Dammit, any idea why it might not work... I have an ATI card... X1950XT

Go to Alienware.com and max out their top end rig. It'll blow you away.

Area 51 / 7500 model
Intel Duel core 3.4Ghz MB
4 Gig RAM
2x RAID HDs
Top end vid card
Top end sound card
Liquid cooling
7.1 Doulby speaker system
21" LCD flat panel monitor

It came out to around $6500. Though the one I want will end up being around $3800 when done.

I didn't get a monitor or sound card with my current one and only a 120Gig HD. Didn't have that much $$$ to play with last time. This time I can go all out if I choose to.

This one I have now cost $2200 when I bought it, but I didn't take a few things that time.

Alienware makes nice machines, but oh so $$$$. I built this rig for $750.. (off newegg of course)

Intel 965LT Mobo
1 gig Crucial
E6400 (2.13ghz core 2 duo)
80 gig Sata
7600GT OC 256mb PCI-E
Antec 1050B 500watt case/ps

To that I added a game theatre XP 7.1 card, 200gig IDE and a pioneer DVDR out of my old machine. Plenty fast with XP Pro and here are a few results:

3dmark05. 1024x768, AA off.

Score was 6229 in game tests.
Score was 7029 in CPU test.

Couldn't change any of the specifics of 3dmark due it being a free version, but my score was more than 2.5x higher than my friend who owns a p4 3.2, and comparable hardware. Core 2 duo is where it is at, and you don't need to pay big prices for all the extra crap (lights, painted cases, etc.) I've learned in all my years of building machines, always drop about 2-3 steps below the highest end stuff, for the best deal, and just slightly slower speeds. Never go with top of the line as it is out of date by the time it hits your front door.

Just my nickels worth...
Tool.

Et tu AS?

I've got a Geforce 6600 too , decent card....but don't expect to run Oblivion in settings other than low-medium :)

Depends on what other hardware you have. I got a Pentium IV 3.2 GHz and 1024MB DDR Ram and Oblivion runs fine in an acceptable medium setting. Some games rather depend on RAM than on graphic boards. Apart from that, I totally agree with you that my GeForce 6600 is out of date, e.g. I tried playing FEAR and it went like a slide show:damn:

But when I said "a GeForce 6600 is enough, save the money for some next generation card when prices will have dropped" I was just referring to SH3 (that´s what the original post was all about!!!)

Cheers, AS

Yeah, Oblivion does run ok in somewhat mediumish settings , my sys is an AMD 3500+ w/1024 mb ram too :) . Hmm...but i'm not going for the 8800 yet...too expensive, and ATI is soon going to release their monster.

If you've got the cash for it, maybe another 6600 in SLI configuration would be a good bet. That's what I'm running (with an AMD 3400+ and a gig of ram....nearly identical setup as yours, Tach) and I was running Oblivion in medium-high settings.

My Alienware ($2600) was supposed to ship on 11/30. It did not. It is in stage 5 of nine stages. I hope all these stages are a good sign. Without being able to play for a while (dead comp) I had to go to 688I on my laptop to keep from going into withdrawal. SH III will not run on it.
Did not go for the top end gaming machine with Alien ware. NOTE I think it was Sgt. Swanson that posted he was going to wait untill Vista came out. With the purchase of on of their top three machines with Windows Media. You get a free upgrade to Vista.

Wrong! you can get an Athlon 64 3400 and 3700 for socket 754, rare as rocking horse **** though.

:nope: