angelkiller wrote:From a brief trip to Tom's VGA charts,

Well, I'm a bonehead.

I didn't know about that chart. Pretty nifty tool. I guess going SLI might be the thing to do.

Anyone upgrade from a 7950GT to a 8600gts? I'm trying to figure out how I can judge the performance improvement I may get if I go SLI with my 7950GT vs upgrading to a silent 8600gts.

I found this thread pretty late but it's been a good read. Thanks to the OP for posting such great info on the case. It's almost like a review! Only bad news is that now I'm itching to get a Solo and I really don't need a new case.

The top does look like connectors for water cooling, but a fan plus water cooling seems a bit much.

I don't have any experience with SLI setups, but as part of looking for an answer to another issue I dropped in at NVIDIA Forums. I noticed a lot of people have discussed slow performance of SLI, so maybe this helps. As far as I can see most of the problems come back to two issues; either the two (...

merlin wrote:Mmm, another reason to kick self, there's a few passive 7900's out there too...and a 7950gt too.

I didn't see a 7900 when I searched NewEgg but I just saw the post on the 7950. The 7950 is what I should have purchased, though my target was the $230 range and it's around $300.

I'm kicking myself for not seeing this when I got my dual 7600gs cards.

Well, as I said, it was s stupid move on my part and I'm kicking myself. I really didn't think the 7600gs would be this inferior. I did look at some reviews on the 7600gs but nothing would compare it to a 6800gt. But, I can't really blame anyone but myself. I didn't look into a 7800 or 7900 series b...

Let me set the record straight from the start and say that this is more of a rant - not about a product but about my own stupidity. Normally I research for days or weeks before making the most simple purchase but I recently made a quick decision on my video card that has me upset. Having said that, ...

This problem is stumping me to no end. Every so often when I boot my pc will fail to recognize the video card. I know this sounds simple but hang in for a bit, it gets strange. This has been happening for a while now and .... I've replaced almost all the hardware over the past few months!!! I have a...

For my last upgrade I attempted to divide my main hdd as a c: (os) and d: (apps) drive. The idea was to keep the os on the c: drive along with any files that needed to be backed up. All apps would go on the d: drive. My Norton Ghost would backup the c: drive to protect the critical files. Now that I...

I'm not sure. I'm amazed it fits in my case. The biggest problem is that I had to also stagger the fan above the Ninja to make the entire setup even taller. The fan probably takes up an additional 1/4" in my estimation. A lot would depend on that fan setup in your case imo.

Is there a way to flash bios without a floppy? It doesn't seem like it but I don't like having a floppy just to use it once a year.

I think I could give up on a black version if they'd come out with a version that didn't have a psu. Ah well.

Just curious, was there a reason to not try the 7600gs? Looking at the link to Nvidia I see the only feature it lacks from the GT is : Inverse Telecine Bad Edit Correction I have a HTPC but I my knowledge of all these features is very poor so I'm not sure why I would care to have these features or n...

When I first started trying to silence my machines I found the best approach was a very slow one. I would test each aspect to find what was the loudest and then replace it, followed by a repeat of the process. IIRC, my changes followed this pattern: 1) video card (actually the fan on video card 2) s...

I have no experience with sata drives yet but I seem to remember reading some posts on how the cables that come with your motherboard are kind of junk and prone to problems. Is it worth it to try and buy the sata cable separately? I see there are tons of options for funky colors (which doesn't mean ...

The X1300 and X1600 can be found in passive flavros without to much pain even though they are not reference designs (Sapphire for instance). And a X1600XT is cheaper than the GS without being slower or consuming more. Are you sure? NewEgg shows the 1600XT is $149 to $180 while the first 7600gs are ...

I'm using the stock mb backplate for my Ninja after someone suggested it here. I didn't think of worrying if it was sturdy enough though.

I know that graph is from Nvidia but I would have liked to see the 7600gs in SLI mode to see how it stacks up to the single 7600gt. I might be interested in this card for SLI - seems fairly cheap and it's silent so if the performance is good it may be worth it. The ASUS one might be perfect for my H...

I see the news about the 7600GS now. I just ordered my PC parts, so I missed the news by a few hours. If I don't like the noise of the 7600GT, I'm sure I can sell this card or grab a compatible Zalman cooler. Rana, that sucks. I guess it depends on if you value silence or FPS more. I just briefly r...

I'm afraid to say this for fear it jinxes me but I think I got it working. I'm really shocked because XP actually let me re-register via the internet and didn't force me to call the 1-800 number. Last time I had to do that no matter what I tried (you'd think they would understand what it's like to i...

It's confusing to say the least. I read a good review of the 7600 cards but wasn't sure when it came to price is a dual 6600 or 6800 would be better. Considering the price of some of the cards like the 7600 it's hard to find a better price value in a dual setup, or so it seems. Ideally I'd like to g...

I've read some more on this site and at StorageReview and even NewEgg. It would be nice if there was an official artice on the WD here to weigh it all against. Seems like the WD is a great deal on paper but it's noise is very suspect (some say terrible some say silent). I usually only trust this sit...

Having just jumped into the pcix video realm with a new sli capable board, I now am a bit overwhelmed as to the possibilities. Is there some kind of general guideline as to when an sli setup can be as good as a single card setup? I'm wondering if there's an 6600 or 6800 sli setup that would exceed o...

BTW, in my system I have a Seagate 7200.7 120GB SATA HDD. No noticable whine, but the seeks are just barely tolerable. I recently put together a system for a friend with the Samsung P80 160GB SATA2 HDD (Normal SATA wasn't available at the dealer, and I had to jump it down to 150). Nonetheless, I fi...

It's looking like a fresh install would be best. It might be the only option. I'm trying a repair but I'm running into a documented issue where XP refuses to read the CD (the fixes in the KB do not work so far). I wanted to avoid the re-install mostly out of being lazy, but the big issue now is that...

Well the articles section had a good chunk of information but it still seems limited. I see plenty of articles on Samsung drives, a good number on Hitachi, and some notebook or external exclosure articles but very little else. The WD articles are old and the Seagate articles all seem to lament the l...

I noticed the threads on the WD2500KS, and even followed a link to the storage review site for some information. Seems like that particular model is at least controversial. My guess is that the Samsung drives are the new Seagate that I remember in that it's an easy recommendation. It's unfortunate t...

I haven't bought a hdd in a long time so my knowledge is very rusty. In fact, all my drives are still ATA and even though I have SATA motherboards I don't own a SATA drive yet. So I'm a bit confused when I research this board and the site recommendations and don't see much. From what I've researched...