jdboyd wrote: I think you have me confused with someone else. I'm in the USA, and I don't have a V10.
Rats ! who am I to give advice, I can't even get the person straight !
Guess that won't stop me tho, since I've been giving this exact problem some thought. The r12-270 is definitely the way to go if you wanna do it piecemeal and on the cheap. Since I'm a cheap bastard, that was the way I was leaning myself. You get all the good parts except for the blue skins. You can always use the ESI graphics for a dual head setup some day in the future. Everything else is non-redundant,.
Next choice if you wanted to blow a little more would be the 360. Faster cpu, VPro grafix (if that's suitable for what you want) and blue skins. You've got drives already. I'd pass on the shoebox as well until you can confirm that it's your cage, not the mainboard that was the problem. Except I'd check the shoebox and make sure there's no short in the connector, which might be causative in your current frontplane problems ? Get out the magnifying glass ...
Third choice would be kind of a luxury, but hell. $350 for a NEW Octane, damn. It's definitely a temptation. Not quite as sexy as the Octane2 but new. No, let's make that NEW.
Anyway, all the options are under $350 plus shipping, so this is a lot better than the situation was just a year ago. Hell, I was so excited when I got my r10k-195 with a big 4 gig drive and 256 megs memory for $600 bucks that i about shit. Soooooo .... no matter what you get, it'll be a pretty good deal. I don't think you could get a good new mommyboard for a peecee for the price of that r12-270 ....
now, who the heck is in Ozztralia with the V10 grafix ?