RAM.
NVIDIA Quadros have 1GB or 1X2GB [upd - erratum, actually "1.5" and "2X1", respectively] as a maximum, and there is no GeForce with more than 1GB.

I have GeForce 8800GTS, have no problem with it. If I were you I would wait for a while until the prices on 9XXX series will drop.

[laughingnome]

Originally Posted by Wася

Stu, I hope you told about 4GB of regular RAM, not video RAM.
NVIDIA Quadros have 1GB or 1X2GB as a maximum, and there is no GeForce with more than 1GB.

I have GeForce 8800GTS, have no problem with it. If I were you I would wait for a while until the prices on 9XXX series will drop.

my aplogies bud my bad explanation. the 4 gig is for the motherboard not the graphics card.
winXP 32bit will run 4 gig of ram, the graphics card like you i shall go for the 8800 GTS 526 or a gig, im not really that bothered at the moment as these are stop gap rebuild.
thank you for your advice and help

regards
stu