Another Help me spend Money Thread.

RivaCom

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So I am itching to blow some giftcards I have sitting around. So I've come up with a few scenarios. I'd like to see what others think. Situation is, I have $150 in BB giftcards as well as 10% off 1 item. So I'm trying to figure out what I can do. I also have about $40-50 dollars of over flow money. So below are things i've listed that I would like , followed by the things I'd like but cost a lot. This would be, if nothing else seems worth it, spend a little extra and get them.

Stuff that's more expensive but would love.
 

ManBearPig

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Hmm depends which item is most out of date for you already. Do you use a headset with a mic right now? Or do you use a separate mic? For the mousepads the Razer is pretty badass but how many people are even gonna see it? $25 worth of people that say "Cool mousepad"? The blue yeti mic has me intrigued.. whats the reason for people using this? So they can use surround sound and still talk in ts? Is that the only reason?
 
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Cmd

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Hmm depends which item is most out of date for you already. Do you use a headset with a mic right now? Or do you use a separate mic? For the mousepads the Razer is pretty badass but how many people are even gonna see it? $25 worth of people that say "Cool mousepad"? The blue yeti mic has me intrigued.. whats the reason for people using this? So they can use surround sound and still talk in ts? Is that the only reason?
Proper mousepads are supposed to have a consistent surface to not induce acceleration or other weirdness (if you used an optical mouse on wood you prolly know what i mean) and if you have a good optical sensor it's prolly useless. My advice would be check out what mousepad you sensor was tuned on for best results, Logitech uses Steelseries i believe (not sure)
Have you heard heros voice on ts? He uses a yeti and it sounds great, one of the best low cost mics out there (seriously, check the prices for recording mics). Other options are some rode mics but i think they're more expensive (not sure).

I'd wait on the graphics card until they nvidia get their shit together regarding the memory bug (especially if you use 3 or more monitors or 4k).
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2875...performance-issues-admits-error-in-specs.html
 

RivaCom

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lol damn, I do have 4 monitors, But the 800 Series probably won't be out for a while... I could pick up another 270x but then I have to fight with crossfire with half the games that are out there.

I just have a very generic mouse that came with a asus Laptop I got about 5 years ago, I don't have a Mousepad now and play on a fake wood desk that is about as old as I am. My G930 has not worked in at least 4 months, so I don't have any real headphones.
 
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poispois

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My advice would be a headset and a good mouse since those two might be the things that need the most an upgrade. With that budget you should be able to find good solution, might also be a good idea to look at packs with a mouse and headset.
 
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Mellow

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I've had the razer kraken 7.1 headset, and can say that it is a very good headset, but one that does get annoying on the ears after some time.

Currently using a trust GXT 340 surround headset, and in sound quality for it's price, it destroys the kraken, but the mic on that headset is sadly enough of poor quality.
 

Bootscrapper

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well. you can't go wrong with the razer naga. i like it so much that i bought two of them. one for my desktop and one for my laptop. i got tired of unhooking it and re hooking it up every time i took my laptop somewhere. it is a very solid and well built mouse. but i am also interested in in the razer headsets so if you decide to go that route let us know how you like it.
 

RivaCom

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So my issues have been the opposite. Had one of the original Razer 5.1 Headsets(i forget the name). My main issue with that was 1. It was 3.5mm based and so is my 5.1 speakers, so to use both i'd have to unplug one set and plug in a nother everytime(annoying). Also the Mic was one of the worst mics i've used. I got the logitech 930 and loved that it was wireless and USB, also a decent mic. But the thing started crapping out around year 2 of owning it. So my issue is now, I do have a decent mic now(Blue Snowball) but should get one that is decent in the mic area as well. Oh well, either way I probably would stay away from logitech again and I believe Razer is the only other decent PC company making surround sound headsets.
 

RivaCom

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Imo these guys are right, http://www.turtlebeach.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=20536. Surround sound is pretty pointless in headphones (great for movies though). Why go to a pc company to get sound equipment though? There are a lot of headphones that are not marketed for gaming but are great for it.
Why not? They do work and in any FPS game, surround sound is 100% better then stereo. Both sets of headphones I had did Surround sound awesome(Razer had better bass).
 
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Cmd

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Your brain interprets range and direction. Having more than 1 driver so close to the ear is useless because the sound enters one ear but does not reach the other one. Open room 5.1 systems work because the sound travels to both ears which gives direction as opposed to just 1 (in the case of headphones).

If you like some more bass in your headphones check out preamps and philips headphones (low cost ones have great low frequency response but shit clarity)
 

RivaCom

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Your brain interprets range and direction. Having more than 1 driver so close to the ear is useless because the sound enters one ear but does not reach the other one. Open room 5.1 systems work because the sound travels to both ears which gives direction as opposed to just 1 (in the case of headphones).

If you like some more bass in your headphones check out preamps and philips headphones (low cost ones have great low frequency response but shit clarity)
Again I'm going to disagree. The idea of Surround sound is positionally based waves going to your ear. Yes it is not 100% real surround as there would be no way to get exact front or center speakers. But basically surround sound headphones use multiple drivers to position audio going into your ear. Similar to how 2.1 systems use walls to bounce surround sound sources out. So regardless of range, your ear can determine location based on driver usage. Is it true surround sound? of course not, give me a stereo headset and 7.1 headset and I can bet you I could tell you where you were positionally better in 7.1 then I could in stereo.

Sorry for paint pic.


Now that being said, I will agree with you that some games, will be better or sound better in stereo. If I was playing CS:GO or similar, I probably wouldn't need Surround sound as much as I would say in Dayz or Arma 3. But positional audio has saved me multiple times through out many games.

Sound is always my number 1 thing, I'm a huge audio guy when it comes to things like gaming and movies. Virtual Surrround sound is nothing new, and isn't perfect. But it isn't a fake technology either.
 
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Cmd

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The only thing i can see multiple drivers useful in games is for determining height, otherwise in cs 1.6 (old but the only guy i know who had both 5.1 speakers and headphones) i didn't hear any difference between headsets and worse awareness for 5.1 speakers (been banned numerous times as a wallhacker cause i use headphones). But again this was back when surround headphones came out, haven't had the chance to try any since. As for dayz, i can tell direction just fine when the game doesn't fuck up, but this may also depend on your hearing
If you wanted to modulate the sound in any way i can bet there are algorithms out there to make the illusion of 7.1 (real sound) sound better than 7.1 headphones. Whether game studios include them is another matter entirely.
Ultimately it's your money, but if it was mine i'd go for hifi over 7.1 any time.
 

RivaCom

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Ha, well that would be it. Like movies, the sound is only as good as the technology used to create it. Older games are emulated surround, newer games are all positional based, so the sound is setup for X, and Z axis's pretty well. Height can still be hard to nail down. Remember 1.6 is a HL1 engine game. So were talking early 1999 this engine was created. Well before surround headsets were even a idea.
 
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