The monitor does indeed come with both dvi and vga cables. I had no problems with pixmania.
The monitor does indeed come with both dvi and vga cables. I had no problems with pixmania.
If you are spending over £1000 on what is supposed to be a gaming system then I'd prioritise the graphics a little more. Yes, a 8800GT can play almost everything today, but might you want to plays games tomorrow too perhaps? You'd be pissed if a game released in the summer brings your £1000 system to its knees...
At the moment, it appears that 9600GTs in SLI are offering fantastic bang per buck.
GeForce 9600 GT SLI Performance
AnandTech: Bringing Competition to Midrange: The GeForce 9600 GT Raises NVIDIA's Sub $200 Bar
so it may be worth considering that, which could easily be covered by your budget. Maybe even go the whole hog and get 2 8800GTs
Listen to staffsMike, he mentioned to me not to get SLI as I was going to get 2x 8800GTS. I decided to do more research on the matter.. I found that SLI was not all what it should be and if you were thinking for going with x2 GT then should consider 1x ASUS 512mb EN8800GTS.
Its factory OC'd and out performs a lot of GTX's.
Also for MOBO, you should look at the reviews for the Asus P5K Premium, this out performs the Darkraider for £30 extra.
Monitor, the Samsung SM-2232BW is one of the better ones also.
In the past, I've always been pro-single card. And to an extent, I still am, if only because of the limited choices in motherboard. But the idea of SLi/Crossfire is making more sense as days go by. From an absolute performance perspective, I do not doubt at all that the 8800GT SLi will outperform an overclocked an 8800GTS in games that supports it (but it will also cost more). In the past, game support was a big concern but, but this seems to be changing.
The newly released 9600GT in SLi has been shown to beat the 8800 Ultra more often than not. Look at EarlGrey's first link - it also shows the 8800GT next to the GTX and the Ultra. The 9600GT has never lost to the GTX, and only lost to the Ultra in one instance. In all instance, where it beat the Ultra, and it does so by a margin that can't be matched by any single card (even the X2) is capable of.
And two 9600GT is only about 10-15% more expensive than one GTS (£20-30)... if it wasn't the motherboards. AMD/nVidia are seemingly backing multi GPU (I think it works cheaper than making an 'Ultra' GFX card with the fastest GPU core/memory), and like CPUs, which is no longer measured solely on who gets the fastest single core, I expect GPU to be headed that way. Anand also did a recent review of the X2 in Crossfire (4 GPU), and we can see that 2 and even 3 GPU scales extremely well (other than Crysis - no wonder the 3x Ultra did so poorly too) - probably better than most people would've anticipated.
Of course you could wait for the 9800's !?
9800's when are they out then!!!
If you do get a EVGA card make sure you register online for the warranty otherwise it defaults to 1 year warranty if I remember correctly.
How fast is the 9800 and how much will it cost? £250 get you an X2 or 2x9600GT and they both scale a lot better than when SLI/Crossfire came out. The 9800 will need to be a total monster to be competitive. If they can make something that's twice as fast as the 8800 GTX for £300, then I think the 'single faster GPU' approach will last another generation - assuming it is a single GPU solution. Incidentally, the only speculation I've heard regarding the 9800 is that it will be two G92 GTs.
I may be jumping the gun here - but if some of the recent tests are anything to go by, we are at a turning point, and card manufacturers seem to be pushing toward that direction. The only thing that stands in the way may be the range of motherboards.
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