Advice on proposed Bunle specs

[luke]

Ivan,
just to compare the Duch price of 670 euro, here in UK at:- http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/ ... ndles.html
the Asus bundle I gave is

[Ivan]

That's the OEM difference (and some VAT too, as all my prices are for separate retail packaged parts)

Oh and FYI, we don't have a brand name 'GeIL' here in holland... because it means something like horny when translated

[luke]

Sorry Ivan I do not understand this:-
1.OEM difference
2.all my prices are for separate retail packaged parts

I hope I will get an opinion on which combination below would be best, concidering people say SLI does little extra to fs9:-

Mobo:-
1. Asus A8V-E Deluxe NW                    
2. Asus A8V E DELUXE                        
3. K8N Neo4 Platinum
                         
1. Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe

[congo]

Those Asus boards with the Via chipsets are not right, well, I wouldn't buy one. It's a coded name A8V..... means "Asus - Athlon64 - Via chipset"

I sent you a link to the Asus A8N-E, which is an nForce4 Ultra board, that's the right one in the non-SLI Asus series, not the ones you listed. (code A8N = Asus - Athlon64 - nVidia chipset).

nVidia make nForce4 chipsets.

The corsair ram is CAS 2.0, and the geil is CAS 2.5, the Geil is slower. Get the corsair if you can.

Again, get the fastest CPU possible, because unless you can get that corsair ram and a 3200+ to overclock like crazy, you'll probly want a faster CPU.

Both of the cards you quoted are MSI brand 6600GT's, which should be fine. Some MSI models apparently carry 256mb  of ram, and I would expect the price would be higher for them.

I haven't researched the MSI cards.

[luke]

Thnx Congo,
do'nt dig this, but 3500 will be.:-
"...unless you can get that corsair ram and a 3200+ to overclock like crazy, you'll probly want a faster CPU....",

These are in nearby shop,

Mobo:-
1. 8N Neo4 Platinum   PCI-E only [color=Red]

[congo]

The bundle gives you slower ram, I wouldn't get it just because of that, otherwise it would have been good.

[luke]

Well Congo,
what with things like:-
"......this fan is a known disaster and Asus are doing their best to replace the defective part worldwide (so the press release states).  
It's got a record breaking 3 week lifespan and my fan expires in 3 days, The nForce4 chip needs active cooling (a fan and heatsink) on this board, apparently because the chip runs quite hot. There is no room for a large heatsink on the board....."  

and like"........It's BIOS isn't the nicest one around...
WinXP is said to install only on BIOS 1008 (anything higher will crash at first startup and anything lower won't run with maxtor SATA drives), and it will only run stable with version 1011 ......."

I better give Asus a miss.

Anybody can advice on MSI or Gigabyte?

luke

[the_autopilot]

See my other post in ivan's thread.

I think Asus motherboards are perfectly fine. I've always used them and have had no problems with them.

Gigabyte is also a good motherboard manufacturor.

I've never tried MSI, so I wouldn't know, but still think Asus motherboards are fine.

[congo]

Asus fixed the little defective fan before I bought my board luke, I just rushed out and bought my board before researching it properly so I really am a git for buying up old defective stock without looking into it.

I listened to all the hype about how wonderful the Asus boards were and trusted the brand........ then of course I got lumbered with junk... no software SLI switch, faulty fan.

The new type fans on the Asus board have the fan oriented at 45 degrees on the board and not square to it, that's how you can tell the difference.

I did not have any of the compatibility or installation problems that others reported with the Asus board and other identical hardware and bios versions. This leads me to believe others simply don't know what the heck they are on about and they have made other errors that led to their results.

I can vouch for Gigabyte mainboards in general. They have excellent build quality, good features, good documentation, good looks and have been reliable products in my system builds.

MSI used to be the "budget" offering a few years ago.
I look at the red MSI PCB's and component layout and it looks cheap and untidy to me., but that's just me.......

MSI have been around a long time building up a good reputation and offer products with great specs.

Had that Gigabyte board been available to me at the time I purchased, I would have seriously considered it.

http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/Pr ... 8NXP-9.htm

[luke]

OK I get the message on Asus, thanx.

Regarding mem & paired remarks, is this sort OK? :-
MEM:-
Crucial Part Number: CT2KIT6472Z40B
1GB kit (512MBx2)
Package: 184-pin DIMM
Feature: DDR PC3200
Specs: DDR PC3200

[congo]

No, you had the memory right before with the Corsair you quoted.

[the_autopilot]

No, you had the memory right before with the Corsair you quoted.

yeah, just stick with the Corsair.