Questions about my new PC.

[Rhenerie]

Hello every one, im new to the forum and have a couple of questions.

First off, im buying a Brand new "Ibuypower" PC . and here are my specs

AMD Athlon-64 3800+ CPU w/ Hyper transport technology

Gigabyte GA K8N Yltra-SLI nVidia nForce4-SLI Chipset w/ lan, 7.1 Sound IEEE-1394, USB 2.0 Duel PCI-E motherboard

Windows XP home (I was told to wait on the x64 windows because its still scetchy)

[512MB X2] DDR-400 PC3200 Memory module corsair XMS PRO w/ LED

[PCI-Express 16x] ATI Radeon X800XL 256MB w/DVI + TV out video

250GB [S-ATA] western digital Harddrive with 8mb Cache

sony 16x dvd rom


Now my questions are ... am i going to be able to run, say Half life 2 FULL bore ?

DO i actually need a sound card to RUN games life Half life 2 ?

Howgood do you thing the 7.1 motherboard sound will be, acceptable?

After all i only have first generation Creative 5.1 speakers

Thanks for any help you guys can offer .

 

[Dishdog]

Welcome to the forum:

With that system you will be able to kill half life 2! your system is very nice. you will be able to run your audio off your MOBO. i run my logitech Z-5300e 5.1 speakers off my MOBO and i play that game fine, and your system is better so you won't have any porblems.

 

[Methost]

The onboard sound should be fine.

You are getting an SLI motherboard but an ATI GPU? Why is that exactly? Either get an Nvidia GPU or skip the SLI motherboard.

 

[Dishdog]

I was wondering that too.

 

[Rhenerie]

I've done some research and here is why i am getting the SLI mother board .

First off the graphics card im getting is not the BEST on the market but in comparison with the nVidia thats comperable and even the HIGHEST end nVidia it looks to be better . Plus i cant offord the best ..

Now i got the SLI motherboard because it was only a $40 upgrade and right now from what i hear, besides running at alot higher resolutions Duel cards are actually not as fast as single ATI's . But in the near future thats suppost to change ... so basicly i got the board so in 6 months when i wanna run .... who knows what i can go and spend 1k on 2 512MB nVida cards ... but for now i think the one ATI was the best bet for my dollor .

 

[Dishdog]

Makes sence.

 

[Rhenerie]

Im glad ......

....

... i was starting to loose myself ..

 

[Rhenerie]

Oh BTW its also a black case with a Mirrored front face and going to have a side cut out and internally lit Blue. With 2 "Silent" LED lit fans And the Corsair XMS pro ram has LED lights on it to .... so it should look neat to .... i got it all for 1,600$ US dollors

 

[Rhenerie]

And i Can't WAITTTT for Half life 2 ..... and some one is makeing a Cooperative MOD for it to .... me and my friend from scottland will be playing that ALL DAY LONG ! .

 

[Kage]

Half life 2's been out ages...

I like the idea for your system, good luck with it