Our Electronic Entertainment

[quote]Deke24 wrote:
I Have a 46" Samsung Aquos with a Bose CineMate Digital Home Theater system with kicks ass. Also have XBOX 360 and just got Rainbow 6. #2 and GTA IV. Awesome games and Samsung makes one hell of an LCD.[/quote]

Sharp makes the Aquous line of TVs.

50" pioneer commercial plasma 7.1 control4 automation system with in-wall rack going in right now. all marantz equipment. triad speakers-bronze in walls, silver fronts and rears, and bronze series sub. triad bar center channel.

[quote]gsxtacy wrote:
As for the original post about the 5.1 sound, it really depends on your price range. Polk is good as well as the Boston Acoustic I have. If you give me an idea on price I can help you out further.
[/quote]

Nice setups there guys.

My budget would probably be around the £3-400 mark (say $6-800) - is it worth getting anything over a 5.1 system? I mean, is it that noticable?

I too have the problem of thin walls and neighbours right behind them, so I can’t go too crazy on the volume. What other advantages of the PS3 have you noticed over a 360?

[quote]AngryVader wrote:
This isn’t a very good picture, but here’s my setup:

55" Sony
XBOX 360
PS3
HD-DVD
Wii
Denon Receiver[/quote]

Damn, you really couldn’t ask for any more than that.

Living room has a 56" toshiba dlp, Harmon Kardon 5.1, polk audio speakers and in the bedroom 37" toshiba lcd and a samsung home theatre in a box set up.

Im content for now as I just cant justify spending more money on a new living room with the current set up.

[quote]Synthetickiller wrote:
Comp: q6600 @ 3.6ghz - liquid cooled (stock: 2.4ghz) (conservative OC), 8 gigs ram, 8800gts g92 512mb, p5k deluxe mobo, 150 gig raptor, 750 gig back up. 24" and 21" LCD monitors (also have 22" 2048x1536 crt & 17" lcd)

Will be using DVI to HDMI cable to run my computer to the tv. Thats the primary use for it, games and movies.
[/quote]

How do you find running your computer through a tv that’s around 40" - if you’ve tried it? Does the tv have a high refresh rate, and is the picture good?

I practically live at work and since I look after the IT too, I’ve built myself this end of last year:

Q6600 stock, 4gb DDR3, 8600gts, 500gb main, 1tb external, 22" widescreen. I love it, does just what I need for graphics.

My next TV if it ever hits the market - OLED TV. I drool just looking at this.

On a side note, I’m seeing a lot of you have Polk Audio speakers - think I’ll have a look into those.

[quote]rsg wrote:
Synthetickiller wrote:
Comp: q6600 @ 3.6ghz - liquid cooled (stock: 2.4ghz) (conservative OC), 8 gigs ram, 8800gts g92 512mb, p5k deluxe mobo, 150 gig raptor, 750 gig back up. 24" and 21" LCD monitors (also have 22" 2048x1536 crt & 17" lcd)

Will be using DVI to HDMI cable to run my computer to the tv. Thats the primary use for it, games and movies.

How do you find running your computer through a tv that’s around 40" - if you’ve tried it? Does the tv have a high refresh rate, and is the picture good?

I practically live at work and since I look after the IT too, I’ve built myself this end of last year:

Q6600 stock, 4gb DDR3, 8600gts, 500gb main, 1tb external, 22" widescreen. I love it, does just what I need for graphics.[/quote]

Funny you should ask. I bought the tv to use VGA as the primary video source from the tv. I found out that DVI to HDMI provided a better picture and I happened to have one lying around. The tv I own can auto adjust the picture so it can fit correctly. It won’t fit perfectly at first (the desktop seems to extend past the viewable area of the tv), but once you auto adjust it (just fit I think), it fits perfectly. Video is a blast on it and everything just looks awesome. Once I get it fixed, I’ll throw bioshock back on here and let you know.

Reading font at 1920x1080 is a pain though, you would want to increase the DPI if you use vista. If I press the info button, it says “1920x1080, 60hz”. It “should” run games fine. Even though the tv will display 120hz, it won’t run any computer source at that refresh rate since that’s hardware dependent (video card). Everything from your computer will run 60hz.

I can turn the tv on and use it, it just has a “check fan” error and shuts off after 15 minutes of use. Sometimes, it won’t display the error, so I am not using it till the repair guy comes out.

Nice computer btw! Ever considered OCing it? Its a blast!

[quote]Synthetickiller wrote:
Funny you should ask. I bought the tv to use VGA as the primary video source from the tv. I found out that DVI to HDMI provided a better picture and I happened to have one lying around. The tv I own can auto adjust the picture so it can fit correctly. It won’t fit perfectly at first (the desktop seems to extend past the viewable area of the tv), but once you auto adjust it (just fit I think), it fits perfectly. Video is a blast on it and everything just looks awesome. Once I get it fixed, I’ll throw bioshock back on here and let you know.

Reading font at 1920x1080 is a pain though, you would want to increase the DPI if you use vista. If I press the info button, it says “1920x1080, 60hz”. It “should” run games fine. Even though the tv will display 120hz, it won’t run any computer source at that refresh rate since that’s hardware dependent (video card). Everything from your computer will run 60hz.

I can turn the tv on and use it, it just has a “check fan” error and shuts off after 15 minutes of use. Sometimes, it won’t display the error, so I am not using it till the repair guy comes out.

Nice computer btw! Ever considered OCing it? Its a blast!
[/quote]

I used to overclock a good few years back in school, but haven’t done for a while - I imagine things have changed since liquid cooling is now a good option?

I’d have a go at the work pc but knowing my luck I’ll fry something and have to pay for it.

[quote]rsg wrote:
gsxtacy wrote:
As for the original post about the 5.1 sound, it really depends on your price range. Polk is good as well as the Boston Acoustic I have. If you give me an idea on price I can help you out further.

Nice setups there guys.

My budget would probably be around the £3-400 mark (say $6-800) - is it worth getting anything over a 5.1 system? I mean, is it that noticable?

I too have the problem of thin walls and neighbours right behind them, so I can’t go too crazy on the volume. What other advantages of the PS3 have you noticed over a 360?[/quote]

If you are talking about that price range for just the receiver, then you should be able to get something very nice. Also, I think that anything you buy these days would probably be 5.1/6.1/7.1 by default. I bought mine 4 years ago and it was 5.1/6.1 and it was considered a mid-range receiver.

Also, I believe if you don’t get a 6.1 system, then you won’t be able to do DTS.

Outside of the Blu-Ray, there isn’t much advantage to the PS3 over the 360. Unless there’s an exclusive game that’s only on the PS3, or you really want Blu-Ray now, then I’d just stick with the 360. Most of the games I’m looking forward to for the PS3 won’t be out for a while yet.

You can OC a q6600 to around 3.0ghz w/ stock voltage and stock fan. Depends on which version of the q6600 you have, B3 or G0. G0’s oc MUCH better. I had mine up to 3.825ghz w/ better ram (the stuff I blew out). Did some suicide runs w/ 4.0ghz. A lot is possible w/ C2D.

You know, the more voltage you pump into the cpu, the hotter it gets. Quads get hot due to so many cores. I think you can get at least 3.2 ghz with high end air. The new 45nm dual cores are getting 4.0ghz + on air (I’ve seen 4.5ghz and higher on air) commonly without any trouble. Water is usually for extreme OC’s, the fun of doing liquid cooling, and typically quads now. Considering you’re using a 65nm quad, water is a great idea, but high end air is probably what you’d wanna do.

IDK how fast your ram is, but as long as its ddr2 800, you won’t need to worry about OCing your ram. I think the main obstacle is having a mobo that’ll OC.

If you have extra cash to throw around, a new q6600 is about 200 bucks.

Depending on how skilled you are and how much time you want to invest, I think the learning curve does like this…

High end air → water ----> chilled liquid -->–>–> phase change ---->–>—>Dice/ln2

OCZ is producing a pre-built phase change unit, but I have yet to see it released; the transporting of compressors is a pain in the ass and I don’t wanna get a ruined one b/c someone dropped it. Really dangerous stuff.