PC PC building & spec check

Hey MAD I would recomend getting an ATI gfx card, they are easier to run triple screens with.

FYI I have a i5 2500K, ATI 6950 1 GB (tweaked to be like a 1GB 6970) running 3x 1680x1050 (5040x1050).

Sometimes in iRacing its gets a little choppy depending on the track (Suzuka just after the esses in particular), that can be resolved by reducing the AA. Most other tracks are fine on full settings.

Reducing the AA (Alcoholic an ominous)? Is that when you have too many beers and have to have less, or is reducing AA as it sounds; "not enough beers and have to have more"?

Ill look into both models and see what works out best....

No point getting a last gen card MAD. If you're gonna go ATI, get a 7 series card. A 7950 or 7970 would be mint. I would agree with Outta about the ATI cards being better to run triple screens. If I were you though, i'd go with Nvidia if you really want to go dual cards. My experience with ATI's crossfire has been mixed over the years. It depends on the games you are playing, but sometimes it takes them forever to get the crossfire optimization correct for a game. Sometimes I had to turn crossfire off so a game would run correctly and not suffer from negative scaling, until they released Drivers or CAPs to fix it. Nvidia on the other hand are much quicker at getting updates out it seams. I have no idea what the crossfire scaling is like for iracing, but i'd look into it if I were you.

Ok, I though instead of making you look it up, I would just be a man and do it myself, lol. It looks like there is no proper CAP profile for iracing crossfire. Which means that it won't fully utilise the power of the 2 cards. Apparently you can load another crossfire profile and it does scale properly, but thats just a work around really. I can't really find out much about the Nvidia SLI support....but I am pretty sure iracing takes full advantage of SLI. Nvidia is a sponsor for iracing...so you would think that they would be on top of things lol.

I don't play iracing anymore, and when I did it was on my laptop running through my big tv. The lappy has a HD5850, and with 1080p, max settings, and a little bit of AA the fps never went below about 50.

This guy seems to have it working well
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d171DgyY5aI

Chevway - mate your onto it like a bad smell - love your work cheers

One thing i have notice alot is many go AMD + Radeon WHY? id prefer experience over branding... and if i can get something that is good bang for $$$$ Budget $2k for TOWER - what is a good PC build for iRacing and other games like BF3, CDMW etc etc

What are the advantages of Radeon vs nVidia - all i hear is price differance but quallity are they on par?

They are on par mate, most of the time. It's just who has the most powerful card out at the time. The techies have a wank over it and that brand gets the spotlight. It just goes back and forth. Over the last 10 or so years I've used both, usually going for whatever gives the most bang for buck.

Read this.
http://m.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html

MAD, I reckon from what outta says, if you go with a single 7970 you should be cruisin with 3 1080p screens, most people who run multiple screens go with Radeon gpu's because they have more memory, 3GB on the Radeon HD7970 compared to 2GB on the Nvidia GTX680, the more you crank the resolution the more extra video memory comes into play, for example, on a single 1920x1080 screen a GTX680 will almost always beat out a 7970, bring in a couple more of those 1080p monitors and the 7970 begins to inch ahead due to the memory limitations of the 680.

IMO that seems a bit expensive for the specs. You'll be paying extra for the 'Alienware' name and fancy case.
Not sure about the gaming performance either. Anything pre-built from the big manufacturers generally isn't great for high performance gaming.

Best 'bang for buck' would always be to buy parts individually and put it together yourself. It's alot easier than you might think, but if it sounds too hard then you can probably find someone to build it for you for about $80.

I'm sure the guys here could help you pick and choose components.

Im not going to pretend to know much about computers (as i dont lol), but isnt alienware a bit extreme considering your needs?
Also agree with what is said above, i would custom build a pc for much cheaper, most people who i know of who game on PC go custom.

Hey Aussie, to give you an idea of the sort of price differences we're talking about...

I just went to PCCaseGear, a good Aussie online computer parts store (got all my system through them, they were great)..
Picked out the same/similar components that are listed on the spec sheet for the Alienware machine, they don't list everything on their site so I had to make some estimates/substitutions on some brands/parts..

Alienware machine: $1699
Custom machine with similar parts: $1098

That includes:
$150 for motherboard
$100 for case
$80 for building
GTX 555 wasn't listed (old model?) so substituted with GTX 550 Ti (I doubt there would be a huge performance difference)


$600 difference!! That's a lot of money for booze right there.

PLz dont waste your money. Buy from MSY, PCGC, Umart ect ect ect They can put it together for you or you can do your self, Its suprisingly easy.

I learned by google, if your in any way handy its not hard to do. I can help. Ive only built 3 pc in the last 5-6 years odd but ive never had a problem.....

EDIT seen Floods post yup he spot on, its a fair wack of savings.