Crispy
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- Joined
- Dec 19, 2004
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I'm replacing a whole bunch of stuff in my PC, which sadly means I'm getting rid of my mobo, gfx card and CPU (yeah, expensive stuff!). My budget for all 3 is about £250, £135 of which goes on an X1900 GT.
The contenders
ASUS A8N-SLI SE
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium
ASUS A8N-SLI
In general what am I getting for my buck here, what major things differentiate the three? I can see that the A8N-SLI has more features, but is it stuff I'm desperately gonna miss if I don't buy it?
To give you some info on what I'll be using it for: I'm pretty much against overclocking unless it's piss-easy and is fairly safe. I don't really want to have to buy a fleet of new fans to keep my PC running. I'll be using it principally for playing a range of current gen games, but mostly multiplayer HL2 mods and mapping for HL2.
I'm tempted to try out the A8N-SLI SE for its heat pipe cooling method, although I'm not so sure how effective it's reputed to be. I like the sound of a quieter option, but only if it offers similar performance. Also, how much is this gonna draw on my PSU compared to a fan?
What PSU would you recommend for running one of these with an X1900 GT, 512-1024Mb RAM, an Athlon 64 CPU and a couple of hard drives (possibly in a RAID configuration)?
Last on my list is replacing my XP2200 with an Athlon 64, but that shouldn't be too much trouble. Anyone know any good deals for in the UK? The OEM option at Overclockers looks good, but they charge so much for shipping.
I'd prefer to buy from Savastore since there's a lot of other stuff I'm ordering all at once, but if I can save a decent bit of cash I wouldn't be against going elsewhere for a part here and there (like that irresistible Sapphire X1900 GT deal on Overclockers, for example).
The contenders
ASUS A8N-SLI SE
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium
ASUS A8N-SLI
In general what am I getting for my buck here, what major things differentiate the three? I can see that the A8N-SLI has more features, but is it stuff I'm desperately gonna miss if I don't buy it?
To give you some info on what I'll be using it for: I'm pretty much against overclocking unless it's piss-easy and is fairly safe. I don't really want to have to buy a fleet of new fans to keep my PC running. I'll be using it principally for playing a range of current gen games, but mostly multiplayer HL2 mods and mapping for HL2.
I'm tempted to try out the A8N-SLI SE for its heat pipe cooling method, although I'm not so sure how effective it's reputed to be. I like the sound of a quieter option, but only if it offers similar performance. Also, how much is this gonna draw on my PSU compared to a fan?
What PSU would you recommend for running one of these with an X1900 GT, 512-1024Mb RAM, an Athlon 64 CPU and a couple of hard drives (possibly in a RAID configuration)?
Last on my list is replacing my XP2200 with an Athlon 64, but that shouldn't be too much trouble. Anyone know any good deals for in the UK? The OEM option at Overclockers looks good, but they charge so much for shipping.
I'd prefer to buy from Savastore since there's a lot of other stuff I'm ordering all at once, but if I can save a decent bit of cash I wouldn't be against going elsewhere for a part here and there (like that irresistible Sapphire X1900 GT deal on Overclockers, for example).
