Maximum PC

Hi Folks!

Been a while since my last post. I need some advice. I am rebuilding my machine next week for the first time in nearly 4 years, I am going from:

Core 2 Duo E6320 (OC'd to 3.0GHz)
4GB DDR2 800MHz
Asus P-530n SLi MoBo
nVidia 8800GTS 640MB

To... :

Core i5-760 Quad
8GB DDR3 1600MHz (OCZ)
Asus Maximus III Formula
???

I just upgraded my monitor to a 1080p LG affair (23") that I LOVE. Further, my old 8800GTS seems to actually run things fairly well (though I certainly have to keep AA to 4x or even less on some titles). I have been completely out of the loop on newer PC tech. Just haven't had the time to keep it as a hobby as I once did. What does the Max PC community recommend? So far, I have looked at the Radeon HD 6850 (the current front runner), the 6870, the nVidia GTS 460 (both models), and the 450. I'm not up on all the latest benchmarks, so any advice would be wonderful!

I'd go with a GTX460 1GB. I have one (EVGA stock model, overclocked to match the FTW model's settings) and it runs fantastic.

Of course, if you want you could pick up a second 8800 and run them SLI..

I'd go with sandy bridge instead of an i5 760.





Ted

I agree with Ted, I'd repost this over in the help me buy section, unless you've already purchased your new mobo and CPU.

I'm in a similar boat, except I have 2 7950's in SLI. They do a good job for what I use it for, older games and some video encoding etc. In short I want more processing power and to get over the 8000 hump that allows some of the 3D and other NVIDIA perks. My main concern is to stay near the $200 range. The question being: Is there a SLI solution where 2 cards totaling $250 will beat a single card for at/near the same price range or is a single card the better path? Not sure of my PCI-E bandwidth but that could be a factor here...? My MOBO is an ASUS P5N-E with a Dual Core proc 2.6MHz. I just bought a new SATA HDD 1 TB and when I put it in with a fresh Win 7 install (Currently XP) I want to have the video in place. Also, while we're at it, anyone know what the hottest proc is that will fit my socket? It has liquid cooling, but shouldn't matter. This was the first system I bought in quite a while vs self built. At the time, CP allowed me to customize the build and the bottom line was a system cheaper than I could get the parts for and got the OS and warranty to boot with little/no crapware. Am planning to start ordering parts soon and will likely upgrade one of the opticals to BD read/write as well. This should allow me to buy some newer games and not have Redmond putting the brakes on my Win 7 for too many changes later. Am pretty sure all this will pacify me for another 4 years with this box. Thanks for any suggestions, in advance!
(It's gotten slower but still boots way quicker than my Commodore 128 did!)

I'm about ready to replace my 260 with a 560 card, and the 260 will trickle down to replace my 8800. If I were just replacing the 8800 I'd look into the GTX 560 Ti, from either Gigabyte or MSI. They have aftermarket coolers on them and should perform better than the stock 560 cards.

For me, the value cards are where it's at. I know that there are better performers out there, but I can't stand shelling out more than $300 for a graphics card these days.