Best Rig I've Ever Built

[Anenome]

It's a new PC hardware gen for me :)

It's great how my new PC is completely backwards compatible with all the games I already own! :D And they'll all look way better on the new hardware without the need to purchase them again as some HD version.

But enough ribbing the console partisans who won't even be able to bring themselves to click on this thread for fear of their worldview being shattered utterly :P

Kit follows:

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition Thuban 3.3GHz, 3.7GHz Turbo Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor HDE00ZFBGRBOX (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103913)
6-core, turbo socket automatically overclocks cors by 500mhz or so when it detects it's possible. Should be able to overclock this to 4.1 ghz ;) This CPU runs nearly on par with the $1,000 Intel i7 models at a fifth the price.

ZALMAN CNPS9900MAX-B 135mm Long life bearing CPU Cooler Blue LED (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118074)
Vapor chambers are impressive tech! The heat pipes actually have fluid in them that condenses and boils off cool and hot spots, efficiently spreading heat around, amazing. You can see I went with a blue LED scheme here especially.

XFX HD-697A-CNFC Radeon HD 6970 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150517)
Graphics card, might pop another one in later in crossfire. Can't believe this has 2.6+ billion transistors >_> Double lifetime warranty with XFX.

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533)
^^^ times 2 in raid zero. Now I need to find a 2tb external drive to mirror it for backup >_> The crazy thing about these is that the drives have two read/write heads! I've been waiting for a drive maker to do that for literally decades. It's obviously so much faster. To accomplish that, this has double the cache, 64mb, of a normal drive.

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL7D-8GBRH (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231401)
I picked this out for its low timings, 7-8-7-24. Most memory is 9-9-9-24, and it actually ends up making a pretty significant difference. I woulda sprung for DDR3 2000 if AMD systems could handle it. Seems Intel only for now. Mobo didn't widely support 1887 either. But I might be able to overclock this mem a bit still.

CORSAIR Professional Series AX850 850W ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139015)
Overblown for this system perhaps, but takes into account that I might install another 6970 later on ;) That would give me the equivalent of a 6990. That's future proof for a good while easily.

SONY Black Blu-ray Burner SATA BD-5300S-0B - OEM (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118050)
Teecakes would be pleased :P Now I'll be able to burn bluray discs. That I like.

Rosewill BLACKHAWK Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, come with Five Fans, window side panel, top HDD dock (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147107)
Great case so far as I can tell. Has an external SATA drive bay on top >_>

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116758)
Professional because I want XP mode more than any other reason. For $40 more, sure.

ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 AM3 AMD 890GX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131657)
Mobos aren't sexy, but damn important ;) Can't wait to rock some USB3 too, got an external 1tb drive waiting for it already.

Also the -only- rig I've built :P I've been buying Dell crap because I didn't want the hassle. But honestly, this has been so much fun, and the value I've gotten out of it so massive, that I doubt I'll ever be able to go back.

All Dell systems and other prebuilds are full of compromises and by nature can't push the bleeding edge. That's why Alienware exists, a company predicated on prebuilding bleeding-edge systems :P

[Agnostic Pope]

Pics or gtfo! :P Wait is this a concept pc? 8 gig SDRAM is fucking overkill though :P After opening few pcs for the past few months I can honestly say building one is easy...once you have all your parts anyway.

[Anenome]

Nah, 8gb not overkill for me :P I've never felt like I had a comfortable amount of ram on any system I've owned. I think 8gb might give me that feeling for once. My last system only had 2 gigs and I was constantly hitting the upper bounds. Even when not using Photoshop :P Firefox alone sometimes used up 1.5 gigs of ram by itself >_> Yeah, I'm a tab addict <_<

I'd go for 16g if I could, but 8gb looks like the sweet spot for this gen of tech. Any higher and you're making tradeoffs in other areas, like the timings speed or compatibility with the mobo.

I love that ram is relatively cheap. It used to be pretty damn expensive. It's completely crazy that you can buy 8gb ram for $100. Once upon a time you'd spend that much for 8mb of ram >_>

And it's not built yet. Everything except the mobo has arrived. Just waiting. And what do you mean by concept pc exactly? It's just the dream pc that I'm making a reality for once :)

[Syl]

Why the hell did you put all that money into the build and are only using WD Caviar Black 1TB raid zero?

You should at least have 2TB blacks and an SSD for your OS drive. Seriously, you're missing out on such a noticeable and impressive performance loss by not having your OS on an SSD.

Likewise, If the black 1TB performance is equal to the black 2TB performance, i missed when they had the upgrade. It's entirely possible that i simply missed this upgrade. (Still nothing compared to an SSD, by a couple hundred times)

Other than that. I'd have a rather different choice set for the case, I'd throw in a second DVD burner as well as a multi-card reader, everything else looks like a pretty decent computer. However there's absolutely no way you can compare a Thuban 6 core to a Core i7. It simply doesn't keep up. (Though both are absolutely overkill so I'd probably go with the AMD myself)

8 Gigs of ram is perfectly understandable and what I'm using myself in my computer, which is (now) considerably underpowered compared to this one.

Also, what about monitor? mouse? keyboard? speaker setup?

[Anenome]

I have another burner and a multicard reader on my old rig I plan to drop in, so no worries there.

Those 1tb drives are pretty unique. That's the highest size drive for what they are, which is double throughput. They have two read and write head sets, as opposed to all other drives single head, and double the cache to accommodate that as well. I did try to find 1.5ers in the same style, but to no avail. Apart from them, I will rely on USB3 external drives as I did on my old system, both to mirror and for storage.

SSDs are quite nice, I know, just not for me at this juncture. Not amazing enough that I wanted to spend the cash. I'm sure if I went to it I'd never be able to go back and all that. I expect to move to it in the next hardware update cycle in a couple of years when it will be a several terabyte SSD at least :P That will be worth it to me. I'm also not an early adopter of new tech. I tend to let it mature more than average and pick up the 2nd or 3rd gen when it's really smoking.

As for the CPU, while true that the i7 is one amazing chip, it's price prohibitive. In the Thuban I get about 85% or more of it's performance at less than 1/3 the cost. This will actually be my first AMD system. Going AMD certainly let me put a lot more into the other parts of the system, and if I spend the same amount on a Intel chip I would certainly not be getting an i7, but something with less performance than this Thuban.

Monitor, mouse, all that are still good from what my old setup has. No need to rebuy them. Love them all, they're good kit. Got a nice 21" 1680x1050 monitor, a keyboard I like, a hi-end cordless mouse, nice 2.1 speakers. Never much been into surround sound, though the GPU on this beast does 7.1 surround natively apparently :P

Maybe I'll move up to an SSD in a year or two. I haven't even priced them out tbh. But 80 gigs just seems so amazingly anemic. And I spent to my limit, so I'd be giving up a whole lot to spend $300 or w/e on an SSD. In all, I'm quite happy. There's very little compromise here, so even not having an SSD doesn't hurt.

I've also been plagued by not only limited ram, but slow ram in the past. This time I did some extra digging to get that godawesome Gskill ram right there with the special 7-8-7-24 timings, which at 1600 will be as fast as ordinary 2000mhz ram. Should be able to OC it to 1666 too. My bro said it wasn't worth it, but I think it is. We'll see :P

[Syl]

You don't use the SSD for media. You purely use it for OS and programs. The difference in simple windows performance between my WD black 2TB (The same type of harddrive that you're using) and the SSD was so obvious that I felt like i did an entirely new hardware refresh. Media and games can be on secondary harddrives. (I use a bunch of 2TB "green" drives for my media, and my WD Black is now my Steam drive). You want your OS on an SSD, doesn't matter if the SSD is 30 gigs or 2,000 gigs if it's big enough to old the windows install.

Also, a 6970 on a 1680x1050 monitor? That's absolute overkill! My 4870 handles dual 1080p monitors fine and you're running FAR more power than I am (in all regards). If you want to enjoy that computer to the fullest, get yourself a nicer monitor - At least 1080p, preferably 120hz.

[Anenome]

Yeah, you're right, I need to upgrade the monitor :D This card can hit up to six monitors apparently >_> overkill.

Dual 1080 sounds good :) I used to have a 2nd monitor till the lamp died. Need to get it repaired or replaced :\

But, I'll have plenty of time to upgrade. Until then I'll laugh like a bandit as I run Dead Space 2 or w/e at maxxed out setting, and just for fun I'll up the AA to 16x with full everything, haha. That will be a first ;)

[Syl]

psst.
http://deals.woot.com/sellout
this may be a monitor. If you look right now. (I'm using dual 25inch monitors from the same "famous maker" and love them)

[Anenome]

When I get this thing built it's going to be a pretty major shock--I've been living on a seven year old laptop with integrated graphics here and about 500m of memory >_>

Sometimes you click on a link, the cpu jumps to 100%, Firefox freezes for a couple seconds, then the display updates, visually. And then the CPU fan spins up for a sec <_<

A never-removed sticker on the front touts an Intel Centrino >_>

[Orphiuchus]

I just built virtually the same machine except I didn't do raid, I got a SSD for my OS drive, I got a 6950 instead of 6970, and I got a i7 2600k. I'm thrilled with it so far, except that there is nothing new worth benchmarking it with thanks to consolitis.

[Orphiuchus]

Oh, and I went with this single monitor. (http://www.frys.com/product/6398041)

Floor model, 10% off. Sometimes fry's is awesome.

[court12b]

I can't believe 27's are as cheap as they are now. Love it.

[Anenome]

Btw, DO NOT buy from Tigerdirect. My god what a terrible experience.

Last minute, new egg was out of that mobo, gah! right. So, go to Tiger and order. My entire rest of the order showed up last friday. Still no mobo today.

TD's "check order status" page is completely useless because they're using a 3rd party warehouse to ship it out and have no info for wtf is going on over there. It just says "not shipped" continually. You think there'd be a tracking number or something--there's no tracking number! What sort of backwards operation is this?

So, I call them up today, ask wtf is going on, they tell me the mobo's been backordered and shipment delayed to the 8th! Wtf, now you tell me? You've been hiding this info from me because you know what I would do!

So I cancelled that order, went back to Newegg, which now had it in stock again, and bought it. I bet I'll have it by friday at the latest. Actually I wouldn't at all be surprised if it arrived tomorrow. They're just that good and fast.

Oh, and here's the best part. No sooner does the Tigerdirect tech guy "put in a request to cancel my order" (takes 3-5 days btw), than he says hold on, I'll send you to another department or w/e.

So, he sens me to a call center where an East Indian woman with accent training is hard-selling me on some $17 a month program with free $40 up-front, as long as you cancel your order within 30 days, yada yada.

Now, I have absolutely no problem with the fact that she was an east indian with accent training, even though I could hear through it. I love the east indian people and culture and do not begrudge being shunted to an indian call center AT ALL, in fact I prefer it just to spite people who whine about it.

BUT, I hate that this asshole Tigerdirect company has screwed up my order, hid information from me, and now is still trying to make a buck off me by sending me to a shady "free money" program thing.

And, because of them, I had to sit there and very politely listen to this woman's incredibly persistent shpeel (it really was rather well crafted, from a sales-pitch analysis point of view) and politely say I'm not interested three separate times before she'd give up on me, with just a trace of sadness in her voice >_>

Anyway, I like to keep my life uncomplicated rather than be offered a chance to game the system for $40 as long as I can jump through your program's red-tape within 30 days, which is assuredly crafted to be difficult in order for you guys to make any money off me. This is also why I refuse to enter anyone's sweepstakes or competition, because the fine print of those sign-ups is adding yourself to someone's marketing list for junk-mail purposes. I swear, I only get mail from the magazines I subscribe(d) to and my bank. Except that magazines put you on a marketing list too, so I will no longer do that again. It's buying off the rack from now on. And I switched my bank to email-only statements, which is wonderful.

Takes 2 years to get yourself off X marketing mailing list by not responding, btw.

SO, there's my story. Fuck Tigerdirect. Don't buy from them. Terrible experience. Uncommunicative. And manipulative in the end.

Meanwhile, I have nothing but great things to say about Newegg. Especially if you live anywhere near the west coast, you're gonna experience shipping times that have to be experienced to be believed.

Only possible Newegg downside is tax within California. Which is fairly well offset by the free shipping I think, and the clearly superior service. They've got their shit together.

[Suicidal ShiZuru]

Oh lawd blue LEDs are so 2000.

[Anenome]

I actually could care less what color it came in, totally not into that. I almost got the red CPU fan, cause I dunno, that might look cool in a case full of blue, but w/e.

Just by stating an opinion, SS, you prove you're into that more than I am.

Nerd :P

[Agnostic Pope]

Buuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrnnnn!

[randir14]

Yeah I love Newegg's shipping. I live only a few miles from one of their warehouses so I usually get orders the next day.

[Agnostic Pope]

New Jersey?

[randir14]

California

[Agnostic Pope]

Shit I was way off.

[Anenome]

Yeah, I got the Bluray burner next day with free 2-day shipping >_> and the rest of the order the day after. Pretty amazing if you live in SoCal.

Can't wait until we can print our own electronics >_> Or perhaps grow them.

[Emabulator]

Very nice rig man! Best of luck with it.

[Anenome]

Thanks! :) I doubt I'd be building it if I didn't have a buddy well experienced in doing so. I typically am loathe to get into the guts of a system.

Once I accidentally unseated the CPU heatsink while replacing a GPU & PSU and trying to reroute the power. Turns out the Dell heatsink housing was completely attacked to the heatsink. Who knew >_>

A lil artic silver and a q-tip and I was back in business >_> So, it's a big step for me to build one up from scratch here, and I'm actually enjoying the process.

[gzsfrk]

Great call on the Phenom II X6. I was an early adopter of a Black Edition Phenom II back in 2009, and have loved it ever since. Actually, I love it even more because I bought it as a dual core X2-550, but then did a BIOS hack to unlock it to a fully functional quad-core X4-B50 (equivalent as an X4 950). Highly overclockable with the ridiculoulsy oversized heat sink I have on it. I typically run it at 3.8ghz, although I've have it up to 4.1ghz stable (but clocked it back down to 3.8 since I didn't want to risk damaging it).

AMD makes some great performing and really affordable chips for those who are willing to tiptoe off the Intel plantation.

[Anenome]

I love it even more because I bought it as a dual core X2-550, but then did a BIOS hack to unlock it to a fully functional quad-core X4-B50
I know right! Initially I picked out the $179 quad core and my bud was like, we'll core unlock that in no time. And then I was like, well, it's $20 for a six core and then it's guaranteed. Gimme! And then it was $30 for the 6-core with auto overclock, and I found a package deal with some other component that took off $20 instantly, so that was a no brainer :P

I was able to pair up nearly all of my components into package deals and managed to save about $110 that way, recommend it! And that was on top of the instant savings and rebate offers.

He wanted to flash the GPU 6950 into a 6970 in the same fashion, unlocking cores. But it's always such an iffy thing, and the price difference, again, wasn't great.

I kept asking myself if I'd rather spend $40 more on the 6970 or spend the next 3+ years wishing I'd spent the $40 :P

Those marginal cases are where you really make the tough decisions. Same with the memory. It's been so long since I delved into the latest hardware tech that I was rather surprised to see memory with actual heat sinks on them ^_^ I could've gone with slower timing $100 memory, my bro even suggested it. But, for $50 more I can get essentially automatically overclocked memory and just that much more performance. Hell yeah.

Essentially, the package deals and instant savings paid for almost all my marginal edge-case decisions ;)

[Evil Avatar]

I'm so sad for you that my PC is still better than yours and I don't use it for gaming. ;)

(I shouldn't brag, you all know Intel keeps upgrading me for free. (And I love them for it.))

[Anenome]

Bastard! ^_~

Brb, starting my own video game site ;;;>_>

[Evil Avatar]

It looks like you pulled together a great rig and your video card is probably way better than mine. I'll get around to upgrading that when something killer comes out. (Battlefield 3?)

[Orphiuchus]

Btw, DO NOT buy from Tigerdirect. ...

Yea, I've never seen them not screw up an order. When I lived in North Carolina a few years back I ordered some parts from them, and even though they were shipping Raleigh, like 200 miles away, the shipment took a week and was broken when it got to my place. Everything about them is totally unacceptable on every level.

[gzsfrk]

Btw, DO NOT buy from Tigerdirect. My god what a terrible experience.

I've bought from them for years and never had them mess up anything. Granted, I go with them, NewEgg, Geeks.com, Buy.com, DealExtreme, and occasionally take a chance on a lesser-known online vendor that significantly beats the major outlets in price. But other than getting a faulty Radeon 4850 that I had to return to the manufacturer (this was one of those few times when the lesser-known etailer didn't pay off), I can't say as I've had many bad experiences at all when buying computer parts online from most any vendor.

Besides, TigerDirect is great when their barebones kits go on sale. I built my in-laws a fantastic 64-bit Windows 7 dual-core system last year for all of $250 using a barebones kit and some parts I had laying around. Earned me boo-koo bonus points with the family for relatively small time and effort. :)

[Anenome]

^^^ Well, I'm soured on them.

"Boo-koo" is cute :P I believe the original spelling comes from the french "beaucoup", but I agree it's quite awkward to spell :P

[Anenome]

Damn, this thing's rating a 7.6 to 7.9 across the board >_> On the Windows experience index that is.

What other benchmarks are out there to run? >_>

[Orphiuchus]

Crysis 1... and, uhh... Thats about it.

[Anenome]

I guess I could find my disc for that and fire it up :P

[Syl]

I enjoy the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. benchmarks, Far Cry 2, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is one of the more demanding games around.

If you want to see just how ridiculously more powerful your computer is compared to a 360/PS3, find the Devil May Cry 4 or the Resident Evil 5 benchmarks and remember that the consoles are only running them at 720p.

[Anenome]

Good idea, I've been meaning to pickup BC2.

[lockwoodx]

RIFT brings my average system using a GTX470 to about 15 frames on "Holybejezuss" graphics settings. (steady 45 on ultra) Nothing else really pushes my system atm.

Protip: Onboard sound is not only a bottleneck, resource hog, but also shitty quality in most cases. A 30 dollar ASUS Xonar card is all you need.

[Anenome]

The 6970 has built in 7.1 channel surround sound >_>

[Syl]

Good idea, I've been meaning to pickup BC2.
and you should. It's the best multiplayer fun i've had on an FPS in years. (Since Battlefield 2)

[Anenome]

It's smooth as silk with everything maxxed out graphically (BC2). I'm convinced it'd still be chewing through it at higher res too ^_^

Visuals are pretty sick. ME2 looks amazing as well.

[Anenome]

Smooth scroll on this rig is pretty damn silky.

You guys use smooth scrolling, right? The plugin is called "Yet Another Smooth Scrolling" and it is rockin.

I set it to smooth even the "home" and "end" buttons. So the entire thread zooms past at 60 miles per hour now :P

[lockwoodx]

The 6970 has built in 7.1 channel surround sound >_>

With onboard you dont get hardware accelerated effects, you get software emulated instead. And you also get distortion, and limited inputs/outputs.
Do you know what the purpose of all the capacitors and everything you see on a dedicated sound card is?

Its to feed clean, filtered and stable power reducing in better quality sound with no static, low floor noise, and no distortion.
You also get more inputs/outputs, and lower latency (necessary for recording) as well as less interference due to not being placed
on the same circuitry as the motherboard, and offloaded cpu usage and dedicated ram for the audio.

[Anenome]

With onboard you dont get hardware accelerated effects, you get software emulated instead. And you also get distortion, and limited inputs/outputs.
Do you know what the purpose of all the capacitors and everything you see on a dedicated sound card is?

Its to feed clean, filtered and stable power reducing in better quality sound with no static, low floor noise, and no distortion.
You also get more inputs/outputs, and lower latency (necessary for recording) as well as less interference due to not being placed
on the same circuitry as the motherboard, and offloaded cpu usage and dedicated ram for the audio.
Well, thanks for the info. Maybe with my next system. I just don't see the point in going dedicated with a 2.1 system. If I had a 5.1 or greater it would be dumb not to, I agree. Sound more amazing and clear than what I've already got here I probably couldn't tell the difference from. I've had audiophile friends who spend beaucoup dolla on setups, and they're amazing, for sure ;) My buddy Russ has a home theatre setup, drop down screen, HD projector, and a media center pc with a high end sound system, and swears by FLAC :P

[Tintivilo]

Yeah I love Newegg's shipping. I live only a few miles from one of their warehouses so I usually get orders the next day.

They used to only ship out of New Jersey, it ruled, I am in Connecticut so I would normally get my shit the next day. The past few things I ordered came from fucking Oregon and Ohio, the awesome shipping from newegg has jumped the shark for Connecticut ;)

[Tintivilo]

It is interesting that anyone would consider 8GB of RAM over kill these days, I havn't had less than 8GB in years, right now I have 12; apparently no one else runs without a pagefile these days ;)

[Anenome]

Just loaded up Dirt 2, the racing game? Full visual setting, 88 fps, not bad, looks great, runs smooth :)

[Orphiuchus]

If you're going to test racing games grab F1 2010, it looks great and its really fun. The dirt games kind of kick my ass, I just spend too much time crashed into the wall.

[Anenome]

I'm not actually one for racing games too much. But, Dirt 2 caught my eye and the price is right. I do like the idea of mixed offroad and the drifting is fun. And yeah, I pretty much just smash into everything too ;)

[GBSOD]

Sounds like beast and this thread has made me even more excited about my own rig-to-be. Wish I could experience NewEgg - in terms of PC dealers I am a bit stuck out here in Tasmania and prices in Oz are unjustifiably high dammit. Of course better than Zim ever was.


Protip: Onboard sound is not only a bottleneck, resource hog, but also shitty quality in most cases. A 30 dollar ASUS Xonar card is all you need.

Is this really still true lockwoodx? I am really going back and forth over this - a lot of boutique builders do not include any sound card anymore even for their massive Ultra machines. I considered a Xonar DG just cause it is so cheap, but will it really be worth it?

[revelation]

SI am a bit stuck out here in Tasmania and prices in Oz are unjustifiably high dammit. Of course better than Zim ever was.

I hear ya. Not to mention we don't get shit until well after.

Do you use StaticIce (http://www.staticice.com.au)? Sometimes you'll find some stuff on special/clearance at a decent enough price and most places do shipping these days.

[Agnostic Pope]

There needs to be a "biggest dump I have ever taken" thread.

[GBSOD]

I hear ya. Not to mention we don't get shit until well after.

Do you use StaticIce (http://www.staticice.com.au)? Sometimes you'll find some stuff on special/clearance at a decent enough price and most places do shipping these days.

Not yet, but others have mentioned Staticice to me and as my finances come together I will start checking it out. Anything for decent prices. And lets not start on about Windows prices over here!

[Syl]

With onboard you dont get hardware accelerated effects, you get software emulated instead. And you also get distortion, and limited inputs/outputs.
Do you know what the purpose of all the capacitors and everything you see on a dedicated sound card is?

Its to feed clean, filtered and stable power reducing in better quality sound with no static, low floor noise, and no distortion.
You also get more inputs/outputs, and lower latency (necessary for recording) as well as less interference due to not being placed
on the same circuitry as the motherboard, and offloaded cpu usage and dedicated ram for the audio.

This simply isn't true anymore. Onboard sound can be perfectly acceptable as even the cheapest onboard sound is good enough to drive 7.1 without any usage of CPU or RAM.

My current realtek 7.1 onboard sound is actually superior in sound quality to the $100 Soundblaster i bought a few years prior. Even if it's lacking a few of the bells and whistles. (EAX? who cares)

[GBSOD]

I just don't want to lose positional sound effects. My old Xfi extreme gamer was great in that regards - listening approaching footsteps in Thief and Splinter cell -and I can't get my mind over the idea that a realtek cheapie can produce that level of detail.

[Anenome]

I just don't want to lose positional sound effects. My old Xfi extreme gamer was great in that regards - listening approaching footsteps in Thief and Splinter cell -and I can't get my mind over the idea that a realtek cheapie can produce that level of detail.
The AMD 6970 I got there has 7.1 audio built in, along with DTS surround sound. Sound is now a feature being built into the GPU just because they can.

[Syl]

The AMD 6970 I got there has 7.1 audio built in, along with DTS surround sound. Sound is now a feature being built into the GPU just because they can.

It's not "just because they can" its because HDMI requires sound to be output through the same cable as the video.

I just don't want to lose positional sound effects. My old Xfi extreme gamer was great in that regards - listening approaching footsteps in Thief and Splinter cell -and I can't get my mind over the idea that a realtek cheapie can produce that level of detail.
It can. All that sound, "hearing footsteps approaching" bit is on the part of the Sound Design from the game, not the actual soundcard. The Xfi extreme may have a better equalizer, but everything you've been describing is part of the game design and nothing to do with the soundcard (aside from transcribing it perfectly).

My onboard realtek 7.1 seriously sounds better than my old $100 soundblaster. Good speakers are infinitely more important than a good sound card for good sound.

[Anenome]

It's not "just because they can" its because HDMI requires sound to be output through the same cable as the video.
Good point, that does force their hand :P But HDMI is also not necessary, I'm using DVI rn for instance :) They could've not done HDMI if it was that big a deal. But sound is a commodity now.

My onboard realtek 7.1 seriously sounds better than my old $100 soundblaster. Good speakers are infinitely more important than a good sound card for good sound.
See, back then it was 'buy a sound card or deal with a PC speaker", and a PC speaker was that little tiny thing that beeps when you turn your computer on >_>

Nowadays? Who could even tell between onboard and separate 7.1? Probably only someone with a thousand dollar speaker setup and a genetically superior ear.

[GBSOD]

Thanks Syl, I think you just helped to make my mind up for me and save a bit of cash for a better GPU. Now we just need a few games that actually require a 570/80 or 6970...

[Whatevah]

I, also, just recently built my first "rig", as it may be called. Pretty satisfied so far.

Corsair 600t Special editionhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139005 I saw this case when I was looking at the Digital Storm ode. Fell in love.

Asus P8P67http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131701I had some trouble deciding between this and the Z68 board, so in the end I went with one with more "eggs"

Intel i5 2500Khttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072I guess I'm an intel fanboi, but whatever. I read the i7 2600k was overkill, so I went with the little brother. recently took off the stock cooler and installed a Cooler Master Hyper 212 and over clocked to 4.3 Ran Prime 95 and temps peaked at around 50 degrees celcius

EVGA GTX 570 HDhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130621Went with the most powerful I could afford with selling my child. I initially started out copying the DS Ode, so that's where a lot of my "ideas" came from.

G Skill Ripjaw 4 Gbhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231427Probably should have went with 8 gigs, but I was on somewhat of a budget

Corsair 750 Watt PSUhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006

500 gb HDDhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148767I started out with this but I've already added to with the next two

1 TB HDDhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148697Mass Storage

OCZ Vertex 3 VTX3-25SAT3-120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227706Got this as my boot drive.

Asus DVD Romhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204Well, I had to install Win 7 somehow...

ASUS VW246H http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236049 Pretty nice budget monitor. No complaints.

Bought a CHEAP keyboard and mouse. When I can, going to pick up the Razer Blackwidow Ultimate and a nicer mouse.

[Whatevah]

And this is how it all looks

[Whatevah]

And yet another

[Anenome]

Sweet rig! That case looks like something a stormtrooper would own ^_^

[Whatevah]

Thanks, I took a lot of pride in building it. The wiring is a little sloopy, starting to wish I'd got a modular PSU.