by congo » Mon Nov 21, 2005 6:26 am
DDR2 is different technology, and I think it's bottom end speed is 500mhz, or is it 533mhz?
At any rate, DDR2 ram has enabled Intel based systems to still compete performance wise with AMD 64 based rigs, which perform amazingly well on the older DDR memory modules. Mind you, I run overclocked PC4000 DDR modules on my AMD 64 at 520mhz (they are designed for this).
System memory bandwidth is not only determined by the type of memory module these days, but it is a complex function of system architecture.
SLI is a luxury I cannot afford, nor do I wish to support it in any way unless the hardware producers are willing to halve the cost of their products. From the very start of the SLI debacle, I've had my doubts about the technology. SLI is a gimmicky marketing ploy to extract consumer dollars, even if it was not developed with that intention, that's what it is now. Think twice about embracing the technology.
The newer AMD cpu's run cool on the standard cooler supplied with them. I can attest to this fact because I accidently knocked my CPU fan wire off one night.
I flew combat in IL2FB with comms, played Far Cry and surfed, did some benchmarking in 3DMark'05 then I noticed the CPU temp was up a few degrees after running the benchmarks................ When I saw my fan wire off, I couldn't believe I hadn't burnt out my brand new CPU, but it wasn't even hot.......without the fan!
I ran 3Dmark again for a short time and watched amazed as the temp failed to reach over 52*C without the fan running.
(Please don't try this at home kids........ I was probably just very lucky!)
There is a basic difference between the 7800GT and 7800GTX video card models.
Put it this way....... you have not got a hope in Hades of actually knowing about video cards without doing DAYS of research at least. It is a very specialised subject and the manufacturers are implicated in causing mass confusion with model types and numbers, even what looks like the same exact cards can be quite different.
Sometimes it becomes a matter of actually using a jewellers magnifier to get the numbers off the RAM chips on the cards themselves to see what quality they are......... and the manufacturers answer to this little ploy?............ hide the ram under ridiculous and unnecessary heat sinks so you can't see them!
Even equipped with the right knowledge, it's still often a matter of luck when getting a video card.
The best thing about the advent of the latest high end cards is that they are ALL so powerful, that ANY of them will work fine. This is the first time this has ever occured to my knowledge.
I'm not going to write four pages on video cards, so if you want to find out, start googling up some reviews and chase links to the ends of the earth like I
Last edited by
congo on Mon Nov 21, 2005 6:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

Mainboard: Asus P5K-Premium, CPU=Intel E6850 @ x8x450fsb 3.6ghz, RAM: 4gb PC8500 Team Dark, Video: NV8800GT, HDD: 2x1Tb Samsung F3 RAID-0 + 1Tb F3, PSU: Antec 550 Basiq, OS: Win7x64, Display: 24&