Lsdmeasp & others in the know.

[frodoz737]

Hi all, first post here.
Was directed here by a hack buddy at work to help with two questions.

Subject: New build with GA-EP45-UD P and Q9650.

Q one: Prefered 8GB memory (4x2) to use?
Q two: Prefered high end video card (one) with no issues?

Rest of build - PC/750 pwr, TV card, zigmatec sink, one HD, two opticals, air cooled case.
Usage is heavy office & gaming, entertainment, light CAD and all the other junk.

Thanks.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Lsdmeasp & others in the know.

I dont game, but I prefer Sapphire ATI Cards myself. As for what card you should get I would ask maybe in the GFX card section of the forum for a better reply.

+1 for Mushkins (Black/Best or Blue) or Crucial here (2.0V new type of Crucial)

[VorLonUK]

Re: Lsdmeasp & others in the know.

I personally prefer Nvidia cards. In my experience, whilst both makes can suffer with compatability/driver/hardware/software issues etc (like any hardware), Ati's cards if and when there is a problem, always seem to have the most bizarre of faults.
I've never had an Nvidia issue, that wasn't fixed by a driver update. But's that's just my experience.

As far as memory goes, it's a fantastic market with so much choice (Unlike OS's and CPU's).
The two enthusiast market leaders with the most aggressive pricing has to be Corsair and OCZ and because of that they rival each other.
On the other side you have Mushkin, Geil, Gskill which are worth checking out. Crucial I always find is a safe bet, but unlike the others it's main market focus appears to be on mainstream memory, but nevertheless has an "enthusiast" product line.

I tend to purchase what I think performs well and as importantly if it has a long warranty that I can easily use it if there should be a problem. It's no good in my opinion if you pay effectively for a lifetime or 10 year warranty (for example) in with the price of the product, if when it comes to an RMA, you have to ship the product halfway around the world. This can cost quite a bit and moreso if you want to speed up the turnaround time.

So for me here in the UK, both Gigabyte and OCZ have offices, although the OCZ support is in Europe.
Recently I Rma'd some OCZ memory simply because I wasn't happy with performance (although it did work as advertised - not as reviewed). The whole turnaround time was just one week! That was me returning the modules from the UK to Holland, being checked in and inspected, issueing a replacement that was sent from the US straight back to me.