i am building an high end gaming pc and need help with a high end sound card? - Page 2

Alright, well, I'm going to tell you a few things; maybe it'll help:

- Running at 120 fps will do nothing for anything unless you're using some fancy passive stereo 3D system (which you aren't); your eyes cannot register that fast (and I don't care who you are - this is just reality; there's a reason movies "work" at 24 FPS, and that game consoles "work" at 30 FPS - anything over that value is gravy - now in a perfect world we'd be able to run at 60 FPS to vsync with the display's field rate, and that isn't all that hard to do). 

- This computer is absolutely silly, and you're over-buying on a level you don't understand. 

- Using any television ever made as a monitor for competitive gaming is a bad idea; even if it does manage to run at 120 fps, you'll be looking at a few hundred ms of input lag due to the video hardware inside that TV. That will do more damage to your gameplay than you can imagine (normal human response time is around 200 ms; some really bad TVs can approach 1000ms - that doesn't matter for movies but it's a big deal for games). Additionally, with a huge TV as your monitor, comes huge pixel pitch - that means it won't look very good up close, period. You have to consider PPI over total resolution at some point. 

Here's some benchmarks for Battlefield 3:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7970-benchmark-tahiti-gcn,3104-7.html

SMP solutions will never realize linear gains, and in the graphics world you can rough it at around 70% (and I mean rough) - having the extra card really won't make the system able to "run" something it cannot run from the get-go, it will however let you turn on more IQ (usually AA). Sometimes that IQ is just vendor-specific eye candy (like SLI-AA). 

Now going from the Tom's data, which uses this system

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7970-benchmark-tahiti-gcn,3104-5.html

They don't have anywhere near the amount of RAM or CPU waste you're proposing to buy; and guess what - none of that RAM or extra CPU power will matter one bit for gaming. It would help if you were running a big database server, but for what you want to do, it's just a waste. 

And here's where I'm going to save you a big bucket of money: turn the settings down a wee bit (take it down from "ultra" textures to "high" textures, things like that - you don't need lossless textures for maximum IQ; you can pull draw distance down, take down the total # of decals that can render at once, little things like that which you won't even notice during real-world gameplay), and you can get away with probably any graphics card you'd like in the $300-$500 range. One card, one chip, all will be well. The 7970 would be a good candidate, but the 6970, GTX 570, GTX 580, etc will be just as suitable. 

No need for 120 FPS; ignoring that you'll never hit it, it won't matter.

Dump all of the over-priced "gaming" hardware - build the thing yourself - shouldn't cost you more than a thousand bucks assuming you've got a willing donor machine to take a keyboard, mouse, monitor, those sorts of things from. If you really can't build it yourself, go with an OEM that will put the thing together right from day one - I like Dell (and worst-case scenario, just grab one of their SMB workstations with no graphics card, and throw your own board in at home as long as it won't overload the PSU).

I think you should do substantially more research and educate yourself before you spend a few thousand dollars. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by our martin 

the main gear f131 looks good with one amd radeon hd 7970 what are your thoughts on this..cnet recommended..the gtx 590 runs hot don't fancy that chip now..

Oh I'm not trying to insult you; I'm just suggesting you figure out the best solution for your needs before throwing good money after bad. If your goal is to run Battlefield 3, you don't need to spend ten thousand dollars. Apologies if that was mis-interpreted. See if this gives you some more information:

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/how-to-tech/build-a-computer.htm

And a more modern build-guide from TR:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/22104

Even if you don't build it yourself, you can at least get some perspective on hardware selection. If your goal is truly "best of the best" I would go after nVidia graphics (like the GTX 590) simply because of the features they offer - 3D Vision Surround on projectors is a jaw-dropping experience (and will shame any TV you can track down); see here for perspective:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pOnI4jRQsY

That entire system can probably be put together for around the same money you're looking to spend a TOTL TV + OEM PC. Personally I'd pick the projector setup, if you have the space. 

Regarding the question about temperatures - modern graphics adapters do tend to run fairly warm, but it's generally within design limits. Cards like the GTX 590 do run "hot" but it isn't anything to worry about within a given context. If your budget is truly unlimited, liquid cooling and other solutions are available to you - you can put something together that absolutely addresses the TDP of the system while staying very quiet. However, again, such hardware is not really "needed" for handling something like Battlefield.

Quote:

Originally Posted by our martin 

to the wizard of oz i am a dj signed to the ministry of sound armada anjunabeats and defected records..like i said i don't know that much about pcs because i have never built one but when it comes to hifi i do..i have got two krell evolution ones and westlake audio tower sm1s i haven't got to worry about the price of anything so i could have any build i wanted my friend..obobskivich thanks for all your input you seem to know quite a lot about hifi and computer equipment and i value your opinion but we are online so we are going to get people who give us insults.. that's life..

 

I didn't mean to insult. I'm sorry it came over that way. If I knew how to take away that undeserved comment of mine above I would.

Quote:

Originally Posted by obobskivich 

Oh I'm not trying to insult you [...] .

His post was in reaction to the inappropriate comment I made in the Helpful - Comments two posts above.

There is no "future-proof" - give it six months to a year and something newer and bigger will be available, give it a few years and it'll be a paperweight. That's just how it is. 

Regarding the screen:

I understand the single large screen argument. What I would like to turn your attention to is something called "pixel density" or "dot pitch" - see here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_pitch

Here's what you need to consider: that 55" screen runs at 1920x1080, which is fine when you're sitting 10' away. Your computer monitor will likely run at 1920x1080 as well, but it's usually a 22 or 24" screen. It uses much smaller pixels to do this. That's why it looks so crisp up close. The larger display will look "blocky" or "grainy" if you sit close to it, doesn't matter what kind of display technology it uses. The projector setup will have a similar problem but in a different manner (the actual display element has very small pixels, but it's putting out a very big image). If you intend to set this thing up at a desk and face it as you would a normal computer, a 55" display is probably a bad idea. I would suggest something in the 27-30" range (like the Dell U2711). If you want "best picture ever" and can spend the time hunting, I believe the Sony GDM-FW900 would be a fantastic choice (very little can compete with a Trinitron for black level or motion reproduction). 

Quote:

Originally Posted by our martin 

thanks for finding the time to find all the information i am sold on the super oled display it's the best picture i have seen it's up there with sim2 projectors..i like the idea of one big 55 inch screen to sit in front of instead of three..three would be the option i would take for a racing game but for battlefield i would choose one big one..and i will have a good look at the thread which tells me on how to build a pc i need to know if sandy bridge is the best option with two radeon amd 7970s i want to make this build future proof i will have to watch that tomorrow because i am in england and it's 12 midnight and i am having one last game of battlefield 3 on conquest large before i go to bed..thanks once again for all your help..

Quote:

Originally Posted by obobskivich 

Alright, well, I'm going to tell you a few things; maybe it'll help:

 

- Running at 120 fps will do nothing for anything unless you're using some fancy passive stereo 3D system (which you aren't); your eyes cannot register that fast (and I don't care who you are - this is just reality; there's a reason movies "work" at 24 FPS, and that game consoles "work" at 30 FPS - anything over that value is gravy - now in a perfect world we'd be able to run at 60 FPS to vsync with the display's field rate, and that isn't all that hard to do).

 

Not to sound like an ass, but I am going to have to disagree with you here. The reason films and other main stream media are not stored at frame rates higher than 30FPS is not because you cannot tell the difference, but because of the obscene amounts of storage space and processing power that would required to decode and display the video. The frame rates used for television and movies are high enough that the spaces between the frames are not so large as to draw your attention to them rather than the video being shown. Also, consoles run at 60fps, not 30fps. Older consoles such as the Nintendo 64 ran at 30fps, more recent ones are not limited to this frame rate though some developers do implement their own 30fps limit in cases where they are unable to obtain 60fps consistently. Drops from 60fps to 30fps are more likely to draw your attention than if it was running 30fps the entire time. Battlefield 3 is an example of this, as it is locked to 30fps for consoles.

As for your comment about the eyes of human beings being unable to register above 24/30fps, that is comparable to saying that your ears cannot perceive the difference between powering a high-end set of headphones off of an ipod or a multi-thousand dollar Dac/Amp combo. I don't mean to insult you or  to sound condescending, but having viewed films and other media on a 120hz monitor and other high end video devices the differences between 120fps, 60fps, and 30fps are quite vast. If you watch any film which was not interpolated or had any other kind of frame blending trickery applied, you should be able to notice that the motions of objects moving across the screen do not look perfectly smooth at 30fps. However, on smaller devices such as phones 30fps is good because the distances covered aren't as far.

I will agree that the difference between 120fps and 60hz isn't blatantly obvious if you haven't used it for long, like other parts of audio/video you grow acclimatized (Not sure if this is the right word to describe it?) When I first started using Sennheiser HD600's, coming from the Sennheiser HD457's, there wasn't that much of a difference to me other than deeper bass. Now after listening to the HD600's for over a year, if I listen to the HD457's I think "I don't remember these producing mostly mid bass and the highs seeming like there's a piece of cotton in the phones.....". Viewing games and other mediums at 120hz is kind of like that. At first only extremely fast moving objects were noticeably different, but now if a game forces 60fps it looks odd and it no longer looks completely smooth. On the contrary, before I upgraded to a 120hz display I was on the bandwagon of thinking 60hz was completely smooth and that people who thought otherwise were experiencing the placebo effect.

For our martin, I suggest that if you do end up buying that monitor you check if it uses interpolation to display the frames or if it can actually take 120hz input and display those same frames. Interpolation causes the monitor to create extra frames which takes time, causing large amounts of input lag. It also creates a blurring effect which you may or may not like. I was unable to find the specifications for the monitor, so I do not know if it interpolates or not. Also, I currently have the Asus Xonar STX and I have noticed that in games which have a large amount of overlapping sounds it will output crackling and popping sounds. With or without GX mode activated. My previous Creative sound card did not do this, but I use the Xonar for its superior sound quality as I usually disable the in-game sounds.

The refresh rate is how many times a second the display completely refreshes the screen, which if another frame is already ready it will be displayed. If you have a 60hz display, the max you will be able to fully display is 60fps. With the television screens that are at 120hz or higher, they receive two frames at 60hz and then use mathematical equations to create the frames that could be in between. They do refresh at their stated refresh rate, but they cannot take an input greater than 60hz. Whereas a monitor which is 120hz will take an input of 120hz and output 120hz. These 120hz displays could display 120 different frames each second. On LCDs the blurring effect is not created by the refresh rate of the monitor, it is because of the speed at which the pixels can change colors. This is where the term response time comes in, but sadly it is used as marketing tool and they aren't always up to spec. E.G. A monitor with 2ms response time may actually be 5ms. They also measure it in the time it takes for the pixels to go from gray to white and back to gray, not black to white to black.