On 17 Oct 2005 02:07:32 -0700, "Cyde Weys"
<cydeweys@gmail.com> wrote:


>Out of all 27 6600GT cards on NewEgg, only one has 256MB RAM, and it's
>not even in stock (and even if it were, it's $200). Is 256MB RAM a lot
>better than 128MB? Would it be worth spending the extra money to get a
>256MB version of a 6800? Are the 6600GT and 6800 vanilla comparable in
>terms of performance?

Supposedly the 6800 will be marginally faster, but mainly
having it at the lower stock GPU speed means *on average* it
should have more o'c potential.

Most games don't "need" over 128MB memory unless details are
set to maximum. Future games are bound to use more though,
if it were my purchase and I already had a Radeon 9800 Pro,
I'd go with 256MB on any >$150 card, IF gaming performance
is among the most important indexes for the new system.



>
>> Never been a fan of Epox boards, but never tried that one
>> either. Harder to know if it's reasonable except in
>> retrospect.
>
>Alright, I'll look for someone different. Any brands you tend to
>prefer?

Asus, Abit, sometimes MSI, Gigabyte on their mid-to-high end
boards. I dont' know how long you need it to last or
feature support though... I try to avoid recommending
specific boards as there are too many variables involved in
what's best for any specific person's needs. You can
probably get a lot of info on some in the motherboard
subsections of forums like http://forums.amdmb.com



>> For best performance, yes you will need new memory. Most
>> boards support async, slower memory bus but buying all new
>> parts just to underclock the memory bus for older memory
>> seems a bit limiting.
>
>In terms of memory I figure I want 2GB. I tend to not stress the CPU
>so much in every day to day usage but I stress the CRAP out of memory.
>You know, having like twenty things open. Corsair 512MB DDR 400 memory
>is only $44 so I could get four or those and stick 'em in a board with
>4 slots. Or would it be better to get 2 sticks of 1GB, which is
>slightly more expensive?

Yes it would be better to get 1GB per module when expecting
to use 2GB total. Get them both at same time and test
together to be sure they're stable.

>
>> >Ugh, this is all looking very expensive.
>>
>> Yep, you could always get another skt A board now and buy
>> the other parts a piece at a time, preferribly the
>> motherboard last so you had all other parts available to be
>> sure it isn't problematic- and motherboard is usually most
>> likely defective or unworkable in some way, IF anything
>> were.
>
>But I'd have to get another Socket A board that supports my current AGP
>video card. To be able to upgrade either the CPU or GPU would require
>getting another mobo anyway. About the only thing I could upgrade with
>another Socket A mobo is the memory (up to DDR 400). This is, unless,
>I choose one of those dual AGP/PCI-X boards, but those look kind of
>iffy.

My point was not to try to max-out skt A, rather to be able
to reuse the parts you already had- CPU, memory, video. If
the resulting system isn't enough performance, then sure,
you'll have to build another one too... but getting that one
running again for around $30-40 (typical price of some of
the refurb'd boards) is fairly cost-effective. I didn't
even consider it but does your board have a warranty in
effect?

>I really can't decide whether to spend a lot of money to upgrade my
>overall system or just replace the mobo and go on for awhile with what
>I have.

Well, for the cost of a refurb'd board you can get by for
awhile, and even if you wanted to do the whole system
upgrade in a couple months, given the $ depreciation on the
newer parts and more time to hunt down deals, it could end
up being same or lower total cost... just depends on how
much of a need there is at this very moment for higher
performanace, since buying for the future is never a good
investment.