6600gt or x800gt? also recomend a mobo...

shanethemofo

6600gt or x800gt? also could u recomend a socket 939 mobo for under 90-100 euro's.

djmarkus

6600gt, and i have a brand spanking new one coming on the market, absolutely unused(RMA replacement), it'll be in the FS thread pretty soon if you decide towards nvidia

shanethemofo

ok.. ill keep an eye out

savemejebus

as for mobos check out kompletts bgrade section, picked up a lovely bargain there myself a few months ago (170 down to 99 everything included and pristine)

shanethemofo

yea i was looking at them... the only problem i see with them is that they always say that you only get the mobo no cables etc included. do they only say this or do u actually only get the board?

Kintarō Hattori

If you have a look at the reviews online, you'll see that the X800GT pretty much comes out tops in most of them. There are a few games where the 6600GT scores better, but overall the X800GT is the better card.

When I was upgrading from my AGP 6800TD to a PCI-Express card, I was in the same situation as you were and couldn't decide. I posted a thread and the unanimous response was to go with a X800GT!!

In terms of Mobo's I highky rate Abit boards, very cool and very reliable.
Link A
Link B

If your not a fan of Abit, Asus are excellent too. My last two mobo's, prior to 939 have been Asus.

The A8N-E for just €99 from Komplett is an excellent choice.

shanethemofo

also would you choose this mobo
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=307784

or this one
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=307700

thanks

duridian

I'd normally be leaning towards the Asus board rather than the MSI. However there is one thing that I notice looking at the pic of the A8N-E and that is the chipset heatsink/fan. It is the same one that is fitted to the Asus A8N-Sli and A8N-Sli Deluxe (the A8N-Sli Premium has a fanless heatpipe solution instead).
This little fan and heatsink I guarantee will cause problems after only a couple of months, all of these little pipsqueaks of fans do, that's why they are using heatpipes on their newer models. (The fan in question is about 25mm across and when it is starting to fail it sounds like there is a Philishave running inside your computer). The heatsink without the fan isn't capable of keeping the chipset cool enough as the amount of metal around the fan isn't much and doesn't draw the heat away quickly enough running passively. (see this Google search result for more proof)
Myself, I'd probably still choose the Asus board over the MSI as it has the 'Ultra' rather than the standard Nforce4 chipset, but knowing what is inevitably ahead one would be as well off getting one of these and replace the chipset cooler before you even install the motherboard, as you'd have to remove the board from the case to change the chipset cooler. If this seems like a lot of hassle then maybe the MSI would be more suitable, though I have no idea as to the reliabilty of the stock chipset fan on this board. Another board you may want to have a look at in the same price range (well ~€10 more) is this Gigabyte board. It has a somewhat larger but low profile passive heatsink on the chipset, so no fan failure worries. A bud of mine has this board and is very happy with it, whereas another bud with an Asus A8N-Sli Deluxe had to rip his machine apart 3 months after building it to replace the 'Philishave'.

Oh and on the original topic, the X800GT would offer slightly more 'ooomph' on most current games, but it lacks the Shader 3.0 support so I don't know if the 6600GT would gain on it in games that use these features.

Kintarō Hattori

Hmnn, two thumbs up for Asus so far Shane....are you seeing a pattern here!