Proweedsmoker

So, Its been awhile since I have built my puter, today decided it was time to go again.

First off, Im comming from a p4 OC'd @ 3.2 2gigs value ram, and 1x 6800 GT 500W PSU.

New build which I ordered consists of a Duo 2 core e8400 wolfdale, 4g's OZS ddr2 pc 800? 5-5-5-18, the MSI P7N SLI ready MB, and a XFX 9800 GTX black edition. Plan to SLI in the future, but I maxed the budget for now.

My old PSU was a 500w old **** with no 6 pin connectors. So of course, I had to find a decent one to upgrade with. Now my questions. I want to SLI my GFX Cards in the furture sometime, what kinda power will I need to run both cards and everything, fans, gfx, etc..,

The one I got for right now is an OZS 700w SLI ready PSU w/ 2x 6pins, but Im worried with just 1 GFX card needing a min. of 450w the 700 will not be enuff in the furture.... ANy advice?

Also, If you would mind, Im comming from an AGP to 2.0 PCI-e, just curious how you think the new build will hold up. Im a hard core gamer, so keep that in mind.

Thank you and greetins from VA, USA!~

jmke

Hi there, are you sure to keep the 9800 GTX? as the 8800 GTS 512 will be a better deal for less, 8800 GT even more.
The 700W will be largely sufficient, unless you go past 10 HDDs in your PC

keep in mind that in order to address the 4Gb in your OS it has to be 64-bit.

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Proweedsmoker

well, I did good when the 6800 GT was out and was "the ****" so I figured this time, to try for the same and go 9 series over, the "older" 8 series. Not to versied as I been out of it for awhile.

My goal is to SLI the black editions in abotu a month with another card.

so, 2 questions. About the OS, I will need to update to vista from XP SP2 to utilze all my ram si what your saying?

2nd question is. Money aside atm, the 9800gtx will outpreform the 8800gts correct? Esp. in SLI mode? If the difference in <10% I may have to rethink cards.

I was gonna go with a gainward gtx, but the BE seem'd to score higher in the articles I read.

jmke

1st question: 64-bit version of XP or Vista can address 4gb, the normal version (32bit) can address 3.5ghz in windows and give 3gb to a single application.

but to be honest, stick with a 32-bit OS for now, 3gb per application is more than sufficient for a few years to come and 64-bit OS and application for the end users have a lot of maturing to to do before they become a viable alternative.

2nd) the 8800 GTS at stock speeds will be slightly slower than the 9800 GTX, which is basically an overclocked 8800 GTS. With slightly we're talking single digit % here. And some stock OC versions of the 88000 GTS (XFX/EVGA) are cheaper and faster than the cheapest 9800 GTX cards

3rd) SLI: I would not focus on SLI/CF at all. Stick with single GPU solution as they will always offer you best bang for buck. If you buy 8800 GT(S) now and in 6 months the latest high end , you will be off cheaper and have a faster PC. This is because "normally" next generation cards double the performance of the last, most of the times; the 9800 GTX is the obvious exception to the rule, but with the 9900GTX "rumored" to be for this summer and ATI HD4870 before that, the SLI "bargain" is quickly diminished.

and this is all without considering the 50-70% speed increase in games when going SLI. Hardly will you ever see a full benefit for the price you pay. This may sound like an anti SLI/CF post, but it's mostly because it's the plain and simple truth.

the game engine has the be designed with SLI/CF in mind
the drivers have to be tweaked properly

if those two factors are taken into account you will see nice gains (UT3) but if something is not 100% correct, you will see lower gains, or none at all, or even negative (rare cases).

then there's the issue of micro-stuttering (few ms delays every few seconds, if you play a few minutes it will hardly be noticeable, if you play several hours, you'll be cursing at your screen)


for a gaming station:
- GPU >> GPU 512Mb
- 2~3GB
- Fast HDD for faster loading times

noise wise:
- Tower CPU cooler with 120Mm fan support
- Midi_Maxi tower case with single 120mm exhaust, low speed
- low noise PSU



forgot the most important question: what monitor do you have, what is your native resolution (if LCD)

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Proweedsmoker

Ah sigh, well poop. Guess Ill just go with what I have for now. Hate sending stuff back. 2 months zI WIll complete the build with what ever I need to finish it.

The moniter I have now is the ASUS AL 1914 I think. Yes its LCD afaik.

Yea I game for hours when Im not at work. Just wanted to build the best I could afford atm. Thats whY i picked what I did. As far as guts go, Im a complete newbie for the most part. I dont plan on OC alot, btu a small ammount ( May take the processor from 3.0 to 3.3 or something, using air cooling here) Try to OC the the ram some, but I dunno atm.

Now Im kinds wishing I woulda stoped in here before I spent a **** ton of money on parts I may not be happy with price/ preformance wise.

jmke

Well it's not like you got a bad PC there you'll be using it for quite some time to come!

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Proweedsmoker

Was curious, My OSZ SLI Ready ram (PC 800?) 2x 2gigs sticks, Says its needs 2.1v... How do I go about making sure my MB gives my ram what it needs? And what does my ram need? lol

Link to my ram OCZ SLI ready 4gigs DDR2 PC PC 6400

jmke

in the MSI bios under DDR2 check the voltage

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Proweedsmoker

Ok, well I looked clocked the *memory* tab int he bios upto 2.1v, the tooltip said 1.5-2.5.. so that seems to be ok...

Next question is, I ran the Ntune in just a quick 20m tune up for the PC, now when I look at my Nvidia Moniter view, I have a red light on the PCI-E bus- Before tune it was clocked @ 2500.000 Mhz- After its @ 2850... Is this bad or ok?

Didnt seem to make that much of a difference in 3dmark06... maybe a 200-400point increase...

SHould I runt he percise tuning?\

heres a breakdown of the MB settings if it helps any:

System clock: 333mhz
CPU core multiplier 0.0
CPU Core freq 0.0
FSB 1,332
Mem bus freq 799
PCI E Clock - 2850
Memory timining:
tRAS: 18 tRCD: 6 tRP: 6 tRC24 tCL: 6 tCPC:0

tWR: 5 tRRD: 3 tRWT: 5 tWTR: 10

tRDRD: 3 tWRWR: 2

AUto fan control on every aspect And voltages selection all N/A

TY much for all your advice so far!

jmke

increasing the PCIe clock might indeed boost performance a bit, but not that much, might cause instability if pushed too high. If you can't notice the difference in games, I would leave it at default setting; I like stability over speed

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