New PC help/Old PC Question

brahmasoccer09

brahmasoccer09

CAG Veteran
Old PC Question:
I have an aging Dell E510. (3.0 GHz P4, 160GB HD, DVD drive) A few weeks ago, my 7600GT went beserk and got fried. As in the fan stopped working and the stickers melted off beserk. I took it out and it's en route to EVGA for an RMA. Now, it seems as if the PC gets really really hot inside, so the fan starts spinning really really fast. Like a helicopter taking off fast. It's only a one fan system. I took the system apart, checked the heatsink and the fan for any signs of failure or wear, and found none. I have no idea why it's doing it. The only thing I added was a 4 port USB hub in one of the unused PCI slots. Could anyone shed some light on this?

New PC question:
I have loads of parts that I've gotten to upgrade the E510 that I'd like to use for a new gaming rig. Nothing too fancy, but a DX10 capable monster. This would be my first build. I have a 8600GTS (Is it worth the hassle to return it to ZipZoomFly and wait for a good 8800GT price?), a DVD-RW drive, an X-Fi, and a Fatality KB and Mouse. I think I'd need the following:
NEWEGG
Case: CoolerMaster RC-690 ($59-20MIR=$29)
HD: Samsung 250GB ($63) Is there anything different than a Spinpoint P or S?
Mobo: Foxconn C51XEM2AA ($179-80MIR=99.99)
PSU: CoolMax CXI600-B 600Watt ($79-40MIR=39)
Mem: Corsair 2GB ValueRAM ($49) Is there any other brand that's better?
CPU: AMD Athlon 4800+ 2.5GHZ Brisbane Dual-Core ($99)
TOTAL: $532.94- 140=$392.
DELL
19" Widescreen FP: $199

Is there anything I'm missing? Or any upgrades that will keep this future proof?
Thanks in advance.
 
Your ram isn't quite right. With that system, you're gonna want PC6400 (DDR2 800)

And yeah, if you can return that 8600, you'd be a LOT better off with a 8800GT.
 
Thanks. I went ahead and jumped with an OCZ DDR2 800 with a $35 rebate so it was cheaper than before. I'm seeing if ZZF charges much for returns.
 
I just got some of the parts today (i read the reviews first: 4eggs/5 for 225 reviews is pretty good over the other mobos i looked at), and my initial impression is that the board is solidly built, with good slot placement. I couldn't pass up the $80 MIR, though, for an SLI board. Also, I've used eVGA's Step-Up program to get an 8800GT for $120. Is it worth the trouble (is it even possible) to SLI the 8800GT with the 7600GT I have in an old system (Both are SLI-ready)? Would the generation gap (ie DX9/DX10) cause the DX10 games to only use DX9?
 
It's not possible.

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODY5
Mis-Matched Card Capabilities


One of the major roadblocks for SLI originally was the fact that you had to have matching video cards to use it. Worse still, early SLI adopters not only had to worry about the brand of the cards they were using, but also the BIOS versions for those cards. Today’s SLI is much different. While it is my opinion that NVIDIA still has a major hand in making sure SLI-able cards are up to spec, I picked two very different cards to put into my SLI rig. As mentioned above, I’m happy to say that an EVGA 7800 GTX and an MSI 7800 GTX are working well together. Keep in mind that these two cards do not even share the same default GPU and RAM speeds. In spite of the fact that the cards are from different manufacturers, and that they run at different GPU and RAM speeds, rest assured that they -- as NVIDIA promised -- work very well together.

Note: You must still use two graphics cards that have the same GPU model. For example, a GeForce 7800 GT must be matched with another GeForce 7800 GT (not with a GeForce 7800 GTX or a GeForce 6800 Ultra).
Click to expand...
 
How awesome would that be though?

Buy a new 8x00 series card and have your 7x00 series card help get a little more performance out of your games. You could double the cards life span.
 
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