Noob question.

oakleyguy89

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I want to get the ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe Socket AM2 ATI CrossFire Radeon Xpress 3200 ATX AMD Motherboard. Do I have to have a crossfire GPU or can I run a eVGA 7600GT on it??
 

oakleyguy89

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Oh, just wonderin because it says: CrossFire
Support ATI CrossFire graphics cards (both at x16 mode).
And is this a good mobo? I was wondering between this and the MSI K9N SLI Platinum.
 

JMecc

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Like prozac26 said, any pic-e card will do. If you want to get another card like yours in the future to pair up in SLI, go with the SLI board though. The MSI board looks good for the job.

Jo
 

SEALBoy

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You will be able to run any single PCI-E graphics card on either motherboard. However, if you want to run two cards, you will either have to go with the Crossfire motherboard if your cards are ATI's, or the SLi motherboard if your cards are nVidia's.
 

SEALBoy

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Oh yeah, forgot to mention this. Don't run two mid-range cards in SLi or Crossfire. It's better to get a high(ish)-level card that will blow the pants off two mid-range cards. If you're thinking of putting two 7600GT's in SLi, drop that idea and go for a single X1950Pro instead.
 

oakleyguy89

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Btw, the X1950Pros chip manufacturer is ATI which mean I would have to go with the crossfire mobo. Im going with the MSI K9N SlI Platinum, what would be a good choice for that? 7800 or a 7900 series?
 

sailer

Splendid
Btw, the X1950Pros chip manufacturer is ATI which mean I would have to go with the crossfire mobo. Im going with the MSI K9N SlI Platinum, what would be a good choice for that? 7800 or a 7900 series?

The better one is the 7900 series by far.
 

sailer

Splendid
They still pretty spendy

Between the 7800 and 7900 series, the 7900 gives a lot better performance for the dollar spent. Of course, a 7800 is getting increasingly hard to find, since they are out of production entirely. If you can find a 7800 cheap enough, and can be assured it works before you pay for it, fine, but I wouldn't pay over $150.00 for a 7800 GTX model and you can find a 7900 GS for sale right now at Newegg for $155.99 after rebate. So that would be a brand new 7900 GS for about the same price as a used 7800 GTX. To top it off, I noticed that Newegg had a couple recertified 7800 GTX's for sale at $249.99. That makes a 7900 GT at $235/99 after rebate a much better deal

Ok, looking back I see you said you're tight on money and you asked about a 7600 GT. The question I had answered about the 7900 was a choice between a 7800 series or 7900 series. If money is a problem, get the 7600 GT. In my opinion, even that would be better than a 7800 card.
 

oakleyguy89

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Yea. I remember a couple years ago I had a geforce fx and I thought that the graphics were amazing. Its been soo long since ive done gaming so Im sure I'll be blown away even with the 7600GT. I played cod on the fx and it was amazing back then.
 

oakleyguy89

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Yea, I think its awesome. I dont do any overclocking, I dont know how do do it, and I dont want to damage anything in the process. I have a question about BIOS... Can I update the bios when I have windows installed or do I have to update the bios before I install the OS?
 

sailer

Splendid
I updated my BIOS with Windows installed without problem.

There should be a fairly easy and painless way to overclock for you. After everything is installed and working correctly, you go into the BIOS upon startup. Then under the "Advanced" column, highlight "Jumperfree Configuration". You should see a line that says "AI Overclocking". It will be defaulted to "Auto". Click on that and it will show a few options, one of which should read "Overclock Profile". Clicking on that show then give a series of options,; 1%, 3%, 5%, 8%, and 10%. These are the easiest ways to overclock with the BIOS that ASUS uses, at least that's what it uses on the board that I have, a A8N32-SLI Deluxe. You should be able to run up to a 10% overclock without trouble, but do monitor the heat generated using a utility such as Speedfan. If the heat starts to get too hot sooner, such as at a 5% overclock, then you may need a better cpu heatsink and fan before continuing.

You can choose the "Manual" option under the overclock options, but then you have to figure out exactly what and how much you want of everything. If you have little or no experience with overclocking, its probably better to use the "overclock profile" option and let the BIOS handle the specifics.
 

oakleyguy89

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Doing the "Overclock Profile" can there be any harm done to the pc by overclocking it? How much better is overclocking than just standard?
 

sailer

Splendid
Doing the "Overclock Profile" can there be any harm done to the pc by overclocking it? How much better is overclocking than just standard?

As long as you monitor the cpu temp in particular and make sure it doesn't get too high, there shouldn't be any harm done. Generally speaking, an AMD cpu can go as high as 65c, though I try to keep mine around 40c at idle and ranging up to 50c under load. Right now, for instance, my cpu core is reading 38c. The cooler you can keep the cpu, the better, but I wouldn't get carried away and try for temps in the 20's. And, by the way, I'm running a 15% overclock.

I didn't see anything as to which cpu you have, so I can't say exactly how much help you can expect, but generally, it will make you cpu perform like one a stock one that is one or two steps higher, An Example would be that when I had a 4400+ cpu, by overclocking it, I could get the same speed as high as a stock FX60, and getting the same speed as a 4800+ was easy.
 

oakleyguy89

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I was thinking about getting the AMD Athlon 64 - 4200+ 2.2GHz (AM2) Dual Core CPU.

What is this? Is it what u can get if you overclock or underclock?:
Frequency / Cache Sizes:
4800+ 2.4GHz w/ 1MB L2 cache-per-core
4600+ 2.4GHz w/ 512KB L2 cache-per-core
4400+ 2.2GHz w/ 1MB L2 cache-per-core
4200+ 2.2GHz w/ 512KB L2 cache-per-core
3800+ 2.0GHz w/ 512KB L2 cache-per-core
 

sailer

Splendid
I think the 4200+ is a good chip, the same as a 4400+ except with a smaller cache. At a 10% overclock will give you 2420 mhz, almost identical to a 4600-4800+ series. I was able to overclock my 4400+ up 2640 mhz without any trouble, which was slightly faster than a stock FX60 at 2600 mhz. And that's the big point of overclocking, being able to get the speed of a faster cpu without having to pay the cost of the faster cpu. A further thing is that the 4200+ is basically identical to the 4600+ except for the multiplier, so getting a 4600+ speed from it does not strain the cpu at all.
 

oakleyguy89

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I think thats the one I will go with, because it seems like a good chip that wont damage my wallet if u know what i mean lol. Im not getting it yet, I got to get some cash flow from a job... What brand of ram should I get? Corsair or Kingston? And how much should I get? I was thinking about getting 2 gigs to start out and then maybe upgrade to 3 or 4 later?? My stepdad is really into comps and he says he uses nothing but kingston because they have a lifetime warranty.
 

sailer

Splendid
Corsair is good memory. I have used it for years and it carries a lifetime warrenty. Most major companies carry lifetime warrenties now, so that isn't as big a deal as it used to be. Kingston used to be considered one of the better companies, but it isn't used by enthusiasts anymore. Other good companies are OCZ, Mushkin, G.Skill, and Giel.

Get two 1 gig sticks of ram for the best performance. Any more is a waste with XP. If you go with Vista, it will probably need 4 gig to run its best, but 2 gig is still a good start.
 

sailer

Splendid
I plan on using the same Raptor drive that you listed, except without the window on the side, when I build my next computer. Raptors are, so far, only SATA 1 instead of SATA 2, but for the most part, that makes no difference at all. Not many motherboards around that will use the extra bandwidth of SATA 2.