Building a new system. Advice?

[rseven]

I have never been a fan of SLI, so I would go wit the one faster vid card.

 

[Arch]

I went ahead and got the X1900XTX. The way I see it, I will probably upgrade the video card in 18 months, regardless of whether or not I have the X1900XTX or the 7900GTs in SLI. SLI 7900GTs just don't provide enough of an increase over the X1900XTX to justify the $200 premium.

Thanks everyone for your help. I should have the parts by Wednesday or Thursday. Should have it up and running shortly there after.

 

[towcutter]

You might consider buying PC 4000 speed memory so you have overclocking potential. There is not much difference in price. Maybe OCZ PC-4000 XTC. Don't forget to upgrade the heatsink, maybe an XP-120. Just a thought. When I bought my system, I didn't upgrade the heatsink or the memory. I played with overclocking and soon found my value ram and heatsink needed an upgrade. I purchaced the thermalright after, and had to pull my mobo out to attach it. Its just less wear and tear pulling the board out later.

 

[turkey4550]

Ocz ram or Gskill pc4000 is the way to go. i would stay away from the Abit mobo, check some reviews on it. I would stick with DFI for the mobo. As for cpu I have a single core opty 146 hittin over 3 with no probs on air. And I am using some cheap-*** 1gb of corsair value select at 215mhz. paid $145 shipped for my cpu 4 months ago. As for the case I have a thermaltake armor (aluminum, not steel) little pricey, but well built and good thermal management. Gpu, 7900gt will be the way to go. i have always been an ATI fan but nvidia is whoopin that *** right now.

 

[turkey4550]

Oh, I am using the thermaltake big typhoon as cpu cooler/ and thermaltake thunderblade led fan as cooling solution. Awesome!

 

[towcutter]

Is the dfi board better than the asus, i like the cool pipe idea to keep heat away from the cpu on the asus. Also is there a performance difference in sli mode. I heard good things about the asus board. Thanks for your input.

 

[turkey4550]

there is no northbridge chipset on the DFI board so that is not an issue. I'll just say this, there are more features hands down on a DFI than asus, especially whenit comes to overclocking. In my experince anyway. Sli-dr or Slidr expert are the best 2 boards I have come across.