Any motherboards supporting x2, crossfire and 8 rear usb ports?

Hello,

I'm thinking about building a new system in about 1 month. I'd like a good
motherboard that can support x2 939, crossfire, has 8 rear usb ports and
preferably has 2 gigabit nics on board. I see many that have 4 front and 4
rear usb but I'd like one with 8 usb rear and the only systems I've seen so
far with that are SLI not crossfire boards.

Thanks

I was going to get AM2 but since there is no real performance gain, and I
can get the memory for the 939 at nearly half the price, I'm hoping when the
AM2 is realeased, the new socket and the 5000 might drop the price for the
939 4800.

On Sun, 21 May 2006 08:44:22 -0700, Boe wrote:

Hello,

I'm thinking about building a new system in about 1 month. I'd like a
good motherboard that can support x2 939, crossfire, has 8 rear usb ports
and preferably has 2 gigabit nics on board. I see many that have 4 front
and 4 rear usb but I'd like one with 8 usb rear and the only systems I've
seen so far with that are SLI not crossfire boards.

Thanks

I was going to get AM2 but since there is no real performance gain, and I
can get the memory for the 939 at nearly half the price, I'm hoping when
the AM2 is realeased, the new socket and the 5000 might drop the price for
the 939 4800.

The big advantage for AM2 won't be performance, it will be the ability to
support more than 4G of RAM. I don't think you'll ever see unbuffered DDR
DIMMs bigger than 1G, but there is at least one 2G DDR2 DIMM already on
the market.

Thanks - I did not know that. It does make me think I should be sure the
next system will support 4gb although I'll probably only get it with 2gb to
begin with. I'll check if the system I plan on getting will support 4 GB - I
would imagine by the time I'm ready to go to 8GB, it will be at least 2
years from now and it will give me a good excuse to build a new system
"General Schvantzkoph" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 21 May 2006 08:44:22 -0700, Boe wrote:

Hello,

I'm thinking about building a new system in about 1 month. I'd like a
good motherboard that can support x2 939, crossfire, has 8 rear usb ports
and preferably has 2 gigabit nics on board. I see many that have 4 front
and 4 rear usb but I'd like one with 8 usb rear and the only systems I've
seen so far with that are SLI not crossfire boards.

Thanks

I was going to get AM2 but since there is no real performance gain, and I
can get the memory for the 939 at nearly half the price, I'm hoping when
the AM2 is realeased, the new socket and the 5000 might drop the price
for
the 939 4800.

The big advantage for AM2 won't be performance, it will be the ability to
support more than 4G of RAM. I don't think you'll ever see unbuffered DDR
DIMMs bigger than 1G, but there is at least one 2G DDR2 DIMM already on
the market.

On Sun, 21 May 2006 08:44:22 -0700, Boe wrote:

I'm thinking about building a new system in about 1 month. I'd like a good
motherboard that can support x2 939, crossfire, has 8 rear usb ports and
preferably has 2 gigabit nics on board. I see many that have 4 front and 4
rear usb but I'd like one with 8 usb rear and the only systems I've seen so
far with that are SLI not crossfire boards.

Where you physically mount the spare USB ports from the headers on the
board is up to you. If you want them in the rear, get a 4 port slot card
like the one below and put them there.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...72620?n=172282

--
Want the ultimate in free OTA SD/HDTV Recorder? http://mythtv.org
http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html Usenet alt.video.ptv.mythtv
My server http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/cpu.php
HD Tivo S3 compared http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/mythtivo.htm

On Sun, 21 May 2006 09:09:23 -0700, Boe wrote:

Thanks - I did not know that. It does make me think I should be sure the
next system will support 4gb although I'll probably only get it with 2gb
to begin with. I'll check if the system I plan on getting will support 4
GB - I would imagine by the time I'm ready to go to 8GB, it will be at
least 2 years from now and it will give me a good excuse to build a new
system "General Schvantzkoph" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 21 May 2006 08:44:22 -0700, Boe wrote:

Hello,

I'm thinking about building a new system in about 1 month. I'd like a
good motherboard that can support x2 939, crossfire, has 8 rear usb
ports and preferably has 2 gigabit nics on board. I see many that have
4 front and 4 rear usb but I'd like one with 8 usb rear and the only
systems I've seen so far with that are SLI not crossfire boards.

Thanks

I was going to get AM2 but since there is no real performance gain, and
I can get the memory for the 939 at nearly half the price, I'm hoping
when the AM2 is realeased, the new socket and the 5000 might drop the
price for
the 939 4800.

The big advantage for AM2 won't be performance, it will be the ability
to support more than 4G of RAM. I don't think you'll ever see unbuffered
DDR DIMMs bigger than 1G, but there is at least one 2G DDR2 DIMM already
on the market.



The 939 pin A64s do support 4G, I have 4G on my MSI K8N Neo4/X2 4400+
system. So if you don't think you'll ever need 8G you can feel safe about
buying a current generation motherboard. The Nforce4 has been the dominant
chipset for the A64s which is why you see a lot of SLI boards. I assume
you are a Windoze user with no interest in Linux. If you do want to be
able to run Linux you should stay away from ATI and stick with Nvidia. ATI
does support Linux more or less but they don't do nearly as good a job of
it as Nvidia.

Yeah - I'm one of those crazy people using Windows since I want to run just
about every program and not have to LS or grep for stuff or go into admin
mode to make something work. I do have an interest in Linux, FreeBFD,
and OSX since MS would never put new features into their products unless
they had a good reference point. I think they've gone to far with the OSX
appearance though - I'd buy a f$@!!ng Mac if I really prefered the
interface.

Seriously though I use my PC for gaming as much as for work and since I like
FEAR so much I'm leaning towards ATI. I'm not a fanboy of either so if
nVidia comes out with something that doubles the speed of the 7900 in the
next month I'd jump to nVidia in a heartbeat - particularly if it could do
it and quadruple the speed of the 7900 if I went SLI. By the time the new
600 from ATI comes out I would expect nVidia to have something good as well
and after the tests are in I'll get something. Until them I'll just use my
crappy spare PCIE 7800. I hate to buy a 1900 for $500 only to want to
replace it 5 months later.

"General Schvantzkoph" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 21 May 2006 09:09:23 -0700, Boe wrote:

Thanks - I did not know that. It does make me think I should be sure the
next system will support 4gb although I'll probably only get it with 2gb
to begin with. I'll check if the system I plan on getting will support 4
GB - I would imagine by the time I'm ready to go to 8GB, it will be at
least 2 years from now and it will give me a good excuse to build a new
system "General Schvantzkoph" wrote in
message
news
On Sun, 21 May 2006 08:44:22 -0700, Boe wrote:

Hello,

I'm thinking about building a new system in about 1 month. I'd like a
good motherboard that can support x2 939, crossfire, has 8 rear usb
ports and preferably has 2 gigabit nics on board. I see many that have
4 front and 4 rear usb but I'd like one with 8 usb rear and the only
systems I've seen so far with that are SLI not crossfire boards.

Thanks

I was going to get AM2 but since there is no real performance gain, and
I can get the memory for the 939 at nearly half the price, I'm hoping
when the AM2 is realeased, the new socket and the 5000 might drop the
price for
the 939 4800.

The big advantage for AM2 won't be performance, it will be the ability
to support more than 4G of RAM. I don't think you'll ever see unbuffered
DDR DIMMs bigger than 1G, but there is at least one 2G DDR2 DIMM already
on the market.



The 939 pin A64s do support 4G, I have 4G on my MSI K8N Neo4/X2 4400+
system. So if you don't think you'll ever need 8G you can feel safe about
buying a current generation motherboard. The Nforce4 has been the dominant
chipset for the A64s which is why you see a lot of SLI boards. I assume
you are a Windoze user with no interest in Linux. If you do want to be
able to run Linux you should stay away from ATI and stick with Nvidia. ATI
does support Linux more or less but they don't do nearly as good a job of
it as Nvidia.

On Sun, 21 May 2006 12:16:09 -0700, Boe wrote:

Yeah - I'm one of those crazy people using Windows since I want to run
just about every program and not have to LS or grep for stuff or go into
admin mode to make something work. I do have an interest in Linux,
FreeBFD, and OSX since MS would never put new features into their products
unless they had a good reference point. I think they've gone to far with
the OSX appearance though - I'd buy a f$@!!ng Mac if I really prefered the
interface.

Seriously though I use my PC for gaming as much as for work and since I
like FEAR so much I'm leaning towards ATI. I'm not a fanboy of either so
if nVidia comes out with something that doubles the speed of the 7900 in
the next month I'd jump to nVidia in a heartbeat - particularly if it
could do it and quadruple the speed of the 7900 if I went SLI. By the
time the new 600 from ATI comes out I would expect nVidia to have
something good as well and after the tests are in I'll get something.
Until them I'll just use my crappy spare PCIE 7800. I hate to buy a 1900
for $500 only to want to replace it 5 months later.

"General Schvantzkoph" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 21 May 2006 09:09:23 -0700, Boe wrote:

Thanks - I did not know that. It does make me think I should be sure
the next system will support 4gb although I'll probably only get it
with 2gb to begin with. I'll check if the system I plan on getting will
support 4 GB - I would imagine by the time I'm ready to go to 8GB, it
will be at least 2 years from now and it will give me a good excuse to
build a new system "General Schvantzkoph"
wrote in message
news On Sun, 21 May 2006 08:44:22 -0700, Boe wrote:

Hello,

I'm thinking about building a new system in about 1 month. I'd like
a good motherboard that can support x2 939, crossfire, has 8 rear usb
ports and preferably has 2 gigabit nics on board. I see many that
have 4 front and 4 rear usb but I'd like one with 8 usb rear and the
only systems I've seen so far with that are SLI not crossfire boards.

Thanks

I was going to get AM2 but since there is no real performance gain,
and I can get the memory for the 939 at nearly half the price, I'm
hoping when the AM2 is realeased, the new socket and the 5000 might
drop the price for
the 939 4800.

The big advantage for AM2 won't be performance, it will be the ability
to support more than 4G of RAM. I don't think you'll ever see
unbuffered DDR DIMMs bigger than 1G, but there is at least one 2G DDR2
DIMM already on the market.



The 939 pin A64s do support 4G, I have 4G on my MSI K8N Neo4/X2 4400+
system. So if you don't think you'll ever need 8G you can feel safe
about buying a current generation motherboard. The Nforce4 has been the
dominant chipset for the A64s which is why you see a lot of SLI boards.
I assume you are a Windoze user with no interest in Linux. If you do
want to be able to run Linux you should stay away from ATI and stick
with Nvidia. ATI does support Linux more or less but they don't do
nearly as good a job of it as Nvidia.

Would you enlighten me as to what the real advantages are to having the
highest performance graphics cards are? The reviews always talk about
frame rates but I assume that's an irrelevant measure because even cheap
graphics cards can generate frames faster than the human eye can handle.
Movies run at 24FPS and NTSC TV is 30FPS and we don't see any flicker in
either so I don't see how generating 130FPS would help. Do games generate
multiple scenarios at once and then pick a particular series for frames
based on input from the user? Do they increase the quality of their
rendering based on the capabilities of the card? Obviously the game
programmers aren't going to write games that require a pair of $500 cards
to run adequately, they have to aim their games at the hardware that most
consumers have which are older machines that weren't even state of the art
when they were new. However they must be doing something to keep
Nvidia and ATI happy because there is a real market for SLI and Crossfire
boards. So what is it in these cards that the games take advantage of?

I take it you use your PC for work and not gaming so it isn't of much
advantage for you to have a top of the line card. In a case where someone
doesn't enjoy First Person Shooters or games of that sort, there isn't any
reason to waste gobs of cash for gaming cards. Most middle of the road
cards will do 2d rendering as fast as the most expensive 3d card. They'll
also play movies back just fine.

If you enjoy playing 3d games such as FEAR, Quake4 or the latest TombRaider
(I'll admit I didn't think much of q4 and don't play TombRaider but enjoy
many other 3d games) you'll benefit from those expensive cards. The more
advanced cards will allow you to turn on the bells and whistles of the game
which make the graphics far more realistic - AF, AA, Soft Shadows etc.
These enhance the visual image which in turn makes the games far more
enjoyable for me. If I turn up the AA, AF or turn on softshadows, the frame
rate drops to about 10FPS which makes the game very choppy and unpleasant.
I'm sure the games coming out in the next year will be even more demanding
than FEAR which so far only plays well on the 1900 and you can't crank up
the resolution too much. I have a 30" screen which has a very high native
resolution. Unlike CRTs computer monitors which seem to display just about
every resolution well, LCDs at this point still have native resolutions
which are their best looking image.

I don't think even crossfired ATI 1900 cards could display FEAR at 24FPS in
my screens native resolution. The next verison might however.

"General Schvantzkoph" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 21 May 2006 12:16:09 -0700, Boe wrote:

Yeah - I'm one of those crazy people using Windows since I want to run
just about every program and not have to LS or grep for stuff or go into
admin mode to make something work. I do have an interest in Linux,
FreeBFD, and OSX since MS would never put new features into their
products
unless they had a good reference point. I think they've gone to far with
the OSX appearance though - I'd buy a f$@!!ng Mac if I really prefered
the
interface.

Seriously though I use my PC for gaming as much as for work and since I
like FEAR so much I'm leaning towards ATI. I'm not a fanboy of either so
if nVidia comes out with something that doubles the speed of the 7900 in
the next month I'd jump to nVidia in a heartbeat - particularly if it
could do it and quadruple the speed of the 7900 if I went SLI. By the
time the new 600 from ATI comes out I would expect nVidia to have
something good as well and after the tests are in I'll get something.
Until them I'll just use my crappy spare PCIE 7800. I hate to buy a 1900
for $500 only to want to replace it 5 months later.

"General Schvantzkoph" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 21 May 2006 09:09:23 -0700, Boe wrote:

Thanks - I did not know that. It does make me think I should be sure
the next system will support 4gb although I'll probably only get it
with 2gb to begin with. I'll check if the system I plan on getting will
support 4 GB - I would imagine by the time I'm ready to go to 8GB, it
will be at least 2 years from now and it will give me a good excuse to
build a new system "General Schvantzkoph"
wrote in message
news On Sun, 21 May 2006 08:44:22 -0700, Boe wrote:

Hello,

I'm thinking about building a new system in about 1 month. I'd like
a good motherboard that can support x2 939, crossfire, has 8 rear usb
ports and preferably has 2 gigabit nics on board. I see many that
have 4 front and 4 rear usb but I'd like one with 8 usb rear and the
only systems I've seen so far with that are SLI not crossfire boards.

Thanks

I was going to get AM2 but since there is no real performance gain,
and I can get the memory for the 939 at nearly half the price, I'm
hoping when the AM2 is realeased, the new socket and the 5000 might
drop the price for
the 939 4800.

The big advantage for AM2 won't be performance, it will be the ability
to support more than 4G of RAM. I don't think you'll ever see
unbuffered DDR DIMMs bigger than 1G, but there is at least one 2G DDR2
DIMM already on the market.



The 939 pin A64s do support 4G, I have 4G on my MSI K8N Neo4/X2 4400+
system. So if you don't think you'll ever need 8G you can feel safe
about buying a current generation motherboard. The Nforce4 has been the
dominant chipset for the A64s which is why you see a lot of SLI boards.
I assume you are a Windoze user with no interest in Linux. If you do
want to be able to run Linux you should stay away from ATI and stick
with Nvidia. ATI does support Linux more or less but they don't do
nearly as good a job of it as Nvidia.

Would you enlighten me as to what the real advantages are to having the
highest performance graphics cards are? The reviews always talk about
frame rates but I assume that's an irrelevant measure because even cheap
graphics cards can generate frames faster than the human eye can handle.
Movies run at 24FPS and NTSC TV is 30FPS and we don't see any flicker in
either so I don't see how generating 130FPS would help. Do games generate
multiple scenarios at once and then pick a particular series for frames
based on input from the user? Do they increase the quality of their
rendering based on the capabilities of the card? Obviously the game
programmers aren't going to write games that require a pair of $500 cards
to run adequately, they have to aim their games at the hardware that most
consumers have which are older machines that weren't even state of the art
when they were new. However they must be doing something to keep
Nvidia and ATI happy because there is a real market for SLI and Crossfire
boards. So what is it in these cards that the games take advantage of?

On Sun, 21 May 2006 14:54:02 -0700, Boe wrote:

I take it you use your PC for work and not gaming so it isn't of much
advantage for you to have a top of the line card. In a case where someone
doesn't enjoy First Person Shooters or games of that sort, there isn't any
reason to waste gobs of cash for gaming cards. Most middle of the road
cards will do 2d rendering as fast as the most expensive 3d card. They'll
also play movies back just fine.

If you enjoy playing 3d games such as FEAR, Quake4 or the latest
TombRaider (I'll admit I didn't think much of q4 and don't play TombRaider
but enjoy many other 3d games) you'll benefit from those expensive cards.
The more advanced cards will allow you to turn on the bells and whistles
of the game which make the graphics far more realistic - AF, AA, Soft
Shadows etc. These enhance the visual image which in turn makes the games
far more enjoyable for me. If I turn up the AA, AF or turn on
softshadows, the frame rate drops to about 10FPS which makes the game very
choppy and unpleasant. I'm sure the games coming out in the next year will
be even more demanding than FEAR which so far only plays well on the 1900
and you can't crank up the resolution too much. I have a 30" screen which
has a very high native resolution. Unlike CRTs computer monitors which
seem to display just about every resolution well, LCDs at this point still
have native resolutions which are their best looking image.

I don't think even crossfired ATI 1900 cards could display FEAR at 24FPS
in my screens native resolution. The next verison might however.

"General Schvantzkoph" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 21 May 2006 12:16:09 -0700, Boe wrote:

Yeah - I'm one of those crazy people using Windows since I want to run
just about every program and not have to LS or grep for stuff or go
into admin mode to make something work. I do have an interest in
Linux, FreeBFD, and OSX since MS would never put new features into
their products
unless they had a good reference point. I think they've gone to far
with the OSX appearance though - I'd buy a f$@!!ng Mac if I really
prefered the
interface.

Seriously though I use my PC for gaming as much as for work and since I
like FEAR so much I'm leaning towards ATI. I'm not a fanboy of either
so if nVidia comes out with something that doubles the speed of the
7900 in the next month I'd jump to nVidia in a heartbeat -
particularly if it could do it and quadruple the speed of the 7900 if I
went SLI. By the time the new 600 from ATI comes out I would expect
nVidia to have something good as well and after the tests are in I'll
get something. Until them I'll just use my crappy spare PCIE 7800. I
hate to buy a 1900 for $500 only to want to replace it 5 months later.

"General Schvantzkoph" wrote in message
news On Sun, 21 May 2006 09:09:23 -0700, Boe wrote:

Thanks - I did not know that. It does make me think I should be sure
the next system will support 4gb although I'll probably only get it
with 2gb to begin with. I'll check if the system I plan on getting
will support 4 GB - I would imagine by the time I'm ready to go to
8GB, it will be at least 2 years from now and it will give me a good
excuse to build a new system "General Schvantzkoph"
wrote in message
news On Sun, 21 May 2006 08:44:22 -0700, Boe wrote:

Hello,

I'm thinking about building a new system in about 1 month. I'd
like a good motherboard that can support x2 939, crossfire, has 8
rear usb ports and preferably has 2 gigabit nics on board. I see
many that have 4 front and 4 rear usb but I'd like one with 8 usb
rear and the only systems I've seen so far with that are SLI not
crossfire boards.

Thanks

I was going to get AM2 but since there is no real performance gain,
and I can get the memory for the 939 at nearly half the price, I'm
hoping when the AM2 is realeased, the new socket and the 5000 might
drop the price for
the 939 4800.

The big advantage for AM2 won't be performance, it will be the
ability to support more than 4G of RAM. I don't think you'll ever
see unbuffered DDR DIMMs bigger than 1G, but there is at least one
2G DDR2 DIMM already on the market.



The 939 pin A64s do support 4G, I have 4G on my MSI K8N Neo4/X2 4400+
system. So if you don't think you'll ever need 8G you can feel safe
about buying a current generation motherboard. The Nforce4 has been
the dominant chipset for the A64s which is why you see a lot of SLI
boards. I assume you are a Windoze user with no interest in Linux. If
you do want to be able to run Linux you should stay away from ATI and
stick with Nvidia. ATI does support Linux more or less but they don't
do nearly as good a job of it as Nvidia.

Would you enlighten me as to what the real advantages are to having the
highest performance graphics cards are? The reviews always talk about
frame rates but I assume that's an irrelevant measure because even cheap
graphics cards can generate frames faster than the human eye can handle.
Movies run at 24FPS and NTSC TV is 30FPS and we don't see any flicker in
either so I don't see how generating 130FPS would help. Do games
generate multiple scenarios at once and then pick a particular series
for frames based on input from the user? Do they increase the quality of
their rendering based on the capabilities of the card? Obviously the
game programmers aren't going to write games that require a pair of $500
cards to run adequately, they have to aim their games at the hardware
that most consumers have which are older machines that weren't even
state of the art when they were new. However they must be doing
something to keep Nvidia and ATI happy because there is a real market
for SLI and Crossfire boards. So what is it in these cards that the
games take advantage of?


Thanks for the explanation. Your right I don't play games, the last time I
played any was in the early 70s and then it was only games I wrote myself.

I was just curious about the technical details which to me are much more
interesting then then the games themselves. I'm surprised that it's
possible to overwhelm todays cards given the incredible amount of
processing power that even low end cards have. It's great news
for Nvidia and ATI that the game writers keep managing to find ways to
consume even more power.

BTW which LCD are you using? I was thinking of getting a 23" wide screen
monitor (30" is unusable for coding, I can see how it would be great for
games). The only big screen LCDs that I see in the stores anymore are
Apples, but I've read that you can't adjust Apple LCDs unless you are
running OSX.

I'm using the dell 30". I heard Mac was upping the quality of their 30"
because of the Dell competition. The Dell is very nice - I bought it
unseen because of a screwup I got it for $1330 with tax and shipping (should
have bought several ). It is GREAT for gaming - SO GLAD I bought it.
But it is a beast. I have an ATI x850 and I can't even run it in 2d mode in
native resolution. I run it at 1280 x 800 but native is double that I
believe. I'll have to build a new PC just to run it native since my MB is
AGP. Playing on a 30" screen can make some of the games seem SO much more
"immersive" I now do newbie gamer stuff like lean to the left or right
again during gameplay.

I realize gaming isn't for everyone but I thoroughly enjoy it. I usually
play for about 2 - 3 hours almost every week. I thoroughly enjoy Call of
Duty, Wolfenstein, HALO as well although the graphics are not NEARLY as
advanced as FEAR - I'd get them again if they remade them with the latest
engine though. FEAR is extremely 3 dimensional including lighting effects,
the the surface of cement, tiled floors, etc. I would imagine in 2-3 years,
they'll probably actually double the "realism" of the engines requiring a
significant improvement in card technology. I would say that the improvment
in FEAR over most other games(that I've seen) is nearly as significant as
the jump made by quake to OpenGL quake (old technology I know but the last
major jump in my opinion in 3d rendering). HalfLife2 was a pretty big leap
as well but I just didn't enjoy the game so I forgot about it til just now.

I would see Lucas make a 3rd Jedi game using the advanced engine but I heard
they are not making any more Jedi games for now. I tried COD2 but the
graphics were still quite primitive compared to other games I've seen.

If you've seen a pixar animation they are way ahead of the gaming engines
detail but they aren't realtime renderings. They use very impressive
cluster technology to create some fantastic animation but I would imagine
within 10 years we should see that level of realism/detail in games that you
control the action.


"General Schvantzkoph" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 21 May 2006 14:54:02 -0700, Boe wrote:

I take it you use your PC for work and not gaming so it isn't of much
advantage for you to have a top of the line card. In a case where
someone
doesn't enjoy First Person Shooters or games of that sort, there isn't
any
reason to waste gobs of cash for gaming cards. Most middle of the road
cards will do 2d rendering as fast as the most expensive 3d card.
They'll
also play movies back just fine.

If you enjoy playing 3d games such as FEAR, Quake4 or the latest
TombRaider (I'll admit I didn't think much of q4 and don't play
TombRaider
but enjoy many other 3d games) you'll benefit from those expensive cards.
The more advanced cards will allow you to turn on the bells and whistles
of the game which make the graphics far more realistic - AF, AA, Soft
Shadows etc. These enhance the visual image which in turn makes the games
far more enjoyable for me. If I turn up the AA, AF or turn on
softshadows, the frame rate drops to about 10FPS which makes the game
very
choppy and unpleasant. I'm sure the games coming out in the next year
will
be even more demanding than FEAR which so far only plays well on the 1900
and you can't crank up the resolution too much. I have a 30" screen
which
has a very high native resolution. Unlike CRTs computer monitors which
seem to display just about every resolution well, LCDs at this point
still
have native resolutions which are their best looking image.

I don't think even crossfired ATI 1900 cards could display FEAR at 24FPS
in my screens native resolution. The next verison might however.

"General Schvantzkoph" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 21 May 2006 12:16:09 -0700, Boe wrote:

Yeah - I'm one of those crazy people using Windows since I want to run
just about every program and not have to LS or grep for stuff or go
into admin mode to make something work. I do have an interest in
Linux, FreeBFD, and OSX since MS would never put new features into
their products
unless they had a good reference point. I think they've gone to far
with the OSX appearance though - I'd buy a f$@!!ng Mac if I really
prefered the
interface.

Seriously though I use my PC for gaming as much as for work and since I
like FEAR so much I'm leaning towards ATI. I'm not a fanboy of either
so if nVidia comes out with something that doubles the speed of the
7900 in the next month I'd jump to nVidia in a heartbeat -
particularly if it could do it and quadruple the speed of the 7900 if I
went SLI. By the time the new 600 from ATI comes out I would expect
nVidia to have something good as well and after the tests are in I'll
get something. Until them I'll just use my crappy spare PCIE 7800. I
hate to buy a 1900 for $500 only to want to replace it 5 months later.

"General Schvantzkoph" wrote in message
news On Sun, 21 May 2006 09:09:23 -0700, Boe wrote:

Thanks - I did not know that. It does make me think I should be sure
the next system will support 4gb although I'll probably only get it
with 2gb to begin with. I'll check if the system I plan on getting
will support 4 GB - I would imagine by the time I'm ready to go to
8GB, it will be at least 2 years from now and it will give me a good
excuse to build a new system "General Schvantzkoph"
wrote in message
news On Sun, 21 May 2006 08:44:22 -0700, Boe wrote:

Hello,

I'm thinking about building a new system in about 1 month. I'd
like a good motherboard that can support x2 939, crossfire, has 8
rear usb ports and preferably has 2 gigabit nics on board. I see
many that have 4 front and 4 rear usb but I'd like one with 8 usb
rear and the only systems I've seen so far with that are SLI not
crossfire boards.

Thanks

I was going to get AM2 but since there is no real performance gain,
and I can get the memory for the 939 at nearly half the price, I'm
hoping when the AM2 is realeased, the new socket and the 5000 might
drop the price for
the 939 4800.

The big advantage for AM2 won't be performance, it will be the
ability to support more than 4G of RAM. I don't think you'll ever
see unbuffered DDR DIMMs bigger than 1G, but there is at least one
2G DDR2 DIMM already on the market.



The 939 pin A64s do support 4G, I have 4G on my MSI K8N Neo4/X2 4400+
system. So if you don't think you'll ever need 8G you can feel safe
about buying a current generation motherboard. The Nforce4 has been
the dominant chipset for the A64s which is why you see a lot of SLI
boards. I assume you are a Windoze user with no interest in Linux. If
you do want to be able to run Linux you should stay away from ATI and
stick with Nvidia. ATI does support Linux more or less but they don't
do nearly as good a job of it as Nvidia.

Would you enlighten me as to what the real advantages are to having the
highest performance graphics cards are? The reviews always talk about
frame rates but I assume that's an irrelevant measure because even cheap
graphics cards can generate frames faster than the human eye can handle.
Movies run at 24FPS and NTSC TV is 30FPS and we don't see any flicker in
either so I don't see how generating 130FPS would help. Do games
generate multiple scenarios at once and then pick a particular series
for frames based on input from the user? Do they increase the quality of
their rendering based on the capabilities of the card? Obviously the
game programmers aren't going to write games that require a pair of $500
cards to run adequately, they have to aim their games at the hardware
that most consumers have which are older machines that weren't even
state of the art when they were new. However they must be doing
something to keep Nvidia and ATI happy because there is a real market
for SLI and Crossfire boards. So what is it in these cards that the
games take advantage of?


Thanks for the explanation. Your right I don't play games, the last time I
played any was in the early 70s and then it was only games I wrote myself.

I was just curious about the technical details which to me are much more
interesting then then the games themselves. I'm surprised that it's
possible to overwhelm todays cards given the incredible amount of
processing power that even low end cards have. It's great news
for Nvidia and ATI that the game writers keep managing to find ways to
consume even more power.

BTW which LCD are you using? I was thinking of getting a 23" wide screen
monitor (30" is unusable for coding, I can see how it would be great for
games). The only big screen LCDs that I see in the stores anymore are
Apples, but I've read that you can't adjust Apple LCDs unless you are
running OSX.