GolfHos

So Sal had a Dell 520 MidTower  that was about 2 years old
one of the 1st Core2 Chips (around 2.1GhZ) with 2 GB RAM (DDR2 533) and an ATI Radeon X1300Pro (128 MB) , stock PSU

We added an Antec EarthWatts 650 PSU and a XFX GeForce 9600 512MB 700MHZ card(had wanted to put a 9800gtx but there isn't enough physical space around the 1 lousy PCIe slot on the MOBO).  Plans down the road include adding in 2 more GB RAM (already have, just haven't put it in the box), and upgrading the CPU (Q6600 is getting pretty cheap now)  Eventually I figure we'll then take all the parts, and put a new MOBO and a 2nd 9600 card in SLI mode.   I'd forgotten how much fun building pc's is, but at the same time what a pain it can be.  The MOBO layout, heatsink fan, factory cable routing paths, etc were annoying as hell to redo with the Antec, even though the wiring blocks were well wrapped, bundled, etc.

Anyways, I'll let her comment more if she chooses as it's her machine not mine really in terms of % use....   but I've noticed it sounds a lot more quiet when it's being stressed, and the visible change in her using her 2nd Life program at high visual settings is obvious.   The only drawback was her machine (which has been buggy with anything new (hard/soft) the last year or so)  wouldn't take the new card until we wiped it.  BIOS detected it, Windows used it, but didn't "know" it was there.   Oh well.  After the wipe, it instantly installed on the clean XP Pro install.  I figure we'll wipe and start again with Vista64 whenever we get the upgraded CPU down the line.   For about $200 or so, it was a great investment in making her use of the computer much more enjoyable, and adds a lot of future proofing capability for building a new machine in a couple of years.

I'll also add at work we installed some Palit brand 9600s as well, and though they were about $30 less, you get what you pay for.  The drivers for it sucked, remain buggy, and the cooling fan and overall card size are incredibly wasteful and inefficient compared to the much smaller XFX model we have here.

 [sm_thumbsup2]  Nice!










Wanna fix this dude's laptops?  ;D

LOL, I hope you're charging him some $ for all that work, btw.  ;)
Anyways, I'd just put Ubuntu on it so he couldn't  *fiddlesticks*itup again.  At least not as easily  .

 ;D  Thought about it.  I still have the disk at home Spanky sent me.

LOL Dude, how lazy can you get? That's 5 minutes tops.

It's about 1 minute.  but I can't get Sal to turn the thing off  [sm_devil]

LOL

Not that I disagree with your component choices but why pick nVidia over ATI? I just want your take.

Just personal preference and experience at the price point I'm interested in.  I also like the seemingly much wider array of SLI capable MOBOs out there now.