Re: First post
Ok first of all the specs that were posted are scewed as they were done with nVidia drivers that were to say non-the-least, bad I would like to see new benchmarks done as i am getting about 35 FPS more in HL2 in single mode then what they are telling me I get and we wont go into the fact that I have two exteam 6800 TDs buy Asus and they are doing way more then what that site says they are benching at.
Second; on to you first you have to make a desision do you want to use SLI yes or no then you have to ask your sekf if you want ATi or nVidia's SLI as you will need difrent Mobos for their SLI. The you have to ask your self "Do I want to take this corprate blind fold off, save some money, get a real gaming Rig and build an AMD. These are all things you have to ask, before you even look at what the costs are.
As a real power user I go AMD because will I hate being told I have to use one memory controler with every CPU I use on that systemboard, that in itself is a good reason to build AMD. when you upgrade your CPU you upgrade your MC. AMD works better Microsoft has stopped producing multi CPU operating systems now that IBM, Microsoft, and Intel are not in bed with each other; MS is now building their operating systems to run on the AMD 64 chips and all intel get some kind of comatibilty app.
Now if you want to go ATi and SLI you will have to hold out for some time yet as the ATi SLI mobos are not out yet and but the time the ATi cards planned do hit the stores nVidia will have even better cards out driveing the prich of the cards now out down to a level the is even more real.
as much as I love ATi being a Canadian that has four Canada tattos and ATi being Canadian for the time if you are going to think about SLI or even PCI I would say go nVidia, I have and well the WOW factor of two 6800s and an FX55 and 1Gb of top end Kingston RAM on the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe systemboard is just well WOW.
Good luck and real look hard at what I have said and other Gamers/Power users read up on the new 64 bit PCUs and the cost / what they do, why pay $1900.00 for a chip that is 2 - 10% better then a chip that is $1200.00, if that the FX55 in the use is starting to drop to the $900.00 range because AMD is Coming out with some better stuff soon. the new 4200 is going to hit stores soon and the next FXxx will be here soon... the AMD 64 4200 is the FX55 renamed because AMD will only Flag one FXxx Chip at at time, the FXxx name just means our best 939 pin we are willing to put out at this time.