Building A Gaming Rig - A Living Document. (A HEXUS Project)

[Virtual Monkey]

Hi. Don't get excited, I haven't got anything profound, or even remotely helpful to say.

I just wanted you to know, that despite the sticky-ness of this thread, I'm a regular reader. And it's a very good thread, very good indeed. Keep it up.

[Thorsson]

Just a thought for everyone. Although the X800XL is being touted as the best high-end "bang per buck" card around at the moment, one card is being unfairly ignored - the vanilla 6800. As the extra pipelines can be unlocked with RivaTuner and there is a decent OC (especially if you replace the default heatsink), why has no-one run a comparison?

[nvening]

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=36501 Thats without OC. The reason i want an x800xl is cause its pci-e.

[Thorsson]

Just unlocking the pipelines on a 6800 will take it to around the same score as the XL.

[nvening]

pci-e!!!!!! Anyway, if you like to overclock, you could always overclock the x800xl

[Thorsson]

6800 are available in PCI-E and AGP. I was just talking about unlocking the extra pipelines (and vertex shader). However they'll OC well as they are the same chip as the rest of the 6800 series, although the stock H/S fan may need replacing depending on the brand, and the memory is DDR1 rather than DDR3.

I've seen a website where a guy got Ultra+ speeds after adding an Arctic cooler.

[alterion]

except that a 6800nu has half the ram will only unlock some of the time has slower core and memeory and less good mmeory....

[Betty_Swallocks]

The Asus 6800GT appears to be exactly the same as the equivalent Ultra even down to the two molex connectors. Mine clocks well over ultra speeds.

[Rcb]

Good review.

[Thorsson]

except that a 6800nu has half the ram will only unlock some of the time has slower core and memeory and less good mmeory....

Read this for the method to unlock successfully: http://www.ocia.net/articles/6800/6800.shtml

The article also shows that the slower core means nothing. The memory is a genuine downside, but this card is excellent value compared to both a 6600GT and a 6800GT.

[aidanjt]

I got two WD 74Gb Raptors stripped, and its almost scary how fast they are, an absolute must have for any high spec gaming rig.. Even Far Cry loads in a matter of seconds!..

[BlackSheep]

Very nice stuff Vaul

[mrpete]

Very good

[yngvai]

Thanks for creating a good overview all in one place, it's the best source of information I have found regarding PCI-E and AMD 64 hardware!

I haven't seen a mention of the DFI LanParty UT nF4 SLI-D here but there is a Hexus review:-
http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews...VybF9wYWdlPTE=

Is it too soon to mention in this thread? I'm not a gamer/overclocker so please excuse me if I'm barking up the wrong tree!

[nvening]

i still think we should mention sli

EDIT: 2x 512mb 6800ultra to be exact.

[fthlagen]

I'm sure it's taken into consideration, but it can be quite hard to source some of the top-end graphics card. I had to fight like a gladiator to get an AGP X800XT PE.

On an unrelated thread, are there actually any games out there yet that stretch these top-end systems? Surely designers build their games to run on mid-range PCs so that people will buy them - all top-end PCs give their prideful owners is some degree of comfort or the future...plus the ability to add overblown signatures to messages like this.



FX53 (was also hard to get!)
Zalman reserator water cooling
Twinned Corsair Ram (1GB)
SATA Raptor 10Krpm
X800XT PE
MSI K8N Plat.
Old soundcard