High End Gaming Rig for Surround Gaming

Jurgen · Post by **Jurgen** » 14 Jan 2009, 13:45

Hi People!

I am new here,

I already spent a lot of time searching the forum but I think it would be best to create a new topic for this one

I am very interested in Wide Screen Gaming and are trying to build a pretty expensive Gaming Rig for it

I am a huge fan of Sim Racing and thatÂ´s the main reason why I am building this baby

I already have a Playseat, a Logitech G25 Racing Wheel and the TrackIR 4 Pro

This is what I have come up with so far:

Case: Lian Li PC-P80 Black
Powersupply: OCZ EliteXstream 1000 Watt, 80 Plus Rating

Processor: Intel Core I7 920 2.66 GHz, 4.8 GT/s, 4x 256kb, 8 MB, Boxed
Cooler: Thermalright Ultra 120 EXtreme 1366 Aluminium
Motherbord: Asus Rampage II Extreme
Memory: Corsair Dominator 6 GB, PC3-14900, 1866 MHz, 9, Non-ECC, Kit of 3
Harddisk: Samsung SpinPoint F1 1 TB, 7200 Rpm, 32 MB, S-ATA II/300
Videocard: 2x Asus GeForce GTX 295 1792 MB, PCI-e 16x
Soundcard: Creative X-Fi Titanium
DVD: Samsung SH-S223F S-ATA

Screen: 3x ViewSonic VX2262WM 22 Inch / 55.8 Cm, 5 Ms

I want to play Games like GTR2 and rFactor

I want to play them (and future games) in a 5040x1050 (3x 1680x1050) resolution with all settings maxed out!

Will I be able to do that with this setup?

Besides that I have some more questions:

What will be my bottleneck? (The CPU?)

Would it be better to use 3 Geforce GTX 280/285 in SLI instead of 2 GTX 295?

I Problably wait for the Viewsonic VX2265WM 120Hz Wide LCD to come out.
Do you guys have a better idea? Perhaps a Dell UltraSharp 2208WFP or something like that...

All comments are welcome!

Thank you in advance!

With kind regards,

Jurgen

Jurgen · Post by **Jurgen** » 14 Jan 2009, 15:47

After checking the prices I have made some changes...

:roll:

This would make more sense:

Case: Antec Gamersgear Twelve Hundred
Powersupply: OCZ EliteXstream 1000 Watt, 80 Plus Rating

Processor: Intel Core I7 920 2.66 GHz, 4.8 GT/s, 4x 256kb, 8 MB, Boxed
Cooler: Thermalright Ultra 120 EXtreme 1366 Aluminium
Motherbord: Asus P6T Deluxe
Memory: OCZ Intel I7 Triple 6 GB, PC3-12800, 1600 MHz, 7, Non-ECC, Kit of 3
Harddisk: Samsung SpinPoint F1 1 TB, 7200 Rpm, 32 MB, S-ATA II/300
Videocard: 2x Asus GeForce GTX 295 1792 MB, PCI-e 16x
Soundcard: Creative X-Fi Titanium
DVD: Samsung SH-S223F S-ATA

Screen: 3x ViewSonic VX2262WM 22 Inch / 55.8 Cm, 5 Ms

[EDIT]
Changed the case from Lian Li PC-P80 into Antec Twelve Hundred
[/EDIT]

Shintsu · Post by **Shintsu** » 14 Jan 2009, 16:24

Okay, I didn't read your whole list but I see you want surround gaming and you have a Creative sound card selected. BIG NO NO! Say NO to the Creative! They make rubbish sound cards, drivers are pretty poor and they overcharge for low featured sound cards. I say this because I did extensive research when looking for a good quality surround sound card to power my Logitech Z-5500s.

There is no reason in this day and age to settle for Creative's rubbish. My reason for selecting M-Audio is due to their high quality cards. They use excellent DACs on their sound cards and albeit slow with the drivers sometimes, theirs work fine and never cause any issues with my speakers. When I did a general survey of opinion on another forum of mine sometime back all of the people who recommended Creative were people who still used their cards. Everyone else recommended other brands but many suggested M-Audio.

If you were unaware, M-Audio makes sound cards for musicians and have all sorts of fancy sound cards that allow you to hook up a surround sound receiver and all sorts of things like that. They do of course make a regular surround card, and that is what mine is. While I was about to be soured off of M-Audio due to the lack of 64-bit Vista drivers they finally released them and all is well again.

I would also recommend HT Omega. They produce very nice sound cards, albeit I haven't heard as much about them. They were my alternative if I had to buy a new sound card. One thing that irks be besides Creative's low quality drivers and cheap DACs are their cheesy connectors. Most of their sound cards lack even an Optical connection! They make no sound cards with coaxial S/PDIF (Which is what I use to connect my speakers to my sound card currently) and only a few higher end ones have optical connectors. I don't care what marketing BS they push - you are not going to get high quality sound without having one of the two formats I mentioned. Creative is all about making a quick buck, not about making quality products. M-Audio equipment all receives good reviews, but I see much mixed opinion on Creative.

Without a doubt, avoid Creative. Buy Asus, M-Audio, HT Omega - anything but Creative. Your ears will thank you!

Also as far as a cooler - unless you plan to overclock it you don't need that. Stock cooling (at least on everything I've seen previously - perhaps Core i7 is different) is very sufficient and good at keeping the processor cool. I'm using a stock cooler on my C2D E8400 and it has never come close to overheating or even spooling up.

Given what you're going for with your PC, I'd recommend a 300 GB Velociraptor and if that is not enough space a secondary drive (ranging around 500 GB or so). Doing a defrag on a 1 TB sounds like utter torture to me. Say goodbye to your PC for a few days...no matter though, the sound card is the biggest issue I can see. What speakers are you using or planning to buy? If surround gaming is important to you you need a good set of speakers and that's hard to come by in PC speakers. As far as that would go, I recommend only the Logitech Z-5500s or if you can find a set (probably used) get the Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 5.1.

DaFox · Post by **DaFox** » 14 Jan 2009, 16:37

Okay, I didn't read your whole list but I see you want surround gaming and you have a Creative sound card selected. BIG NO NO! Say NO to the Creative! They make rubbish sound cards, drivers are pretty poor and they overcharge for low featured sound cards.

Okay, I didn't read either of your whole posts but... This man speaks the truth.

Jurgen · Post by **Jurgen** » 14 Jan 2009, 16:59

Without a doubt, avoid Creative. Buy Asus, M-Audio, HT Omega - anything but Creative. Your ears will thank you!

First of all, thank you for your reply!

IÂ´ll take your advice and found 2 soundcards for about he same price as the selected Creative:

1. Asus Xonar DX

2. M-Audio Revolution 5.1

Which would you recomment?

Also as far as a cooler - unless you plan to overclock it you don't need that. Stock cooling (at least on everything I've seen previously - perhaps Core i7 is different) is very sufficient and good at keeping the processor cool. I'm using a stock cooler on my C2D E8400 and it has never come close to overheating or even spooling up.

I am planning on some overclocking and wil keep the Thermalright Ultra 120 EXtreme as cooler

But thanks for bringing it up!

Given what you're going for with your PC, I'd recommend a 300 GB Velociraptor and if that is not enough space a secondary drive (ranging around 500 GB or so). Doing a defrag on a 1 TB sounds like utter torture to me. Say goodbye to your PC for a few days...no matter though, the sound card is the biggest issue I can see.

I actually was thinking about getting a WD VelociRaptor Backplane Ready 300 GB, 10.000 Rpm Hard Drive for Windows and stuff.
And keep the Samsung SpinPoint F1 1 TB for storage

What speakers are you using or planning to buy? If surround gaming is important to you you need a good set of speakers and that's hard to come by in PC speakers. As far as that would go, I recommend only the Logitech Z-5500s or if you can find a set (probably used) get the Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 5.1.

I was thinking of his little brother, the Logitech G51

But if the Z-5500 is worth the extra money I will take it!

Mesh · Post by **Mesh** » 14 Jan 2009, 18:12

My only suggestion is to not buy anything Asus. Their support is completely non-existent.

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 14 Jan 2009, 18:19

Avoiding the stock cooler for i7 is probably a good idea - I've not really heard good things about it when it comes to keeping temps reasonable. But i7 is general is quite a toasty beast...

Velociraptor is a good idea if you've got the cash (which it looks like you have)...

I, too, am never going to buy another Creative card. In fact, I've got one of my rigs suffering with some truly horrible integrated sound at the minute as the Audigy 4 I've got spare causes all sorts of horrible crap in Vista 64. :(

I've never had a problem with Asus boards, but I know that a lot of others can't say the same.

Frag Maniac · Post by **Frag Maniac** » 14 Jan 2009, 18:22

I agree, Creative sucks, after having tried two of them and recently discovering even the cheap model of Audigy (LS, Value, etc) can be turned into an X-Fi via a mod called Audigy to X-Fi, including 24 bit and the Crystalizer, it was easy to see their product is cheaply made and hasn't really evolved much.

I have an M-Audio Revolution 5.1, and while it does have a great sound using one of the best DSPs in the VIA Envy, it's software leaves something to be desired. You get SRS CircleSurround II, X2, X3, Sensaura, and SRS TruSurround. No Dolby whatsoever and no DTS. It also doesn't record software sources so I can't use it with Fraps for instance.

Worse yet the driver updates have been few and far between, basically covering only the major service packs. Even worse still since they've been writing drivers for Vista, you supposedly get the same driver for XP and Vista now, which is one of the worst to use for XP. If I try and use the Vista/XP driver OR the XP SP3 driver, I get very low volume output. Thus I still use the original driver made about 4 yrs ago and it renders me without being able to adjust the sampling rate, so it's always at the default 44Khz.

I will be building a new rig soon with the top priority being gaming. I've considered parts very similar to your build spec. The sound card I'm liking the most so far is the Razer Barracuda AC1. The best price I've seen on it lately is around $115 USD.

Jurgen · Post by **Jurgen** » 14 Jan 2009, 18:38

Thank you all for your replys!

I just read an review about the Razer Barracuda AC1

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/cuda_sound

Seems like a killer soundcard!

[EDIT]
Techcage also seems impressed:

http://techgage.com/article/razer_barracuda_ac-1_sound_card/1
[/EDIT]

Jurgen · Post by **Jurgen** » 14 Jan 2009, 19:12

This is how the system looks for the moment

Case: Antec Gamersgear Twelve Hundred
Powersupply: OCZ EliteXstream 1000 Watt, 80 Plus Rating

Processor: Intel Core I7 920 2.66 GHz, 4.8 GT/s, 4x 256kb, 8 MB, Boxed
Cooler: Thermalright Ultra 120 EXtreme 1366
Motherbord: Asus P6T Deluxe + OC Palm
Memory: OCZ Intel I7 Triple 6 GB, PC3-12800, 1600 MHz, 7, Non-ECC, Kit of 3
Harddisk 1: WD VelociRaptor Backplane Ready 300 GB, 10.000 Rpm, 16 MB
Harddisk 2: Samsung SpinPoint F1 1 TB, 7200 Rpm, 32 MB, S-ATA II/300
Videocard: 2x Asus GeForce GTX 295 1792 MB, PCI-e 16x
Soundcard:Razer Barracuda AC-1
DVD: Samsung SH-S223F S-ATA

Screen: 3 x Samsung SyncMaster T220 22 Inch / 55.8 Cm, 2 Ms

Speakerset: Logitech Speakerset Z-5500 5.1

Thank you for your help so far!

Mesh · Post by **Mesh** » 14 Jan 2009, 20:06

I've never had a problem with Asus boards, but I know that a lot of others can't say the same.

The problem isn't whether they work or not, the problem is when they don't, you get 0 help from asus support.

I even sent in a test question that, answered truthfully the answer was false, the answer I got? That what I wrote was absolutely true.

It proved that they don't even read what you send them, they just put whatever their keyword detection thinks might help.

Jurgen · Post by **Jurgen** » 14 Jan 2009, 20:13

So most of you would recommend a videocard and motherboard from an other maker?

An other option is that I have the system build for me and get a 3 year warranty with it

:D

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 14 Jan 2009, 20:19

Well, on that front... eVGA or BFG graphics cards I guess. eVGA bent over backwards to help when I had a query once. I've not tried BFG personally, but they're supposed to be pretty good.

On the mobo front... none of the 'big tier' manufacturers really have support that is all that good, from my limited experience of each of them. Another option on the motherboard front would be the Gigabyte X58-UD5 or Extreme, or the DFI X58 board. DFI boards can be really picky, though, so it's probably better to avoid unless you've got patience and time. ;)

Jurgen · Post by **Jurgen** » 14 Jan 2009, 20:32

Well, on that front... eVGA or BFG graphics cards I guess. eVGA bent over backwards to help when I had a query once. I've not tried BFG personally, but they're supposed to be pretty good.

I can get a very good price for the BFG GeForce GTX 295 and they even give a 10 year warranty!!!

On the mobo front... none of the 'big tier' manufacturers really have support that is all that good, from my limited experience of each of them. Another option on the motherboard front would be the Gigabyte X58-UD5 or Extreme, or the DFI X58 board. DFI boards can be really picky, though, so it's probably better to avoid unless you've got patience and time. ;)

I will go for the GigaByte GA-EX58-UD5, itÂ´s on sale!

The Extreme is only worth the extra money when you go for watercooling

Post by **MobsterOO7** » 14 Jan 2009, 20:46

Do you really need a 10K RPM hard drive? IMO the increase in price isn't worth the benefit.

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 14 Jan 2009, 21:03

I dunno, Mobster... I'm debating whether or not it'd be worth getting my hands on a Raptor drive as a boot drive at the minute myself. I was trying to find a 74GB Raptor as a boot drive wouldn't need to be too big... but the places that have them want only about Â£20 less than the 150GB Velociraptor, and they're only a little less than the 300GB one. Law of decreasing returns, I know, but there we are.

Of course, the 1TB Samsung drives are really fast, so you could partition off a 200 or 300GB chunk at the front of the drive, and use that as a boot drive... it'd be a lot cheaper than the Velociraptor, even if you don't use the rest of the disk. In fact, for the price of one Velociraptor, I can get three 1TB Samsung's. Which is absolutely ridiculous. Of course, the 'partition the 1TB up' method still won't result in access times that equal the Raptor, but even so... 3TB for the same price as 1/10th of that is mighty tempting...

edit:

That said, I've got a 15k SCSI disk in an old Dell server I bought off a mate. That thing is, without a doubt, the loudest and hottest drive I have ever been in the same room with. Absolutely pulverises everything else in HDD tests, though. ;)

Jurgen · Post by **Jurgen** » 14 Jan 2009, 21:03

Do you really need a 10K RPM hard drive? IMO the increase in price isn't worth the benefit.

I am considering a raid0 configuration with 2 WD Caviar Blue 640 GB, 7200 Rpm, 16 MB, S-ATA II/300

It would be a lot cheaper and though fast enough to keep up with the rest

[EDIT]

I meant the WD Caviar Black 640 GB, 7200 Rpm, 32 MB, S-ATA II/300 in raid0

[/EDIT]

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 14 Jan 2009, 21:07

I'm inherently a bit leery of RAID0. RAID5 on a decent hardware controller card, though, and I'm sold. ;) I just think that if data is split across multiple drives, you need some sort of failover protection. :)

Jurgen · Post by **Jurgen** » 14 Jan 2009, 21:09

I'm inherently a bit leery of RAID0. RAID5 on a decent hardware controller card, though, and I'm sold. ;) I just think that if data is split across multiple drives, you need some sort of failover protection. :)

It is kind of tricky but performance wise...

What are you suggesting regarding raid5?

[EDIT]
I mean... an extra decent raid controller will cost me about....?

I think the onboard raid on the South Bridge will be good enough, correct me if I am wrong
[/EDIT]

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 14 Jan 2009, 21:21

I'm not really suggesting anything, to be honest. :)

Just that I'd rather have RAID5 than RAID0 - if I was going to try RAID0, I'd stripe+mirror with RAID0+1, but that takes four drives but only provides the capacity of two. At least with RAID5, with four drives you've got the capacity of three, and can lose one to drive failure without losing your data.

But motherboard integrated RAID5 is pants. Takes a lot of CPU time to do the parity calculations. Hence the dedicated hardware RAID controller idea as that takes the parity calculation load of the CPU. ;)

...

And while RAID0 will boost your transfer speeds (and thus, presumably level loading etc) it's not going to do anything for access times. The only thing that does that is the faster disk... 10,000RPM.

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