Build specs needed for triple-screen driving sim rig...

the_greeze

the_greeze

the_greeze

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20 Jun 2011
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35
Hi all,
As the title says really; I want to build myself a PC capable of playing racing games such as Need For Speed: Shift 2, Dirt 3, iRacing etc at their highest settings/quality. I'm not new to PC building but I have been 'out of touch' for a good few years! Therefore, I'm not too sure what I need! :confused:

Budget is £1000. I already have the displays; three 42" HDMI plasmas so an absolute-must is the ability to utilize a triple-screen system :cool:

Any help and guidance will be much appreciated, thank you :)
 
Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
Asus GeForce GTX 560Ti DirectCU II 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £173.99
(£144.99) £347.98
(£289.98)
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £156.98
(£130.82) £156.98
(£130.82)
MSI P67A-GD65 Intel P67 (socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** with FREE Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus CPU Cooler £139.99
(£116.66) £139.99
(£116.66)
Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive £91.99
(£76.66) £91.99
(£76.66)
XFX Pro 750W Core Edition Power Supply £74.99
(£62.49) £74.99
(£62.49)
Microsoft Windows 7 Bundle - Home Premium 64 Bit £68.40
(£57.00) £68.40
(£57.00)
Options applied to the above product:
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX) £29.99
(£24.99) £29.99
(£24.99)
Cooler Master CM-690 II Lite Dominator Case - Black £59.99
(£49.99) £59.99
(£49.99)
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) £34.99
(£29.16) £34.99
(£29.16)
OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
(£12.49) £14.99
(£12.49)
Sub Total : £850.24
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £14.75
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £173.00
Total : £1,037.99


Nvidia cards work best in those games, and you need two of them to use three or more screens.

The come with mini HDMI to HDMI adapters, so will either need a DVI-HDMI cable for the third output, or get a DVI-HDMI adapter to put on the back of the card.
 
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Its faster at level loading, booting up, system response.

Use it to install the operating system and a few of your favorite games on.
 
the_greeze said:
@stulid: Many thanks for the list :) What's the advantage of the solid-state drive please?
Click to expand...

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but SSDs usually improve loading times, but they wouldn't improve performance. I suppose they would help in your situation if you are planning on using three plasmas like that.

+I die a little inside when someone has £1000 to spend on a rig. My maximum is £800 with a monitor, keyboard & mouse. Damn.
 
Is there a single graphics card I could use that would perform the same as the 560Ti's? Or is there something newer? I've done a quick Google on the 560 and it gets okay-ish reviews but nearly all the reviews suggest other cards instead.

Doubling them up will enhance the performance I guess, I was just wondering what other options were available. :)
 
You can use a ATI card with a active display port adapter.

to get three screens from a single ATI card you have to use the displayport output on it for atleast one screen.

you can get a active adapter to convert the displayport into a DVI output.

Like this - http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?leg=&psn=000107&pid=357
But it must be active and not a passive adapter.


Or you can use a single "FLEX" card - http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?leg=&psn=000101&pid=1099
Without the adapter, it has extra circuitry that means you can use any combination of its outputs.
 
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i'm thinking that for driving games the PhysX offered by Nvidia would be very helpful though.

also, two 560 Ti's will beat any single GPU card from ATI (and probably Nidia as well)
 
Cheers for all the responses guys :)

Looks like twin 560Ti's is the way to go if I want to use HDMI. Just one more question: could I use the VGA inputs on my plasmas and still get HD resolutions? I was thinking DVI to VGA adapter/cable? Is that a viable alternative?
 
the_greeze said:
Cheers for all the responses guys :)

Looks like twin 560Ti's is the way to go if I want to use HDMI. Just one more question: could I use the VGA inputs on my plasmas and still get HD resolutions? I was thinking DVI to VGA adapter/cable? Is that a viable alternative?
Click to expand...

Why use analogue VGA when you can use digital HDMI?

Are your plasmas full HD or HD ready?
 
the_greeze said:
HD Ready. They're set up with PS3's and 360's at the moment and I'm happy with the picture quality.
Click to expand...

I was just thinking that if they're HD ready that will be less pixels for the GPU(s) to process.

If they're 1366x768 rather than 1920x1080 that's virtually half the number of pixels so you'll get better frame rates for any given GPU.
 
Surveyor said:
I was just thinking that if they're HD ready that will be less pixels for the GPU(s) to process.

If they're 1366x768 rather than 1920x1080 that's virtually half the number of pixels so you'll get better frame rates for any given GPU.
Click to expand...

Yeah, thats the max. resolution of the displays (1366x768) :)

Sooooo, those dual 560Ti's shouldn't even break a sweat then?
 
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