TriggerHappy,Sep 17 2003, 12:53 PM Wrote:Do nForce 2 mainboards support more than two hard drives, or would i need to get a seperate IDE controller for any extra hard drives? Or would this depend on the actual mainboard itself?
All nForce boards (well, pretty much every board nowadays) come with a standard IDE controller that supports up to 4 drives (2 channels, master + slave). Given that one will be taken by a CD/DVD unit, it'll support 3 drives nicely. Some of them come with also a Serial ATA controller with RAID support, that can take more drives (but these will have to be S-ATA or you'll need an adapter).
TriggerHappy,Sep 17 2003, 12:53 PM Wrote:What kind of memory would be best for taking advantage of the dual DDR channel? How much more would it cost or is it just a matter of having, for example, two 256mb chips instead of one 512mb chip?
As I said, some manufacturers sell paired memory modules that have been tested to play nice with the dual channel feature and charge a bit more. But I have a friend who just slapped his regular DDR memory modules in and it all worked out flawlessly. I'll add my own experience since I've ordered one of these too for myself (after a most unfortunate incident involving a badly wired power supply and some burnt connectors). Just buy normal DDR modules. I'll tell you by next week when I put my new MOBO in place :D
2x256 Mb is OK, most boards come with 3 memory slots so if you need more you can always add a third DDR module. 2x256 should also come a bit cheaper too ;)
TriggerHappy,Sep 17 2003, 12:53 PM Wrote:If i were to upgrade my video card in the very near future, what would be a cost effective card that would offer a significant improvement over my GF4 4200?
As it's been pointed out in the thread, a mid-range ATI card is probably the best value right now. Don't go around spending your hard earned cash for the top of the line DirectX 9 cards that will be just OK by the time DX9 is standard in games instead of just a gizmo for some highly advertised ones. That ti4200 should have plenty of room for overclocking (you should be able to get 4400 performance with no problem), those GF4s are excellent cards.