Posted 07/14/2008 at 12:24:13pm

Radeon 4870 has 30 GT/sec (Billions of textures).

GeForce 8800 GT/SC has 40 GT/Sec. 2x = 80 GT/Sec.

Try Crysis. It can hump ANY video card setup.

Posted 07/14/2008 at 12:19:47pm

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/11/02/nvidia_geforce_8800_gt/1

http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?cid=3&id=2408&pg=2

Note that performance > 15~20 fps will not be noticeable to the human eye. Presume you are at 1680x1050x32.

Same thing on the RAID issue:

 http://forum.oscr.arizona.edu/archive/index.php/t-2589.html

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=890&page=4

Two cards are almost twice as good as one. Two disks are almost twice as good as one. Two CPUs are almost twice as good as one. Four CPUs are almost four times as good as one (if you can use them all).

Posted 07/10/2008 at 11:39:46am

Unless you are going to set up the system drive in RAID (not enough drives for RAID in suggested config), you don't need a floppy drive to load the drivers.

Thank you for your service to our country.

Posted 07/10/2008 at 11:36:48am

http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=proddesc&prod_no=1261

"Supports Intel® Core 2 Quad/Core 2 Duo based processors in LGA775 package."

You can always check the manufacturers website. Sometimes wholesalers like NewEgg and TigerDirect don't update their webpages.

Posted 07/10/2008 at 11:31:41am

http://www.bmem.net/opsy.html?gclid=CILVvfXetZQCFRcaagodVmMBTw is one place

Google "Windows XP Pro SP2 OEM"

Thanks for your service to our country.

Posted 07/09/2008 at 12:51:26pm

I use open SuSE 11.0 and KDE 3.5 on Nvidia hardware. Most of the popular PC Games are already up. Thanks to the DirectX simulation, some new games pop right in, others can take up to 6 months.

I find better support for the hardware under Linux, built in RAID support, and built in 64bit support to be great advantages.

Posted 07/09/2008 at 12:34:37pm

I just paid the 30$ once and use it whenever stupid old OSes require it

Posted 07/09/2008 at 12:15:53pm

 
QTY    DESC    Cost    Price       
2    EVGA GeForce 8800 GT Video Card - Superclocked Edition, 512MB GDDR3, PCI Express 2.0, SLI Ready, (Dual Link) Dual DVI, HDTV, Video Card    149.99    299.98       
1     Asus M2N-SLI Motherboard - NVIDIA nForce 560 SLI, Socket AM2/AM2+, ATX, Audio, PCI Express, Gigabit LAN, S/PDIF, USB 2.0, Firewire, Serial ATA, RAID    99.99    99.99       
1    AMD Phenom X4 9850 Quad Core Processor HD985ZXAGHBOX - Black Edition, Unlocked 2.50GHz, 4MB Cache, 2000MHz (4000 MT/s) FSB, Agena, Quad-Core, Retail, Socket AM2+, Processor with Fan    205.99    205.99       
1    Cooler Master Stacker 810 Full-Tower ATX Case with 850-Watt Power Supply    229.99    229.99       
2    Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB Hard Drive - 7200, 8MB, Serial ATA-300, OEM    54.99    109.98       
1    HP DVD1040i Lightscribe Super-Multi Retail DVD Burner - 20x DVD±R Burn, 16x DVD±R Read, 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW, 8x DVD±R DL, 12x DVD-RAM, 48x32x CD-R/RW, Internal    34.99    34.99       
2    Corsair Dual Channel TWINX 4096MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz Memory (2 x 2048MB)    86.99    173.98       
1    Logitech Optical Trackman Trackball    24.99    24.99       
1    Keys U See Large Print Keyboard with Yellow Keys (Black)    29.99    29.99       
1    Logitech - Force 3D Pro Joystick    54.99    54.99       
1    Sylvania SK2201WB 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor - 5ms, 800:1, 1680x1050 (WSXGA+), VGA, DVI, Internal Speakers, Black    229.99    229.99       
1    openSuSE Linux 11.0 x86_64    0    0       
            1494.86    

This box has almost twice the graphics performance, twice the memory, and twice the disk performance, plus you can actually USE it (monitor, mouse,keyboard,joystick). I use OpenSuSE instead of Ubuntu, KDE 3.5, and Cedega subscription so I can play all my favorite Windows games and shred people who built the other box.

Posted 07/09/2008 at 10:34:09am

Using today's prices from Tiger Direct, you can build a better system, for less. This system has a 22" Monitor, Trackball, joystick, and keyboard. On that basis alone (The ability to actually play on it) it is vastly better. Add in the fact is has twice the graphics performance, twice the memory, and twice as fast a hard drive subsystem, with comparable processor speeds (except for the 64 bit 32 bit thing).

Your system is probably capable of greater overclocking, but even tweaking to the max would be shredded by this system. For the extra 25$, I'd buy a Cedega subscription, so that I can play all the same Windows games, head to head.

Posted 07/09/2008 at 10:28:05am