hi airchie You know all the hip of the Extreme being the most expensive 680 mobo? Well its not the Abit is cause of its WiFi just £5.50 more. Scan UK Abit IN9 32X-MAX WiFi NF680i SLI, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 800/1066/533, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX £189.49 +Vat £222.65 Asus Striker Exteme NF680i SLI, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 533/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX £183.89 +VAT £216.07 Still would you choose the Abit from the Asus even if they were the same price? Abit make good motherboards but I think I would choose Asus. Archie don't get me wrong about Abit it boils down to what you prefer at the end. I had 2 Asus motherboards before and an Asus laptop so I am a bit of an Asus fan. Oh the Corsair PSU not RAM I am 40 so be patient with me lol. I couldn't believe I spent 4 hours reading PSU reviews. PSUs its not the most interesting piece of hardware in the kit but its one of the most important. some years back I wouldn't even notice what PSU I would buy. I work as IT support and have normal office computers I buy PSU at £16 for them. There are computers at work that cost less then my graphic card lol. There are too many PSUs out there to choose from an many are very good. Case another hard one. I have a Cooler Master Centurion 5 with Window all Black and silver. I took the panels were I spray my car and sprayed them Black Pearl as my Opel Astra. I put some LED fans inside moded the side aluminium channels with El Wire. Put on a Matrix Orbital Blue LCD, changed optical drive lights to Blue drilled wholes for them in the Black Cooler Master bay covers and I cannot part with this case. I know its small but I searched the web and found someone else that is using it for the same mobo and an 8800 GTS card. the problem would be the 3rd hard disk so I will build it see how it goes and decide then if I can fit a 2nd storage drive with raid 0. Thanks for your comments
Crazy, I don't think I paid that much for the mobo... I'm scared to check the reciept now. You're right though, I'm more of an abit fanboy than asus. Had a few asus boards that were utter crap so that put me off. I think either will serve you well tbh. 2nded on posting pics of the case! Sounds groovy!
Hi Here are some pics of my case. I have been neglecting it lately well for the past 6 months since I have broken my leg. now I'm ok back to normal. as i am going to upgrade I will ckean it and fix it up again with the new hardware. The El wire won't light up unfortunately and will have to buy and install again. Its no big deal near other mods I see in here its mediocre to say the least.
and we can see your lcd in the reflection, STOP SURFING PORN!! just kidding...it's bit-tech of course
SLI is not a good upgrade path IMHO. If you find yourself needing more power in a year or two, then sell the card and buy a new one. I guarantee you that if you buy a 8800GTX now, in 1 year it will cost the same amount to sell the 8800GTX and buy a new 9800GTX or whatever is around, as it would to buy another 8800GTX. The single newer card will be faster and probably more power efficient and quieter then the SLI setup if the current trend continues. Not only that but you don't need an SLI motherboard, and you get good performance on every game, not just "oh it works great on one game, but its slower then a single card on another!" that SLI tends to do.
Trig Thanks for the comment as for the web site just a tribute to a great site but its usually porn lol. My wife has a bigger chance finding me drool at a piece of hardware then at a naked body. Not normal I know but hardware is less trouble Majorgn I also changed the leds of my optical drives to blue, drilled a little hole in the leds and stuck some optic fibre in the holes. Then put the 2 face plates together drilled them the same size of the optic fibre and when I fixed them I passed the fibre through the hole and cut away the access like that the light would travel through the hole of the face plate. TMM I totally agree with you that 1 hypothetical Nvidia 9800 GTX would be better then 2 SLI 8800 GTX as this is almost always the case when comparing one generation of graphic card with the next. What I don’t agree is the price. A 9800 GTX would cost almost or maybe a bit more then an 8800 GTX today so to sell it you must sell it at a price inferior not only to a 9800 GTX but to a 9800 GTS. Anyone paying that much for a good graphic card would surely know that for a bit more you could buy the latest version. Thanks all for your comments. New hardware should be here by next week hope to comment on that soon. I just love the smell of a new motherboard in the morning.
I got my hardware on Thursday as I was busy and today Saturday I was off I started building. After half a day taking my old hardware out, cleaning the case, fixing some things and installing the new hardware I finnally sat down and started the new rig. It started with a starngr noise and one of the hardisks did not show up bso I turned off to check everything. I switched on but the light and fans turn on for a second and switch off. The LCD at the back says CPU INIT. Searched the web and tried everything different RAM different graphic card (from my friend). Reseting CMOS taking the battery out but nothing. I even tried another CPU but to no avail. All my hardware works on another mobo but mine won't switch. Guess I will resend it for replacment. If anyone has any tips but I tried all i found on the net. Thank You
