Vega's *Heavyweight* display and computer; edition 2012

[UrbanSmooth]

Two cards I would get Z77. Three cards I would get X79.

And FOUR cards, sir?

[Phatboy69]

Still the X79!

[Systemlord]

Two cards I would get Z77. Three cards I would get X79.

What if you don't upgrade every 2-3 years (look at sig) like most, still Z77 or X79 to future proof a little?

[Phatboy69]

The 2011 socket (X79 chipset currently) is still to get the Ivy bridge Enthusiast treatment. Z77 is the mainstream refresh of Sandy bridge. So you probably wont get another CPU refresh for Z77 where as the X79 is still to get Ivy-E CPU later this year or early next and it will be pin compatible with X79.(hopefully a bios flash to support on current X79 chipset) I cant see anything that the Z77 really has over X79 feature wise so I dont understand why you would go Z77. Just because its new doesnt make it better... See how long X58 lasted as the best platform... It wasnt until Sandybridge last year that the X58 stopped being competitive, at least for 2&3way SLI. But it still ruled for 4way and even now the reality is X79 is only 20% better performance wise than X58 at best. Most games are still GPU bound at the resolutions we play at these days, so a lot of games just cant take advantage of the extra CPU speed or even more than 4 cores.

If you dont mind spending the cash now, i still say go X79 it will have at least another 2 years left in it. If you want to go the slightly cheaper route, go Z77, but you'll not get quite the peformance of the X79 on 3-way and 4-way setups.
In theory the X79 should last longer.

[Callsign_Vega]

...

[UrbanSmooth]

Yes, Vega?

[Systemlord]

I'm still unsure if the PCI-E lanes in Z77 (PCI-E 3.0 x8/x8 in SLI) will be enough bandwidth for two big Kepler GPU's at 1920x1080...?

[Callsign_Vega]

I'm still unsure if the PCI-E lanes in Z77 (PCI-E 3.0 x8/x8 in SLI) will be enough bandwidth for two big Kepler GPU's at 1920x1080...?

Yes it will be. 1080P is not demanding on the PCI-E bus. You will be fine.


On another note:

Ordered this to test out:

http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/sto...erview/theater

Cross-talk, ghosting and glasses flicker is what has always turned me off with 3D. This supposedly eliminates all three of those problems. I thought it would be cool to test out. Plus it will be cool to see .7 inch OLED screens.

[Systemlord]

Yes it will be. 1080P is not demanding on the PCI-E bus. You will be fine.


On another note:

Ordered this to test out:

http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/sto...erview/theater

Cross-talk, ghosting and glasses flicker is what has always turned me off with 3D. This supposedly eliminates all three of those problems. I thought it would be cool to test out. Plus it will be cool to see .7 inch OLED screens.

You are limited to 720P though, can't wait to hear about your experience with it though!

[UrbanSmooth]

Glad to see OLED making some headroom.

[Callsign_Vega]

You are limited to 720P though, can't wait to hear about your experience with it though!

Ya, a 1080P version of this would be awesome. Stupid HDMI always holding everything back. Damn I hate that cable.

[Ice009]

I'm still unsure if the PCI-E lanes in Z77 (PCI-E 3.0 x8/x8 in SLI) will be enough bandwidth for two big Kepler GPU's at 1920x1080...?

I think it will be for current cards, but not sure about newer cards.

Also, I will ask again - Is PCIe 3.0 x8/x8 enough for Surround Resolutions with two cards? According to the graph on the previous page it is held back a bit at 5760 x 1080.

[tiro_uspsss]

so when are you going to upgrade to these:

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?...ducts_id=20122

?

[Callsign_Vega]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsX7ogE8Nhg

Make sure to view in 720P.

Guild Wars 2 is as good as I thought it would be, and one of the main reasons I created this unique NVIDIA Surround setup.

Sorry about the black borders between the screens, I do not have a wide-angle video camera lens to accurately capture the seam-less image of the lenses at this time. To see that effect in action, please view the Fresnel Lens video in my channel. In a normal playing/seating position, the three images come together to create one "world" image and the Fresnel lenses add a slight depth effect. It is like looking through a large window out into the world and makes for one amazing gaming experience.

As you can see in the video, SLI is not working properly (developers are working on fix). It is only using around one GTX 680's worth of processing power, but it will read around 3x 33% as it has to send the frames to three different cards in this Surround setup.

My 4th EVGA GTX 680 malfunctioned and I have a replacement on the way. Amazingly, as you can see in the video it runs pretty darn smooth.

I do a quick tour of Divinity's Reach, the most impressive city I've ever seen in any MMORPG. Then I head out to the World vs World vs World area called the "Mists". Here you get bumped up to level 80 but you can see my Ranger still has noob clothes and skills. You still need to level up to properly play WvWvW. I chase some player down and they go hide in the fort as we try and smash the door down. Those doors are pretty strong and take a good while to destroy so I switch over to a PvP "mini-game".

Now in the PvP mini-games, you get leveled to 80 but you also get 80 PvP armor and skills. Here you can see some of the cool effects. I was playing off to the side craning my neck so the camera had a good view. Don't laugh at my playing skill because of this!

The PvP mini-game plays very well and I think I even managed a kill in there somewhere. I am glad I pre-purchased the collectors edition. GW2 is shaping up to be quite the game.

[UrbanSmooth]

Guild Wars 2? Nahh, bro. It's all about TERA.

[Callsign_Vega]

I noticed my eyes starting to get pretty tired viewing such a large image through those Fresnel lenses so I am taking my build to a much scaled back and different approach. You really can have too large of a display setup for gaming! I also find myself playing more competitively in games like BF3 and Counter-strike on a single display system (CRT).

Single FW900 @ 2048x1280 / 90 Hz, no Fresnel, single water-cooled GTX 680 overclocked to max, Asus Maximus V Gene and 3770K, 2x Vertex 4's for Raid 0 inbound. Everything will be water cooled, hopefully they come out with a MB water block. Phase change won't be a part of the loop anymore, just the current ambient side and the Geothermal side is still a go in the future.

It's amazing how well a single overclocked GTX 680 runs games on a FW900 @ 2048x1280 / 90 Hz. The smoothness and lack of any sort of lag, display response or input is incredible. I can tell the difference between the frame lag that 4-way SLI introduces and single GPU. I am back to the single GPU / single display fan club until those high-resolution / high refresh rate OLED screens come out.

I will make a post in the market section and should have some good stuff for sale. Everything from A+ FW900's, to 680's with EK blocks on them (and I have one sealed box EVGA GTX 680), Vertex 3's, a really nice 3960X, RIVE, etc etc.

I know, quite a 180 deg turn.. I may have ADD.

[defect9]

And now you can say "yes, I really tried that" and have an awesome story to tell about how well it worked (plus the pros and cons of both ways).

[Callsign_Vega]

And now you can say "yes, I really tried that" and have an awesome story to tell about how well it worked (plus the pros and cons of both ways).

I agree.

The immersion factor in games like GW2 on the setup was just crazy awesome. Far beyond any of my LCD Eyefinity/Surround setups. It was also incredibly smooth. The magnified image was so large though and in order to get the aspect ratio with the lenses just right I had to sit pretty close. It really is like being in the world but I found myself having to move my eyes and head way too much and it was actually a hinderance in PvP. With a single top screen like the FW900 you can get virtually all of the action in central vision and you can percieve and react to things faster. That's why I think you can have too large an image for gaming unless you are going for pure immersion.

Really there are two ways you can go: immersion and competitiveness. It is very hard to do both. I am quite a competitive person so I am going with the new simpler build for that. The instant response time and no lag of a single GPU and FW900 is really incredible to play games on.

[Callsign_Vega]

While I was fleshing out all of my GTX 680's to find which was the best over-clocker I found out I have a beast card. I always wondered why this card all the way at the end in my 4-way SLI config operated so much cooler than the others. It is crazy efficient.

1328 MHz core, 3580 MHz memory at stock voltage! Also EVGA Scanner X and OCCT stable at these frequencies. My other three GTX 680's would top out around 1240-1260 MHz core when used on their own.

This core is so efficient it idles at 18 C! Anyone else see clocks like these? It will make a nice single GPU for my new mini-build.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th4pN...ature=youtu.be

[tiro_uspsss]

wish I could afford one of those 24" CRTs

[TyphooN]

wish I could afford one of those 24" CRTs

You can, pick one up at Accurate IT. This may not be as good as the ones that are calibrated by Unkle Vito @ hard forum, but you can calibrate it yourself with Sony WinDAS (run in Windows XP.. I run it in a virtual machine), and a USB -> TTL cable. I bought one of these from eBay when Accurate IT was out of stock for about $550 shipped 2 years ago.. It was totally worth it.

[Levish]

I agree.

The immersion factor in games like GW2 on the setup was just crazy awesome. Far beyond any of my LCD Eyefinity/Surround setups. It was also incredibly smooth. The magnified image was so large though and in order to get the aspect ratio with the lenses just right I had to sit pretty close. It really is like being in the world but I found myself having to move my eyes and head way too much and it was actually a hinderance in PvP. With a single top screen like the FW900 you can get virtually all of the action in central vision and you can percieve and react to things faster. That's why I think you can have too large an image for gaming unless you are going for pure immersion.

Really there are two ways you can go: immersion and competitiveness. It is very hard to do both. I am quite a competitive person so I am going with the new simpler build for that. The instant response time and no lag of a single GPU and FW900 is really incredible to play games on.

I gamed for quite a while on a 92" projector setup, the immersion for me was superb. Biggest con was the dark room requirement was fairly depressing, I recall reading that newer screens and HD projectors have come a long way.

I tried Eyefinity myself and the few games I tried just didn't have the correct aspect despite fiddling with them and I gave up.

When I have the space again, I will definitely setup another projection based Gaming room with something that will work with a bit of ambient light.

[LeoAndrade]

man, you have a monster GTX680. Any update on your rig?

[tiro_uspsss]

You can, pick one up at Accurate IT. This may not be as good as the ones that are calibrated by Unkle Vito @ hard forum, but you can calibrate it yourself with Sony WinDAS (run in Windows XP.. I run it in a virtual machine), and a USB -> TTL cable. I bought one of these from eBay when Accurate IT was out of stock for about $550 shipped 2 years ago.. It was totally worth it.

......I'm in Perth.......WESTERN AUSTRALIA

[TyphooN]

......I'm in Perth.......WESTERN AUSTRALIA

My bad, didn't see your signature. If you come across one it is worth it!