ok so heres the thing. I'm building my first computer and I need some help. I am going to get the RAIDMAX Astro ATX-268WB Black 0.7mm Japanese SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case. I wil be modding the front with some air holes for air to be sucked in. my problem lies in my motherboard. I dont know if I should get the GIGABYTE GA-K8N Pro-SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard or the ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16 ATX AMD Motherboard What is the difference between SLI and SLI X16? I am also getting an Nvidia Geforce 7800gtx and will be getting a second one in the future when I can afford it. als which powersupply should I get. I have no idea which one to chose. I am getting an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3200BPBOX but will upgrade to an X2 in the future. or is dual core worth it. would it be better to get a really fast single core. please help I'm a total n00b and need help with almost everything. thanx
A good thermaltake or Antec psu should do 400 watts at least depending on the amount of hard drives and optical drives you will be using, but since you will be adding another 7800gtx go with 450watts-550watts. As for the processor its really up to you because a Athlon 64 higher on the charts could perform just as good as a dual core as far as games. Now if your are gonna be doing a lot of encoding converting an using other programs while gaming a dual core is better suited but if u just want raw power and u can afford it go with a Athlon64 3500+ venice core the one with 1GHZ FSB. Either is a good buy it just comes down to whether or not you will be multitasking if not save some money and get more ram or other goodies.
The nForce 4 SLI x16 allows for both PCIe x16 slots to have 16 lanes each. With the original nF4 SLI, the physical PCIe x16 slots only have 8 PCIe lanes to each one in SLI mode. Is there a performance increase? Yes, and not just by a few FPS. However, there's very few companies taking the NF4 SLI x16 chip onto motherboards. If the difference between an SLI and an SLI x16 board is under $20, go for it. Otherwise, I don't think you're going to really notice it. In the future, we'll probably need the bandwith, but for right now, I'm not 100% sure it's worth a whole lot over a regular nForce 4 SLI motherboard.
