Bang for buck...

Explicit · 22 Mar 2006 at 18:37

xirokx said:
well lucky me I found easy rider

wooohoooo

so easy and explicit this mobo is kewl right?

DFI LanParty UT NF4 SLI-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-013-DF)

explicit u rated the asus A8R32 very highly in all your posts last week and week before that.......pft......man it sucks when that happens

Yep, that DFI mobo is a great board for SLI, with excellent overclocking options.
As for the A8R32-MVP, it's been long known to have issues and there is another huge thread about it here on overclockers. I never endorse any motherboards, I just spec logically. If you're getting an X1900, it makes sense to get a crossfire board, unless you're 100% certain that you only want to run one graphics card. Hopefully Asus will fix the bugs with bios updates, but that's not an overnight process. Another company will inevitably release a RD580 mobo sooner or later.

That's not to say I prefer SLI over Crossfire, or vice versa. I think both are great, it's just a pity that one costs more than the other.

xirokx · 22 Mar 2006 at 19:19

but equally don't get sniffy about other suggestions being offered

deepest apology if my tone offended......no offense was intended was just trying to clarify things.....

Thanks for all your help most appreciated......

BigDom · 22 Mar 2006 at 21:23

easyrider said:
Well i doesn't beat it and x1800 256 is not faster than a 7900 GT.
Also you quote a crossfire mobo when we all know that SLI offers superior performance.

Also the DFI board is superior in overclocking potential.

On paper the DFI is getting beaten however there does seems to be some issues with the Asus at the moment unfortunatly. Whether it's a bad batch or what we will see however with features like a 1400 potential HT (was 1400 or 1500) it potentially will make a very nice clocking board.

Dont' agree on SLI thought, Crossfire is without a doubt a better implementation and works in all games unlike SLI.

I made a small mistake in that I picked the 256 card instead of the 512 ( we all make mistakes

) but given both the 256 and 512 X1800XT's run at 625/1500 the statement I made is true.. the X1800XT IS quicker than a 7900GT without a doubt as the 7900GT is essentially a 7800GTX 256 which is beaten buy a 625/1500 X1800XT.

Monstermunch · 22 Mar 2006 at 22:26

The following IMO is best Value for money atm:

CP-148-AM AMD Opteron UP 170 Dual Core San Diego 2.0GHz 2MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-148-AM)
£274.95 £274.95
MB-014-DF DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-014-DF)
£79.95 £79.95
MY-057-OC OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC3200 Dual Channel Platinum Series EL-DDR CAS2 (OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K) (MY-057-OC)
£124.95 £124.95
GX-046-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (3055) (GX-046-CO)
£264.95 £264.95

xirokx · 23 Mar 2006 at 05:45

I made a small mistake in that I picked the 256 card instead of the 512 ( we all make mistakes ) but given both the 256 and 512 X1800XT's run at 625/1500 the statement I made is true.. the X1800XT IS quicker than a 7900GT without a doubt as the 7900GT is essentially a 7800GTX 256 which is beaten buy a 625/1500 X1800XT.

Does that mean the x1900 is even better than the x1800x and 7800gtx???

BigDom · 23 Mar 2006 at 07:55

xirokx said:
Does that mean the x1900 is even better than the x1800x and 7800gtx???

Roughly in performance terms :-

7900GTX = X1900XT-X - Not much between these two, XT-X edges it on cheaper price

From anandtech "Even though we didn't test as many games as we usually do, there is quite a bit of data to digest. On the high end, the 7900 GTX generally performs around the X1900 XT and X1900 XTX. This isn't a blow out victory for either NVIDIA or ATI as far as performance goes, and it looks like we have some very good competition here."
X1900XT - marginally slower but pretty much guaranteed at least XT-X overclock speeds.
7800GTX512
X1800XT
7800GTX256/7900GT
X1800XL
7800GT

That's roughly the performance tree from best performing at the top where no-one holds the outright crown. I'd argue looking at the anadtech review the X1900XT-X edges it but truthfully there's not much in it at all.

Below the 7800GT you get the 7600 and X1800GTO. The 7600 appears to be the better performing of the two.