Updating My Computer. Crossfire? Cl? Opteron?

[yoippari]

I got a x800 gto for christmas and my mother board is an msi kt4v. So basicly I need a new motherboard for my christmas present. To help with this I also got $100.01 credit at pcclub.

 

So I started looking around on the internet and find this thing called SLI (I have read enough to get basicly what it does) and crossfire. Now, I am partial to ati and amd so I would like to stay with these two companies. Before I consider a crossfire mobo though I am curious, do you need a dvi monitor to use crossfire with an x800 gto? All the pictures I have seen use DVI. I got an lcd screen for my birthday this year (two days before christmas) that is the standard 15 pin and I don't want to try and trade it in.

 

Seperate from that, what brand of motherboard should I look at? I don't need sata as I only have ide drives, I don't need raid, I do need something that will last me awhile. I read the tomshardware crossfire article and both the asus and dfi look good. These would only be good if I could use the crossfire setup, other than that I have no idea where to start. Chipset could be nvidia if I don't do crossfire.

 

For processors I don't know if I want athlon 64 or opteron or what. I was told that they stopped manufacturing non 64 mit models months ago is this true? I don't want to spend $300 on the processor alone but $200 is ok. What is the best buy for the $150-250 range? Which "model" (san diego, venice...)?

 

While I was at the store I looked at the ram a little. They had a pair of 512 pc3200 cl2-3-2-5 patriot for $140 or individual corsair 512 pc3200 cl2-3-3-7-t1 for $80 each. I am not familiar with cl rating but I know that cl3 is "slow", 2 is fast, the rest I am clueless on, so would spending the extra for the corsair be worth it?

 

edit:

I completely forgot about cooling. I am also looking into watercooling. I know a I work at a plumbing company so I should be able to get some expert help on actually plumbing the thing. Could probably solder whatever I need very easily. My questions on this are: Should I see if I can get the chevette heater core from a junk yard and solder the connections on myself (which I can probably get for less than retail, lot of savings there ) or should I just buy a radiator? Shoud I bother with the chipset and gpu coolers (ram coolers maybe, do they have ram water blocks) or just stick with the cpu cooler? Should get a water block with one inlet one outlet or one with two outlets and split them up to the gpu and chipset (a parallel system vs an inline).

Edited December 29, 2005 by yoippari

[Savan]

for the motherboard, go DFI. I dont know about the monitor. Opteron OC verry well, and I believe they are cheaper thean 64's, but I think they are 64 bit processors.

[yoippari]

So no help with CLs or crossfire with a non DVI monitor?

[bigred]

it's called a DVI to VGA adapter. yes it works.

 

 

also you'll notice there are very FEW crossfire users on occ so don't expect fast answers on it.