BFG GeForce 8800 GTX?

[35Pete]

It's like $600 but I am thinking of getting it to replace my pair of GeForce 6600's running in SLI mode.

Also thinking of a BFG PhysX card too.

And looking at 4 GB of Corsair Dominator PC-6400 800 MHz with cooling fan.

Thoughts?

[Woody]

I have the GTX and to tell you the truth if I had a pair of 6600's(or any card for that matter) I would have waited a bit. There aren't too many games/apps out there yet that take advantage of DX10. I'd sit back and the let price drop off until some decent software surfaces. :niterider

As for the memory.. go for it. Faster memory always helps. :niterider


It's like $600 but I am thinking of getting it to replace my pair of GeForce 6600's running in SLI mode.

Also thinking of a BFG PhysX card too.

And looking at 4 GB of Corsair Dominator PC-6400 800 MHz with cooling fan.

Thoughts?

[sukie]

Just clicked for the sig.

[35Pete]

I have the GTX and to tell you the truth if I had a pair of 6600's(or any card for that matter) I would have waited a bit. There aren't too many games/apps out there yet that take advantage of DX10. I'd sit back and the let price drop off until some decent software surfaces. :niterider

As for the memory.. go for it. Faster memory always helps. :niterider

Do I need a PhysX card with DirectX 10 that is supported on the 8800?

[Woody]

I can't help you there man.. I don't know too much about them physics cards.. other than the fact that I don't need one. The 8800 handles physics fairly well and having an extra physics on top of that might be overkill. Definitely do your homework before picking one up. :niterider


Do I need a PhysX card with DirectX 10 that is supported on the 8800?

[READandREACT]

Do I need a PhysX card with DirectX 10 that is supported on the 8800?

No - you would only 'need' it for games that actually support it; right now PhysX cards haven't caught on yet so the number of games that support it are minimal. Will it be the future? I don't know, but it seems to be off to a slow start. I think Nvidia and ATI are both kinda backing it but at the same time they both incorporate Havoc FX and are content with utilizing GPU physics hardware acceleration or the CPU handling physics calculations. Most multi core CPU's are more than capable of handling physics calcs.

[READandREACT]

One more thing, while I also use SLI (8800GTS) and I've never been a big fan of ATI's Crossfire setup, their new x2900 coming out next month scores higher than the 8800GTX in all the preliminary comparos I've read so far. It has a 800MHz core clock, over 2000MHz Memory clock and a GB of DDR4 memory. I heard Nvidia is going to release an OC version of the 8800GTX to compete sometime this year (of course you could simply do this yourself).

[35Pete]

No - you would only 'need' it for games that actually support it; right now PhysX cards haven't caught on yet so the number of games that support it are minimal. Will it be the future? I don't know, but it seems to be off to a slow start. I think Nvidia and ATI are both kinda backing it but at the same time they both incorporate Havoc FX and are content with utilizing GPU physics hardware acceleration or the CPU handling physics calculations. Most multi core CPU's are more than capable of handling physics calcs.

Yeah, I noticed that Agei is a recent player in this. It's pretty cheap (about $200 or so) but I am better off upgrading my chip to a 6000+ which has dual 3.0 GHz cores. I like AMD a lot but I wish it had the same L2 cache that Intel has. However, AMD compensates for that with (usually) having a faster FSB.

And BFG and ASUS are the only players in the PhysX market now. That said, they are very respectable hardware sources so I expect it to take off in the future.

What card do you have?

[35Pete]

One more thing, while I also use SLI (8800GTS) and I've never been a big fan of ATI's Crossfire setup, their new x2900 coming out next month scores higher than the 8800GTX in all the preliminary comparos I've read so far. It has a 800MHz core clock, over 2000MHz Memory clock and a GB of DDR4 memory. I heard Nvidia is going to release an OC version of the 8800GTX to compete sometime this year (of course you could simply do this yourself).

SLI on 8800s? That's insane!

Cool.

[35Pete]

Hey R&R. I want to start a sub-forum for the tech hacks to write articles on hardware and software for the average user. Would you be interested in contributing from time to time?

[READandREACT]

Yeah, I noticed that Agei is a recent player in this. It's pretty cheap (about $200 or so) but I am better off upgrading my chip to a 6000+ which has dual 3.0 GHz cores. I like AMD a lot but I wish it had the same L2 cache that Intel has. However, AMD compensates for that with (usually) having a faster FSB.

And BFG and ASUS are the only players in the PhysX market now. That said, they are very respectable hardware sources so I expect it to take off in the future.

What card do you have?

I was going to mention that to you. Not that you would see this given the games that are out right now, but it's very easy to get CPU-bound using a slower CPU/faster GPU combination. Most people don't get this. Older games (DX8, DX9 - well not really older being current I guess but you get the point) can perform worse with higher end GPU's when paired with a slower CPU. You really need to consider this when upgrading video cards. Do you OC your CPU/GPU's?

Again, PhysX cards MIGHT take off. In theory, they should work great. But it takes both the hardware and software community to adopt it. And if Nvida or ATI are content with using Havoc engines, then I just don't see how these cards are going to catch on. It's another piece of hardware no one really wants to stuff in their boxes, especially if they don't offer any performance above the CPU or grapics accelerators. If your like me you're always trying to future proof your setup - but I would wait. I think your mobo has an additional PCIe slot anyways.

[35Pete]

LMAO. "Future proof"? Damn right I am!!!

And it's unbelievably painful on the pocketbook. :)

[35Pete]

RR

This is what I am interested. Nice architecture. Even though the 6000+ is 3.0 GHz, this baby should be faster at 2.8 GHZ with reduced bottleneck.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2207290&CatId=2331

[READandREACT]

RR

This is what I am interested. Nice architecture. Even though the 6000+ is 3.0 GHz, this baby should be faster at 2.8 GHZ with reduced bottleneck.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2207290&CatId=2331

That's a monster CPU. I would love to have that. You'll have no problems with your current setup but THAT cpu and an 8800GTX will give you some serious 3DMark scores and flawless gaming. That's about as top of the line as your going to get right now.

[35Pete]

That's a monster CPU. I would love to have that. You'll have no problems with your current setup but THAT cpu and an 8800GTX will give you some serious 3DMark scores and flawless gaming. That's about as top of the line as your going to get right now.
Now add to it 4 GB of Corsair Dominator 800 MHz DDR2-OC and I should be able to take over the world banking system! LOL

[Merc]

Pete-
You may want to consider the 8800GTS. I have one and it is an incredible GPU. I got this one used for $360 and it was a catch. I have had it at 675/1.90 and pulled a 10,779 in 3DMark06 (watercooled). If you ever find that it isn't strong enough you can get a second down the road for SLI and be good to go for a couple of years.

If you can hold off on the CPU for a few months, AMD is coming out with their new chips and they are rumored to be as good or better than the Core 2s. Right now anything that AMD is putting out gets clobbered by the Core 2 so investing $600-$800 ain't worth it. The new CPUs will fit in your AM2 board.

As far as RAM, 4Gb may be overkill at the moment however Vista does like its RAM but 2GB is fine.

Lastly, the physics cards are going through a lot of changes and I expect both AMD and Nvidia to jump in within the year. On my board i have 3 PCIe 16x slots.\, one of which runs at 8x. I believe that 8x slot is for a third PCIe graphics card to do physics. Why I like this is that you can take your old card and instead of selling it for pennies on the dollar you can milk it for a few more years as your physics accelerator.

[READandREACT]

Pete-
You may want to consider the 8800GTS. I have one and it is an incredible GPU. I got this one used for $360 and it was a catch. I have had it at 675/1.90 and pulled a 10,779 in 3DMark06 (watercooled). If you ever find that it isn't strong enough you can get a second down the road for SLI and be good to go for a couple of years.

If you can hold off on the CPU for a few months, AMD is coming out with their new chips and they are rumored to be as good or better than the Core 2s. Right now anything that AMD is putting out gets clobbered by the Core 2 so investing $600-$800 ain't worth it. The new CPUs will fit in your AM2 board.

As far as RAM, 4Gb may be overkill at the moment however Vista does like its RAM but 2GB is fine.

Lastly, the physics cards are going through a lot of changes and I expect both AMD and Nvidia to jump in within the year. On my board i have 3 PCIe 16x slots.\, one of which runs at 8x. I believe that 8x slot is for a third PCIe graphics card to do physics. Why I like this is that you can take your old card and instead of selling it for pennies on the dollar you can milk it for a few more years as your physics accelerator.

Yeah, I use x2 8800GTS cards and they stomp any game out there (at least the ones I play). The new AMD cpu's (AM3 I think) should perform better then the core2. PLUS couple that with an ATI x2900 either x1 or x2 in Crossfire and that rig will probably smoke anything out there for the time being.

Of course you're only king for a little while - unless you have unlimited funds to spend on, and let's admit it, 3DMark scores. My previous rig, a DFI LANPARTY Pro 875B setup with a Nvidia 7800GS, plays anything out there just fine. And it's AGP!