240 Supports dx10.1! Though a personally like the gts250 for your purpose since it can be easily overclocked and accepts most aftermarket air coolers, so if you do find yourself having a bottleneck (which I doubt)......you have a solution, but those are all good solutions as well.
I would also recommend that if you go with nvidia get an evga or xfx since they both have amazing warranties (bfgtech also used to but they really dropped the ball lately). I personally love evga because of the step up program.
(Not to Hijack my own thread, but...)
UPDATE: in the first post i recited the specs for my little pathetically sad laptop. well after much tweaking and a kick in the pants i managed to load the whole Mario Kart Wii game (MP7 & 8 still refuse). im getting maybe 3-4fps, 6.5 on a good day. its running at about 7% of the operating speed which means a 2minute race takes about 30 minutes.lame, i know, but on the other hand, its very relaxing...
The vectoring on the graphics is off. on certain maps the game superextends the polygon shapes all over the screen, destroying visibility, and Mario is a puzzle of disconnected polygons... most of the other characters are fine though.
anyway, back to the gfx cards...
EDIT:oops, looks like someone already posted. my bad. and HEY! this card is $99 and its ur 250, galaxy any good?:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814162034&cm_re=gtx_250-_-14-162-034-_-Product
this looks good too:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814134064&cm_re=gtx_250-_-14-134-064-_-Product
EDIT2: wait, if i buy an amd processor can i buy an intel motherboard? is the hardware independent? (as in, any brand of RAM WILL work in any motherboard, assuming ddr2-3...etc)
EDIT3 (not a big fan of double posts if you couldnt tell): the more we chat, the more i feel as if im building this computer virtually, understanding piece by piece how everything will work together.
i noticed that my AMD phen has a "4000mhz hypertransport or something." does this have to do with the FSB? in the amd modo that u posted (ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard) its compatible bus is 2600mhz "hyper transport."
1. can this be overclocked to match, or come close to the processor to decrease the chance for bottlenecking?
2. is ddr3 backwards compatible with ddr2? otherwise i may just put the gun to my head and by the 240pin ddr3 compatible with that board.
3. i guess ram is oc'd from the mobo.. (well, bios, but the mobo would determine how the ram could be oc'd?)
1. No galaxy is one of the most unreliable brands, that's why they are so cheap. But generally speaking even if I hadn't told you that you can always tell by the reviews (that card has abysmal reviews). I may have spoken to soon though, 240 might be a good choice for you. The cheapest you can get a 250 for from a reputable brand is $135. This 240 is from a reputable brand and costs $100:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130530 The things I don't like about the 240 include its lack of SLI (doesn't matter since your mobo doens't support it), its lack of dx11 (will require that you spend a lot more money on an ati card to get this though), it only supports 1 display, and it may be difficult to find an aftermarket air cooler that works with it.
2. No you cannot mix and match brands of mobo and cpu, your cpu and mobo must both be the same brand. Ram will work on any mobo as long as it has the right numbers of pins, number of memory controllers (ddr, ddr2, ddr3), and the rated speed of the ram is within the speed range of the mobo.
3. Ugh....I will explain this in our next chat if you bring it up, just don't worry about it.
1. Yes HT can be OCed.
2. No you must use ddr3 with a ddr3 board.
3. Yes. Also latencies are modified from the bios, I'll explain that in our next chat.
Best thing to do is wait if you want a good name brand video card, mobo etc but don't have the money. Don't go get a cheap card such as galaxy. For instance I waited on my gts 250 and newegg eventually had a 48 hr sale one time and had a BFG gts 250 which I snapped up quickly for 85 dollars with a 20 dollar rebate(that was 4 months ago). If you are patient and have a good idea of whatcha want to get then, the online dealers such as newegg, tigerdirect, etc. usually have good deals. Def wait to see whats going on for the after thanksgiving sale. Who knows what good things will be coming up.
Oh just to add a gt 240 is pretty much equivalent to a 9600 gso but with different and higher memory. Same clock and stream processes.
Quote:Oh just to add a gt 240 is pretty much equivalent to a 9600 gso but with different and higher memory. Same clock and stream processes.
Except it has about 40% more video memory bandwidth, 1/3 more memory, dx10.1, 40nm architecture giving it a lot less power consumption and tdp and a smaller board. But other than that it's about the same
. It's performance is about on par with a 9600 gt, a lot faster than a 9600GSO. Although for the same price you can get a much faster 9800gt which also has sli, dual monitor, and better air cooler support, but it's a trade off since it lacks 40nm and dx10.1.
Or as I said and others just get a gts 250 instead of the gt 240 if you were contemplating a gt 240.
Oh natural. Your arguing over spilled milk. I was comparing clock, stream processes, and memory.
Yeah I was just arguing the fact that you said a 240 was "pretty much equivalent to a 9600 gso". Obviously the key factor in deciding between a 250 and 240 is price, but black friday is coming up soon so I agree with what you said earlier he should wait and see if he can score a special one time deal. BTW sorry for being such an ass lately, just really depressed about my statistics grade.
easy people! i will not tolerate bickering on this thread.
im waiting to see if i can get any deals for black friday, but ill probably just bite the bullet and go with a 250/260 (after putting a gun to my head on the ddr3 issue). i want this thing to last (at least in terms of what i define as "last") for a good half a decade.
more questions coming, just busy and tired right now.. cheers.
*Bumped*
---Well, this is it! the build is on its way---
1 x ($69.99) CASE SUNBEAM|IC-TR-US-BA-WOPSU RT - Retail
$69.99
1 x ($84.99) PSU OCZ|OCZ700MXSP 700W RT - Retail
$84.99
1 x ($2.99) ADATPER REXUS|DVI-VGA R - Retail
$2.99
1 x ($129.99) VGA ASUS|ENGTS250/DI/512MD3 RT - Retail
$129.99
1 x ($94.99) MEM 2Gx2|GSKILL F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL - Retail
$94.99
1 x ($33.99) DVD BURN SONY-NEC|AD-7241S-0B % - OEM
$33.99
1 x ($119.99) MB ASUS M4A79XTD EVO 790X AM3 RT - Retail
$119.99
1 x ($165.99) CPU AMD|PH II X4 955 3.2G AM3 R - Retail
$165.99
1 x ($8.39) COMPOUND ARCTIC SILVER|CMQ-22G RTL - Retail
$8.39
1 x ($-55.00) DISCOUNT FOR COMBO #295699
$-55.00
1 x ($-3.00) DISCOUNT FOR PROMOTION CODE
$-3.00
Grand total: $650 or something (with about a buck fifty - two hundred in rebates)
Really appreciate the help, gang, especially NatVio... man, if there is anything you need, you just let me know. i appreciate the help and advice, and would be more than happy to reciprocate it. i may continue to post with benchmarks, errors, etc.
Still got a bit of reading to do. apparently youve gotta flash the bios to the mobo via usb stick. no clue at all. anyway, cheers folks, and thx again for all the help.
~later,
Glad I could help. And you should never flash the bios unless you absolutely have to, as in you have some kind of horrible problem. Even then it should be a final alternative. If you need help with anything related to computers but not dolphin just IM or skype me. If you ever need help with dolphin use IRC.