Upgrade Time!

Aight guys, I've been putting it off for a while now but it's time to do the
video upgrade thing again. I'm putting the old Visiontek 64meg gF3 to rest!
Must say, she's been good to me too. I'm looking at the BFG 6800 GT
Overclocked 256meg AGP card. ANY suggestions or thoughts on this card are
welcomed!
Tia,

--

/\/\UF/-\S/-\

"/\/\UF/-\S/-\" wrote in message
news:mIFhe.35120$fx3.15503@okepread02
Aight guys, I've been putting it off for a while now but it's time to
do the video upgrade thing again. I'm putting the old Visiontek 64meg
gF3 to rest! Must say, she's been good to me too. I'm looking at the
BFG 6800 GT Overclocked 256meg AGP card. ANY suggestions or thoughts
on this card are welcomed!
Tia,

Ha! You must *really* want a big and pleasant surprise; going from GF3
to 6800 GT. The card by all accounts is great. I have an eVGA 6800GT
and I love it! With the BFG being a bit overclocked it'll be a little
faster than mine. When you see what it does with games, you might cry
but with a grin on your face ya can't get rid of!

I just hope the rest of your system is up to snuff for it Whats
your rigs specs? What kinda games n things you planning to smoke thru?

McG.

Thanx for the response McG. I'm an old schooler. Been playing quake 3 Arena
for years. Recently grabbed call of Duty & Lock-On Modern air Combat. Lock
On kinda brought my baby to her knees so before I get any of the other
killer games, I figured I put her to rest(sniff sniff). My system specs are
as follows: 8rda+ that I've replaced all the caps on as they've gone bad,
GF3 64megger, AMD 2700+, 1280 megs of cooperative mixed ram running at CAS
2!! OS's are Win XP & Win2k3 Server. A 250 & a 30 gig HD + the usual burners
& stuff all in a Ko()Lance big blue case. I thought I'd start with the video
card because when I bought the GF3, it was $329. I'll go from there to the
cpu & mobo. I'm really gonna hate buying all new ram. I might just grab that
next since it's so low right now. I am going 64 bit on the cpu though & want
to get the meanest thing on the block that I can sneak in under old girls
radar ;p Any suggestions on the mobo cpu combo are welcome also.
What games have you thrown at your 6800 thus far &
how has she fared? I've read nothing but good things about the card so I'm
pretty much sold on it. I also have a TV card installed that works
flawlessly with the GF3. I can play quake 3 & watch CNN at the same time
which is something I don't want to lose the ability to do. Thanx again for
the response!

--

/\/\UF/-\S/-\
"McGrandpa" wrote in message
...
"/\/\UF/-\S/-\" wrote in message
news:mIFhe.35120$fx3.15503@okepread02
Aight guys, I've been putting it off for a while now but it's time to
do the video upgrade thing again. I'm putting the old Visiontek 64meg
gF3 to rest! Must say, she's been good to me too. I'm looking at the
BFG 6800 GT Overclocked 256meg AGP card. ANY suggestions or thoughts
on this card are welcomed!
Tia,

Ha! You must *really* want a big and pleasant surprise; going from GF3
to 6800 GT. The card by all accounts is great. I have an eVGA 6800GT
and I love it! With the BFG being a bit overclocked it'll be a little
faster than mine. When you see what it does with games, you might cry
but with a grin on your face ya can't get rid of!

I just hope the rest of your system is up to snuff for it Whats
your rigs specs? What kinda games n things you planning to smoke thru?

McG.

"/\/\UF/-\S/-\" wrote in message
news:%SOhe.35129$fx3.6089@okepread02
Thanx for the response McG. I'm an old schooler. Been playing quake 3
Arena for years. Recently grabbed call of Duty & Lock-On Modern air
Combat. Lock On kinda brought my baby to her knees so before I get
any of the other killer games, I figured I put her to rest(sniff
sniff). My system specs are as follows: 8rda+ that I've replaced all
the caps on as they've gone bad, GF3 64megger, AMD 2700+, 1280 megs
of cooperative mixed ram running at CAS 2!! OS's are Win XP & Win2k3
Server. A 250 & a 30 gig HD + the usual burners & stuff all in a
Ko()Lance big blue case. I thought I'd start with the video card
because when I bought the GF3, it was $329. I'll go from there to the
cpu & mobo. I'm really gonna hate buying all new ram. I might just
grab that next since it's so low right now. I am going 64 bit on the
cpu though & want to get the meanest thing on the block that I can
sneak in under old girls radar ;p Any
suggestions on the mobo cpu combo are welcome also. What games have
you thrown at your 6800 thus far &
how has she fared? I've read nothing but good things about the card
so I'm pretty much sold on it. I also have a TV card installed that
works flawlessly with the GF3. I can play quake 3 & watch CNN at the
same time which is something I don't want to lose the ability to do.
Thanx again for the response!

snip

I don't know yet what to say about a 64 bit CPU/Mobo at this point,
except that it will likely be an AMD 64 4200 X2. Motherboad will
probably not be out right now. It will be sometime much later this year
if I upgrade 'soon'.

Current box is P4-3.0E/800 fsb/1m L2, 2 gigs PC3200 in dual channel,
Gigabyte GA8-IPE1000-G mobo, eVGA 6800 GT, Turtle Beach Santa Cruz,
Hauppauge WinTV card (old but works good), 19" Envision LCD, XP Pro SP2.

Fave major games; HL2 and a few of its iterants, Doom3, Far Cry, all
the Quakes and IL2 FB+AEP+PF unified install, Morrowind trilogy and now
Guild Wars. Of these games, Morrowind and IL2 only run 1280x960, not
1280x1024. This monitor doesn't appreciate that one little bit. So for
those two games the res is 1024x768. Everything else I run at
1280x1024. Everything is ON, Highest, maxed out any way I can find.
All of them run great! How about HL2DM at 92 fps?
And an AMD64 will walk away on this one. Can't wait!
McG.

I paid $350 for my BFG 6800 GT OC (370 clock default) @
http://www.outpost.com/
and then another $30 or whatever for the NVSilencer (aftermarket cooling
solution).
BFG puts a good cooling setup on the GT OC (that only takes up one slot) but
the NVSilencer brought my temps down 10C across the board (core, ambient)
and it is slightly more quiet AND the warm air is expelled outside the case,
which to me is a great thing for helping keep your other components cooler.
And yes, I'm very very happy with the BFG 6800 GT OC and I've overclocked
this one to 410 with no problems.
--
Scotter


"/\/\UF/-\S/-\" wrote in message
news:mIFhe.35120$fx3.15503@okepread02...
Aight guys, I've been putting it off for a while now but it's time to do
the
video upgrade thing again. I'm putting the old Visiontek 64meg gF3 to
rest!
Must say, she's been good to me too. I'm looking at the BFG 6800 GT
Overclocked 256meg AGP card. ANY suggestions or thoughts on this card are
welcomed!
Tia,

--

/\/\UF/-\S/-\

That's a nice rig you've got there McG!!! How's that LCD's responce time
dunring hardcore gaming?

--

/\/\UF/-\S/-\
"McGrandpa" wrote in message
...
"/\/\UF/-\S/-\" wrote in message
news:%SOhe.35129$fx3.6089@okepread02
Thanx for the response McG. I'm an old schooler. Been playing quake 3
Arena for years. Recently grabbed call of Duty & Lock-On Modern air
Combat. Lock On kinda brought my baby to her knees so before I get
any of the other killer games, I figured I put her to rest(sniff
sniff). My system specs are as follows: 8rda+ that I've replaced all
the caps on as they've gone bad, GF3 64megger, AMD 2700+, 1280 megs
of cooperative mixed ram running at CAS 2!! OS's are Win XP & Win2k3
Server. A 250 & a 30 gig HD + the usual burners & stuff all in a
Ko()Lance big blue case. I thought I'd start with the video card
because when I bought the GF3, it was $329. I'll go from there to the
cpu & mobo. I'm really gonna hate buying all new ram. I might just
grab that next since it's so low right now. I am going 64 bit on the
cpu though & want to get the meanest thing on the block that I can
sneak in under old girls radar ;p Any
suggestions on the mobo cpu combo are welcome also. What games have
you thrown at your 6800 thus far &
how has she fared? I've read nothing but good things about the card
so I'm pretty much sold on it. I also have a TV card installed that
works flawlessly with the GF3. I can play quake 3 & watch CNN at the
same time which is something I don't want to lose the ability to do.
Thanx again for the response!

snip

I don't know yet what to say about a 64 bit CPU/Mobo at this point,
except that it will likely be an AMD 64 4200 X2. Motherboad will
probably not be out right now. It will be sometime much later this year
if I upgrade 'soon'.

Current box is P4-3.0E/800 fsb/1m L2, 2 gigs PC3200 in dual channel,
Gigabyte GA8-IPE1000-G mobo, eVGA 6800 GT, Turtle Beach Santa Cruz,
Hauppauge WinTV card (old but works good), 19" Envision LCD, XP Pro SP2.

Fave major games; HL2 and a few of its iterants, Doom3, Far Cry, all
the Quakes and IL2 FB+AEP+PF unified install, Morrowind trilogy and now
Guild Wars. Of these games, Morrowind and IL2 only run 1280x960, not
1280x1024. This monitor doesn't appreciate that one little bit. So for
those two games the res is 1024x768. Everything else I run at
1280x1024. Everything is ON, Highest, maxed out any way I can find.
All of them run great! How about HL2DM at 92 fps?
And an AMD64 will walk away on this one. Can't wait!
McG.

Thanx for the reply Ken. I'm going to stick with the AGP on this go round. I
just want to be able to run any game out there on all high settings with all
the bells & whistles. Just like the old GF3 use to do

I'm not really ready to cut loose my ram either but I will if it's worth the
change over. Have a few folks waiting on my ram .

I've been an AMD head from way back so that was a no brainer for me. Same
goes for nVidia. My main thing is that I really want to stick with the AGP
path for right now as I haven't had an 8x capable card yet. Also it'll give
the guys time to get the testing in & workout the little quarks &
mismatches that sometimes come along with a newer technology as far as the
PCI-E thing goes. I've been around for a good while & at this point in the
game, I really don't want to do too much beta testing if you know what I
mean ;P. The other upgrades will be coming as soon as I've the time to get
back into my research thing.
Once again, thanx for the reply. It's good to see that these NG's are still
kicking strong & are still a great resource to tap into!
PeAcE,

--

/\/\UF/-\S/-\
"Ken Marsh" wrote in message
...
In article %SOhe.35129$fx3.6089@okepread02,
/\\/\\UF/-\\S/-\\ wrote:
#I thought I'd start with the video
#card because when I bought the GF3, it was $329. I'll go from there to
the
#cpu & mobo. I'm really gonna hate buying all new ram. I might just grab
that
#next since it's so low right now.

In that case, consider this. AGP is on the way out, and if you wait a 6
months before buying your new MB, there won't be much to choose from.
What their will be, will not be "latest and greatest". The same is true
of Ram, DDR is still going strong but DDR2 will replace it soon, unless
it gets supplanted by DDR3! Unlike 2 months ago, now is a *great* time
to buy DDR400/PC3200, as the prices are low and the speed is high.

#I am going 64 bit on the cpu though & want
#to get the meanest thing on the block that I can sneak in under old girls
#radar ;p Any suggestions on the mobo cpu combo are welcome also.

AMD's 64 and an nVIDIA nForce 3 or 4 fairly well rocks. No flies on your
choice of an 6800, either. Just make an educated choice about AGP versus
PCI-E, there is NOTHING wrong with getting AGP, as long as you realize
the Motherboard upgrade limitations will be very limited very soon.

Ken.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mail: kmarsh at charm dot net | Just say "no" to liars SCO and Soyo
WWW: http://www.charm.net/~kmarsh | Return services to local CIS
offices!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Man that's a good price! I checked their site but didn't see any more They
must be sold out. I'll give them a call. Thanx for the reply Scotter!

--

/\/\UF/-\S/-\
"Scotter" wrote in message
...
I paid $350 for my BFG 6800 GT OC (370 clock default) @
http://www.outpost.com/
and then another $30 or whatever for the NVSilencer (aftermarket cooling
solution).
BFG puts a good cooling setup on the GT OC (that only takes up one slot)
but
the NVSilencer brought my temps down 10C across the board (core, ambient)
and it is slightly more quiet AND the warm air is expelled outside the
case,
which to me is a great thing for helping keep your other components
cooler.
And yes, I'm very very happy with the BFG 6800 GT OC and I've overclocked
this one to 410 with no problems.
--
Scotter


"/\/\UF/-\S/-\" wrote in message
news:mIFhe.35120$fx3.15503@okepread02...
Aight guys, I've been putting it off for a while now but it's time to do
the
video upgrade thing again. I'm putting the old Visiontek 64meg gF3 to
rest!
Must say, she's been good to me too. I'm looking at the BFG 6800 GT
Overclocked 256meg AGP card. ANY suggestions or thoughts on this card
are
welcomed!
Tia,

--

/\/\UF/-\S/-\

"/\/\UF/-\S/-\" wrote in message
news:mIuie.41808$fx3.40229@okepread02
That's a nice rig you've got there McG!!! How's that LCD's responce
time dunring hardcore gaming?

thanks!

It's 24ms response time total. 'ghosting' occurs, but it's surprisingly
minimal. Some games will show a 'stack of frames' sort of effect,
depending on vsync. If its on its noticeable. 16ms would be far
better. However, that notwithstanding, getting into HL2DM or single
player, Far Cry and IL2 it seems more like a little extra motion blur
with high speed movements. For whatever reason, I don't see it in Doom3
at all. I don't notice anything unusual in DVD movies. So, it's
doable, for me. The 19" of crisp clear image is awesome. One other
thing I've seen is that the resolution I run in does matter. 1280x1024
with vid card set to 60hz it's great for the games. It does not do well
in 1280x960 though. Does excellent at 1024x768 using monitor scaling.

I have also been looking at a 19" Samsung that has everything I want.
12ms total response, dual inputs, internal power supply, 700:1 contrast
ratio, thin bezel. And the price has come down about $100. Looking at
it pretty hard now
McG.



/\/\UF/-\S/-\
"McGrandpa" wrote in message
...
"/\/\UF/-\S/-\" wrote in message
news:%SOhe.35129$fx3.6089@okepread02
Thanx for the response McG. I'm an old schooler. Been playing quake
3 Arena for years. Recently grabbed call of Duty & Lock-On Modern
air Combat. Lock On kinda brought my baby to her knees so before
I get any of the other killer games, I figured I put her to
rest(sniff sniff). My system specs are as follows: 8rda+ that I've
replaced all the caps on as they've gone bad, GF3 64megger, AMD
2700+, 1280 megs of cooperative mixed ram running at CAS 2!! OS's
are Win XP & Win2k3 Server. A 250 & a 30 gig HD + the usual burners
& stuff all in a Ko()Lance big blue case. I thought I'd start with
the video card because when I bought the GF3, it was $329. I'll go
from there to the cpu & mobo. I'm really gonna hate buying all new
ram. I might just grab that next since it's so low right now. I am
going 64 bit on the cpu though & want to get the meanest thing on
the block that I can sneak in under old
girls radar ;p Any
suggestions on the mobo cpu combo are welcome also. What games have
you thrown at your 6800 thus far &
how has she fared? I've read nothing but good things about the card
so I'm pretty much sold on it. I also have a TV card installed that
works flawlessly with the GF3. I can play quake 3 & watch CNN at the
same time which is something I don't want to lose the ability to do.
Thanx again for the response!

snip

I don't know yet what to say about a 64 bit CPU/Mobo at this point,
except that it will likely be an AMD 64 4200 X2. Motherboad will
probably not be out right now. It will be sometime much later this
year if I upgrade 'soon'.

Current box is P4-3.0E/800 fsb/1m L2, 2 gigs PC3200 in dual channel,
Gigabyte GA8-IPE1000-G mobo, eVGA 6800 GT, Turtle Beach Santa Cruz,
Hauppauge WinTV card (old but works good), 19" Envision LCD, XP Pro
SP2.

Fave major games; HL2 and a few of its iterants, Doom3, Far Cry, all
the Quakes and IL2 FB+AEP+PF unified install, Morrowind trilogy and
now Guild Wars. Of these games, Morrowind and IL2 only run
1280x960, not 1280x1024. This monitor doesn't appreciate that one
little bit. So for those two games the res is 1024x768. Everything
else I run at 1280x1024. Everything is ON, Highest, maxed out any
way I can find. All of them run great! How about HL2DM at 92 fps?

And an AMD64 will walk away on this one. Can't wait!
McG.