re: PC Discussion - Gaming, Performance and Enthusiasts

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e10 DAC/Amp came in

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Oh you ended up purchasing the e10? Nice.

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Most annoying thing is having to manually switch audio sources to use my speakers when necessary.

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Since your DAC isn't making much difference, and your speakers already have an amp... why even use the e10?

Just plug your headphones to the e10 and speakers to analog audio out. Much easier to switch via software.

This is the setup I use because I rarely use my speakers.

LINK

More information in the link above.

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According to SemiAccurate’s sources NVIDIA might reveal some details of the upcoming Maxwell architecture during CES in Las Vegas. Whether this is going to be a public announcement or a special meeting behind closed doors, is yet to be confirmed.

NVIDIA Maxwell GM107 and GM204 release dates
According to S|A, the GM107 would be revealed in February. This is a mid-range GPU for cards like GTX 860, maybe even GTX 870. The Big Maxwell, which is codenamed GM204 would arrive later, possibly in fourth quarter. Of course this would be a GTX 780 (Ti) replacement.

What is new in Maxwell?
The Maxwell architecture will be a derivative of Kepler. The shaders will look similar to Kepler’s. The new feature is coherent memory, and here we should mention Project Denver, which apparently is not yet ready to be implemented into Maxwell. Instead of using a separate CPU NVIDIA will use a controller to take some steam off the GPU. How is this going to affect the performance? Let’s wait and see.

GeForce GTX 790?
Speaking of the new cards, we might soon welcome a new GeForce 700 graphics card. The GeForce GTX 790 is supposedly being prepared for February, so yes, this is going to be an interesting month. I heard it could feature 10GB memory (through 2x 320b interface) and 2x 2496 CUDAs. I could not verify this information, thus I decided not to make a separate post, but if these specs are even slightly true then I think you should know them.

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If the GTX 790 is launched soon, this would be the perfect solution for my watercooled Node 304.

Exciting times in an always changing landscape, I love PC gaming.

I dont think anyone belives that.

1. The memory bus isn't designed for half bits.

So it is increased from 1, 3, 6, , 9, 12, etc.

2. The size of 2xGK110-300s (GTX 780) size is so large than it barely has enough surface area for power delivery.

3. The TDP would insane if it is a sub 2xGK110-400 like a GK110-350 or something.

IDK if I believe that one. What really throws is off is the VRAM. It is possible but will just cause greater latency issues when accessing over 9GB of VRAM. Same thing happened to the 6series GPUs and the 670/680 4GB cards.

EDT: I just noticed it isn't unified, so it is a 5GB card and not a 10GB card. Hate when they post/publish this.

You can't access 10GB, only 5GB.

So update on the monitor situation.

My 3 27" 2560x1440 monitors came in. For the price I can't recommend them enough. Out of the three of them I see 2 dead pixels total. No bleeding of the screen. The bases are kind of ghetto but I can live with that.

Now trying to hook these up for eyefinity has been an issue. Each monitort only has 1x dual DVI port. My GPUs each have 2x dual DVI ports, 1x displayport, and 1x HDMI port. Since all monitors have to connect to a single GPU I hooked up two via dual DVI cables and the last with a DVI to HDMI adapter. With the R9 GPUs you can get away with this UNLESS the resolution is too high for HDMI (in this case with 2560x1440 it is) so while the third monitor (hooked to HDMI) was being detected, I couldn't get a picture on it.

So I have now purchased

LINK

Which will hopefully fix my issue.

So I changed my mind. I am returning the e10 and will be searching for an amp only. I turned the amp down to match the volume that my motherboard produces at max, then performed a series of A-B tests with my wife's assistance, and after doing that test today and listening to various music files and trying a couple of games, it became pretty obvious that my onboard sound > e10 at the same volume. Apparently MSI got pretty serious about onboard sound for the Z87 MPower.

It would almost make more financial sense for me to just get a sound card that would outperform a similarly priced DAC and most likely provide the extra volume I need, but the other option I'm considering now is the Magni amp or the Objective2 amp. I can get the Magni on Amazon Prime for a painless return policy, while the O2 would not be as painless to return. The question is whether the O2's quality is that much superior to the Magni to justify the extra $20+, longer wait time, and 15% restocking fee if I decide to return it.

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It would almost make more financial sense for me to just get a sound card that would outperform a similarly priced DAC and most likely provide the extra volume I need, but the other option I'm considering now is the Magni amp or the Objective2 amp. I can get the Magni on Amazon Prime for a painless return policy, while the O2 would not be as painless to return. The question is whether the O2's quality is that much superior to the Magni to justify the extra $20+, longer wait time, and 15% restocking fee if I decide to return it.

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go with the magni easily

Does anyone know if the Steam system will be able to play PC games (connect to a mouse and keyboard) or will it just be a console?

I've seen that before and I still can't grasp it. It's just a crazy idea but obviously it works for them.

Partitioned one of my HTPCs drive 140GB W7/40GB Ubuntu/60GB Steam.

What a damn pain to install Steam OS. Nothing would work and it would not recognize any of my hardware. Keyboards/Mice wouldn't even wok.

Plan to play around with it. I do wish the Steam OS had a 100% "Big Picture" mode, even for the OS. Would be nice to never have the need to use the "standard" desktop interface.