[Morbit]

I don't know mates :o
9800's are cutting edge with pci express 2 (you'll need a new motherboard for that) and open gl 2.1
and they're getting great reviews over on Newegg, but they're already talking about a 9900 :roll:

In order to take advantage of the DX10 you're going to need vista
what I've done is I'm running a dual boot with XP pro and Vista32

right now I'm running a core dual 6600 OC, 8800gtx,and a 24in acer In 1920x1200
Works great for now, but what about BOB :wink:

This is the kind of hype-regurgitation I'm talking about. The 9800 is not cutting edge. It is 2 8800 cores sandwiched onto 1 card, running with SLI mode automatically enabled and set in nvidia drivers. How can you use the term "cutting edge" to describe technology that is well over 2 years old? (or older depending on what parts you count) Despite being on one card it is STILL a 2-GPU SLI solution. It was designed to lure 2 types of buyers: the gullible or ignorant with plenty of cash, and the single slot people (especially SFF) who want SLI but for whatever reason can only have 1 slot. I was once one of those people that talked up SLI like it was worthwhile, then I actually used it for a year. It isn't.

Dual booting is a possibility if you wish to use Vista for some reason. I can't think of any good reason, but if you can, it's much preferable to dual boot than to abandon XP right now. DX10 remains useless, only a few games look -slightly- better with DX10 effects enabled and the performance hit is awful. Plus compatibility is still rancid.

BOB is unlikely to take advantage of multiple GPUs. If you have information to suggest otherwise, please link us. I have a feeling people are expecting far too much from BOB, and will be very disappointed when it's not the jump that IL2 was over... well what did we have before... Jane's WWII Fighters perhaps?

PS: What's a "core dual 6600 oc" -- Do you mean core2quad Q6600?

Back to work...

Edit: Picture of my office assistant for s&g --

http://b.imagehost.org/0796/Picture_059.jpg

PCI express 2.0x16 is the latest technology allowing you to take advantage of the new
dual core graphics cards, and in SLI thats (4) cores.
the best card offered by nvidia right now is the 9800GX2 which has 256 (128 per core)stream processors compared to the 880GTX's 128 and even less in the GT (112)

I'm overclocking a core2duo E6600 which will smoke a Q6600 in both cost and performance

DX10 is a step up from DX9 and you can see It. You're right there isn't much out there to take
advantage of It yet ,but there will be.

The poor performance you're talking about must be referring to a game like Crysis. Now a couple patches later, and Its looking a lot better. For me the best game I've played In DXC10 was Bioshock

Just remember,what ever equipment you decide on Its going to be old technology In six months
Thats why Instead of calling It (Cutting edge) they call It (bleeding edge) technology :evil: