Vid card/ motherboard suggestions?

[NerdUprising]

pooling cash for a new puter...

was looking at Radeon 9600 ($178)[128Mb, DX9, Dual Head (DVI/VGA), AGP 8x] because its one of the sexiest cards I can find that supports DX9, and still wanted to use 128Mb Dual Head, etc etc
to compliment that, was going with Intel D845PESV($90) (Hyperthreading, DDR333, USB2.0, audio, etc) but it only has AGP 4X, doesnt support the 800Mhz FSB. But it is cheap, stable, and has lots of goodies...

anybody have any suggestions for decent motherboard/ vid card combos? dont want to spend too much, but want to have decent upgradability...

 

[Goatman]

I'd go with the 9500 Pro....

 

[NerdUprising]

hmm, very nice... almost the same as the 9600, a little bit slower, and an older (but not very different) version of smoothvision... $30 cheaper,very nice. looked over it because ATI dropped the bad boy, only have limited support on it now

so now looking at radeon 9500 pro($147) and D865PERL($110)... any other ways I could improve without having to sell various organs on the black market to be able to afford them?

 

[Taurus]

good choice upgrading to the 865 board. it uses dual-channel pc3200 to go with 800fsb p4's. the 845's aren't really worth it anymore.

 

[Jz1397-5]

try to go for something with the the 800FSB support and dual channel ram. when you get more money later, you can upgrade.

 

[LeeJend]

VIA and Intel just kissed and made up so you can "safely" look for a VIA based P4 chipset with the AGP 8X. I haven't heard if there is a VIA P4 chipset out with dual channel ddr, 533 (or better FSB) and 8x agp yet. Look around and maybe wait a few weeks.

As for the vid I have the 9500 PRO and love it. The 9600 is not necessarily faster. Depends on what benchmarks you look at. The 9600's claim to fame is a smaller piece of silicon and a faster clock speed. The 9500 PRO makes up for the slower clock speed by having 8 pipelines instead of 4 like the 9600 has. ATI ditched the 9500 because the die used up too much silicon driving up manufacturing costs, not because the 9600 was better!

The other cost reduction option is going with an Athlon based system. That could save you 50-150 USD. Which brand gives the best performance depends on what you use the system for. Intel beats Athlon big time on video or audio manipulation and anything that is memroy intensive. Athlon may still be hanging in there on floating point intensive stuff like gaming, but AMD has had their heads up their butts for the last 18 months and it's really showing.

PS Anyone ever notice that if you hit the shift key by accident P4 becomes P$? Just coincidence right?

 

[Sazar]

Originally posted by LeeJend
VIA and Intel just kissed and made up so you can "safely" look for a VIA based P4 chipset with the AGP 8X. I haven't heard if there is a VIA P4 chipset out with dual channel ddr, 533 (or better FSB) and 8x agp yet. Look around and maybe wait a few weeks.

As for the vid I have the 9500 PRO and love it. The 9600 is not necessarily faster. Depends on what benchmarks you look at. The 9600's claim to fame is a smaller piece of silicon and a faster clock speed. The 9500 PRO makes up for the slower clock speed by having 8 pipelines instead of 4 like the 9600 has. ATI ditched the 9500 because the die used up too much silicon driving up manufacturing costs, not because the 9600 was better!

The other cost reduction option is going with an Athlon based system. That could save you 50-150 USD. Which brand gives the best performance depends on what you use the system for. Intel beats Athlon big time on video or audio manipulation and anything that is memroy intensive. Athlon may still be hanging in there on floating point intensive stuff like gaming, but AMD has had their heads up their butts for the last 18 months and it's really showing.

PS Anyone ever notice that if you hit the shift key by accident P4 becomes P$? Just coincidence right?

yes and no

the 9500pro was basically the 9700pro w/o 128bit memory... hence it was costing just as much to make

the 9600 series has millions of transistors less (still up around the 70-75 million transistor count) and other bandwidth saving techniques to make it competitive...

but the 9500pro is a superior card in raw performance to the 9600 series... the 9600 series incorporates a few minor performance efficiency improvements and have memory that can clock higher...

 

[NerdUprising]

very many thanks for that info...
that pretty much cements my using the 9500, which im pretty excited about now
as for the motherboard, I think I'll still use the 865PERL... I like intel stuff - very solid, and since im not interested in oc'ing anything, Im getting alot of features and upgradability [ddr400, agp 8x, 6 channel (5.1) audio, 800mhz bus support, etc etc] for not a whole lot of cash... plus Im familiar enough with intel boards that I feel comfortable to do fun things...

 

[Sazar]

Originally posted by NerdUprising
very many thanks for that info...
that pretty much cements my using the 9500, which im pretty excited about now
as for the motherboard, I think I'll still use the 865PERL... I like intel stuff - very solid, and since im not interested in oc'ing anything, Im getting alot of features and upgradability [ddr400, agp 8x, 6 channel (5.1) audio, 800mhz bus support, etc etc] for not a whole lot of cash... plus Im familiar enough with intel boards that I feel comfortable to do fun things...

happy shopping m8... hope you enjoy your computer

 

[Goatman]

just make sure you leave yourself some room for expandability and upgrading on the motherboard you choose, and all should be well.

AMD has most likely been putting their full attention on the Athlon 64, which is why the Athlon XP seems neglected. But I think the Opteron proves it'll pay off

happy shopping, and good luck with your new hardware.