Here's my result

Tested on Beta version without patch, DX10 rendering on Vista, 4XAA 16XAS

I am old school.

I started with a Riva128. Added a Monster Voodoo2 8MB.

Few months later added another Monster Voodoo2 8MB (I know many will not believe me, thats a total of 16MB!!!)

Didn't bother with any of the crap that followed until Asus released their GeForces 256 DDR (OMG, 32Mb of DDR! and AGP!!)

Waited until framerate would kill me doing naked runs back to SSraeshza so I invested in the latest big release, a Leadtek A250 (GeForce Ti4600). This baby lasted me a very long time. Admittantly I could not play with as many of the new fandangled features other cards were offering but it was still a power horse (or donkey as the theme may imply)

Was not until I purchased a 24" Dell (surely mad not to, or maybe the 30") and my little 256Mb card could not pump those little pixels out fast enough. Time to rest myu old system and advance into the world of Dual Cores and PCI-e.

My lastest card is a Leadtek 8800GTX 756Mb. Unfortunatelyt with todays technological advances I rarely see it worth while moving to SLI, not unless I ninja purchase a 30" monitor. By the time a new game comes out that really stresses my system to an irritating level, the next card will bne out and will outperform the last configuration of SLI.

Back in the day of Voodoos they reigned supreme for what felt like Aeons.

VoodooRob

If I remember correctly, my very first 3D accelerator was a Matrox m3D which had a PowerVR chip (haha, I remember playing Tomb Raider with this PCI card, it was great), then came ATi Rage 128, Voodoo Banshee (loved this card, the graphics look so damn good with Shogo: Mobile Armor Division from Monolith), GeForce2 GTS, GeForce4 Ti4200 (my second favorite), then came the ATi X800 (500 bucks when it first came out...dammmn), GeForce 7800GT/SLi, GeForce7900GT/SLi, and finally the 8800GTX. It was quite a journey, a lot of the earlier cards I got from a computer store that I used to work for.

The hardest part of building a gaming PC is wire management, a messy interior is a site for sore eyes.

I was planing on building mine in my kitchen. On a wood table standing on Linoleum (Some sort of tile). Is that good for grounding? To discharge myself can I just touch our metal refrigerator? I dont have an anti static mat, can I get one at hardware store and how much do they cost?killerbasa

you can ground yourself by touching the metal part of your case

d) How are you 25 and just now getting your undergraduate degree? Are you a part time student, or did you take a few years off to work? Because that would also explain your surplus of money.marlonsm

Yeah, took me quite a while to get my first BS degree. I started out majoring in Computer Engineering, wasted 3 years taking all the lower division and GE clas ses for that then realized I totally suck azz in programming. Switched to Biochemistry as it was my second favorite fieldto study, it was better than CE but still pretty hard. I don't give up finishing my education, that's for sure. Some people would just give in after 6 years of college.

Another reason is because i'm such a slacker, that and I dont have much time since I also work everyday.

BTW, what do you mean you go to a real college? When I say local college, I meant a credited college or university that is driving distance from where you live.

[QUOTE="SDxSnOOpZ"]i'm leaning toward Q6600 because it's quadcore.OoSuperMarioO

With 3DMark06, I gained atleast 800pts or around 3-4fps, the most gain came from overclocking the gpu. I didnt really benchmark any games, but the FPS increased for sure.

Update: Well everything is working like a champ with one stick of RAM. The only problem is I swapped the sticks of RAM and the computer still worked fine, so the problem isn't the RAM. I tried putting both in again and the old problem came back. So any ideas on this one? My mobo only has two RAM slots so I can't be putting them in wrong. I'd really hate to have to replace the mobo over something minor like this, but I don't want to have to buy a new 1 gig stick either...

[QUOTE="SDxSnOOpZ"]which chipset? P965?Archon_basic

i'm pretty sure its a defective mobo but you can try andfind the culprit..

...go to your local electronic store (Best Buy, Frys, etc.), buy a different mobo with the same socket, any chipset. plug inthe cpu and both memory sticks, if everything works fine then the problem is your mobo. At this point, you can choose to keep themobo you just buy and RMA the defective mobo back to NewEgg for a refund, they'll send you a check infew weeks. Or, if you prefer the MSI-K8M890, just RMA back to NewEgg and they'll send you a new one, then you can return the mobo you bought from the electonic store and get a refund...either way, you'll always have things to play with in the meantime.

[QUOTE="SDxSnOOpZ"]i need to upgrade to a faster card or go multi-gpu when i get below 30fps in games with 16x12 resolution, 4xAA 16xAS, and all setting maxForlornHope

You must have rich parents. :roll: That kind of excess sickens me.

no, i make my own money