Hi guys atlast i will be getting my new pc next weekend. I will be gaming at either one of these 3 resolutions,
1>1024*768
2>1280*1024 and
3>1440*900.
 
Have decided to go with the 780 sli motherboard  (please suggest a good one better than this if u feel)and 2 GB DDR2 800 Mhz RAM.
After seeing the reviews of 9600 GT sli and 9800 gtx in the above mentioned 3 resolutions i find the 9600 gt sli somewhat 10-15 fps more than 9800 gtx in almost all games. So plz tell me what all r u opinons considering gaming at these 3 resolutions.  
 
Actaully i am from India and here one 9600 GT card costs around 9000 indian rupees and 9800 gtx 19,000. So if 40Rs=1$ then 9600 gt sli will be 450$ and 9800 gtx 475$, so money wise and performance wise(again at these 3 resolutions) 9600 gt sli seems better to me.
 
E8500 is around 12,000 and Q6600 i around 10,000 and Q9300 is around 13,000. Now have to decided to go for another upgrade in 2010 around this time so i am thinking of going with E8500 as the main purpose of the pc will be gaming and gaming only.. E8400 is around 9000 and is E8500 really worth the extra 3000 rupees?? please post your suggestion on this also
 
Please suggest a PSU i.e. how many watts r required to run the pc smoothly eg. 600 or 7000W etc.
 
Also please suggest a good gaming mouse. On the logitech front i am interested in G5 laser mouse(here its around 2900 rupees http://www.theitdepot.com/Logitech [...] cate_id=1) and i just happended to come to know about the Razer brand so suggest a good razer one if its better than G5 and btw advacne thanks for all your replies and hoping to get a good gaming rig next week.

For 3000 Rupees the E8400 is the way to go and leaves you more cash to put towards the graphic subset. How much are 8800GT/GTS's where you are?,  because a pair of either will kick 2x 9600GT's quite squarely in the goolies.
For PSU a Corsair 620HX can easily run an E8400 @3.6ghz, 5x SATA II HDD's, 1 optical drive and 2 8800GT's on a 680i motherboard.

 
 Thanks for that mousemonkey,  
 Made me smile I thought all the old technical words like goolies had slipped into obscurity.      
 Where exactly on the PCB are the goolies and does it differ from card to card ?
     Mactronix
 To thegame316
   Hes not wrong the performance is worth it even if its slightly more expensive, you will thank your self later for getting them. Depends on the cost though.
    Mactronix
 
 

hi guys thanks for your replies, the 8800 gt basic one costs around 13000(325$) and 8800 gts 512 around 17000(425$) so  
8800 gt sli --> 650$
8800 gts 512 -->850$
9800 gtx --> 475 $
9600 gt sli --> 450$
 
I just want to have a good gaming fps atleast till 2009 end at these resolutions, so please post your suggestions.
 
Also can i go for E8400 hoping E8500 will cost only 4-6fps greater and does PCIe 2.0 make a big difference, i hope 8800 gt and gts 512 r not pcie2.0 as mentioned in the tom's hardware article.
 
Also here 780 sli costs around 16000 and 680i costs 9500 almost 160$ lesser than 780sli one, so 780 sli with 9600 gt sli is good or worse compared to 680 sli with 8800gt sli(will go for 8800gt sli if Pcie2.0 is not that big say less than 7-8 fps faster than 680 sli one)

I don't know how much 3D '06 scores influence your purchasing decisions but an E8400 @3.0ghz on a 680i board with a pair of 8800GT's gets over 14K and @3.6ghz its over 16k and I myself have not seen any evidence that shows the 780i to be significantly faster so unless you really need tri - sli capability I think the 780i is a waste of money.
 
@mactronix, Look between the laughter bar and the giggle pin, but some cards hide them behind the beefy curtains it all depends on the card really.  

Hey thegame316, where do you stay in India...you get the E8400 for Rs.8000 in Mumbai/Pune. I strongly suggest you go for that instead of the E8500.
 
Also chuck the SLI board, Rs.16,000 is a terrible waste of money for the performance achieved thru SLI. Get the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L ..its avail for ~Rs5000 anywhere. Thats the very best non SLI board out there. A lightening fast GPU is a much much better option than SLI.
 
Also when do you plan to build your rig, cos the Radeon 4870/4850 series are releasing at the end of May. The cards should be in India in June. So instead of the spending money for the SLI board, spend it on these cards. satisfaction guaranteed ....

I like the price/performance of the pair of 9600GT.  More often than not it does beat the 9800GTX, sometimes by alot.  
 
But either solution seems overkill for those three resolutions.  At your resolution, Crysis is about the only game a single GPU would struggle at.  You may be just fine with a single fairly cheap 9600GT.  For Crysis, I could see you wanting more.  
 

 
 Yes i would tend to agree with this advise i didnt have time to reply last night but thinking about it at the resolutions you are going to be using SLI or crossfire of any kind is overkill really. A P35 board will OC well if you want to and the 8500 definatly isnt worth the extra.  
 If you dont fancy waiting for the ATI cards or just prefer Nvidia then i woould just match the above board and CPU with a 8800GT 512 which you can also overclock yourself, the GTS isnt worth the 4000 differance.
Oh and the PCIE 2.0 thing isnt a problem its backwards compatable meaning a 2.0 card will run in a 1.0 slot.
  Mactronix  

 
 
That's a hell of a price!!! In Indonesia 8800gt is about 275$ - 280$, the 8800gts about 300$ - 350$, 9800gtx is about 390$ - 400$ and the 9600gt is cheap ass around 175$ - 200$. Save 50$ - 100$, is really that expensive??? I've got 8800gts about that time, the price is about 320$, save 100$ more!!! Even now you've got enjoyed the new rigg.

Hi guys as usual thanks for your replies, what i thought was to get a pc now and go for upgrades once in 2 years say next one around this time in 2010 and want to run games at my mentioned resolutions with high settings expect for ones like Crysis and the future ones with at alteast >50 fps. The reason i am sticking with these resloutions is that i got View Sonic VX1945 wm, a 19 inch monitor that has 1440*900 as native resolution and i got it for 12,700 indian rupees in Aug 2007 and logitech X-530 for 5,700 (Aug 2007) so have no plans of changing them for the next 2 years(leave the speakers )
 
So in 2010 looking to get a bigger monitor and a new rig so i thought of spending 20,000 for GPU and in that range i find 9600 gt sli and 9800 gtx and 9600 gt sli seems to do good at my resolutions.  
 
BTW does higher fps mean that game is running smoothly i mean 9600 gt sli has greater fps than 9800 gtx in most games so does it mean that the quality is also better??? please answer this
 
And people those who have 9600 gt sli and 9800 gtx, please post your benchmarks!!!!
 
Hi mihirkula, i am from chennai and friday i made a call to delta peripherals ( www.deltapage.com ) and xfx 9800 gtx costs around 18,800. I look for prices in www.theitwares.com and http://www.price-list.110mb.com/
 
So am going for
1> CPU --> E8400 (done)
2> RAM --> 2 GB DDR2 800 Mhz RAM (done)
3> GPU --> My budget is 20,000 and in that range 9600 gt sli or 9800 gtx comes so whats ur choice
4> PSU --> no idea, please advise me on that as i have no idea as they say 20 amp on 12V rail blah blah, they seem to be latin and french to me
5> Mobo --> Am ready to get 780 sli or 680 sli (if 9600 gt sli is better than 9800 gtx) so guys having 9800 gtx or 9600 gt sli plz post ur benchmarks, i hope 780 sli is around 16,000 and 680 sli around 9,000 so does 7000 make 780 sli worth it???
6> Mouse --> happened to c Razer diamondback mouse and here its around 2800, so whats ur choice on it.
 
Saw this review for 9600 gt sli vs 9800 gtx but still not clear as to go for which one...
 
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/v [...] html#sect1

9600SLI beats the cr@p out of the 9800GTX .... this link will give you an idea
 
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardwar [...] /page7.asp
 
Yes more FPS means smoother gameplay.  
 
Now the 9600GT requires about 25A on +12v rail. Check the PSU FAQ in Toms Forums. It will give you a clear idea.
 
Now if you're gonna SLI, you'd need a powerful PSU, at least 550W.... the Corsair 550VX is a great choice for precisely that. The snag in that is you'd have to spend a lot of money on a higher end PSU if you SLI..........and thats not "The" problem, its just "a" problem ... ...the biggest snag is that good branded PSUs like Corsair, Antec or PCP&C are very hard to find in India.... ........................do NOT under any circumstances buy local made PSUs.
 
If you leave SLI aside and get a single fast card you could do very well with a 450W PSU which is a LOT cheaper.....though you would still have to hunt for a branded PSU.  
 
Its unfortunate the dealers in India make a killing out of robbing customers, but that's how it is. Since you're going to upgrade one and a half years later anyway, i suggest you stick with 8800GT.... check its benchmarks in the link i posted above.... also know that the human eye cannot possibly detect FPS more than 60 .... since you mentioned you needn't max out Crysis, just so u knw, my rig (in my signature) plays Crysis very smoothly on HIGH settings. Check the benchies for Crysis too in the same link.

Hi mihirkula, the link u posted has resolutions way beyound the ones i need. What resolution do u game @ and since i have a budget of 20 k for the GPU i shall buy 9800 gtx and save money on the PSU if gaming experiece is really nice and save money for the future......

See this benchmark:
http://www.guru3d.com/category/vga_2/

thegame..i game at 1600x1200...... i forgot you game at 1440....anyways dagger's link answers your query regarding the performance....
 
Do let me know when and where you find a good branded PSU there.... there are like half a million Indians on the lookout for quality PSUs for affordable prices.
 
You'd have to flash the BIOS for the E8400 on the 680 SLI...

Hi guys, just few hours before i enquired about the prices(in chennai, India  all including taxes) and here are they
 
XFX 680i LT SLI --> 9880 ( 247$)
XFX 680i SLI     --> 11440 ( 286$)  
XFX 780i SLI     -->  15080 ( 377 $)
Any brand factory settings 9600 GT  --> 11000 (275$)
Any brand factory settings 8800 GT  -->  13000 (325$)
Any brand factory settings 9800 GTX --> 20000 ( 500 $)
 
Didnt get the Intel's X38 mobo price but i hope its around the 680i sli mark (280-300 $)
 
Interestingly the shop person said 8800 gts 512 supply has been stopped and last time when i saw the price was around 19000 (475$)
 
So which combination u guys feel will help me play games (atleast 80% of games)at good fps >50 fps till 2009 end  
 
1> X38 and 9800 gtx  (800$)
2> 680 sli and 9600 gt sli (830$)
3> 780 sli and 9600 gt sli (925$)
4> 780 sli and 8800 gt sli (1025$)
or any other combination
 
Am sorry for bugging u guys reg the mobo and gpu for a while but i just want to make  a good investment as it has been a long time since i played games at high settings!!!!
 
Planning to get the rig before May 15....

8800GT SLI > 9600GT SLI > 9800GTX most of the time.  Hard to know how any current solution will game in 2009, especially if a game you want to play turns out to be the next Crysis.  
 
You may want to buy a single 9600GT or 8800GT which will do well at your low res now.  Then upgrade a year or so from now if/when you need more performance in a game you want to play.  14x9 all high in Crysis @ 50 fps is no small feat though for a single gpu.  For that you may want to OC your CPU and go with an SLI solution.  But you don't need 50 fps in Crysis.... Main thing in that game is staying above 25 fps IMO.  

Of those choices of graphics cards, 8800gt sli will give you the most performance.

Benchmark for 9800gtx
http://en.expreview.com/2008/04/03 [...] review/12/

4870 is to be released at the end of this month, if you can wait 15 more days, that is.
http://forums.legitreviews.com/about15370.html

It's also compatible with x38's crossfire.

Hi guys and sorry guys for once again bugging you but i bet this will be the last bug. Now i feel i can go for a bigger upgrade next year with the nehlam processors and geforce 10 series as after going through many reviews i find 8800 gt to be awesome and once again sorry if i am wasting your time as ppl here have already told to go with 8800 gt, anyways thanks for your replies.
 
So here is my config(will get it next week as i got occupied for this weekend)
CPU --> E8400
GPU --> 8800 gt
Mobo --> ??
Psu -- >??
 
I request you guys to give your suggestions to my below questions...
 
1> Which is the cheapest mobo that can utilise the full capacity of E8400 and 8800 gt, i mean no bottlenecks. Please keep in mind that i will be going for DDR2 800 Mhz RAM so please suggest a good one and main thing is i am planning to spend less than 7000 rupees for the mobo or close to that.
For E8400, i found the following from Intel site
http://processormatch.intel.com/Co [...] cNbr=E8400
Please suggest a good mobo  
http://www.theitwares.com/motherbo [...] boards.htm
 
2> What PSU to run this config and have to decided to do next upgrade next year by this time or when 8800 gt cant handle games at good fps. BTW i wont do any upgrades till next year which means no more GPUs or other components so please tell a good PSU
http://www.theitwares.com/smps/smps.htm
Budget --> 5000 - 7000
3> I hope 8800 gt is a good card compared to 9600 gt as i read in one site that 9600 gt could beat 8800 gt when new drivers comes out. Currently here in India 9600 gt is around 2000 less than 8800 gt so i dont want to become a fool in another 3-4 months or when nvidia update the drivers
4> Any suggesstions on Razer diamond mice
5> i have Sony dru810 dvd (IDE) dvd writer and i use it very rarely and also a CD writer. Should i go for a new SATA dvd writer or can my mobo occupy my old IDE drive (does new mobo have IDE connectors)
6> A good cabinet please  
http://www.theitwares.com/cabinets/cabinets.htm
 
It would be nice if people could reply to my post by giving their suggestions as
1> ...
2> ...  
3>...
4>...
5>...
 
or any way u wish... thanks!!!!!!!!