Which board is best for graphics?

[mattmorgan]

I'm looking to upgrade my pc, as i am serious about my games, i currently have a resonable processor, and plenty of ram, but my graphics card lets me down. i'm thinking about stepping up to a dual pci express setup, but have no idea about this. can any one help me out by giving me, one, a website explaining the use and benifits of this setup in simple terms, two a decent motherboard that will house my P4 2.6ht 478 pin and 184pin DDR ram and three, the two cards that will be cheap, but worth upgrading for. (these two card need to be able to work with battle field 2)

Thanks to anyone with any help!

M@

[Cricket]

I really don't think you're going to find any motherboards with Socket 478 and dual PCI-Express 16 slots (SLI).

Cricket

[mattmorgan]

really? that sucks!! ok, well in that case, can anyone point in the direction of a good motherboard bundle that will give me a decent processor, dual pci express motherboard, and will incorparate the RAM memory i already have please?

Thanks.

M@

[mevensen]

Originally Posted by mattmorgan I'm looking to upgrade my pc, as i am serious about my games, i currently have a resonable processor, and plenty of ram, but my graphics card lets me down. i'm thinking about stepping up to a dual pci express setup, but have no idea about this. can any one help me out by giving me, one, a website explaining the use and benifits of this setup in simple terms, two a decent motherboard that will house my P4 2.6ht 478 pin and 184pin DDR ram and three, the two cards that will be cheap, but worth upgrading for. (these two card need to be able to work with battle field 2)

Unfortunately, it sounds to me like you're dealing with oxymorons here.

Cheap, but can handle BF2 well -- doesn't really leave a lot of room.

Cheap and SLI don't really go together, either.

Also, your CPU is a bit lagging for trying to get "serious" gaming performance in many cases, at least those where a good SLI setup will make a difference.

What, however, is "cheap" to you?

As stated, you'll be hard pressed to find a SLI board for your processor, but many reviews have found that "cheap" SLI really isn't all that worth it. For the same cost, you can get a high end single board which will probably be more stable/work better in most cases.

BTW, probably the majority of mobos you find for that CPU will have DDR now.

[Khalil]

Originally Posted by mattmorgan really? that sucks!! ok, well in that case, can anyone point in the direction of a good motherboard bundle that will give me a decent processor, dual pci express motherboard, and will incorparate the RAM memory i already have please? Thanks. M@

I recommend A8N-SLI Asus SLI Board and an AMD Athlon 3200 or 3400 if you want to do some serious gaming. I am part of a gaming guild with more than 300 people in it, alot of the people are using this combo and it seriously rocks.
I wouldnt invest in dual core yet, no games on the market can utilize their capablity and from what I am reading all over the internet including these forums no games in the near future will be needing dual core.
Here are links to those 2 items I recommended.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131540

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103572

Your Ram will work just fine with that motherboard.

As far as Video cards I would go safe and buy the Asus.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121178

Several of my guild mates are using 2 Asus 6600 GTs and they are very happy with them, plays at almost full settings in BF2 and EQ2.

[blue60007]

I'd recommend the AMD switch too. Most new Intel rigs will be DDR2. As long as that's DDR400 RAM you should be able to tranfer the RAM.

Buy the fastest video card you can and then you can always add another one down the road after the prices have dropped. Also, you'll need a SLI-Certified power supply to run dual cards. Also, you'll need an ATX 2.0 (24 pin main connector) power supply whether you are running dual cards or not. I don't see what you've got in your sig, but you will need that if you want stability.

[mattmorgan]

fantastic, cheer to every1 who has answered here, u've all given me somethign to look in to. as for the question of 'how cheap is cheap' well about £700 for CPU, Motherboard, and one card would be acceptable but hopefully for both cards.

once again thanks to all who have posted so far.

M@

[blue60007]

I did the currency conversion, and if I did it right, that should certainly be doable.

Keep in mind that, say, a single $500 video card will almost always be better than two $250 cards.

[Khalil]

Originally Posted by blue60007 I did the currency conversion, and if I did it right, that should certainly be doable. Keep in mind that, say, a single $500 video card will almost always be better than two $250 cards.

Yep i totaly agree but some folks want the 2 cards just to have the 2 cards, I had 2 6600 GTs in my old rig but the 7800GT I have now handles graphics a lot better. I am playing 1600x1200 res without the slightest video lag. With the 6600s I had to turn down all the shadow settings. I have no plans on going SLI for a while I honestly don't think I need more than what I have now in my current rig. I am sure in a year or 2 there will be games out there that will require SLI. But SLI might be old news by then

[mattmorgan]

thanks to all who have replied here, thought you might like to know what i spent my money on in the end:

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 1MB L2 cache on the socket 939
Asus A8N-SLI SE Socket 939
2x ASUS Extreme 6600GT nVidia GeForce 6600 GT SLI - 256 MB

all this for a cool, £460 ($806.148USD)

hopefully this will do for battlefield2 and the fore seeable future.

cheers.

M@