Is this rig good enough for a bit of gaming?

[Martijn]

A friend of mine wants a new rig and asked me if I could make one for him. So I did. I won't be overclocking this one, but it WILL be running D2OL for me ;). Non-expensive gaming are the key-words here.

This is the rig:

DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D: €139,-
AMD Athlon64 3500+, OEM: €215,-
Thermaltake Big Typhoon: €39,-
1Gig of Dual-Channel OEM memory: €89,-
MSI NX6600GT-TD, 128GDDR3, SLI: €318,-
Tagan TG480-U15: €99,-
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7, 120Gigs: €89,-
Belinea 101711, 12ms, 17 inch: €239,-
OEM case: €25,-
OEM DVD-RW DL: €49,-
Logitech Cordless Desktop Internet Pro OEM: €35,-
Creative Inspire T7900: €119,-

I was wondering whether I should change the 6600GT's to a single 7800 GT... It is a bit more expensive, but is the performance worth it? There won't be gaming above 1280x1024, so useful or not? He's not a guy who likes chatting about his rig, he doesn't care whether he has Ballistix or OEM ram, as long as he has performance enough.

I also don't mind buying ATI or NVidia or whatever, I just think SLI is the better option here.

[Major_A]

2 6600 GT's don't even compete with a 6800 GT, so yes get a 7800 GT. Other than that it looks fine.
he doesn't care whether he has Ballistix or OEM ram, as long as he has performance enough
Are you planning on overclocking? If you aren't why get the DFI and TT Big Typhoon?

[Jupiler]

I'd go for an 7800GT too. Only costs a little more, but he'll be safe for a very long time with it.

Might wanna take a look at the 3200+ OEM, they had a nice price drop recently.

[K.I.T.T.]

Or you could even get a sapphire X800GTO^2 and unlock it.....

[[XC] leviathan18]

my 2 6600gt score and do more tha a lot of 6800gt :P

but get something like 6800gt or 7800gt

[Major_A]

my 2 6600gt score and do more tha a lot of 6800gt :P

but get something like 6800gt or 7800gt
Well considering where I'm at, in what 3DMark? Real games are a different beast.

[Martijn]

Are you planning on overclocking? If you aren't why get the DFI and TT Big Typhoon?

No, but he likes silence, and I like decent hardware ;)

[Batt[o]]

I would not get the 6600gt sli i would go directly to a 7800GT or GTX, that's definitly the best choice, but if you really "need" the SLI you should think about it. In gaming i think a 7800 would be better.
The rig seems pretty good to me...maybe some good memory.

[Special_K]

mebe consider 2GB RAM for the latest games?

[Martijn]

mebe consider 2GB RAM for the latest games?
Yeah, I also thought of that. It is quite expensive, though. If he has a bit of spare money I'll advise him to buy 2GB.

[jgerrits]

One video card with the possibility of SLI in the future, is definatly the better choice. The price point of the 7800 GT seems to make a lot of sense for the highish end now.

"There won't be gaming above 1280x1024, so useful or not?" In regards to the 7800 GT here... yes, it will definatly be much better, and 1280X1024 is more than enough to stress a video card out once all of the graphic bells and whistles are turned on.

Really, why start with an SLI system when to upgrade you would need to take out both cards, and start anew. To upgrade the 7800 GT system, you just buy another and slop it in. Not to mention a single 7800 GT will have less game compatibility issues than a SLI setup, and be faster.

1GB is something you can probably deal with, I'm guessing until early 2006. Sure, the odd game (BF2 benefits a little) will be slightly better. But I haven't seen any reports of 2GB of ram changing any current game dramatically. I've heard of people with horrible processors getting a little less stuttering with 2gb of ram. And other little things, but I don't know of any game out there that can't play well on a good system with 1gb of ram. Plus, it's something that wouldn't be too hard to upgrade to at a later time.

[FallenAngel]

7800 line all the way

[Magnj]

DFI nf4 DAFG is a good budget solution, with some overclockag too ev n though you said your not doing it.
and 7800 GT or a 1800xl if you can wait

[einCe]

x800gto² duh, x850xt for 200 dollars less. price/performance ratio is outstanding

[don_vercetti]

x800gto2 gets my vote.

7800gt is WAY overkill for 1280x1024. Only 1600x1200+ people really need a 7800gt, my old 6800 was more than enough to handle all games at 1280x1024 with lots of filtering. x800gto2 unlocked would cane.