Hardware advice for my upgrade building a C2D E6600 + 2x 7900GTX system
Hi there.

I'm about to finish buying parts for my new PC, and was wondering if anyone can offer advice on hardware to avoid, or issues I may encounter with the parts I've already bought.

I have an E6600 CPU and a pair of 7900GTXs, and I have not yet bought motherboard or RAM. I wouldn't be asking this question if I hadn't spotted, in another thread, someone mentioning that even your choice of RAM can cause problems with stereo performance. Is there anything you know I should avoid?

Are there any problems you think I'm likely to encounter with the combination of processor & graphics card I've chosen? I know I'll only be using one of those GTXs in stereo, and that I may have to run with only one CPU core... anything else I should expect?

I'm not completely new to Stereo 3D, but I have been away from it for a long time - many years ago I had an ATi rig & some ED Glasses, which only played GTA3 and Vice City with good results, but even with the nasty interlacing of those drivers it looked amazing. Can't wait to get back into it, and hope I can get some good results - I just wish it wasn't so problematic.
Hi there.



I'm about to finish buying parts for my new PC, and was wondering if anyone can offer advice on hardware to avoid, or issues I may encounter with the parts I've already bought.



I have an E6600 CPU and a pair of 7900GTXs, and I have not yet bought motherboard or RAM. I wouldn't be asking this question if I hadn't spotted, in another thread, someone mentioning that even your choice of RAM can cause problems with stereo performance. Is there anything you know I should avoid?



Are there any problems you think I'm likely to encounter with the combination of processor & graphics card I've chosen? I know I'll only be using one of those GTXs in stereo, and that I may have to run with only one CPU core... anything else I should expect?



I'm not completely new to Stereo 3D, but I have been away from it for a long time - many years ago I had an ATi rig & some ED Glasses, which only played GTA3 and Vice City with good results, but even with the nasty interlacing of those drivers it looked amazing. Can't wait to get back into it, and hope I can get some good results - I just wish it wasn't so problematic.

#1
Posted 04/27/2007 07:25 PM   
RAM, don't worry about it. You have all the essential parts needed except the motherboard. It doesn't really matter which motherboard you get, just get something good quality. I personally haven't tested my new system in stereo 3d yet (no 8800 driver), but I'm sure that my CPU will only run on 1 core in 3d. Aside from that, you are good to go!
RAM, don't worry about it. You have all the essential parts needed except the motherboard. It doesn't really matter which motherboard you get, just get something good quality. I personally haven't tested my new system in stereo 3d yet (no 8800 driver), but I'm sure that my CPU will only run on 1 core in 3d. Aside from that, you are good to go!

Intel Quad Core Extreme QX6700
ASUS Striker Extreme motherboard
EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS + ATi Sapphire Radeon X850 XT (yes, in the same computer; nVidia TV out stinks, but ATi rocks with it!!!)
4 GB GSkill DDR800
5x HDDs (three 320GB (RAID5); two 1TB; one IDE 320GB; total 3TB)
2x Cooler Master 6 HDD coolers (primary usage drives)
2x PSU's (primary 600W psu, secondary 350W psu modded solely to power the ATi card)
32-in Samsung HDTV

#2
Posted 04/28/2007 04:44 PM   
Thanks a lot. For the motherboard I'm intending to get the MSI P6N Diamond, since it has on-board X-Fi sound and hardware RAID (I've got two Raptor 150s I want to use in RAID 0, and I've heard the regular 680i RAID performance is poor), but it's been delayed again and again and doesn't look to be coming out any time soon. So I may go for the cheapest C2D/SLI board I can find as an interim measure, then sell it when the Diamond (or other suitable board) appears.

Interesting setup you have, two enemy graphics cards in at the same time :) Reminds me of an [i]old[/i] PC of mine back in the first days of 3D acceleration, I had a PowerVR, Matrox Mystique and first-gen Voodoo card all together, switched with a systray app.

Hope the 8800 drivers surface soon for you. Do you know if there are any issues specific to the 7900s, compared to older cards, or do these work as well as any now? And I wonder what is currently the best set of drivers for me to use; perhaps this will require some experimentation when my machine is built.
Thanks a lot. For the motherboard I'm intending to get the MSI P6N Diamond, since it has on-board X-Fi sound and hardware RAID (I've got two Raptor 150s I want to use in RAID 0, and I've heard the regular 680i RAID performance is poor), but it's been delayed again and again and doesn't look to be coming out any time soon. So I may go for the cheapest C2D/SLI board I can find as an interim measure, then sell it when the Diamond (or other suitable board) appears.



Interesting setup you have, two enemy graphics cards in at the same time :) Reminds me of an old PC of mine back in the first days of 3D acceleration, I had a PowerVR, Matrox Mystique and first-gen Voodoo card all together, switched with a systray app.



Hope the 8800 drivers surface soon for you. Do you know if there are any issues specific to the 7900s, compared to older cards, or do these work as well as any now? And I wonder what is currently the best set of drivers for me to use; perhaps this will require some experimentation when my machine is built.

#3
Posted 04/28/2007 08:12 PM   
If you check out the thread just below this one with the 3D Images and Videos, I listed a 3D Movie that I made with UT2004 in Anaglyph 3D. I think in my tutorial I mentioned that I used an eVGA 7900 GT for it, but I could be wrong. So, there is nothing specificly wrong with the card. I just installed the Forceware and 3D Driver and bingo! Everything works perfectly! No problems! Just make sure your system is fast enough to run everything with the highend games or you will have severe frame lag issues! (I didn't btw...)
If you check out the thread just below this one with the 3D Images and Videos, I listed a 3D Movie that I made with UT2004 in Anaglyph 3D. I think in my tutorial I mentioned that I used an eVGA 7900 GT for it, but I could be wrong. So, there is nothing specificly wrong with the card. I just installed the Forceware and 3D Driver and bingo! Everything works perfectly! No problems! Just make sure your system is fast enough to run everything with the highend games or you will have severe frame lag issues! (I didn't btw...)

Intel Quad Core Extreme QX6700
ASUS Striker Extreme motherboard
EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS + ATi Sapphire Radeon X850 XT (yes, in the same computer; nVidia TV out stinks, but ATi rocks with it!!!)
4 GB GSkill DDR800
5x HDDs (three 320GB (RAID5); two 1TB; one IDE 320GB; total 3TB)
2x Cooler Master 6 HDD coolers (primary usage drives)
2x PSU's (primary 600W psu, secondary 350W psu modded solely to power the ATi card)
32-in Samsung HDTV

#4
Posted 04/28/2007 08:24 PM   
[quote name='NITRO1250' date='Apr 28 2007, 09:24 PM']So, there is nothing specificly wrong with the card. I just installed the Forceware and 3D Driver and bingo! Everything works perfectly! No problems![right][snapback]190683[/snapback][/right]
[/quote]

Heh heh, I like the sound of that :D
Hopefully my PC will be powerful enough, at least for a while...

One other thing I hadn't considered: is page-flipping bad for CRT monitors? I'm using Sun/Sony 24" widescreen CRTs, which I love and have kept (instead of switching to LCD) partly because I knew I'd be trying stereo 3D again sometime - but they are quite expensive and very rare now, so I'd be gutted if I killed them. Is page-flipping more taxing than normal usage?

[edit]: Never mind, I've asked this question in a new [url="http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=34775"]new thread[/url].
[quote name='NITRO1250' date='Apr 28 2007, 09:24 PM']So, there is nothing specificly wrong with the card. I just installed the Forceware and 3D Driver and bingo! Everything works perfectly! No problems!
[snapback]190683[/snapback]






Heh heh, I like the sound of that :D

Hopefully my PC will be powerful enough, at least for a while...



One other thing I hadn't considered: is page-flipping bad for CRT monitors? I'm using Sun/Sony 24" widescreen CRTs, which I love and have kept (instead of switching to LCD) partly because I knew I'd be trying stereo 3D again sometime - but they are quite expensive and very rare now, so I'd be gutted if I killed them. Is page-flipping more taxing than normal usage?



[edit]: Never mind, I've asked this question in a new new thread.

#5
Posted 04/29/2007 01:13 PM   
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