I am gonna buy a new rig in the next few months and would appreciate some advice on a few questions I have. The main purpose is gaming. The new windows 64-bit OS is out now, is this something I really need? For my video card, I was looking at the Radeon X800XL 256 mb. I have read some posts on this forum that recommend 128mb over 256mb in some cards. My limited understanding in this area indicates that if 128 is good, 256 is better, is this the case and should I always be looking at a 256mb card? Lastly, should I be considering the dual SLI cards, or would the 800 card do me just fine? I would like to get it all done for under 1500 bucks. Thanks for the help. By the way, I am going with an AMD athlon 64 bit 3200 processor.

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041122/pcie-analyse-10.html http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041123/sli-performance-34.html Asus A7N8X-X 1800+ @ 8 x 210MHz 768MB PC3200 Asus A9550 128MB/128-bit Gamer Edition WinME/WinXP Pro

With regard to the 64bit OS, no, you don't need it it now. Just a quick look round the many sites dealing with 64bit you will find that for most folks getting the right drivers for their hardware is a nightmare. Many, many companies have not released drivers for 64bit. Some programes will have problems despite WoW emulation. I would research very closely what 64bit drivers are available for the hardware you intend to use, you may well be dissapointed as thousands are. Give it time, the drivers will appear, in the meantime remember that 64bit Longhorn is on the horizon. I honestly feel that if you go to 64bit now you may regret it. AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 WinXP Pro. Nvidia:6800GT Dane Electronic Pro. Dual 1024MB 400MHz RAM Tagan 480Watt PSU: 28Amps on +12volt rail. Asus A8V Deluxe "WiFi" M/Board - AquaGate

While I would recommend getting a nForce4 MBoard with SLI PCIe I would forego the dual cards at this time. There are cureently no games or programs written to utilize the abaitiies of the technology. In a year or so you may want to upgrade the graphics with dual cards. Right now you can use any PCIe graphics card in the first SLI slot and it will work as one PCIe 16x card. Cards are available in just about all price/ performance brackets ane are comparable in price to an equivent AGP card. All the nForce4 chipset MBoards should have similar performance. As in past chipsets, some onaboard items may or may not be utilized by the MBoard manufacturer. Shop by features needed and by price. Pay attention to the other PCIe & PCI slots that are available as the number and speed available vary from board to board.

Thanks all for the advice, could stuff, I will forgo the SLI setup for now. Any comments on the Radeon X800XL? and what about the 128mb vs. 256mb, is it always better to go with the 256mb card?