Advice For New Gaming Rig

Originally posted by Soba453 Questions: 1. In one of my e-mails, I asked Robert about the performance difference between the Fatal1ty and the XtremeGamer soundcard.  He forgot to answer the question, so I'm asking you guys now: Other than the fact that it has an I/O unit and a remote control, is there a big difference in the sound, both quality and performance?  If there's a huge difference in sound quality, I may go with the Fatal1ty. 2. I was planning to go with the Intel Core 2 Duo (TwisterBoost Enhanced) E6750 2.80GHz (1400MHz Front Side Bus) for the processor and the Air Cooled Stage 3 (Silent Artic Cooling (TwisterBoost Overclocked) . I still don't really understand how the air cooling stages work.  Does getting stage 3 mean that I'm getting the recommended air cooling for an overclocked processor? For instance, if I went with stage 1 with my processor, I'd run into heating problems.  Or, do the stages signify how high of an overclock I want? I really wanted a stable system that would run near-perfectly for 4 years at least. Those are the questions I have for now.  Thanks!

Edited by 67alecto - 21 Oct 2007 at 1:22am

Okay, so I think I was confused by the "Twisterboost Enhanced" and the "Twisterboost Overclocked."  I was thrown off by that and thought they both meant overclocked.  In which case, what does the "enhanced" actually mean? And going by what you said 67Alecto: if I decided to go with the stage 2 instead, does that mean it won't be overclocked at all and I'll just have more than enough air cooling for the processor?

I'll go with the XtremeGamer and just buy the remote control separately if the sound quality is truly negligble. :)

On an extra note, does anyone know if the Pro case situation has changed? I heard that it won't be available until 11/1, which may be bad for me since I need a new computer asap. 

On the Fatal1ty sound card, from a review at Techspot:

Edited by Tyler Lowe - 21 Oct 2007 at 12:12am

Originally posted by Tyler Lowe On the Fatal1ty sound card, from a review at Techspot: "The X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS and X-Fi Elite Pro both feature 64MB X-RAM (SDRAM), dedicated to audio caching. This requires specific application support to function. Less audio data needs to be paged from the hard drive as it can be stored on the soundcard itself, decreasing the number of read/writes as compared with other soundcards." You can find the rest of that review Here   The Xtreme gamer will get you an increase in FPS, even without X-RAM, as the use of descrete audio processors will free CPU cycles. If the app is indeed especially written to take advantage of the X-RAM, then the HDD R/W load will be dcreased which may gain a a bit more. The use of *any* sound card will have a positive impact on performance, however.   As far the difference between the two in terms of sound quality, both offer up a THD of .004% @ 1Khz, and frequency response @ -3dB input, 24-bit/96kHz of 10Hz to 46kHz, which is just this side of DC all the way up to punish the neighborhood dogs frequencies. Most adults can't hear much past 14 Khz, and frequencies below 20Hz are no longer heard, they are felt (sub base).    Granted, without a full frequency response curve, the THD figure is almost completely meaningless, so even with both units ilisted at the same THD figure, it is *possible* there is some difference between the two, but this is unlikely, as if there were, Soundblaster would be the first to point out the improvement. The Fatal1ty offers more connectivity options, and does offer the remote control, so if you intend on using the computer as part of a larger entertainment system, it may offer up advantages.   Stage 2 and stage 3 cooling are exactly the same with the exception that stage 3 means overclocked.   To rephrase, if you select stage 3 cooling,  Digital Storm will add an aftermarket CPU cooler, just as they would at stage 2, and then they will overclock your CPU for you.    DSO *will not* overclock to any speed that would result in an unstable system, or in a system running so hot that the CPU is likely to fail within 4 years. Remember, DSO's warranty covers CPU's they overclock for 3 full years. They're not about to do anything too extreme. The goal is an increase in performance with as little impact on system stability and lifespan as possible.   On the PSU's:   The Corsair unit is not only a higher output, it is more efficient as well. Being more effiicient means generating less heat, which translates, not only into lower electric bills for you, but a quieter computing experience as well. The corsair unit is also a modular cabling design. The 600W TT silent purepower edition may or may not be modular, my impression is that it is not, but you may wish to confirm with DSO.

Thanks for clearing up the confusion between the air cooling stages.  I have to admit that it was very reassuring when you had mentioned that the warranty even covers an overclocked CPU and that DS wouldn't build an unstable system -- definitely something for me to consider now.

In the case of the PSU, if the Corsair = efficient + quiet, then by golly I'll go with that. =)

New question/thoughts:
A month ago, Robert convinced me to go with a dual core E6750 (Twisterboost Enhanced) instead of the quad core Q6600 since they had similar performances and most of the software I'd be using wouldn't even utilize the four cores; however, I didn't mention to Robert that I was also a developer. 

Now I'm once again contemplating on whether I should go quad or not.  I was doing some research (not too extensive) and found that rendering and compiling does utilize quad core.  Some of the applications I use are: Mathematica, MatLab, Visual Studio 2005, Netbeans.  I also do OpenGL programming in C++. 

I do play video games too (WoW atm), so that's something I'm considering for future games that may actually use the four cores; however,  I think the biggest gain from the quad core is the minimal performance loss when running multiple processes.  I tend to have a lot of processes running like, FireFox windows, Trillian (instant messenger), winamp, WoW, and A LOT of security software (AVG anti-virus, Trojan Guard, Comodo firewall, Ad-Aware, Peerguardian).  From those of you who have the quad core, do you guys see a huge performance gain when running a lot of things? I don't want to go with the E6750 just to find out that I could have really benefited from the Q6600.  And if I do, would the PSU I currently selected still be optimal? Would anyone recommend going with the air cooling stage 3 at that point to make up for the loss in clockspeed going from that E6750 (Twisterboost Enhanced) to the Q6600?

Its been a struggle to make a decision, and I guess I'm really just waiting to be convinced. =) I truly appreciate the advice and feedback guys!

I'll let you know when I get my system how the Quad pans out .

Edited by Tyler Lowe - 21 Oct 2007 at 2:16am

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

calculator ^

Hm, I probably wouldn't mind getting a crescent-shaped window - I won't be able to even see the side anyways.  Regardless, let me know what happens with the case situation.

And I'm tired of beating around the bush (I shouldn't even be doing this!), so I'm probably going to go with the Q6600 and air cooling stage 3. :)

EDIT: And thanks for the link, skyR!

Edited by Soba453 - 22 Oct 2007 at 4:22am

Hm, that's not so bad -- I wouldn't mind having the computer first and getting the windowed-side panel later. 

I hope I'm not being too nosy, but how long has it been since you've sent your order in? I saw that the build-time was 5-10 days, but I got the feeling that you've had your order in longer than that.  I plan on sending my order in some time this weekend, and I'm mostly just curious if it's also going to take longer than 5-10 days because of the Pro case situation.  If I'm wrong about the extended build-time then I'll just shut up. =P

Edit: Ohhh, I just noticed that your signature says that the computer is being shipped.  Are you excited? :)


Edited by Soba453 - 24 Oct 2007 at 7:39am