A good board?

[something daft already!!]

I have an itchy credit card and want to upgrade. I am currently running an old Abit AV8 3rd eye and xfx 7800gs. I want to get a DX10 card like the 8800 gtx. So I am thinking of getting the Asus A8N32-SLi Deluxe nForce4 SLi X16 (Socket 939) PCI-Express and the card together. I am running a 550w Coloursit PSU, 4200x2 processor and 4gb of DDR400 4*1gb ram sticks, all matching. I intend to install Vista 64 bit, most likely Ultimate. I have had issues with 4gb ram and Vista and also BIOS updates stopped for my board in early 2006. Does anyone use this board and memory config with Vista? If so, does it run well? Can Vista see all 4gb without the issues? Am I wasting my time or will I see a marked improvement is frames per sec?

Any help or advise gratefully accepted.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

If you're getting a new motherboard and GPU you might as well go all the way and get a new processor and RAM as well, IMO.

 

[something daft already!!]

Thanks but I cant afford it right now.

 

[paradigm]

Thanks but I cant afford it right now.

Then save your cash until you can IMO.

The performance increase you will see will not be huge, and you will be starving the system of memory bandwidth sticking with DDR.

A cheap Core 2 Duo is now under £50, a P35 board can be had for £70 (could get an Nforce6 or P965 cheaper than that, around £50), memory £60, and then your video card.

Its not a huge amount more, save for a month or so, then upgrade the whole kebang.

 

[melbourne720]

I agree with paradigm, at least that way you'll have a worthwhile boost.

 

[paradigm]

Looking at your upgrade path:

AMD Upgrade:

Mobo £140.99
GFX £330~

Total: £470

New C2D rig:

CPU £50 (C2D E2140)
Mobo £70 (Abit IP35-E)
RAM £60 (2GB of PC-6400, or 4GB of PC-5300)
GFX (drop to an 8800GTS) £200

Total £380.
I know which I'd go for. You could even afford to up the CPU and motherboard in the above setup, and with the 8800GTS still beat the performance of a bandwidth castrated AMD system with a GTX.

 

[something daft already!!]

Looking at your upgrade path:

AMD Upgrade:

Mobo £140.99
GFX £330~

Total: £470

New C2D rig:

CPU £50 (C2D E2140)
Mobo £70 (Abit IP35-E)
RAM £60 (2GB of PC-6400, or 4GB of PC-5300)
GFX (drop to an 8800GTS) £200

Total £380.
I know which I'd go for. You could even afford to up the CPU and motherboard in the above setup, and with the 8800GTS still beat the performance of a bandwidth castrated AMD system with a GTX.

Thanks for the help. Food for thought!

 

[something daft already!!]

I just ordered:

E6750
Super clock EVGA 8800 gts
4GB DDR 667
Asus Mobo