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Video Card advice

Buying or building computers for Hauptwerk, recommendations, troubleshooting computer hardware issues.
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ConnMan

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Video Card advice

PostMon Aug 18, 2014 9:36 am

Now that I have some guidance on storage devices, I need to make a decision on the last piece of basic hardware, the video card. I have two Compaq L2105TM LCD Touch Monitors, so I need a card that will support two monitors. There is a dizzying array of cards on the market at many price points. It is my assumption that there is very little video demand on a dedicated Hauptwerk system, so in the past I have bought pretty basic cards in the under $200 range.

I would appreciate any advice including specific recommendations.

This is what I have so far:
ASUS SABERTOOTH X79 2011 ATX
NTEL BOX INTEL CORE I7 4820K
CORSAIR HYDRO H60 LIQUID COOLER
CRUCIAL 8GB D3 1333 ECC (4 units)
CORSAIR 650W HX 80+ GOLD MOD PSU
NANOXIA DEEPSILENCE2 BLK ATX CASE
LGE USA INTSATA 16X SPRMULTI BLUE RAY BURNER
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Marco

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Re: Video Card advice

PostMon Aug 18, 2014 7:00 pm

any < $100 current nvidia cards should be plenty for your needs, the vast majority of them have at least 2 outputs and any from a solid brand (evga, asus) should fit the bill, say something like the GT610 fanless which for 2d like HW uses would be even better from a noise standpoint

If you don't mind questions about your list of components

- if you are going for x79, why not 64 gigs of RAM right away? it is difficult to get 64 gigs to play nice and it is easier if you do so if you purchase them all at the same time since they would all be the same, also why ecc?

- if you are going for x79 why a quad-core CPU? the 4820K is only quadcore and a lot less performant than something like the 4970K which also uses less power

- when it comes to PSU note that PSUs are at their most efficient when they are run at about 50% load, a 650W PSU would be running extremely underloaded for just HW, since there is no video card draw, I would suggest a 450W tops, say a corsair CS450M

basically from my perspective for HW you have a choice of

- going for LGA2011 with a 6+ core and 64 gigs of ram
- going for LGA1156 with 4 core and 32 gigs of ram

going LGA2011 for 4-core and 32 gigs of ram seems like a lot of extra money for significantly less performance, also considering the LGA2011 socket is at the end of its life as far as I know due to Haswell-E using a new socket (and having an 8-core CPU too)

I am also not sure about going with ECC ram as that is a significant additional expense, but that is definitely a decision for the buyer in terms of comfort: from my perspective if extremely occasionally a home computer crashes due to a ram issue (which would happen extremely, extremely, extremely rarely for quality ram) one can always reboot, of course for a church installation it's a different kettle of fish.
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ConnMan

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Re: Video Card advice

PostMon Aug 25, 2014 10:56 am

Thanks for your comments. A general answer to your "why" is probably money. First, this is a hobby for me as regretfully, I am a very "entry level" organist. If I were building a system for a church or if it related to my profession, I would probably push the envelope a bit. The motherboard was an "open box" item that was substantially marked down. It held the maximum 64GB of RAM that was my target. Given that it had a 2011 processor socket, the processor was a given. The particular processor was far less expensive than the next higher alternative. The error correcting RAM was price competitive with non EEC RAM, so I didn't see any harm in the choice. I do appreciate your recommendation to fully populate the motherboard from the start, so that will be next on my list.

From my perspective, this is light years better in every way than the system that I have (dual core/8gb with a slow FDD.) In addition, I have had the video card, FDD, and power supply fail over the years in my present system. I am having problems again, and it seem like the end is near. The time to move with this project was not the best for me, but you can't always have the luxury to schedule the replacement of electronics for a time that is financially optimal.

So, over the weekend, I got the hardware installed, the OS and drivers loaded, and the system is running. Now, there are endless updates of all the above! I just purchased an Echo Adiofire 12 for the system as my old EMU 1820 seems destined for obsolescence.
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schantzplayer

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Re: Video Card advice

PostTue Aug 26, 2014 11:24 pm

I am concerned over your choice of liquid cooler. My other hobby is flight simulation and when I fly a Boeing 777, the computer needs to be accelerated above 4 GHz. This sometimes requires liquid cooling. I have heard from folks who have sprung leaks with disastrous results. HW does not need that "overclocking" so I would go with fans or convection. Just my 2 cents.

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