8600/8800/9600/HD3xxx... i m soo confused

[ankushkool]

PLEZ HELP!!! i m soo confused!!!

i hav to buy mobo+processor+graphics... my budget is <20000/-

now i decided 2 compromise on mobo+processor 4 a better graphics card... but then thought as i am not a hardcore gamer... i sud be ok with 8600GT.
i still had a serious battle goin on in my head weather 2 go 4 8600gt 7 good mobo+pro... or 2 compromise on it n go 4 8800gt
AND NOW!!! here comes 9600GT??? HELPPPPP

and just to add to it...

Originally Posted by MetalheadGautham

ATI HD3xxx series are rather excellent today.

which makes sense as a HD3xxx card around 6... preforms much better than 8600GT

here is what i had shortlisted...

MOBO:
XFX 630i - 7150
XFX n force 650i ultra
Asus P5N-E SLI/P5N32
XFX nvidia 680i LT SLI
MSI P35 Neo/platinum
MSI P6N SLI


PROC:
C2D E4400
C2D E6750
*all other C2D between are discontinued

GRAPHICS CARD:
Asus EN8600GT
XFX 8800GT
and now 9600GT
even HD3xxx (dont know which model)
*anyone thinks i sud go 4 ATI???

PHEW!!!

NOW ppl... i need serious helppppppppppppppppp

and sorry for multiple posts... didnt get much help on other posts

Originally Posted by BULLZI

u shud definitely prefer HD3XXX series over 8600GT.
go for HD3850 512 MB
It performs better than 8600GT as well as got DX10.1 support (Though DX 10.1 has least importance rite now)
.

what is de price of HD3850... does it support SLI?

[debsuvra]

Originally Posted by ankushkool

does it support SLI?

ATi cards does not support SLI, they have there own technology named CrossFire.

I think you should go for the nVidia cards, wait till the new 9XXX series cards arrive.

[john_the_ultimate]

If you are on a budget and also want good performance then get HD3850 much better than 8600gt. As for mobo get 650i ultra with E6750.

[hellgate]

if u wanna buy a 9xxx series card then its better to wait for bout 2months after the cards r released for the prices to come down.

[nish_higher]

Lets say ur budget is 19k----

E 4500 = 4950
Abit IP35E = 5550 From ur list the other boards worth your budget are just
the first 2 ones which are not good performers

Total=10500
Cards worth investing-
MSI 9600GT OC 512MB=10500
ASus 8600GT=around 6k

now u really are not a hard gamer like u said so hw about E8400 + Abit IP35E + 8600GT ?

[MetalheadGautham]

why wait for two months so that nVidia's price will be equal to AMD's current cost, and realise that AMD has become evenmore cheaper ?

I say ditch the old thought that nVidia >>> ATi. Just like the way AMD is intorducing more and more 65 nm processors while Intel is already going 45nm, the reverse story is observed in graphic cards.

ATi is 55nm, while nVidia is still 65 nm.

Today, ATI is a very good option worth concidering indeed, as they(AMD) have even promised to release FOSS drivers of a good quality for their hardware.

Get yourself an Intel C2Q Q6600(for general perpose) or a C2D E8400(good for normal use, awssome at gaming) for a processor. The former costs 11k, and the later 8.5k. The later is obviously a better choice today.

Then for graphics card, go for a decent AMD-ATI HD3550 core based card. It will easily handle games like crysis, gears of war, DX10.1 games, UT3, etc(high settings without AA)

The remaining money from your 22K budget can buy you a good motherboard for these two parts, and thus you will end up with a rather semi high end state of art hardware based config.

Nish's config recomendation was good, but its much better to ditch an 8600GT in favour of an HD3550.

[Pathik]

Get a Abit IP35e (5.5k) + a e8200 (8k) + and get a 2nd hand pcie for ~1k right now.. then get a 9600gt wen it is available..

[nish_higher]

isn't 3550 overpriced?considering that performance of 9600GT is similar to HD 3870 ? 9600GT costs same as 3550
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/1293/11/
probably this is the non overclocked one.not sure,check it.

[ankushkool]

Thanks everyone... you ppl are great...

i will go for C2D E8400 or C2D E6600(if there is a big price diff)... and 8600GT or HD3550(whichever is cheaper)

now for mobo... need a bit more help... is abit a good brand? i shortliated these
XFX n force 650i ultra
Asus P5N-E SLI/P5N32
MSI P6N SLI
Abit IP35e


check this out...
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphi...1058&chart=288

even X19xx cards r much better than 8600... why isnt there any HD3550???
any idea of de price of X19xx cards?

[dOm1naTOr]

I dont think HD 3550 is not that powerful as said.
the reason:
the card which replaces the current 8600GT rival aka 2600XT is HD 3650 512 DDR3 and will be for same price of 2600XT, ie around 5k
And it has only max of 20~30% improvement over old 2600XT.
So how come this 3550 pack so much punch being an inferior model to 3650?

And i think HD 3850 512 MB MSI for 10k wud be a gr8 choice. It performs close to 8800GT 512 and much better than 8800GT 256.

And i think 9600GT is waste coz, its not even as powerful as 8800GT. And if u think 9600GT will be cheaper at some 10k when itll be available, then at dat time probable other better cards will be available at more pempting prices like 8800GT @ 10k, or 3870 @ 10k.

And lastly, get a cheapo, yet gud mobo like XFX 630i Ultra now for 3.5k and it can handl all those things with ease[though no dual channel]. Then later upgrade to better mobo when pocket allows.

[john_the_ultimate]

Don't get HD3550, instead get yourself HD3850. As for mobo no point getting a mobo which doesn't support dual channel. Dual channel does help a lot in multi-tasking/resource heavy applications.

[dOm1naTOr]

but with 20k total budget, there is no ther choice if he wanna stick with gud proccy nd gcard. He can later upgrade.
Nyways reviews proves, there is not much of a performance drop for 630i if DDR2 800 is used.
And get a gud mobo as soon as u get some bucks to spare.

[keith_j_snyder2]

Well he can stick to E6550, IP-35-E and a 3850 or a 8800GS!

[john_the_ultimate]

Originally Posted by keith_j_snyder2

Well he can stick to E6550, IP-35-E and a 3850 or a 8800GS!

Yes he should.......Its always better to get a good mobo in first place and upgrade the gfx card later.

[MetalheadGautham]

Originally Posted by ankushkool

Thanks everyone... you ppl are great...

i will go for C2D E8400 or C2D E6600(if there is a big price diff)... and 8600GT or HD3550(whichever is cheaper)

now for mobo... need a bit more help... is abit a good brand? i shortliated these
XFX n force 650i ultra
Asus P5N-E SLI/P5N32
MSI P6N SLI
Abit IP35e


check this out...
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphi...1058&chart=288

even X19xx cards r much better than 8600... why isnt there any HD3550???
any idea of de price of X19xx cards?

XFX nForce 650i SLI is nomore in the market.
And for ATI cards, you need CrossFire support, found only in intel(recomended) or ati chipsets.

[nish_higher]

btw ur dealer adviced u those motherboards or u shortlisted urself?

[ankushkool]

btw ur dealer adviced u those motherboards or u shortlisted urself?

i did... so which of them supports crossfire...

[nish_higher]

^ none!
get Abit IP35 PRo which supports Crossfire or some P35 board by ASUS--but the ones bw 9-10k by Asus are slightly unstable (read user reviews) so only high end Asus will work

[mayanksharma]

Well D9M finally brings back X600 series to its good old glory, once again! Apart from the 256bits memory bus and 65nm fabrication technology....its price is what attracts main crowd!! A perfect VFM product imo!
I hope u know that AMD slashed HD 38XX GPU prices !!
Why...?? U now know the answer!!! hehe..
About 8600GT, if u have it...Milk it untill, it drops dead! The only thing, that is keeping 8600GT alive is its price!
Ok, about motherboard, Asus P5N-E SLI...both 650i and 680i are good! Though, they run HoT ! Ok, what about MSI?? Their platinum series are one of the best, however price could be a lill' steep!
If, u are planning to go with ATi, then avoid the aforesaid !!

[dOm1naTOr]

Yup, HD 3850 512 is dmn gud at 10k considering that even geforce 9 series is not an DX 10.1 standard.

So that makes them even future proof than even about to be released 9800GX2 !!!!

[ankushkool]

so which mobo sud i go 4 if i want SLI or crossfire support???

[entrana]

if u want sli u shud go for 680i chipsets or if ur rich the 780i chipset. if ur on a budget go for sli 650i

[nish_higher]

SLi = XFX 680i LT or 680i Sli- both boards are very stable.don't go for 650i boards especially P5N-e-sli .this board is unstable,has poor ram compatibility and 650i is obsolete now.

Crossfire= Abit IP 35 PRo ,

In case u plan to use a single card only and are on a tighty budget = Abit IP35-E

[yogi7272]

for sli .. go for xfx 680i lt or better 780i ..

for crossfire - asus p5e - x38 mobo or abit x38 quad gt ..

p35 is not recommended of crossfire as it 16x + 4x config.. where as x38/ x48 is 16x + 16x config

best bet is xfx 680i lt + 9600gt sli ..

[BULLZI]

Dont go for 780I SLI. All of them have got terrible heating issues for the Northbridge chipset. 3rd party cooler is must. And after all, u wont be using 3 GTX/Ultras in 3 way SLI, are u?
About 9600GT SLI why to get that when one can get 8800GT in SLI that performs lot better than 9600GT?
9600GT even has no DX10.1 support.
HD3850 will be a better choice than 9600GT.
Its always better to get a mid/high range graohics card rather than two low end cards.

[nish_higher]

780i will be obsolete soon,but that mobo comes with a cooler for northbridge-heat is an issue when 3 cards are used otherwise it runs great--tried with 2 8800GTs on XFX 780i.but that makes no sense coz even a 650i would run that.
so get a 680i Sli

[BULLZI]

^^ Are u sure all the 780I mobos comes with Northbridge cooler? I didnt find it in XFX. Found the cooler in EVGA.
By the way, northbridge overheating issue is still there when u try to oc ur proccy. Even one notch voltage up for northbridge raises the temperature very high. Its not only for three gfx cards. The board is not at all a decent overclocker.
X38 chipset is far better.

[nish_higher]

of course it comes with a cooler, i've unpacked that board myself
see here-
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/616/3/


but one thing that i really hate abt XFX is the use of traditional capacitors


Overclocking with C2Q QX9650 -

Now that the processor has been pushed to its limits at 1.5Vcore we wanted to see how high we could get the Front Side Bus on our 45nm Quad-Core processor. The 780i SLI motherboard was able to take our QX9650 all the way up to 475MHz FSB, which is a new record for this processor! The Corsair memory kit was running 1266MHz, so this confirms the board feature of 1200MHz memory! Memory bandwidth on Sandra XII SP1 was found to be 8434MB/Sec on the Int and 8390MB/Sec on the Floating point, which is great for the clock frequency. The 780i SLI motherboard had no problems running 1900MHz FSB with a 45nm quad-core processor, which is impressive. Now you have to wonder why NVIDIA doesn't support 1600MHz FSB processors with this board.

[yogi7272]

all nvidia northbridge chipsets heat a lot compared to intel chipsets ..that's not a secret .. only thing to consider an nvidia chipset is for sli ..
if he wants sli that badly then only go for 680i /780i ... the upcoming 790i is ddr3 ..maybe ddr2 version later..but no news of that still .

i would get a x38 chipset board like abit x38 quad gt -12k or better asus maximus formula- no idea abt price ..maybe 14.5 k ..and good card like 8800gt -12k or better 3870x2-21k something if he has such a large budget ..

[nish_higher]

you are right in a way that temperature is more than intel chipset but heat is not at all an issue with 680i\680i LT\780i --temps are always within limits.780i gets hot without that cooler thats why its supplied-its the owner's wish to install it or not.
XFX 680i is a highly recommended board + coupled with 8800GT OC it will prove to be best bang for u