Dual core and GX card advise

[grahamfox]

My old Rig is a AMD XP2100 CPU, 1GB of RAM, Ti 4200 64MB GX and Windows XP. My new Rig ordered but not yet assembled will have a E8500 CPU dual core, 4GB of RAM, 9800 GTX 512MB, 500w power supply and Widows XP.
I have two questions, will I need to do something with the dual core CPU to optomise it for playing CFS3 or BOB II WOV. My other question, I am an occasional gamer and I am thinking this 9800 GTX will use a lot of power when I am not playing. Anybody know how much less the 9600 GT would use as I could downgrade to this or one of the 8 or 7 series.

[ronnybengt]

the BOB part i know zippo of.......The cfs 3 part...service pack 3 solved this matter with certain cpus IIRC....otherwise I have a doc...somewhere...i ll let ya know l8...ok???

R

[hairyspin]

I'm looking at building my next rig along the lines of an E7300 (Core 2 Duo) on a P35 motherboard with 4GB, a 9600GT, two HDDs and a DVD writer. I wish I could remember where I found a PSU calculator, but it recommended 400W for this setup.

There are calculators online which will work this out for you, but afaik the video card doesn't run at full power at all times.

[lthump]

GO HARD and get the best you can afford as it all falls behind so fast these days

[grahamfox]

Yes they supply SP3 with the XP OS so hope the dual core issues will be solved. Re. the idleing power consuption the sales staff at Cyberpower who are assembling it say

The way the 9800 GTX + runs the power management is through the drivers so the motherboard choice is not a factor. Basically the card will only draw the power it requires and the fan speed will reduce when idling. We will install the latest working drivers so the power management technology will be fully working.

I have read on the Nividia site that the Hybrid power saving feature which switches to the on board GPU in idle only works with Vista and on enabled Mother Boards so maybe ther is nothing I can do if I want to run on XP.

[Cameljockey]

For those of you planning a new rig, there is a lot to be said for used or recertified hardware. The rig I built not long ago ended up costing around $700 US and works perfectly. I bought a used Abit IN9 32X MAX 680i SLI mobo for $98.50 US and it came with everything that was included in a brand new board. I also bought a factory recertified EVGA GeForce 8800GTX 768Mb 384bit GDDR3 for $129 US which also came complete, like a new one. Both items also had warranties, albeit, not as long as a new item, but I can live with that. For around $700US this is what I got..........

APEVIA X-CRUISER-BK Black Steel ATX Mid Tower-

ABIT IN9 32X-MAX - motherboard - ATX - nForce 680i SLI - LGA775 Socket-

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz 6MB L2 Cache 1333Mhz fsb-

OCZ Platinum Revision 2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)-

EVGANvidiaGeForce8800GTX768MbGDDR3-

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s-

SAMSUNG Black2MB Cache SATA 22X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe-

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Interface Sound Card

Antec EA650 650W ATX12VSLI CertifiedPower Supply


If you're on a tight budget like me (which a lot of people are) it pays to shop and research. Don't be afraid of buying used or recertified hardware from a reputable source. It worked for me. I priced systems comparable to mine online and at most places you can't touch it for under $1200 US.
Something to think about.............

CJ