I made a decision on vid card and finished my A-64

[Mt_Goat]

Saturday I went to get my 2 74GB Raptors and look at PCI-e vid cards. I was going to get 2x Raptors and a 6600GT. The Raptors were sold out :shakehead so I went to check out the vid cards. I originally had a budget of $225.00 for the GPU but then I saw that they had the ATI X800XL for $299.00. My heart raced and I went bezerk as I recalled that these are on par w/ a 6800GT and I don't plan on doing SLI right now. The price was close enough to my budget that a budget over run was acceptable! :D I am using my 3 Hitachi SATA drives for now. I got it up and running last night and realized I didn't do my Windows install the way I wanted since I was tired and re-did it this morning. I am now tweeking and playing with the bios. When I first looked in the bios I was overwhelmed and almost got lost! It is so massive and has options I haven't got to ever play with before. I will post some screenies and benches after I get somewhere with this beast. Also using my Antec True 480 (20 pin) but using the molex and floppy power plugs on the board. All is stable so far! :thumbsup:

So here's a rundown of what I got and what I will be upgrading in the next few weeks.

As it stands right now

DFI Lanparty NF4 Ultra D (couldn't wait for the SLI-DR anymore)
A64 XP3000+ Winnie core (Boxed) w/ stock HSF
2x 512 Patriot TCCD
ATI X800XL 256mb, 256 bit (stock)
2x Hitachi 80GB SATA in RAID-0, 1X Hitachi 80GB SATA
Antec True 480
AMS 1009 Aluminum case
NEC 16X DVD +/- Dual layerRW
Lite-On 16X DVD


Coming soon


2x WD 74GB Raptors
Seagate 200GB SATA
New PSU (not sure which yet)
Better Heatsink (XP-120 (http://www.svc.com/xp-120-p4-21.html) or HYPER 6 (http://www.svc.com/hyper6-19.html))

[dragonV8]

Sounds like a great rig you got Mr Goat. A lot flasher than mine with all those drives and vid card. :thumbsup:

Good thing you managed to get her running at a nice steady OC as well. :)
(had some issues with mine).

You sure are right about those settings in the bios. Totally confusing for the likes of us. :D

[Mt_Goat]

Jon

I think the bling and flash of yours is nicer than mine. You did a great job making it lookd good! ;) I still need to get the drives I want and a new PSU as I have already found my OC so to be not as good due to not having the ETX. Maybe lemonlime can help us old guys out. :D

[fatcat]

looks like a great system larry, i do hope you replace the stock cooler thou..right? :)

looking forward to the pics/screenies :thumbsup: