Quote: "Looks nice, but you should have gotten a GeForce 8800 GT instead. It's less expensive and has better performance than an 8800 GTS. "
thanks. The video card was actually purchased a few months back in Nov 2007 when on my old rig the nv 6800 Ultra 256 took a crap. At that time the deal on the 8800gts 320 was sweet and I think possibly the gt wasnt released (iirc). So the current card is the 8800 gts 320, I had to actually buy a lesser card to keep the old rig functional but made the mistake of getting a cheap 8600 gts - stupid bios controlled fans, and Nibitor doesnt yet let you edit the bios on that card
Oh well, maybe a 9-series card for this machine soon, push the 8800 back to the other rig, and sell the 8600 piss cheap
Quote: "..., that's a lot of money
But a very nice setup. I'd love to see HL2 on that!"
HL2, TF2, Portal all look stellar, even on the old rig the 8800 did wonders, but now its just insane. I am able to gas the AA and AF up without affecting frame rate (+xfi gamer mode). Actually it wasnt
that expensive, was it? Well, normally a good mobo would run anywhere from 120 to 200 usd, but in this case 350 was a little steep, but if you check all the specs I have basically "obsolete proofed" this system for longer than the usual average, since the mobo supports the 45nm Penryn cpu's, ddr3 1333 ram, and pci-e 2.0 gpu's I can basically upgrade thos parts (cpu and gpu, add mem) at will and be set for a long while without major rebuild. I was actually ok with the other rig but a development decision drove this major build where I needed 2 current/decent pc's, which I now have.
Quote: "huh my x-fi xtreame gamer card didn't come with a font panel connector"
Yeah, the higher end cards (fatal1ty etc) dont have that head on them. I almost made that mistake but realized it. So I end up with an xfi audio processor bundle on the lower end ($90) with no x-ram (I wont lose sleep) and the ability to connect my front panel over to the card via IntelHD connection. Its all about the research I guess, and triple checking everything before purchase.
One thing I noticed is my dvd/cd drive has no audio connector to the sound card, yet cd's play as audio
Am I correct to say the audio data is being sent thru the sata data bus to the audio card? I mean obviously it has to be, but I wasnt aware that it does that automatically. I guess I am a bit dated since every pc I have built since early 90's has had a wire to go from the cdrom to the audio card, lol. The xfi card has that port too, but not the drive.
neat
PS- This is the first system I have ever built by ordering the parts online. I used to have a wholesaler shop near me, and had an account with them for my business. That went away recently so I used NewEgg. Let me just say for the record NEW EGG ROCKS. Great pricing, fast delivery, stellar accuracy. I bought all these parts, plus a few individual items (video card, b/u hdd, etc) over the last few months and they have always been fast and perfect. If you are considering a new system and havent bought online and built your own, I can whole-heartedly recommend NewEgg.com
http://NewEgg.com
tried, tested, and CattleRustler-approved (two Moo's)
