Building a system, still unsure of Video Card

[sonic777]

I'm running with dual 460's and very happy but I have read that the 470's will out perform for a decent enough cost offset.

Looks like a nice rig!

[Slats]

I'm getting almost the same machine except I went with some very low latency G.Skill RAM and I'm using an OCZ RevoDrive X2 240GB which runs in a PCIe slot.

I got the same card but didn't bother with the over clocked version. I had a huge amount of trouble with 2 or 3 XFX cards that where slightly overclocked and as soon as I undertuned them down to factory defaults all my problems went away so now I just steer clear as a rule of thumb.

I also replaced the stock cooler with a different one as apparently the stock one on the EE is noisy and huge and not that great.

Real really happy to hear that you can run shit on Ultra and High. That is exactly what I want to do. I also bought 2x 1TB Cavier WD Black drives that are SATAIII to raid together to do alot of FRAPs on.

Are you happy with the sound card on the Rampage II Extreme or would you get a proper Creative Card?

I was considering a second GTX580 but good to know there is no point - I tend to shy away from SLi

[Bloodcloud]

Thinking about a similar system:

GPU : ASUS EAH5870/2DIS/1GD5/V2 Processor
CPU: Intel Core i7 950 / 3.06 GHz LGA1366 Socket - L3 8 MB
MOBO: ASUS Rampage III Extreme Republic of Gamers
MEM: Kingston HyperX T1 *3 =12GB
Hard Drive : Samsung Spinpoint F4EG HD204UI 2 TB *2
Power Supply: CoolerMaster Silent Pro Gold 1200W
Chassis : Coolermaster - COSMOS S
Drives: LG GH22LS50 Super Multi
SSD: (existing)

Will make it a sport to watercool everything possible:
CPU: EK-Supreme HF - Nickel
MB: EK-FB RE3 - Acetal+Nickel
GPU: EK-FC5870 ASUS V2 -Acetal + Nickel
Radiator: ThermoChill PA120.3
Fan: Yate Loon D12SL-12 LOW
Pump: Laing DDC 3.2(MCP 355)
Reservior XSPC Reservoir Top for Laing DDC


will be a very nice xmas if I actually have this rig running

How is the sound on the ASUS Extreme III ? anyone an idea ? or do I need a Creative Card as well ?

[MiRai]

Are you happy with the sound card on the Rampage II Extreme or would you get a proper Creative Card?

How is the sound on the ASUS Extreme III ? anyone an idea ? or do I need a Creative Card as well ?

Soundcards help offload CPU usage and can help improve framerates. They, of course, also give much better sound
[depending on your setup]. I would stay away from Creative cards as their drivers are apparently pure garbage [I have
nothing solid to back this up just go Google it]. I would suggest going with either an Asus Xonar [people still mention
these can be flakey], an HT Omega, or a very very sexy Auzentech card.

[Tyval]

I'm currently using the built in sound on my Asus Extreme III, it is fine, though I did buy a Asus Xonar sound card as well, just didn't put it in yet as wanted to test things out with the built in.

Not all on board sound cards tax the CPU the same, I'm sure the lower end boards are taking what they can from the CPU, some of the higher ones I looked at pretty much just include the sound card on the board. With the shrinking of everything and the fact that sound needs just haven't scaled like video sound has kind of just become this low cost thing we expect to have.

That all said though I did buy a sound card as I figured they are so cheap (even cheaper with a combo deal I got when buying parts). why not offload a bit.

There have been some reviews of on board sound, and some of the MBs have done quite well in that regard.

I'm skeptical whether I could tell the difference in quality of sound from what I am using now(built in on my Asus extreme III and the card I'm going to pop in this week (Asus Xonar). I'll let ya know.

[d0z3rr]

Soundcards help offload CPU usage and can help improve framerates. They, of course, also give much better sound
[depending on your setup]. I would stay away from Creative cards as their drivers are apparently pure garbage [I have
nothing solid to back this up just go Google it]. I would suggest going with either an Asus Xonar [people still mention
these can be flakey], an HT Omega, or a very very sexy Auzentech card.

+4000 Creative definitely has bloaty drivers and software.

But, they did come out with a new X-Fi, its about $150 and has gotten very good reviews. But it still hast he bloaty software However, if you're running an i7 you really won't notice the bloat.

[MiRai]

I'm currently using the built in sound on my Asus Extreme III, it is fine, though I did buy a Asus Xonar sound card as well, just didn't put it in yet as wanted to test things out with the built in.

Not all on board sound cards tax the CPU the same, I'm sure the lower end boards are taking what they can from the CPU, some of the higher ones I looked at pretty much just include the sound card on the board. With the shrinking of everything and the fact that sound needs just haven't scaled like video sound has kind of just become this low cost thing we expect to have.

That all said though I did buy a sound card as I figured they are so cheap (even cheaper with a combo deal I got when buying parts). why not offload a bit.

There have been some reviews of on board sound, and some of the MBs have done quite well in that regard.

I'm skeptical whether I could tell the difference in quality of sound from what I am using now(built in on my Asus extreme III and the card I'm going to pop in this week (Asus Xonar). I'll let ya know.

This thread is not about sound cards so I hate to get off subject, but here is a little review of the Auzentech:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/auzent...review-test/11

You can see on that page that if you really want some awesome sound on games that support it, even the Xonar ends up
taxing the CPU up to almost 17% when the Auzentech Forte is at 6%. We're talking full load EAX + 3D with 127 buffers
[channels?]. When I go into WoW's sound options using my onboard sound on my current setup, I can only select 64
channels. I'm not sure if that is a limitation with my onboard sound or if that's all WoW supports. I'm doing a little future-
proofing with my new system, so I picked up the Auzentech. If anyone's focus is just for playing WoW, you can probably
just get away with cheapo onboard sound and still be just fine.

[Tyval]

Fenril,

Well this was thread about building a machine and sound/sound card is part of that so I seems on topic to me.

Very interesting info, I agree that WoW probably isn't that big from a sound standpoint (plus have sound off on all my slaves). One thing I'm curious about, I remember Nvidia offloading some work to CPUs when they detected the resources were available (this was a couple years ago, back when mutli-cores were coming out but little took advantage of them), I wonder if something similar is going on, or if it is more a mandatory hit....

I guess for my machine i have an extra core floating about so probably not a big deal either way hehe.

Right now my CPUs seem under utilized so thinking I may be bottle-necking at the video card. Which I guess makes sense as 5x 1920x1080 is a lot of screen.

[Bloodcloud]

http://www.guru3d.com/article/auzent...review-test/16

the Auzentech XFI Forte 7.1 seems to be a good one.

Have you checked the recent Logitech Keyboards and mouse:
- Logitech Gaming Mouse G700
- Logitech G510 Keyboard
- LogitechG13 Advanced Gameboard

I ordered the G510 and the G700 and will arrive shortly.
Currently i use:
-G13
- "old" G15 Keyboard ( the new G15 sucks because of less macro keys, or no display)
- 2* Mouse MX Revolution (with software adjustment to add keys to all buttons) (and two because I always forget to charge them.)

My keyboard is still fine, except for an "etched" handprint which shows my hand laying on the aswd keys
Using is since 5 years+ already and am very happy with it. The G510 might be a well earned renewal


(to make the topic even more diverse

[Trushot]

I'm currently building up my system and I have pretty much figured out what I want for the various components with the exception of the video card. (CPU intel 6core, SSD drives, 12 Gig memory etc..)

I've read and search through here but I still had a couple of parts I was confused on.

I use InnerSpace and ISBoxer for my MBing software.

My goal is to have my main box on one monitor and my 4 slaves on another.

If I understand things correctly, SLI or crossfire don't matter in terms of WoW performance.
I did read though that it is possible to run a monitor on each card if I have two video cards. I now can't remember if it is possible or recommended to due that on one card.

The cards I've pondered are
5970: Though this is really two cards, so wondering if this would work for a 2 monitor solution.

I've read that the 480GTX runs pretty hot, so unsure if I want two of those in my ssytem.

580GTX Not sure how available these are yet, and if there would be the normal issues with new cards and iffy drivers.

So my questions:

1 or two video cards and which ones would folks get if they were getting cards today.
(money isn't really an issue)


Thanks for any thoughts you might have.

T

Well i know you already bought your card but LAX ( dev for ISBOXER ) is against a 5970 or any card with dual GPUS becuase they are SLI / crossfired ... i asked him this exact question in ISBOXER forums and he gave a long explanation of it here at this thread

http://isboxer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=867

So i am going with a 5870 unless i can get my hands on a 6970 before end of year

was actually going to crossfire two 5970's but i guess now there is no point