Holy cow. I finally finished Half-Life 2, and boy was I ever impressed with that game. AWESOME, baby. It was a fun ride the whole way. Last level was kind of a pain, but what else is new?

So that has left me in a conundrum. What next? I think I already decided that, because I have delved hard and heavy into X-Men Legends again, after a long hiatus, and I am happy to report that it is still awesome. I'm not sure exactly what should be next, though...

Here's my choices:
Star Wars KOTOR
Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
Prince of Persia, the Sands of TIme
Transformers
X2: Wolverine's Revenge (this game makes me sad because I think it could have been awesome but it sucks, good thing I only paid $5 for it)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Hmmm. Hell, that's a pretty good order right there, isn't it.

So I've been working with my Leadtek 6800, overclocking and tweaking, and it flat rocks. In fact, I'm pretty sure my Sempron bottlenecks it handily.

I have it stable at 400/800. which is ultra speed on the Core (I'll never hit it on memory though). It kicks. Here's my benches, without tweaking my machine in any way... the benches are being run with antivirus, antispyware, steam, etc. running. Oh, and Rivatuner's HW monitor, to keep an eye on temps.

3DMark01 - 12,000-13,000 (that's that Sempron)
3DMark03 - 9,000+
Aquamark-40,000+

I haven't downloaded 3Dmark05, but I think you get the picture. It's fantastic. I love it. According to Rivatuner, the temps have maxed out at 63, it idles around 47 or less, so that massive heatsink is paying off. It plays HL2 very well at 1280x1024 with everything on high AND 2xAA and 2xAF. It will run at that res with AA and AF juiced, but if I get into a large area it starts to chop, so I tuned them down. It runs about the same at 1600x1200 2xAA2xAF, occasional chops. Runs great at 1600x1200 no AA no AF.

It also runs Halo at 1600x1200 juiced... so I guess the bottom line is, not bad at all for $185.

Got my 6800 last night. Threw it in and watched my benches double, not to mention the performance of Half Life 2. Sweet as candy.

I haven't even begun to tweak the thing yet. The massive copper heatpiped HSF on it is begging me to do so, however. I mean it, that thing is HUGE.

I'll check back with more work under my belt.