lo lads, its been a while

time to upgrade again, and best place to ask for advice, is good old mani, he knows everything.

right, i have about 600 quid to upgrade

i want new mobo, cpu, memory and graphix

im thinking of
AM2 mobo
dual core 4800 or 5000 cpu
2gb corsair ddr2 800mhz memory
card is where i am stuck to be honest, looking at 7950 nvidia cards, but the ati x1900 xt look faster, cheaper too?

what about crossfire, what is this? is it just ati's version of sli? should i go for ati crossfire board and card?

any words of wisdom from the guru mani would be great

its been a while and im out the loop on whats good and whats not

cheers lads

is this agood deal?

Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-113-SP)

- 650MHz ATI Radeon R580 Core (X1900)
- 1550MHz GDDR3 Extreme performance memory
- 48 pixel shader processors
- 8 vertex shader processors
- 256-bit 8-channel GDDR3/GDDR4 memory interface
- 512-bit internal ring bus for memory reads
- Optimized for performance at high display resolutions, including widescreen HDTV resolutions
- Crossfire compatible - Master Edition ATI X1900 card required!!

Available This Week Only for just £217.95 +VAT.

the core speed and memory blow the 7900's and 7950s away, or am i wrong?

I'd save the money and get a cheep card, as DX10 card will be out soon.

Mani is away for a few days Jobs. That spec looks pretty solid and £220 is quite reasonable for an x1900. Its been superseded by the x1950 but there isnt much difference in performances (at stock) anyway.

If you are able to hold out on the graphics until the DX10 cars come out, as Reos says then it would make sense, but that probably wont be till 2007. Thats also assuming you want to change to Vista.

done it, couldnt wait, next day delivery

BFG GeForce 7900 GTX OC 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) 675mz core 1640mem
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4600+ 2.40GHz (Socket AM2)
Asus M2N32-SLi-DLX nForce 590 SLi (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit

few months and ill get another bfg 7900 gtx

keep me going for a bit hopefully

Nice m8, wouldnt mind an upgrade myself but if I'm honest its fine for most stuff so trying to put it off

tbh the first set of cards for a new dx are always SHITE, to be replaced very soon afterword by a card that can actually handle the stuff, i.e gf3.
Not to mention you would buy a card that probs wont even have any dx10 games for it for ages, plus isnt dx10 a vista exclusive ?

yeah true Stan,

bfg looks to be the best 7900 out, clocked at 675 core and 1640 mhz memory, i couldnt find any 7900 or ati 1900 that beat it,

hopefully be better than my x800,

Mate of mine just bought a 7900GT with his new machine but it wasn't running everything flat out so he paid an extra £100 and got the 1GB 7950 GX2 which is so so much better.

Well the 7900gt is a budget card, you get what you pay for.

aye but if you look at the BFG 7900GTX

GeForce 7900 GTX Core running at 670MHz
- 512MB GDDR3 Extreme Memory running at 1640MHz giving upto 52.4GB/second bandwidth
- 24 Pixel Pipelines
- Designed For Extreme HD Gaming – Delivering Ultra Realistic Gaming Experiences
- SLI ready – Delivering upto 2x the performance
- Shader Model 3.0 Support
- True High Dynamic Range Rendering Support – Based on Open EXR technology

runs at 670mhz core and memory at 1640mhz, i havent saw another GTX card running this fast, and a few months i will get another one, should be a beast with my 4600x2 and 2gb memory, also bought the Asus M2N32-SLi-DLX nForce 590 SLi (Socket AM2)mobo, which was quite pricey at £135 for a mobo, but should last me a while

eh up Jobbs, just bought a 7900gt myself and it's fine. Next card I buy will be 2nd gen dx10 card as Stan suggested.

Did it all tur up yet then Jobbs?

my next rig will be some time next year now (got car ins etc coming up) but im tempted to go all out and get something that's going to last

Aye, im nearly done

new Plextor 760SA DVD just arrived today to finish it off

i tried Quake 4 on ultra high quality with all settings up high on resolutin 1280 x 1024 and it ran soooo smoothly, amazing

my 8meg Broadband is getting turned on today, cant wait to try css

i also got a 36gb Raptor 10,000 rpm HD for my operating system n games, cant beleive the difference from the raid ones i had, amazingly quick for loading

should last me a while

whats the best nvidia drivers to use for my gtx 7900?
and should i use xp 64 or stick with normal, any difference?

Stick with normal, go 64 whe vista comes out.

And just use the latest official forceware drivers, 91.47 I beleive.