need some urgent suggestions

[fuzzz]

a friend of mine bought a pc with the following specs
intel c2q 6600
gigabyte Ep43-s3l mobo (this was a suggestion from the dealer,taking budget into consideration,is it any good?)
zion 2*2 gb ddr2 ram (apparently the dealer said that its better than kingston ram, is it?)
cm 500w smps
19" viewsonic lcd monitor
and of course some keyboard and mouse,

now with all of these purchases,not much room is left in the budget
these are the graphics cards that were offered that my friend is willing to buy (his budget does overshoot)
sparkle 9600gt 7k
zotac 9800gt 10k

ati radeon HD4850 10k (not sure about the manufacturer)

which of these cards should i be suggesting my friend to buy ?

he basically wants the pc for animation and gaming. (he is very much interested in playing crisis) all of the above components except the graphics card have already been purchased. though the dealer said that he would be willing to change the mobo if need be..

so basically please suggest the better of those graphics cards and if that mobo isnt really up 2 the mark suggest something in the same range which is available in banglore

i urgently need some answers as my friend will probably be going to buy the card tomorow
thanks in advance

[The Sorcerer]

The motherboard is good but I would choose GA31 s3l. The bios is much cleaner than asus- sorta like abit ip35-e. Doesnt make sense spending above 5k for a board now. Ditch zion rams. Replace it with transcend rams. Ditch cm 500w psu. It just gives 18 amps with 70% efficiency rate. If you can afford- you can never go wrong with corsair vx450 which costs 3.9k (it was 3.2- 3.5k 2-3 months ago) with 5 years warranty, 33 amps on single +12v rails with 80% real time proven efficiency. However, if you are on a tight budget- then cm 460w. Its the same specs as cm 500w but cm 500 is acutally a seventeam 400w OEM. Its an old psu model and its based on old tech.
I would rather buy a 45nm based wolfdale c2d processor than a 65 nm quad for gaming. I wont recommend OCing on cm 460w though. I think they bundle cm centurion 330 case with either 390w or 460w- not sure though. If they bundle it with 460w then its a good buy. Palit 4850 is a good buy. They have 2 versions- standard and dual sonic. Dual sonic is worth the extra money.
Please be aware that certain shops import stuff via parallel import- which is illegal. They give dealers warranty- not manufacturer's warranty. Make sure that you get proper printed bill for the things that you have bought. Some manufacturers need proof of purchase to give you replacement if any of the components have gone bad.

[fuzzz]

well its like i said.. those things have already been purchased .. and aside from the mobo and the gfx nothing can be changed or bought
i had advised my friend to go in for an e8400 but he was kinda hell bent on getting a quad core.so he went in for a Q6600

about the gfx .
so u are saying that the 4850 is better that the other 2?
and im quite sure that it was not a palit card . i cant recall the name for the life of me
if its not a palit card, would it make much of a differnce?

[The Sorcerer]

^^ missed that part that your friend allready bought it. My bad. ati 4850 is a ati 4850 regardless of brand. different companies have different pcb layout, ram type, cooling, quality, etc. On stock settings, they are pretty much the same. It id a GDDR3 based right?

[fuzzz]

yeah..the hd4850 is 512mb gddr3..
so would u say that its better to go in for the hd 4850 over the nvidia counterparts? what would i ask him to look for in that card?
also could you perhaps suggest a mobo that he could change to ?
my friend does want to overclock his proccy,once he gets the know how
so the board should be ocable.
btw the current mobo that he has, he bought it for 7.5k

also are zion rams not good ?

oh and i doubt he would able to shell out more than 10k for a gfx card

[The Sorcerer]

You are wise- your friend is not. He should have sticked to e8400. Anyways....
Tell him to stick with any cheap ati 4850 512MB ddr3 in that case. Also tell him to download the latest ati catalyst from ati's website. Stick with the board- its is ocable. Never used zions. Never seen zions being used on OCed configs. See if your friend's overclock settings are stable with those rams- if they are well and good. If not- change it. I have seen transcend giving good clocks for its price. Speak to the dealer to see if he can switch the zion with transcend. You should be able to get decent fsb-Dram ratio for transcend considering the price.

[fuzzz]

well i had heard/read that kingston rams are very good when using with ocing rigs, so i had asked him to go for that.
but it seems that dealer suggested that he should go for zion ram since it was better than even kinston and also cheaper (this was kinda weird for me to get )

errm cheap 4850 :s
the lowest 1 that he said he could get was 10k + tax
i have never used an ati card so i couldnt be of much help to him in that department.
so im guessing that even a stock 4850 is better than a slightly oced 9800gt ?

btw thanks a lot for your inputs sorcerer

[The Sorcerer]

^^ Palit HD 4850 (standard) 512MB ddr3 is 9.2k via theitwares. Primeabgb most probably selling them for 9.5k. I dont trust McCanns since they are into parallel import. Prime abgb always sells stuff all inclusive. Call them up and confirm the price. Anyone who sells excluding tax in my book is a con man and deserves to be shot . Unethical dealers try to get rid of their stock- pretty obvious why he was insisting on zion. The transcend jetrams I saw have power chip on the rams. Power chip give a better stability compared to other chip types in overclocks. I have seen these transcend jetrams with power chips going 950mhz on 5-4-4-12 @ 2t on 2.0v with a ratio of 1:1 on dram: fsb ratio. I never heard kingston having any rams with power chips on it. Jetrams have many types of chips though. The only way to find out if a transcend ram has a powerchip or not is that they will have the letter p next to the barcode on the ram stickers. ATI 4850 takes 110w at maximum load. ATI's pcb board is so darn good and powerful it can take punishment more than 80 degrees celcius without a sweat. But the 4870 which I am using is as cool as 56 degrees on load with ambience of 29 degrees- so owning a palit dual sonic version of cards has its advantages. ati 4850 does better in some games against 9800gtx+ but it was made to own 9800gt (lol- the irony). With the newer drivers- it should do better.