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#11
Wow, I see now... I don't know about FRAPS, and I don't really "care" about it either. But here's the thing, recording a video stream that's HIGHER than HD video (that sounds wicked, but all normal in computer world) is quite taxing, but mostly it's at the your storage (uncompressed video), if the video is compressed on the fly, then the burden will shift to your CPU instead HDD. But that's that. I think with i7-980X, it will help quite a bit :). Btw, why not go multi socket proc mainboard? If you are to do a lot video rendering, the extra cores will help a lot (dual octo core hyperthreaded Xeon monster looks very enticing...).
As for KillerNIC, I'd still stay away from them. Here's why, other than the technical aspect I've told you earlier, since they bypass everything ever known in Windows network stack, if for some reason they are to close their doors, very remote possibility of anyone can help you. I personally will go with server NICs, the one that's proven and is supported at least 5 years. There is a TOE engine in Intel NICs, the one that has iSCSI support usually have a powerful TOE, and Intel's driver is known for it's stability (well, some aren't too stable, but it's the minority), and well support from Intel. They won't close down their door without some ground shaking earth shattering news... Yet you're using i7-980X, CPU usage for network processing overhead is so minuscule, you can safely ignore the overhead (trust me, it's not even registering in Task Manager). See, the network code of a game is independent of it's UI code. The rate you can spew data to the network over time doesn't increase even if you jump + shoot someone on the head + reloading + grabbing an item while in the air + at the same time you turn your head 180 degree to shoot another player, and killed him/her with a head shot... The data size most of the time is roughly the same. The rate your PC spew that data is most of the time constant too. The overhead latency of a game to move from one layer to another in Windows network stack is in microsecond, it's undetectable. If a user's data sent to the server is fluctuating, what will happen to the server when there's 50.000 users connected and killing each other? It'll stop responding in effort of processing those mountains of data... So... KillerNIC is really not making any sense, any reason to be purchased, it's just not that needed.
As for your storage controller, go with SAS card, it can interface with SATA without any problem, and you'll be able to upgrade to SAS 6Gbps disks if you need to in the future. And the RAID implementation in SAS cards are the "proper" one. Some of the higher end SAS card even have dual core processor for RAID checksum/parity calculation, some have memory slots (several cards can support up to 2GB DDR2 RAM as buffer) so you can buffer the random data your computer generating in high speed and write it at max storage device speed at it's leisurely time. At times, you'd be able to make an external box, filled with just HDDs and a power supply, and connect to them using the SAS interconnect... Direct Attached Storage on a SEPARATE box, running at 6Gbps per storage device, ain't that speedy enough?
As for the HD5970, go for it if you really need to play everything above 60fps, and live with the micro stuttering in the process... Enjoy your build. Good luck
zzz2496
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