GA-X58A-UD3....which psu?

[shadostalker]

you guys are awesome, it's been great to get some ideas from ones that know their stuff. I have always tended to go for the nvidia cards in the past and stuck with them more through habit than education, as the first time i had to make the decision ati cards seemed to be getting a lot of dislike for their compatibility with a lot of games (going back a while now tho) from reviews i read. Does this still occur or are they both on relatively equal terms now?

Thanks in advance for the reply

[Dark Mantis]

If anything the ATI cards are out in front. The only nVidia card the 480 is great but it doesn't actually conform to the ATX standard and uses too much power. Saying that it is a mean beast! The top of the range ATI Radeon cards are also briliant and have what is known as eyefinity - you can link up monitors to have a surround vision sort of thing. Absolutely breathtaking when you see it done properly. All of the top 5xxx series cards have this option. Both makes are very good but the ATI Radeons usually are more powerfull and quieter. If you want a quiet card look at the Sapphire Radeon Vapor-X series they are much more silent than the standard run of the mill cards.

[Peteruk]

Cost for performance of a single card vs performance of multi-card setup (in your case multi-card setup) at what resolution you be using and compare that to benchmarks to workout the cost for value that is the best.
Note: drivers used in benchmarks play a big part in how well the cards do in the tests.

Going SLi or CF is just one or the other both do the same thing.

[shadostalker]

at the moment i have gone for the coolermaster silent pro m1000 and for the budget i am considering the sapphire rad hd5770 vapor-x 1024mb with 2*dvi/hdmi, would this be suitable? price falls just short of £150 so not too high for a pair at £300 or would you suggest pushing the boat out a little further with the budget on something better?

[Dark Mantis]

The PSU would seem to be fine choice and the 5770 is a nice card. A lot depends on what your main use of your system is. I would take it from your talking about multiple graphics cards that you want to play games, if so the 5850 would be a better choice. It is 256bit rather than 128bit and is a more powerful card in general.

[Peteruk]

Your not going to need 1000W for a pair of HD 5770 you can run them on a 600-650W PSU

so for some other cards:
HD 5830 or GTX 460 750W
HD 5850 or GTX 470 750W+ ATi lists 600W but many PSU's at that power output don't have 4 PCI-e connectors which is why both groups I listed is the same.

Going to leave out HD 5870 and GTX 480 because for you to list HD 5770 must be out of your budget.