im not normally one to ask about comupter bits but its been so long since ive even looked at this stuff ive lost track on whats decent.

ive always been an AMD fan, but im having difficulty choosing what to buy.

i dont wanna spend lots and lots, but around £500-600 mark, i want something fairly future proof..

atm i have

AMD64 X2 6000 @ 3.0Mhz
MSN SLi Deluxe Mother Board
4GB DDR2 Ram
XFX 8800GT

i was looking at the follwing

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition @ 3.4Mhz
MSI NF980-G65 AM3 (not too sure on board but this one seems pretty decent)
6GB DDR3 @ 1333mhz
(not sure on graphics card) - i am thinking about 8800GT SLi or GTX285, i cant afford to stretch to a 295 atm.

what kind of monitor do you have currently?
the above upgrades seem sweet to me. if you're thinking about sli with 8800GT's buy a couple of 9800GT's and sli those. each one is about £70 so they're right and cheap.

Those upgrades are pretty good but to be honest, I'd recommend ATI over nVidia. I've been reading on a few benchmark websites about different cards and the RadeonHD 4890 is pretty good and you could go for a Crossfire setup (twin 4890s) for £300 so that would be a complete beast for sure or alternatively, you could go for 1 GPU like the RadeonHD5850 which you can get for £250 which is also a beast (don't consider 5870, can't overclock that as fast as the 5850 so you'd be wasting money for the 5870) and 1 GPU ofcourse means you can make do with a smaller and cheaper motherboard since you don't need the extra space because the ATI cards are fat muthas. For my setup for the AMD Phenom II 965 BE and RadeonHD 5850, I went for the Gigabyte GA790XTA-UD4.

well i have just been looking hard at intel cpus and ive come across this.

Intel Core i7-860 Quad Core Processor
Gigabyte GA-EX58 Extreme
4GB Corsair XMS3 1333MHz DDR3 Dual

gunna cost just over 500 compared to the otiginal setup posted above for about 375.

the monitor i have at the mo is actually just a tele, with a max res of 1024x768..

but im looking at a new 32" tele in full HD so 1980x1024.

leprekaun - i have had horrible experiences with ATI cards, driver problems mainly, and games pausing and not responding, my friends who swore by ATI also started to suffer from the same problems and we switched to nvidia and never had the problems ever again..

so unfortunatly, im scarred for life, i wont buy another ATI aslong as nvidia is producing cards.

Some good reading in this link here.

It's been like 20 years since last time I had an Intel CPU in one of my PC's, and not an AMD. But this time I chose Intel when I built my new rig. Also first time *ever* I've chosen ATI over Nvidia. These choices I made simply because I think those 2 manufacturers have the best technology atm.

Quote from R3DMAN :

leprekaun - i have had horrible experiences with ATI cards, driver problems mainly, and games pausing and not responding, my friends who swore by ATI also started to suffer from the same problems and we switched to nvidia and never had the problems ever again..

so unfortunatly, im scarred for life, i wont buy another ATI aslong as nvidia is producing cards.

hmm... I never read anything about that so I hope I'm not one of those victims . A friend did tell me that his ATI card did blow up but that was because he was using an nVidia motherboard. In terms of the driver issues, I think the thing with the black screen after logging into Windows is no big deal really as the card functions perfectly afterwards. I think it started happening with drivers after 9.12 but fair enough, I know the feeling when you lose trust in a company. I had a look at the XFX nVidia GTX cards on Scan, GTX 260 (SLI = £315.52) so maybe that would be a good setup but to be honest with you, I've only briefly read through nVidia cards, I mostly researched ATI stuff.

Quote from Leprekaun :

. A friend did tell me that his ATI card did blow up but that was because he was using an nVidia motherboard.

sorry bud but that can't be true. i have an ATI chipset and i'm using a NV8800GT. no issues. your friends pc blew up because he was probs trying to overclock it.

but back to GPU's, what'll put you into a spin is that ATI is actually AMD. what gives eh.

so what do you guys think about this then?

Intel Core i7-860 Quad Core Processor
Gigabyte GA-EX58 Extreme
4GB Corsair XMS3 1600MHz DDR3 Dual

and does anyone have a xfx 8800 GT Alpha dog for sale? (512)

Quote from R3DMAN :

does anyone have a xfx 8800 GT Alpha dog for sale? (512)

there's your dog
but any 88 will do the trick.

Quote from R3DMAN :

so what do you guys think about this then?

Intel Core i7-860 Quad Core Processor
Gigabyte GA-EX58 Extreme
4GB Corsair XMS3 1600MHz DDR3 Dual

Looks good, but the i7 860 is a socket 1156 cpu and thus can't be used on the motherboard you listed, which is a socket 1366. I would suggest an Asus P55 board instead.

Quote from dadge :

sorry bud but that can't be true. i have an ATI chipset and i'm using a NV8800GT. no issues. your friends pc blew up because he was probs trying to overclock it.

but back to GPU's, what'll put you into a spin is that ATI is actually AMD. what gives eh.

But I'm saying that he used an ATI GPU in an nVidia chipset. It might work the other way round. I don't think he overclocked it.

Intel i7 is probably the best CPU on the market but BOO! for Intel :thumbsdow. I'll always be on the green side of CPUs.

Quote from Leprekaun :

But I'm saying that he used an ATI GPU in an nVidia chipset. It might work the other way round. I don't think he overclocked it.

It doesn't matter, just because it's an nvidia chipset doesn't mean you have to use an nvidia card. You can use any card you want, the chipset is universal.

ive decided on another system now..

100% decided ..

Intel i7 920 D0 Stepping @ 2.66Mhz
Asus Rampage II Extreme X58
Corsair 6GB DDR3 1600mhz (TR3X6G1600C9)

Good stuff. And quite expensive stuff too, especially that motherboard.
Just remember to get a really good CPU cooler. That 130W CPU will make some massive heat.

Everything is different now. Don't get bottled up in history. Though I wasn't in the game when everything was AMD dominated (was when it ended ; C2D), don't look at brand, but model. Everything is pretty much compatiable now, and there aren't that much problems as long as they fit (pretty much).

Regarding your Alpha Dog 8800GT, you can go out and grab some 9800GT or even a GT240(will probably cost less because of production and faster [clocked high on avg to 55nm). Make sure that they are of the same core [G92 with 112 SPs]. If a GT240 is bought, it cannot (i believe) be the one with 128 bit and GDDR5; though if the core was the same, and effective mem rate was twice that of the 256 bit and GDDR3 model would yield same performance, they need to be the same to be SLId. If anything, get a higher model GPU and PhysX the current 8800GT.

atm i use a corsair h50 watercooled system, ive seen the same system with that cooler running at 29 degrees on idle.

regarding the 8800, if i cant find one soon ill just get a gtx295.

i linked you to one on ebay.

yea, ive contacted the seller regarding that one.

i want to try get one from the UK first, and if i cant ill resort to overseas.

before getting another 8800GT, look at this 9800GT. the reviews are quite good and you could also SLI it with the 8800GT (i think).

as i understand it you really need to SLi 2 of the same GPU's for best performance..

so for instance i could sli a xfx 8800gt and a bfg 8800gt perfectly.. but i cant sli a 8800gt and 9800gt.

my understanding is different lol. if you put the 9800GT with the 8800GT then the 98 would reduce it's performance to match that of the lesser card.
it could be complete BS tho as i have never SLI'd before and thus never needed to look into it further.

But, what is the point of buying 9800GT and putting it in SLI with 8800GT when it would lose power? It would be a waste of money. It's more reasonable to get either another 8800 or two 9800GT's.

because a 9800 is easier to find than a 8800. try to keep up.

Im running SLI 8800GT's, but in a system with those specs its not worth doing it? surely?

You would proberly be better of with a single GTX260 or anything of the above from that?