5punk

Hello again, been a while since I have been round these parts, one of the main reasons has been my addiction to X2 which is very much a single player affair, and also as my PC is now woefully underpowered.

I was wondering if I could get some sage like advice?

As I see upgrading is totally out of the question (will salvage HDD and DVD RW drives, monitor etc from existing system) but this is what im reckoning:

- AMD 64 3000 (or higher)
- at least 1gb of decent RAM

However whats holding me back is the SLi/Crossfire debate. The way I see it is I cant afford at the moment to get two gfx cards, but in future I dont want to cripple my upgrade path by making a wrong choice now.

- SLi seems more widely available, and the mobos seem to cheaper.
- Previously I have always been an ATi man, but by no means a fanboy and I will change if it makes sense.

So what would you recommend I go for? Also, tied up in the same quesiton, what gfx would you recommend.

Planning on using Xmas to get some components, probably the gfx card so time is a factor....

Any advice will be more than welcome,

Cheers

Personally I'd go for the SLi, and you can find a list of motherboards here

http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone2_build.html

For no real reason other than nearly all games are now designed with Nvidia in mind, and the fact it seems to be a more popular choice when going for a Dual Graphics Card setup.

If you go for SLi, then I would get a 7800 of some sort, as this will see you through for a long time, and then once things slow down and become a struggle in probably a year or two's time, another one would be dead cheap by then, but should have enough grunt to power the latest games.

It's all a bit of guesswork to be honest, and also a lot to do with personal preference, but I'd stick with Nvidia, but I'm sure Deject probably knows more on the matter technically, so I'd wait till he gets chance to show the differences between them, as I am far from being a hardware expert

Thanks WEY, I was thinking very similar things myself. Busy pricing up various systems to see what I can afford!

Yeah SLI/Nvidia are more established now with the dual card option, you'd have to hang on a while to see how crossfire turns out.

Make sure you get an sli compatible motherboard and card so you can upgrade later