I am creating my own gaming machine, and i REALLY want the GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB video card, just cause i don't want to upgrade for a couple of years (or decades with this monster). The problem i'm having is finding the right CPU/Mobo combo to support this card. I don't want to slow it down cuz i got crappy hardware. Does anyone have any experience with this card or any CPUs that could make a suggestion?

Hi FunkyFerret69, welcome to itsallPC

At this stage, most indicators show that the GeForce 8800 GTX can be very easily CPU bound so Intel is probably the best way to go. You've chosen a pretty good time to consider buying new hardware; Intel have recently released their medium high end P35 chipset; the replacement for the P965 chipset released with the Core 2 Duo.

The new P35 officially supports 1333 MHz FSB for the E6x50 sequence Core 2 Duo processors due out later this year, and DDR3 support (DDR3-800, 1066 and 1333). You'd be a fool not to go for a P35 based motherboard (such as the ASUS P5K3 Deluxe or Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R). Core 2 Duo E6600 or E6700 would be the best choice of processor at this time.

The difficulty is probably choosing the memory. The P35 has been launched well ahead of the 1333 MHz Core 2 Duos and the high end X38 chipset (which will support PCI Express 2.0; which I doubt will be any great advantage for some time) to generate a market for DDR3. Your options are to choose a P35 motherboard with DDR2 and be stuck with it, or choose a P35 motherboard with DDR3 slots and fork out a small fortune for DDR3 memory in return for a more favourable future upgrade path.

Unfortunately, if you choose a superior Intel chipset based motherboard, you will not get the opportunity to use NVIDIA SLI. In reality, this is a pretty stupid technology, designed to target people with inadequacy issues. In a dollar to performance ratio, SLI is never as cost effective as simply buying the flagship model for each generation. However, if you're instant, a motherboard based on the NVIDIA i680 SLI (such as the ASUS P5N32-E SLI or Gigabyte GA-N680SLI-DQ6).

thanks for the great reply. i still have some questions though.. is it even worth it to buy the GeForce 8800 GTX when the R600 could be coming out very soon? Also, how much will all those upgrades cost me? i'm set on getting an expensive video card, but i don't want to overdo it by spending a couple extra hundred dollars for a couple more fps.

oh, and i also DON'T want to use SLI at all, and have no plans to do so in the future. My total budget for this PC is a MAX of $1500, and if SLI support costs extra, i would gladly go without it

The R600 has debuted as the Radeon HD 2900 XT, and has so far been surprisingly unimpressive. Power consumption is record breaking and performance nips at the heels of the mid-high end GeForce 8800 GT.

It usually takes at least 6 months before a newly released architecture is actually worth buying into and as long as 12 months before it matures into a cost effective product. The GeForce 8800 GTX came to market November last year and is probably nearing a refresh cycle (these are typically 6-9 months). NVIDIA are likely to hold off on the next until AMD release their true high end card. It's doubtful at this point that AMD will best NVIDIA.

If you were to wait a months or two, you'll probably see a price drop in the GeForce 8800 GTX; a new GeForce 8800 Ultra and maybe GeForce 8800 GS. I very much doubt the Radeon HD 2900 XTX will be competitive. AMD's takeover of ATI seems to have set the Radeon product back. Only when manufacturers are in some sort of trouble will they launch a new architecture without the flagship; ATI never did this. Further more, this is the first month I can recall in 4 years or more that there has not been a new Catalyst driver for the Radeon.

As for the cost, you'll have to price that up yourself. It would be a very big mistake to build a system on a budget and select the graphics card first. Good platform selection gives you a solid base on which to build the system up; selecting a cheap motherboard to host a GeForce 8800 GTX would be like parking a articulated truck on the beach. On the other hand, with a good motherboard and power supply unit, you'll have a nice stable system and can upgrade later. I understand that it's very tempting to weigh hardware by what it will contribute to frame rate. There's no point deciding to cut costs on a critical component because you'll only loose 5 fps, when the result is an unstable system and hardware failure in less than 12 months. Of course, you don't want to buy into excessively expensive hardware that will only gain you 5 fps.

If you can't afford the platform to run the flagship graphics card, then you need to face reality and get a more affordable one.

well, i guess you're right about that. I still want a pretty high-end card though, so do you think i should get the GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB instead? it's about $200 cheaper for a loss of 128MB. That way, i can still get the benefits of the card, without going too far. If not, what card would fit into that budget if i were to get a med-high end motherboard/CPU like the P35?

Actually, the loss of 128 MB on the GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB is inconsequential. The real differences are as follows:

• There are 32 fewer stream processors (92 down from 128)
• Core clock speed is 75 MHz slower (500 MHz down from 575 MHz)
• The shader clock speed is 150 MHz slower (1.20 GHz down from 1.35 GHz)
• The memory clock is 200 MHz slower (1.6 GHz down from 1.8 GHz)
• The memory interface is 64-bit narrower (320-bit down from 384-bit)

This means the GeForce 8800 GTS has a raw processing power about 35% slower than the GTX, and about a 35% slower memory transfer rate. When it comes down to it, 128 MB of memory accounts for very little in the context of >512MB.

Having said that, it's certainly more cost effective; you'll notice the price difference is 40~50%. You definitely get less bang for buck with the GTX. As for pricing, as I said, you'll have to price it up yourself. Depending on where you are, and if you decide to shop locally, prices range considerably.

thank you very much for the help. my final question, do you think that i should get a high-end motherboard/CPU/GPU to keep up with technology, or should just 1-2 of them be high-end? Do i even need leading edge technology at this point?

I've already gone over this, but to summarise.

To build a good stable system that offers plenty of future opportunity to upgrade, in order of importance

• Motherboard: chipset is most important, followed by quality of power regulation circuitry (one of the more expensive elements of motherboard design).
• Power Supply Unit: not wattage, but quality of ampere supply. This will mostly guarantee forward compatibility with graphics cards, as it's not atypical for a high end graphics solution to consume as much as everything else in the system put together
• Central Processing Unit. A good choice of CPU will carry your system through several generations of upgrades. There's always a sweet spot in the CPU market, where you get a pretty high end unit without buying into the ultra high end.
• Graphics. It's nearly pointless buying the flagship part because it will be replaced in 6~9 months and depreciate in value rapidly. The performance gap between flagship product and second level product will close over time, so you don't even buy a longer life cycle.