Newegg has a 180 dollar X800 XT with 1.00 3 day shipping. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814140069R If price was a concern.
Sophocles, I constantly monitor the temps and fan speeds with Asus Probe. I have the cpu to 65C and the MB to 50C. The cpu fan to 2400 rpm and the case fan to 1400 rpm. Since the max on the cpu fan is 2500 or so rpm, any drop in rpms below those high thresholds would signal me right away. If I ignore the beeping, it shuts the computer down. I'm also using the Q-Fan in the mb bios. When cold the fan runs slower on the cpu cooler and comes up in speed as the cpu temp warms up. Once the predetermined levels are passed. Asus Probe locks the limits in. Then it monitors the thresholds that you set and hopefully you never hear anything. A note about the settings. What you manually set in Asus Probe overides the bios settings and holds these in memory until you re-boot. Then, if Asus Probe is enabled at boot-up it just goes on it's way looking after your set thresholds. Got the full explaination from a tech rep at Asus. Don't know if it will work on different MBs but I'm sure it's available at Asus" website. By the way Sophocles, I want to add the 2 512Mb PNY PC3200 Cas3 memory sticks just to see what 2 Gbs of memory runs like. Is there a problem with mixing my Corsair XMS with them? 6402, I appreciate the link but I only have PCI and AGP 8x slots on my P4. No PCI Express! I should have provided a link. This card should work just fine! http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102492 Sorry bout that. Every month or so Newegg puts this card on sale for $189 (USD). Next time I buy one! Happy Computering, theonejrs
I've said this once and I'll say it again, thermal sensors are inaccurate. Your 65 degrees celsius could just as easliy be 70 degrees and 50C is too high for mainboard temps. theonjrs It's never a good idea to mix memory types, it might work but your speeds will default to the slower modules. On the negative side your system might not even boot.
Sophocles, I put in the 2 512 PNY sticks. It runs great at 2 2 2 5 at 3.60. It did wonders for my cpu and arithmatic benchmark. I'm beating out a lot of faster CPUs. See below! You are right about the MB temperature threshold, it is too high. I've re-set it to 40C. Right now the Asus Probe says that the MB temp is 36C. The temp of the air going out of the power supply (which is the hottest place) is 37C as measured with a Wexler Scientific mercury thermometer graduated in single degrees. Temp at the case fan is 28C. Considering that the 120mm in the power supply removes most of the cPU heat, I would say that it's about right. You may be able to fool a faulty sensor but you can't fool a good mercury thermometer. Happy Computering, theonejrs
Brobear, Here's an Asus MB that might interest you. It's socket 478. I have the SE version of this MB an it rocks. Here's the link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131492 Also, CompUSA has the Sony 8x DVDs at 29.00 and change for 100. These are Yudens and burn automaticly at 12x on my 12x burner. Excellent value and quality for the money http://www.compusa.com/adproducts/product_info.asp?product_code=317338&pfp=ADPRODUCTS Happy Computering, theonejrs
Sophocles $6.99 for one item, but Newegg charges shipping on about every item they ship. On a multiple order, that can easily reach mid double digits. On my last order it would have run about $40 shipping for a $360 order (I had a case in the order). PageComputers.com $280.68 and free shipping http://newsite.pagecomputers.com/st...category_name=33g33c200s996&product_id=678824 MWave.com $272.54 plus $8.19 shipping (to my zone) $280.73 http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch.hmx?SCriteria=3592857 Buy.com has it at $284.95, SecureMart at $283.16, and I've seen others for less than $290 shipped. theonejrs Seems you and Sophocles agree on the board. I ordered it around the end of the week, so hopefully it will be here by the end of the week or early next week. It'll be on a slow mule through the "territories". I got a Themaltake Armor case and Antec TP2 550w power supply to go with it. I didn't see much advantage in going with the Asus over the Antec and the Asus was a few dollars more. I doubt I'll be using the SLi plugins, but it's nice to have them just in case. I'll rob the good parts from the Dell and use those till I can get away with ordering the dual core processor and mobo. Those parts aren't original Dell; in fact, I only recently bought new drives. I'm still waiting to see what this year brings on the dual core development. I know it's fun to jump in and enjoy new technology; but once burned, twice shy and I've had a few burnings. Not only do I want my new sytem to be Dual Core and Vista ready, I want to be sure I can use the newer video technology. The promised new encryptions make me leery of building a topline machine at present. I'm also being careful about monitors. For high definition play, some will be blocked by the system.
brobear I'm happy with my decision although it seems that you are not but then you didn't have to pay for it.
To All, All bets are off. XFX just came out with: XFX PVT70KUAD7 Geforce 7800GS 256MB GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X Video Card. theonejrs
Sophocles Actually I'm happy for you. LOL It's your money and your business. I was merely pointing out that NewEgg is making a fortune by playing nice.
theonejrs Do you have a link for that? ZipZoomFly has them at a fairly reasonable price; $309 with free 2nd day delivery. http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=321049&affiliate=pricegrabber
The 7800GS doesn't go enormously faster than the X800XT, is it a lot more expensive? If it is, I wouldn't...
Where it counts, you're probably seeing about 10-15% more with a 7800GS than an X800XT, but if you don't game massively, then why bother?
The X850 XT Radeon is the comparable offering to this model. At about an extra hundred USD it would make sense to go with the 7800 GS, unless you just have to have the added features of the Radeon. At only $25 dollars or so to move up from the X800 XT, why not.
Theoretically the direct model comparison would be the X1800XL, but I don't think they're available in AGP.
I was looking at AGP cards. The pickings are a lot slimmer in AGP than PCI Express. I'd like to have one of the X850 XT AGP cards for my old system, but the cost is prohibitive.
If i were you with a 9800 Pro, wait until you want to PCI express the whole system before you get a new card. That's still plenty fast enough.
brobear Is your card a 9800 or 9800 Pro? If it's a pro then sammoris is right, buying a faster card won't give you anything for it. I've played most of the games that I have in my collection with my HIS ICQ 9800 pro with no noticeable frame loss. I even played Quake 3 on it for a while but I don't like first person shooter games so I got bored and quit. I like games that are essentially puzzles such as RPG action games.
