Posted 03/22/2009 at 09:36:34am

Again you arent reading TFA......

First off -

"And there's a problem with your argument right there. Unless you're really anal about your 60FPS at maximum detail, upgrading every two years isn't cost effective. I still have an 8800GT. It still plays games just fine. Do I need an upgrade? No. Are most people going to be like "Oh, I'm going to upgrade every two years!"? I guess I wasn't aware that most MPC readers have money to burn on things every two years"

Hmm.. Correct me if I am wrong ... this is MAXIMUM PC, Not INEVERUPGRADEPC magazine. Most readers of MPC will upgrade thier cards every couple of years, Im sure if someone posted a poll you'd see that. Secondly the GTX260 is a huge bargin right now, so it would be stupid NOT to upgrade. I went from a 8800GT to the 260GTX (at those bargin prices and I might add has cost me LESS than the 8800GT did when I bought that) and theres nothing anal about the preformance. Its marketedly better... much better. I had issues with some of the games this past year running at 1680x1050(native res of my monitor) You can see it struggleing and having a hard time. Now I upgrade when I see that.. not just because. I waited until the prices went down and I didnt buy the high end part. Dont tell me you can run Crysis at 1680x1050 on gamer settings just fine on your 8800GT, because I know you are lieing. I went for the MAXIMUM value and MAXIMUM performance gains at that price. This MAXIMUM PC you know... 

If I was anal and had money to burn as you suggest, I would have bought the GTX295, that is actually reviewed in this months MAXIMUMPC, not this months INEVERUPGRADEPC..

Now your other point:

"And the other flaw in your argument to use MSI: vendor pricing. Newegg so far is the only store I've found anyone selling a GTX 260 216 for $189. Tiger Direct had a GTX 260 216 for $179 after MIR and they throw in Mirror's Edge. And then after that, no other store store I went around sells a GTX 260 216 anywhere close to $200. Fry's? Nope (at least the online store). Amazon? Nope. Dell? Nope. Pricegrabber? Nope."

UMMMM... Again did you read the f*ckiing Article????? Right at the top it says the following:

(All prices found on newegg.com, as of March 8th, and do not include mail-in rebates) 

DID YOU EVEN SEE THAT???. Your argument regarding this article is way off base. Again most people who buy and upgrade parts dont go into Fry's or Best buy, and if you are ordering online you rarely go to Amazon, or Pricegrabber. Most will shop and dedicated online vendors like newegg.com, Mwave, etc.. In fact I actually bought the Domino ALC cooler just recently from of all places BUY.com.. it was cheaper than retail and newegg dont stock it. If you are shoipping online you SHOP AROUND..... Same as if you go in a mall. 

Really please RTFA before commenting please.

Posted 03/22/2009 at 09:15:14am

"Owners of multicore machines will want to download the .zip version of Prime95 and extract its contents to a new folder for each core of your machine. Run the program out of each folder, which will open up one instance of Prime95 per core. Click “Affinity” on the program’s advanced menu and set each instance to run on a different CPU core. Dual-core owners should run a small FFT on one core and a large FFT on the other; just double that equation if you’re rocking a quad-core PC."

Wrong.....

The latest version of Prime95 does multicore testing. No need to mess around running different instances of it for each core, there is also a 64bit version as well. See here: http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft/

Why overcomplicate things, really?

If you are going to link to this article from your latest magazine, then really update the article.

3DMark 05??? Why not 3DMark 06 or 3DMark Vantage? You have to pay for all three to work at "proper levels"

Posted 03/15/2009 at 12:56:01pm

LOL...

Thats the most stupid reply I have ever heard.

 Lets see....

 Lifetime Warranty... Ok so the MSI doesnt have a lifetime warranty, but it does have a three year warranty. Now I dont know about you but I have NEVER had a video card for more than 2 years tops. TOPS. Since the 3DFX Voodoo, so that point is totally and utterly moot unless you are thinking of never upgrading again.

 Only EVGA offers a warranty for an aftermarket heatsink, and really if you going to put an aftermarket heatsink on it then you are obviously going to overclock over the stock settings of that particular card. Now AFAIK none of them warranty the card if you overclock it over thier settings in any way shape or form. And really when was the last time a Video card acutally broke on you after you have had it for 6 months?

So go ahead, pay more for really no gain (the only one that is applicable is maybe the step-up program tha eVGA offers). The MSI card runs very well, is cheaper than the part listed on this list, and runs better with the standard clocks without overclocking it....

Last card I had was a BFG, and the card before that was a EVGA and the card before that was an MSI I have never had any issues with any of them ...... ever....  Last time I had a faulty video card was a Diamond Stealth 64 Vesa Local Bus Card way back in the mid 90's.... before the first 3DFX card was ever even thought of.

Posted 03/11/2009 at 03:04:49pm

Even so, before MIR the prices of both are $189.99 and $99 (vs $250 and $104 (that mysterioulsy changed to $89 on the second page)) respectivily. Both are cheaper than the ones mentioned on this build, and are better parts.

And both were cheaper at the end of Feb before this article was done... When I got the card from the Egg it was $220 still a whole $30 cheaper than the EVGA part and still better spec, in fact the EVGA card was around $270-$280 mark at the time I purchased.

Posted 03/11/2009 at 02:02:19pm

Why did they go for the EVGA card for $250???

NewEgg have had the MSI GTX260 Core 216 ultra cheap for a while now, and its overclocked.

Right now after mail in rebate its at $159.99  ($189 before) nearly $100 cheaper than the EVGA part and is faster to boot (655mhz vs 626mhz GPU) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127409

And the PSU? I got the Corsair 650W one for $99.99 ($79 after rebate)...http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005 - and WHY does it say $104 on the first page for it and $89 on the second?

And I got this stuff before March (last week in Feb in fact) (I missed out of the GFX card as I paid $199 after rebate for it)

Some of these "March" prices are out of whack.