Bounou
07-18-2008, 02:06 AM
So decided it was time to upgrade my old gaming rig, been neglecting it for a while and ended up with a situation where most of gear needed changing.
Started with a new screen, samsung 2493hm, 24 inch 1920x1200, wonderful product, looks great both on my desk and in my games so very happy with that, got a new pair of speakers logitech z-5500's, they look great on the desk and the sound coming out is good, having some issues running them in 5.1 digital but thats related to the sound card not the speakers.
Also decided instead of changing the entire computer i would just get 2gb of extra ram to bring it up to 4 and get a new gpu, a 9600GT, runs very well playing crysis in high with no noticable lag.
My question/problems are in 3 specific area's, sound cards, cases and power supplies.
Decided the next PC i get will be self built, want to wait for ddr3 to come down to reasonable prices and for the new intel processors, i figure i can get a solid 6-12 months of good gaming power with the computer as it is but want to get a head start on a few parts.
My current case has alot of fans but was not designed for gaming systems and was thinking of swapping it out now and replacing it with a top of the line gaming case, something with built in cooling or at least massive heat dispersal. So the first question regarding the case is what kind of life can i expect from a realy high end case 200-500$?
i want something that will last me at least 5 years if not much longer, seems like i spend 60-120$ on a case every new rig and would just much rather break the bank on one once and just keep it for 10 years. Short of bigger power supplies do these things ever become unusable when new tech comes out?
What kind of models would you recommend? Antec 1200 or better, the sky is the limit for this as long as it will last a long long time! Would like something that looks pretty sharp also if possible.
Second problem i have is i have some pretty kick ass logitech speakers but half of them dont work atm because the built in sound card on my motherboard does not support 5.1 digital, tried getting a extreme x-fi from soundblaster but the drivers where just plain horrible, crashed firefox when i tried to watch any form of video, made it impossible to get sound in crysis for longer then 2 minutes, had to remove it and take it back to the store, would have no problem getting something like asus d2x even if the 200$ pricetag is very steap but my lone PCIE slot is currently behing completely blocked by the fan of my 9600gt so has to be PCI.
So any NON creative cards you can recommend? Really rather not relive the horror that is installing those POS drivers. Perfect worls its 50 or less and will work with XP and vista premium.
last but certainly not least what would be a good upgrade for a power supply for the case i end up getting, something that would support pretty much any future setup.
Thanks in advance for the help!
P.S. First post here so hello to everyone!
Started with a new screen, samsung 2493hm, 24 inch 1920x1200, wonderful product, looks great both on my desk and in my games so very happy with that, got a new pair of speakers logitech z-5500's, they look great on the desk and the sound coming out is good, having some issues running them in 5.1 digital but thats related to the sound card not the speakers.
Also decided instead of changing the entire computer i would just get 2gb of extra ram to bring it up to 4 and get a new gpu, a 9600GT, runs very well playing crysis in high with no noticable lag.
My question/problems are in 3 specific area's, sound cards, cases and power supplies.
Decided the next PC i get will be self built, want to wait for ddr3 to come down to reasonable prices and for the new intel processors, i figure i can get a solid 6-12 months of good gaming power with the computer as it is but want to get a head start on a few parts.
My current case has alot of fans but was not designed for gaming systems and was thinking of swapping it out now and replacing it with a top of the line gaming case, something with built in cooling or at least massive heat dispersal. So the first question regarding the case is what kind of life can i expect from a realy high end case 200-500$?
i want something that will last me at least 5 years if not much longer, seems like i spend 60-120$ on a case every new rig and would just much rather break the bank on one once and just keep it for 10 years. Short of bigger power supplies do these things ever become unusable when new tech comes out?
What kind of models would you recommend? Antec 1200 or better, the sky is the limit for this as long as it will last a long long time! Would like something that looks pretty sharp also if possible.
Second problem i have is i have some pretty kick ass logitech speakers but half of them dont work atm because the built in sound card on my motherboard does not support 5.1 digital, tried getting a extreme x-fi from soundblaster but the drivers where just plain horrible, crashed firefox when i tried to watch any form of video, made it impossible to get sound in crysis for longer then 2 minutes, had to remove it and take it back to the store, would have no problem getting something like asus d2x even if the 200$ pricetag is very steap but my lone PCIE slot is currently behing completely blocked by the fan of my 9600gt so has to be PCI.
So any NON creative cards you can recommend? Really rather not relive the horror that is installing those POS drivers. Perfect worls its 50 or less and will work with XP and vista premium.
last but certainly not least what would be a good upgrade for a power supply for the case i end up getting, something that would support pretty much any future setup.
Thanks in advance for the help!
P.S. First post here so hello to everyone!