Gaming comp/rig for my son...help please

A 5870 is absolutely more than sufficient and and a 5970 is pure overkill lol, so just leave it as is :D

well hoepfully he will be here one day talking to another Mom or someone elseas you and the others did telling his story and explaining why one thing is a better idea than another....lol....

As for the sound card.This was my choices and from what I understand Integrated Sound is not the greatest. These were my choices below? And I can always change the Video card to Single 2GB GDDR5 ATI Radeon™ HD 5970 for $250.00 more but would he really notice the difference :|

Integrated audio is included.

None Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Audio [add$40or$2/month1]
Hear Them ComingCreative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Titanium [add$75or$3/month1]

abncdefghijklmn

like for watching movies on your PC? I am not getting the Blue rey, dont need it on the comp.As for speekers he uses head phones. So is the Sound card also over kill? Does anyone here ever put in a better sound card? Whay about with headphones on in shooting games, will a different card make any difference in that?

Todays onboard sound is alot better then it was say 5 years ago today most have 5.1 surround, unless you have a 5.1 - 7.1 speaker system that X-fi sound card will be juat a waste. Now about the video card what size screen will he be using? anything upto a 22" 1680x1050 the 5770 will be good, 5850 1680x1050+ and 5870 is just for extra AA and running games in 1080p or higher and for bragging rights simply put. 04dcarraher

I was informed to not go any higher than a 22" monitor. 19' to 22" was best for gaming. So than are you thinking that the integrated sound will be fine or would you go with the other? It was $ 85 for the sound upgrade. Guess I should see if I can find out what the integrated sound is in the darn thing...

Okay so i checked and it has 6 connections and is integrated Surround. Is the card better? someone else said it is good to havein games like CallofDuty so you can hear their footseps and them coming in the game.

heres what it says about the audio card i added......

Get faster gaming performance over standard integrated HD audio and phenomenal surround sound with headphones

With more than 51 million transistors, Sound Blaster X-Fi is capable of up to 10,000+ MIPS (Millions of Instruction Per Second), delivering an unbelievable 24 times more power than its predecessor. Sound Blaster X-Fi delivers amazingly crisp, clear extreme FidelityTM audio playback, and a realistic surround experience --with headphones or multichannel speakers—for an audio experience beyond your imagination.

Sound Blaster X-Fi doesn't just power you through every audio task; it does so with newly designed efficiency and finesse. Featuring a flexible "Mode" architecture that harnesses and focuses all the incredible power in three key audio uses: Entertainment, Gaming and Audio Creation, Sound Blaster X-Fi ensures that the power you need goes exactly where you need it.

• For music, it remasters the music in real time to 24-bit/96kHz quality and then restores the rich detail that is lost during MP3 or WMA compression, so it can sound even better than it did on the original CD!
• For gaming, it delivers fast and smooth gameplay, providing more frames per second than common HDA integrated audio solutions. It also immerses you in a sphere of sound with 9 virtual speakers delivered over standard stereo headphones, and 128 virtual speakers over 5.1 or 7.1 speaker systems.
• For movies, it offers unbelievably realistic surround sound with regular headphones or multichannel speakers, plus more punchy and explosive movie audio. Your stereo DivX videos can sound like DVD surround sound movies.
• For music creation, it is the high quality, feature-rich recording capabilities many have been waiting for. With an SRC (Sample Rate Conversion) engine that is designed to be far more precise than the previous Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster X-Fi can convert audio to new and higher resolutions over what has been "ripped" to your system.

A sound card is only good give you have the equipment to back it up. Let's say you buy a pair $50 headphones, you probably wouldn't be able to notice a difference between the onboard and the sound card. To tell you the truth, between my $100 headphones and my $200 sound card, the difference is far from night and day from onboard to my sound card. If you are going to get a sound card, at least get a pair of headphones such as the ATH-AD700. Otherwise you aren't gaining anything.

And the XtremeMusic card is not actually that great of a card, because it isn't hardware accelerated, and in my opinion isn't really worth the difference over onboard for gaming. At least get something like the Xtremegamer edition which is much better.

[QUOTE="04dcarraher"]Todays onboard sound is alot better then it was say 5 years ago today most have 5.1 surround, unless you have a 5.1 - 7.1 speaker system that X-fi sound card will be juat a waste. Now about the video card what size screen will he be using? anything upto a 22" 1680x1050 the 5770 will be good, 5850 1680x1050+ and 5870 is just for extra AA and running games in 1080p or higher and for bragging rights simply put. abncdefghijklmn

I was informed to not go any higher than a 22" monitor. 19' to 22" was best for gaming. So than are you thinking that the integrated sound will be fine or would you go with the other? It was $ 85 for the sound upgrade. Guess I should see if I can find out what the integrated sound is in the darn thing...

Okay so i checked and it has 6 connections and is integrated Surround. Is the card better? someone else said it is good to havein games like CallofDuty so you can hear their footseps and them coming in the game.

A sound card is only good give you have the equipment to back it up. Let's say you buy a pair $50 headphones, you probably wouldn't be able to notice a difference between the onboard and the sound card. To tell you the truth, between my $100 headphones and my $200 sound card, the difference is far from night and day from onboard to my sound card. If you are going to get a sound card, at least get a pair of headphones such as the ATH-AD700. Otherwise you aren't gaining anything.

And the XtremeMusic card is not actually that great of a card, because it isn't hardware accelerated, and in my opinion isn't really worth the difference over onboard for gaming. At least get something like the Xtremegamer edition which is much better.

Luminouslight

I am assuming this is also something I can add down the line if my son wants better sound without having to change anything else...correct? in other words, If I purchase down the line a new soundcard, like one you mentioned, then do i have to remove the integrated one? or does it just overlap it?

[QUOTE="Luminouslight"]

A sound card is only good give you have the equipment to back it up. Let's say you buy a pair $50 headphones, you probably wouldn't be able to notice a difference between the onboard and the sound card. To tell you the truth, between my $100 headphones and my $200 sound card, the difference is far from night and day from onboard to my sound card. If you are going to get a sound card, at least get a pair of headphones such as the ATH-AD700. Otherwise you aren't gaining anything.

And the XtremeMusic card is not actually that great of a card, because it isn't hardware accelerated, and in my opinion isn't really worth the difference over onboard for gaming. At least get something like the Xtremegamer edition which is much better.

I am assuming this is also something I can add down the line if my son wants better sound without having to change anything else...correct? in other words, If I purchase down the line a new soundcard, like one you mentioned, then do i have to remove the integrated one? or does it just overlap it?