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Sharky Extreme : Monthly Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide |
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Monthly Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide |
August Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 3By Ryan "Speedy" Wissman August 22, 2005
NVIDIA has been enjoying huge success with their nForce4 SLI chipset, especially after they made the leap to offer the chipset for both AMD and Intel processors. The nForce4 SLI chipset is currently the most feature-rich, high performance chipset available for the Intel platform and its return engagement this month is certainly no surprise. In addition to dual PCI Express video card support, the nForce4 SLI also has a number of features typical of a high-end chipset. Support for dual-channel DDR2, PCI Express graphics and peripherals, a 1066MHz FSB, dual core Intel processors, SATA2, and EM64T are just a few of features found in the Intel-based nForce4 chipset. Currently, our favorite motherboard featuring this chipset is the ASUS P5ND2-SLI Deluxe.
ASUS has continually offered some of the most fully featured, high performance motherboards around, so these often rise to the top of our list when choosing a motherboard. The Asus P5ND2-SLI Deluxe is no exception, and it supports all the latest technologies, making is a perfect home for the Pentium 4-3.73GHz Extreme Edition processor. In addition to all the usual amenities, the board has support for external SATA drives, dual Gigabit Ethernet, 8-channel audio, and all the peripheral ports you could dream of. Priced at $210 this motherboard isn't cheap, but support for dual PCI Express video cards make the price premium worthwhile.
Current Cost: $187 The best bet for high-end AMD performance is also the nForce4 SLI, and there is no reason to move away from the exceptional DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR as our motherboard of choice. The nForce4 SLI chipset has been all the rage as of late, and there is nothing on the market that can offer the same level of performance, features and future upgradeability. While the nForce4 SLI chipset has support for the latest technologies such as PCI Express, SATA2, NVIDIA RAID, 8-channel audio and Gigabit Ethernet with hardware firewall, the single most innovative, and potentially valuable, feature is its support for dual PCI Express video cards.
With NVIDIA's SLI (Scalable Link Interface), a motherboard that is equipped with this technology can support up to two PCI Express video cards (NVIDIA only) simultaneously, resulting in nearly twice the performance of a single GPU. Users of 3dfx's Voodoo 2 line of cards will remember the simple upgrade path this offers; you can choose to equip a system with a single GeForce 6x00 or 7800-based card now, and then upgrade performance by adding a second card later on. The DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR is a nice mix of performance, features and stability, while offering some funky board colors and a unique layout. The board has the usual assortment of onboard amenities like SATA2, dual Gigabit Ethernet, dual-channel DDR, 8-channel audio, along with the usual assortment of peripheral ports. DFI also includes the hotrod extras that the LANPARTY brand is known for, such as rounded IDE cables, a FrontX panel, a PC Transpo carrying strap, and component and cable UV sensitivity, to name a few. Currently, the DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR is selling for about $187, which is rather reasonable considering how feature packed this board really is. The nForce4 SLI chipset includes support for dual PCI Express video cards, but due to budget constraints and a serious upgrade to the GeForce 7800 GTX, we couldn't take advantage of this month. It's the same story with the Intel system, and the SLI capabilities will reside more in the future-proofing side, with the prospect of dual GeForce 7800 GTX cards being a huge trump card against tomorrow's cutting-edge games.
Current Cost: $299 As AMD is apparently skipping DDR2 altogether, DDR is the name of the game for Athlon 64-based systems. This month we chose to move to some higher performance memory, and went with 1GB (2x512) of the OCZ EL DDR PC-4800 Dual Channel Platinum Elite Edition. This memory can go to significantly higher clock speeds than the Gold version we used last time, and still offer super timings at standard speeds. The OCZ PC-4800 allows ultra fast 2-2-2-5 memory timings at 400 MHz, and features 2.5-4-4-10 at 600 MHz (PC4800). This gives us the best of both worlds, with excellent performance at PC3200 settings, and a lot of overclocking room for those inclined. 1GB (2x512) of OCZ EL DDR PC-4800 Dual Channel Platinum Elite Edition is priced at approximately $299 at various retailers, and easily on par with the DDR2 memory used in our Intel system.
Since Dual-channel memory is the de facto standard for both AMD and Intel systems it only makes sense that we purchase matched pairs of memory. Buying a name brand memory kit ensures that both modules are exactly matched, and leaves no compatibility issues when running in dual-channel mode. The OCZ Enhanced Latency Dual-Channel Gold kit features two 512MB sticks of DDR memory, satisfying our platform's dual-channel memory needs.
Current Cost: $321 Unlike AMD, Intel chose to take the plunge and utilized DDR2 memory with their high-end LGA775 chipsets, a pattern NVIDIA followed with the nForce4 SLI Intel chipset. This month we are sticking with 1GB (2x512) of the Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X1024A-5400UL memory, even though we took a major hit at the cash register. The 1066 MHz Pentium 4-3.73GHz is the only processor to require 533MHz DDR2 memory, so we opted for the faster 675MHz part as the extra headroom can come in quite handy when overclocking or just for a but more memory bandwidth.
The Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X1024A-5400UL, like all DDR2 memory, forgoes ultra low latency timings, in return for high clock speed and wicked overclockability. Despite the higher latencies inherent of DDR2 memory, the Corsair XMS2 memory still has relatively low timings of 3-2-2-8, which makes it some seriously fast DDR2 memory. As our nForce 2 SLI chipset includes dual-channel DDR2 support, we are utilizing two sticks of 512MB to maximize performance. A matched pair of 1GB (2x512) Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X1024A-5400UL can run about $321, which isn't too much more than the standard DDR memory we used in the AMD system this month.
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