I was thinking about the following upgrade..

[mortiz]

I have exactly £1066 to spend, so I was thinking about the following:

MSI K8N Neo Platinum Edition £91.06

AMD Athlon 64bit 3400 32/64Bit CPU S754 £287.10

OCZ 1GB (2x512MB) PC3500 Dual Channel Platinum Edition EB-DDR CAS2.5 £258.48

80Gb Western Digital Caviar SE (7200rpm, 8MB Cache) (x2) £103.40

256MB XFX GeForce 6800 GT DDR3 TV + DUAL DVI £287.88

Total: £1027.92

However the MSI K8N mobo's are meant to be dodgy when it comes to Overclocking, nothing a decent BIOS release couldn't fix though.

There are really no decent Socket 754 mobo's out at the moment (as in fully functional), and practically no Socket 939's out full stop.

I'm debating whether to hold on for the Socket 939's and get an Athlon 64 3500, that's if any of the S939 mobo's are decent of course.

Also the XFS GeForce 6800GT is a bit steep in price. So do you think I should wait?

 

[crabcakes66]

looks nice. I would go with an x800 but thats personal preference.

waiting probobly wont matter to much.....prices will slowly come down, but it all depends on how long you feel like waiting.

 

[ShinRa]

Not even personal preference, moritz get yourself an x800 pro or xt. it'll shit all over the 6800.

 

[mortiz]

Not even personal preference, moritz get yourself an x800 pro or xt. it'll shit all over the 6800.

The reason I want the GeForce 6800GT is because you can clock it to a stock GeForce 6800 Ultra (a £400 - £500 card almost), where as with an X800 Pro (which benchmarks at similar speeds to a GT) you've got to hard mod it to get it to XT speeds because it only has 12 pipes, where as the GT has 16. Even then there isn't a guarentee the mod will work. Also with the GT you have PS 3.0 support.

And an XT is the same price as an Ultra.

 

[ShinRa]

christ i knew u were going to mention the ps 3.0

for the 4000th and final time: PS 3.0 IS NOT ONLY COMPLETELY USELESS NOW, BUT BY THE TIME YOU DO NEED IT, YOUR CARD WILL BE OUT OF DATE AND NEED AN UPGRADE ANYWAY

and why mod a gt? why not just spend the xtra 99 bucks and get an xt, which no matter how much u oc a gt, will never be as good as an xt.

 

[ewilson248]

just from a long term investment point of view, i would wait until socket 939 is out.. also i have to agree about the x800 instead of the 680.. it looks to me much faster , and PS 3.0 is a NON issue.. we have marketing weasels to thank for that debacle!!

BTW , i dont take recomending the x800 lightly, i have owned 3 nvidia cards and the x800 will be my first ati card, time has passed nvidia by...

 

[mortiz]

Well, perhaps an X800XT over an 6800GT, but no way a x800 PRO over one, since the GT is actually a better card that the Pro. I'll have to see when the X800XT's are released whether I want to spend the extra £70.

 

[blahblahblah]

The 6800 series is faster if you don't use AA or AF and has SM 3.0 support. The X800 series is faster if you use AA or AF and has 3Dc support. Its really depends on what the buyer is looking for.

I went with the X800 because of the better AA support and 3Dc support. Going with the 6800GT is a great move as well.

Also, where is all of this information about OCing the 6800GT into Ultra's? As it stands, Nvidia is having a hard time keeping that high of a clock rate for its Ultra's. I can't imagine you would be able to reach the same clock rates with the 6800 GT (unless you use water cooling).

 

[Daegon]

*cough cough* 9800 pro.
I know i'm about to get bombarded with X800!!!! and 6800!!!!'s but in your case it might be a good idea to reproportion some of them pounds into other areas of your pc. maybe a little more storage or a bumped up motherboard. The 9800 pro is a solid card and it's hella fast. If you've got to be in the next gen today, by all means get whatever you want, but I think it would be a wise investment.

 

[JimmehH]

256MB 9800 Pros are nearly the same price as the 6800GT. I think the extra £30 is worth it.

 

[Willber123]

agreed, and with that kind of money, i would want a faaster card than the 9800pro