What kind of hardware is needed to support an FX 5900/Radeon

[GiMP]

I guess a 256MB version of the 5900 Ultra would be even better but they didn't carry it for some reason... I'll look around some more.

[Wiggo]

If ya go the AMD road then forget about anything else except the nForce2 Ultra (8RDA3+ is my rec) and go for the XP2600+/2700+ (the Barton's lower frequency and larger L2 cache doesn't really add up in most cases) plus atm I'd also grab the FX5900 if I had the dollars but grab PC3500 memory as the minimum.

[GiMP]

Seems to be a division all over the net between the Asus A7N8x-X (and above) line and the EPOX 8RDA+ ... well I guess I can't go wrong, never tried EPoX so maybe I'll give them a chance.

I checked into the XP 2800+ (Tbred) as opposed to the Barton but they're both exactly the same price so I might as well go with the Barton.

Depending on what I can get for my current stuff I might go for the XMS3500... and then that should probably be enough power behind an FX 5900 or Radeon 9800 Pro to make it go.

Has it even been shown which is faster yet lol Every site seems to have a different story, I've seen both the Radeon and the FX completely blow the other away on different sites :confused: Are they using different drivers?

[Wiggo]

I'd be very surprised if ya find an XP2800+ T'bred as they wound up bein' a paper release only due their bein' able to whomp Barton cores in most tests.

[GiMP]

I called up the place I usualy buy my gear from and they said they had both 2800+ Tbreds and Bartons for the same price ($265 Canadian) and they're in stock :eek:

The Tbred has better performance? I gotta find some benches

[chezman]

Has it even been shown which is faster yet lol Every site seems to have a different story, I've seen both the Radeon and the FX completely blow the other away on different sites Are they using different drivers?

Most likely it is due to the different builds used by 3DMARK. They have a new build that is supposed to take away some of the controversial programming built into Nvidia boards. You can read about it.
The build is called the "330". When you test an Nvidia board with 3DMark build 330, you will get a lower score than using just the regular build.

Hope that clears some of it up for you,
Chez