Hey gamers out there, I am upgrading my box and I am not a huge gamer type but I was wondering if this would be a decent gaming system for your avg gamer for the next year or so:

Asus A8N-E NF4 Ultra chipset
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (Venice core)
OCZ 2x512MB PC3200
200GB WD 7200rpm, 8MB cache
Sapphire X800GT 256MB or NVidia 6600GT (not sure which one to pick right now, same price, which card is better??)

Well, If i were you i would go with an asus that has SLI technology for later when games really require that. If you don't know what that is.

http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_sliAA_howto1.html

and

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2284

I Would get the 6600GT for SLI TECH.

Hp Pavillion a1010n
Asus P4GV-LA Motherboard
Intel Celeron 2.93 GHz
160 Gb Hard Drive
512 pc3200 Mb of Ram
64 Mb G-force 66666666666666GT
Windows Xp Home Edition

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050524/vga_charts-02.html

Thats a good idea of graphic card performance. I'd say get the X800XT since your not planning on running SLI (2 graphics cards together) the X800 series is more comparable to the 6800 series which is all better than the 6600, now if it was the 6800GT I'd feel different but heck I'm an ATI cheerleader anyways so go figure.

To the origional question ues thats a very "sturdy" looking machine.

Doug

Windows Xp Pro x64
AMD Sempron 3000+ 1.8ghz
1 Gig Ram pc2700
Nforce 4 Motherboard
Radeon X700 256mb
Realtek Ac 97 Onboard Audio
Thermaltake 430W Power Supply

If you're not a hardcore gamer, you'll probably never use SLi, so don't waste your money on an SLi board.

AMD just dropped the prices on some of their CPUs. I suggest you go for the 3200+ Venice & with the money you save, get 1GB (2 x 512MB) PC3200 RAM.

Here's a lengthy report on the X800GT...draw your own conclusions:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/pc-x800gt.html

ASUS A7N8X-X
Athlon XP 1800+
8.5 x 200MHz
1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7
Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB
WinME/WinXP Pro SP2

Thanks for all the help guys, I appreciate it. I'm going to stay with the Asus non-sli MB cuz I figured I'll never really need that much gaming power for what its worth me spending on it. And as far as the vid card goes, I decided on getting the X800GT and OC'ing up to a 560/570 GPU core speed, it will beat the 6600Gt almost everytime.
Anyways thanks for the advice. Happy gaming.

DO NOT go with the Asus A8N-E. I owned the board, and I must say I can't believe Asus, who is supposed to be the pinnacle of quality, would produce a board this horrible. Piece of dog crap. Every BIOS upgrade would blow up Windows after 1004. The chipset fan died prematurely; google search the board and look at forums, and you'll see this is a very common problem. Go with the DFI Infinity NForce 4 Ultra or their LANParty one. Much better quality!

Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina!

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Check the prices on the A64 Venice at Newegg...they've dropped again! 3000+ @ $138, 3200+ @ $152

ASUS A7N8X-X
Athlon XP 1800+
8.5 x 200MHz
1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7
Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB
WinME/WinXP Pro SP2

SLI = Silly

SuSE LINUX 8.2 / Windows XP
2 Ghz Celeron - 640 MB DDR
ASUS MOBO - GF4 MX