Maximum PC

Yes I mean mobo's. alot of people are waiting for an nforce board with pci-e. I hope they do something quick!

Heck...I want something better than average, and under $500. That's all, then I'm all over it.

Yeah, I'm in the same boat... I have a 9600XT right now but I have been considering upgading to a 6800GT. My only concern is NVidia's performance and visual quality in HL2... It sounds as if their performance issues have been worked out, now I'm just wondering about the visual quality... Anyone have any links to benchmarks or comparisons between ATI and NVidia in CS Source or HL2?

Anyway, this caught my eye today on http://www.bensbargains.net:

BFG 6800GT OC for $349
http://shop4.outpost.com/product/4082662


How will the 6600GT compare to the 6800GT? Is the 6600 just clocked slower with the same number of pipes?

the 6600GT will be close to the 6800 standard, better in some games, worse in some games (according to benches i've seen). the 6600GT will be nowhere near the performance of a 6800GT.

a $200 price difference pretty much tells you that.

the 6600gt has only 8 pipe lines. so for now, its not really a bottleneck, but when newer games come out it might become an issue. it has really good performance on todays titles because of the memory and clock speed. good price/performance ratio. the 200 I save I can get a new mobo with pci-e and for a little more a new cpu. so I think it is a good choice instead of blowing all the money on just the card.

i won't be getting any pci-e mobos until there are nice socket 939s with it!

I agree with the above opinions in that you should wait, at least till the game comes out. Then figure on getting the best bang for your buck. Right now, the 9800 256 is going for low prices everywhere.

I loaded an X800 pro (XT supposedly isn't available til Oct 1st) just in time for a LAN last Saturday and it made absolutely NO difference compared to the 9800 pro I've been running since it came out. I was mightily dissapointed.
Of course, I also hope it's my system too. (P4 2.4, 1.5GB pc2700 Corsair RAM, SoyoDragon2 that only has 4x AGP) . I'm thinking if I upgraded to a mobo with 8x AGP & at least a 3.2 P4 that may make the difference. If so, I'll let you all know. I just have to find a decent SFF one for my IceCube. <looking now...>

Personally, I will be waiting for the PCI-E before making a full upgrade. Especially if a mobo with 2 PCI-E x16 slots to use NVidias SLI card (if it works well). I still have very fond memories of the x24 (3dfx VooDooII SLI'd on one card). Even though it was $600, it lasted me over 2 years.

I guess we'll see what xmas brings this year...