upgrade help -64bit or not

[krazy_olie]

Choosing either the 6600gt or the x800gt isn't a wrong choice, both are good cards which excel at some things and don't at others. We don't know if SM3 will help the 6600gt in the future really.

[Dark Horse]

There is no reason not to go s939 pcie these days.

You can get a venice 3000+ which is more than adequate for £80 from lowestonweb, a basic s939 mobo for about the same and an x800gt or 6600gt for about £100.

Slightly more pricey now but it means that in the future you'll just need to buy a new graphics card rather than replace the whole system as you would have to do with agp.

As for 6600gt/x800gt its a bit of a personal preference for nvidia/ati. You can ignore the shader model rubbish, its not going to stop you playing a game in the slightest whether a card conforms to model 2 or 3.

I would probably go for the x800gt if simply because it has slightly better performance in 3dmark2005 which although isn't perfect is more or less a good test of a card these days.

[Oakey]

There is no reason not to go s939 pcie these days.

You can get a venice 3000+ which is more than adequate for £80 from lowestonweb, a basic s939 mobo for about the same and an x800gt or 6600gt for about £100.

Just done exactly that. My 3000+ is at 2.7GHz

[Koolpc]

I am toying with going the A64 route after christmas. Thing is, i need a new Graphics card soon anyway. Just in the process of searching for a TFT monitor at the mo as my old CRT is not too good on the eyes!

[krazy_olie]

Just a note, if either GT is bought the 256mb versions do make a difference

[aBuLhAgaG]

hello folks. wonder if you can help out, i'm thinking of upgrading my main pc. currently it has duron 1700 and kt400 motherboard and 9600xt.

i was thinking of either:

athlon64 3000, abit an8 ultra, radeon x800gt
is that a good combo? kind of want to do it as cheap as possible. i was thinking if i got an agp motherboard i could probably get a 6800 instead which may or may not be better. but i quite fancied the an8 ultra due to it's onboard sound( i do have a hercules gamethater sound card though which i could use)

or do i just go for nf7s and mobile xp processor? is it worth the extra money going to the 64 bit platform?

cheers guys

The athlon64 is the route to go down even in the absence of 64 bit OS/drivers/apps, as it will future proof your investment for the next year or so. Forget about AGP, it is yesterdays news especially as you are looking to buy a new gfx card, my advice is to buy whatever pci-e card your budget will allow then you can upgrade later when you feel the need. One other thing, if you are interested in overclocking on a nforce4 mobo make sure the athlon 64 you order is not a winchester core...

aBuLhAgaG

[hardflipman]

well, just ordered it. ended up going for the x800gt and everything as above. hope i see a decent performance improvement. just been playing the fear demo which runs at 640x480 on my current machine!