7800gs vs 7800gt

I agree. The 7800 GS isn't worth it right now. Maybe if the price dropped to $250, it would be a good buy.

my stupid compaq only has a 300w power supply...something tells me that im going to need a new psu to be able to handle the 7800 series

the superclocked one is clocked a lot higher, get it!

Indeed

exactly!!!

I'm not sure I agree with this. Socket AM2 is just around the corner (July is the estimated release date) which will be replacing Socket 939. Socket 939 processors will not fit in Socket AM2, nor will current socket 940s. You also have to change your cpu fan in most cases and upgrade to DDR2 memory. So you may just want to wait a bit for that to show up.

More on Socket AM2:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipse [...] spx?i=2688

Even Though M2 Will Be Round Shortly Dosent Mean That Socket 939 Will Be Be A Bad Idea..... Semprons Will Likely Be Moved Up To Socket 939 And CPU Will Go Clear Up To The FX60 And Theres Even A X2 5000+ Planned For Socket 939 AND M2 And AMD Has Stated That There A Few Newer Faster CPU Slated For Release For socket 939 AND M2 As Well, And Many Of The Ones That Are Actually For M2 Will Be Nearly The Same (With The Exception Of The Faster Hypertransport And DDR2 Memory Controller Starting From The 3200+ And Up, Wich Almost Garaunteed That Socket 939 Isnt Quite Dead Yet...... And Besides You Should Always Wait About 6 Or So Months For Prices To Go Down On The Newest Technology (And Give Time Ta Get The "Bugs" Out), Besides All That RELLY Matters For The Average Gamer Is A Fast Graphics Card Riding The PCI-E Bus Anywayse, So Why Not? And I Doubt DDR2 Will Make A Huge Impact On Performance Between The S939s And M2s Anywayse

The difference between DDR and DDR2 is almost none. So if your not going to upgrade any thing else, then buy a new motherboard and a 7800GT or a pairs of 6800GS/GT/Ultra...

You don't have to format but it is suggested. You can do the following and it will work most of the time with new hardware. I use it instead of formating. After the repair is done you will have to go through the regester with microsoft again and activate your copy of WinXP.

XP Repair install

1. Boot the computer using the XP CD. You may need to change the boot order in the system BIOS so the CD boots before the hard drive. Check your system documentation for steps to access the BIOS and change the boot order.
2. When you see the "Welcome To Setup" screen, you will see the options below

This portion of the Setup program prepares Microsoft
Windows XP to run on your computer:

To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER.

To repair a Windows XP installation using Recovery Console, press R.

To quit Setup without installing Windows XP, press F3.
3. Press Enter to start the Windows Setup.

To Repair Install, press ENTER
To setup Windows XP now and Repair Install , press ENTER. do not choose "To repair a Windows XP installation using the Recovery Console, press R", (you Do Not want to load Recovery Console). I repeat, do not choose "To repair a Windows XP installation using the Recovery Console, press R".
4. Accept the License Agreement and Windows will search for existing Windows installations.
5. Select the XP installation you want to repair from the list and press R to start the repair. If Repair is not one of the options, read this Warning#2!
6. Setup will copy the necessary files to the hard drive and reboot. Do not press any key to boot from CD when the message appears. Setup will continue as if it were doing a clean install, but your applications and settings will remain intact.

If you get files not found during the copying stage.

Blaster worm warning: Do not immediately activate over the internet when asked, enable the XP firewall before connecting to the internet. You can activate after the firewall is enabled. Control Panel - Network Connections. Right click the connection you use, Properties and there is a check box on the Advanced page.

KB 833330u Blaster removal

What You Should Know About the Sasser Worm and Its Variants

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS04-011
7. Reapply updates or service packs applied since initial Windows XP installation. Please note that a Repair Install from the Original install XP CD will remove SP1/SP2 and service packs will need to be reapplied.

Actually DDR2 In Some Cases Can Actually Have Worse Performance Than Standard "DDR1" Thats Why I Wish That AMD Would Just Stick With Standard DDR And Improve The Chips Themselves By Making The Hypertransport Faster, Going To .65nm And Doubling The L2 Caches (From 512KB To 1MB On The 512KB Modles And 1MB To 2MB On The 1MB Versions)And Doubling The L1 As-Welll

Intel is not in the lead and the larger cache makes almost no difference whatsoever in most apps.

Intel + DDR2 667 can barely keep up with AMD64 939+nForce4 + hypertransport + DDR400 despite the 1 - 1.2GHz clock deficit.

The onboard memory controller makes a huge difference.

The only benchmarks Intel can claim are the synthetic ones which are biased towards Intel and are notoriously inaccurate.

In real-world benchmarks AMD takes the lead and maintains it. AMD64 optimized code runs even faster. Keep in mind most code AMD64s are benchmarked with is optimized for Intel and NOT AMD.

Yes DDR2 draws less power, but they have so bad timings now...

The best way to improve performance is to employ greater parallelism.

Cranking up the clock frequency will continue to require more wait states.

I would rather have a CPU that can address 4 or more DIMMs @ once running at full speed with 2-2-2-5 1T timings.

BS AMD dont have ddr2 yet so how the puck you know that, dude. Pentuim always had bad timming.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html

Cant beat the facts dude. Look at the muli tasking dude do you see pentuim in the lead dont come and bs us anymore.

very true and that is where ddr2 will be able to deliver this in a speedier way.