NM

New rig? Wow, so very sad.

First off you wasted money on the motherboard. Since it only uses DDR3 you wasted money on that which you gain no performance benefits not worth the price of the RAM. You can get lower latency DDR2 RAM for a significantly cheaper price. Then your graphics card is outdated and hardly worth purchasing. And you're going SLI, which is a HORRIBLE idea seeing how the performance increases are minimal and hardly worth the price.

You could have saved over $200 by swapping out the 790i for a P35 and DDR3 for DDR2 while getting a 9800GTX, which would have given you a MASSIVE performance increase.

Your motherboard isn't as important as your cooling setup. 3.6 is the highest you can safely go on a nice air setup, any higher you need water at least. The 650i isn't a great overclocking board anyway.

I disagree, the 8800GTS 320MB is outdated, as it was released over a year and a half ago. It has been replaced by the 8800GT, which yields a minimum of 120% performance increase at lower resolutions and up to 170% increase in performance in high resolutions.

There are dozens of reviews on the net that show the performance from DDR3 is currently minimal for its pricetag. Also you will not see a performance boost from it for at least another year, at which Nehalem will be released by Intel and upgrading to DDR3 will be a must.

No, I meant what I said. Say the 8800GTS 320MB gets 20FPS in X game at X settings, the 8800GT gets 34FPS in the same game at the same settings, that is a 170% increase in FPS.

I'm not being a twit, you can get the 8800GT for $170 and less from a quality manufacturer. The 8800GTS 320 will cost you around $120 from a quality manufacturer, so the difference in price justifies the boost in performance.

A 32 bit OS (IE: Windows XP 32bit) can only see 4gb of RAM max. Of that 4gb it can only utilize around 3gb of it. The GPU's on board memory also counts toward the 4gb max. So if I'm doing my math correctly, the posted rig has about 1.3gb of memory doing nothing. Adding an SLI setup will increase this to 1.6gb of memory doing nothing.

I just wanted to point this out for everyone else. It's a not very well known thing hardware/software manufacturers fail to tell you about.

Web link

Dude, nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS isn't too great. It isn't even the best of the 8800 line, and currently 9800 GX2 is king. I believe by the end of summer or so, we will be having the successor to the 9800 GX2 (using some GT200 codename, rumored to be called the 9900 GTX or something of the sort).

The 4 GB RAM is nice, but isn't used completely (by like 800 MB or so) with a 32-bit system.

And there is no way you are getting Crysis settings on EVERYTHING at maximum to be running at 60 frames per second, with that video card, unless you are running at really low resolutions or something. However you said "High," and I do not know what the situation would be with it on those settings - you won't be getting "Very High" settings because you don't have DirectX support (OS-wise), as you are running XP.

The motherboard is completely unnecessary. Why would you get that? I'm also not a fan of SLI. You are wasting your money, power, and more money in needing a more powerful PSU and cooling system for little benefit with SLI. Your monitor is 21.6 inches, so you will not be needing SLI by any means - it's useful for massive resolutions, like 2560 x 1600 and so on.

Also, unless you are an overclocker, you should go with the new Q9300 processor. I intend to, as I do not overclock anything (Q6600 is MUCH better for overclocking, otherwise Q9300 is slightly more advantageous).

If you don't mind my asking, how much did you spend on this setup?

I'm looking to get a computer with a Q9300, 4 GB RAM (800 MHz), a 500 GB HD, nVidia 9800 GX2 (or whatever the top-of-the-line is at the time), MSI P7N SLI Platinum nVidia nForce 750i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard, 20-inch monitor (1680 x 1050), and the usual DVD burner, etc. for well under $1700 (with very good airflow cooling and a powerful enough PSU).

Your CPU speed will beast mine with overclocking, and you have the newer type of RAM (and your motherboard is unreasonably and unnecessarily beefed up), but I honestly believe I have the better deal, for gaming - the 9800 GX2 owns, well, everything (I think 8800 GT in SLI might be better, but you are comparing one GPU vs. two then, and two 9800 GX2 is pure overkill). Even the nForce 750i I want is not too needed (but I want a PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot for the 9800 GX2).

And this will all change most probably, as technology is an ever-changing entity - better things are coming every month.

- PR-0927

You are all missing the obvious, but it's not really your fault, it's bad marketing.

There are TWO 8800GTS models, the "old" 320/640MB versions and the "new" G92 based 512MB versions. The G92 8800GTS 512MB is the same core as the 9800 series. Why Nvidia called a new core an old name I don't really know, but they did. Right now the way things stand is you have (G80 core 8800 GTS 320MB) --> (G92 Core 8800GT) --> (G92 Core 9800GT) --> (G92 Core 8800 GTS 512MB) --> (G92 Core 9800GX2). If you bought a 320MB card you should have done your homework - It doesn't suck, but the price/performance/heat is lower than a 512MB or GT (8800 or 9800). HOWEVER, they're ALL still top tier high end cards.

There's nothing wrong with your mobo, proc, or even choice of memory. DDR3 does have a performance improvement over DDR2, it's just expensive. Also, people telling you to wait till november to buy a new socket are idiots. The best, latest, newest is always on the horizon but you need to pull the trigger eventually. Besides, it could even be delayed. You got good prices now because the tech is mature and you will also have less issues with drivers and compatability then if you would have bought it 18 months ago.

So, ignore the naysayers, your system is fine, even if it's not some carbon copy build from forum X. Many people choose different components all the time, these guys are just haters.

And of course no edit button when i made a stupid typo. i meant 54...sigh...

dont know why people always want the best.
I bought my pc 8months ago and i am still able to outperform most pc's nowadays..
it is all about setup..
I went watercooling, 12fans and 2rads.
I am happily sitting on my Q6600 @ 3.4ghz can push it to 3.8-4.0 but no need.
8800GTX overclocked past a Ultra, 2gb 1150mhz OCZ Memory on watercooling @ 5-5-5-10
I dont even have a good motherboard.. i got a Asus P5K Premium Wi-Fi (Intel P35 - 1333 FSB)
And i get well over 18k on 3dmark.
I get 86fps on Return to Proxycon on a bad day.

And don't start me on DDR3.
unfortunatly, you sir, wasted your money.

There is a difference between an entire new processor architecture and say DDR667 vs DDR800. Do you realize socket 775 has been around since 2004? This is not some stupid "one month later there's better" thing.

If you could go back in time to early 04, would you tell someone to buy a Socket 478 motherboard? Of course not.

NVIDIA has stated that they will skip all of DX10 and wait for DX11, so it is highly unlikely DX10.1 will be included. Although the performance boost AMD cards had with Assassin's Creed may end up changing their minds, however I find that to be bad PR, as they might as well.