obobskivich wrote:

Celeron D would be more than sufficient for those games. Modern CPUs will be overkill many times over. Multi-core also presents […]
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Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Hmmm.... I'm still not sure about processor though. On my B460 laptop (Core i5), Crimson Skies runs too fast where there aren't many textures on the scene (example: night scenario, or foggy sky), so apparently the bottleneck is the GeForce 310M GPU, while the CPU itself is probably too fast for certain old games.

Is modern day Celerons sufficient for old Windows XP games like Crimson Skies and Neverwinter Nights? How about i3?

Celeron D would be more than sufficient for those games. Modern CPUs will be overkill many times over. Multi-core also presents issues, and may be the cause of some of the "too fast" issues - it's a timing issue that Microsoft has identified in some older games. AMD released a patch to address it for Athlon64 X2, but I'm not aware of any other patches for other CPUs (like Core 2 Duo or what-have-you).

To help frame this discussion a little: Neverwinter Nights' base system requirements are a 450MHz Pentium II, 128MB of RAM, and a 16MB "TNT-class" graphics card. The suggested requirements bump up to an 800MHz Pentium III, 256MB of RAM, and a GeForce 2 (see here: http://gamesystemrequirements.com/games.php?id=21).

GeForce GTX 285 has enough RAM onboard to carry the entire game, and almost enough to INSTALL the entire game. 🤣 You don't need a Core i5 or Core i7 to run these titles. Pentium 4, Celeron D, Athlon 64, etc will already be overkill. Crimson Skies has even lower system requirements than NWN, just for reference (http://www.allgame.com/game.php?id=20936&tab=sysreqs).

Thanks. By the way, the 'slowest" CPU supported by the Intel 77 mobo is Celeron. Maybe I better off with AMD? What AMD motherboard would be best for the purpose?

Anyway, believe it or not, I'm going to use 16 GB of RAM with this system. Yes, I knew XP can only use 3GB of RAM, but there is a program that enables you to use the remaining unused memory as RAM drive. There goes the Windows page file, the Adobe scratch disk, the Firefox cache, and such.

Well I guess the Cooler Master 120 is too wide for me (I try to save as much as desktop real estate as possible), but someone at TechReport mentioned about Cubitek Mini Cube.

According to its specs, the Cubitek Mini Cube could accept 280 mm-long video card, which should be sufficient for the GTX 285 (which is 267 mm-long). Also, it accepts 150 mm-high PSU. The TechReport guy uses Nexus NX-5000 PSU, which is only 125 mm-high and yields 550 watts in power.

If I was going to use bigger power supply, let say, Antek Signature 650 W, the PSU is 150 mm-high, which still fits into the Mini Cube.

The picture below shows it (his, not mine). Note that he uses water cooler[/url], with big ass fan on the right of the PSU. I'm not going to use water cooler, so I guess I'm going to have more empty space than he does.

It seems I cannot use 3.5" hard drive if I were using big PSU, but it's fine, since I can live with 2.5" drive. It seems I can even use two 2.5" hard drives - one is SSD for the O/S, another is a mechanical hard drive for everything else.



So whaddya' think?

PS: bookmarks about using RAM disk software on Windows XP:
Interesting way to cheat the4GB barrier(again)....
Good way to use >4GB RAM with 32-bit OS
Making Use Of Non-Addressable Wasted RAM On 32 Bit Systems
How to Solve the 32-Bit Problem: Using Hidden RAM for Speed
Put the Pagefile in a RAMdisk? (XP 32-bit)
ClearPagefileAtShutdown

Looks good to me. RAMdisk should be very nice too - rip and mount the game CDs to that and let them install/run almost instantly... 😁

obobskivich wrote:

Looks good to me.

Great, thanks! 😀

obobskivich wrote:

RAMdisk should be very nice too - rip and mount the game CDs to that and let them install/run almost instantly... 😁

Actually, it's for Windows page file. Imagine entire pagefile.sys being stored in RAM disk. This guy even uses THREE four-gigabyte pagefile.sys, all in RAM disk. 😳

Just open regedit and go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management key. In t […]
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Just open regedit and go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management key. In the "PagingFiles" multi-string value paste the following:

Z:\pagefil1.sys 4095 4095
Z:\pagefil2.sys 4095 4095
Z:\pagefil3.sys 4095 4095

This assumes that Z is your ramdisk. Modify as needed for your particular case. You can use the numbering scheme shown to have fewer or more pagefiles as needed, depending upon the space available on your ramdisk. Granted, it's gross overkill but now I can make use of most of my 16 GB in XP. Task Manager now shows a commit charge limit of 15536 MB. I left about half a gig free on the ramdisk for temp files, browser cache, and so forth but I could have used that also for paging if I wanted to.

Pics about the Cubitek Mini Cube. It's surely nice! 😀

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Great, thanks! :) […]
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obobskivich wrote:

Looks good to me.

Great, thanks! 😀

obobskivich wrote:

RAMdisk should be very nice too - rip and mount the game CDs to that and let them install/run almost instantly... 😁

Actually, it's for Windows page file. Imagine entire pagefile.sys being stored in RAM disk. This guy even uses THREE four-gigabyte pagefile.sys, all in RAM disk. 😳

Just open regedit and go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management key. In t […]
Show full quote

Just open regedit and go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Session Manager\Memory Management key. In the "PagingFiles" multi-string value paste the following:

Z:\pagefil1.sys 4095 4095
Z:\pagefil2.sys 4095 4095
Z:\pagefil3.sys 4095 4095

This assumes that Z is your ramdisk. Modify as needed for your particular case. You can use the numbering scheme shown to have fewer or more pagefiles as needed, depending upon the space available on your ramdisk. Granted, it's gross overkill but now I can make use of most of my 16 GB in XP. Task Manager now shows a commit charge limit of 15536 MB. I left about half a gig free on the ramdisk for temp files, browser cache, and so forth but I could have used that also for paging if I wanted to.

Oh that's very clever, and it'll make Windows manage it by itself, which means it should work seamlessly (assuming you ever open enough applications to actually use 16GB (or whatever) of RAM 🤣). It seems that in theory you could use whatever ramdisk application you wanted as well, like AMD's freeware utility. I don't know that for certain though, just speculating (since you're just creating a ramdisk and then letting Windows treat it as PF).

Anyway, I'm also tempted to use Silverstone SG-08 or SG-08 Lite (since Cubitek Mini Cube is pretty hard to find - Quiet PC USA is willing to ship internationally, but I cannot send them emails anymore since they treat is as spam). However, the Silverstone SG-08 specs mentioned the following:

"Limitation of PSU: 140mm (remove VGA Card if you want install up to 170mm)"

Silverstone SG-08 Lite doesn't mention such PSU limitation, but since it's basically the same dimension (it seems the SG-08 Lite is basically SG-08 without Silverstone custom-made PSU), I think the same limitation applies.

So which PSU has 600w (or at least 550w) of power, its length no longer than 140mm, and also has dual rails and 6 pin and 8 pin connectors?

I'd just like to say that I highly recommend you not going with a 7950 GX2. These cards are VERY temperamental. Not only are they a room baking oven (believe me, they heat up my bedroom within 15 minutes to the point that I have to open a window and turn on a house fan), you can't even touch the case because it will burn your hand. Believe me, I have two of them in quad sli. Not only this, they love to brick themselves. This is due to the fact they were made during the time nvidia had their famous overheating causing solder breakage issues. All 79xx nvidia cards are affected by it. HP even sued nvidia years ago due to laptop cards overheating and failing due to the solder joints going bad between the gpu chip. If you're gonna go geforce 7, I recommend a 7800 gtx 512 MB if you can find one. 78xx cards are not affected by the solder problem. I have three 7950 gX2s, and three 7800 GTX 256 MB cards. One 7950 gx2 was bought brand new six months ago and died in three months of light use due to the solder issue. I bought two more and now run three 120 mm fans on top of the cards to try to dissipate the heat. DON'T let a 7950 gx2 run more than 75C or it will surely brick itself. The 7800 gtx 256 MB cards have no such issues, but the 256 MB really holds them back in newer games due to stuttering from lack of vram. This is why I recommend 512 MB.

I've never owned a 7900 gtx but they do use a hefty heatsink and might not be as prone to failure as the other 79xx cards. 7900 GTs were prone to failing as well.

Click4dylan wrote:

I'd just like to say that I highly recommend you not going with a 7950 GX2. These cards are VERY temperamental. Not only are they a room baking oven (believe me, they heat up my bedroom within 15 minutes to the point that I have to open a window and turn on a house fan), you can't even touch the case because it will burn your hand. Believe me, I have two of them in quad sli. Not only this, they love to brick themselves. This is due to the fact they were made during the time nvidia had their famous overheating causing solder breakage issues. All 79xx nvidia cards are affected by it. HP even sued nvidia years ago due to laptop cards overheating and failing due to the solder joints going bad between the gpu chip. If you're gonna go geforce 7, I recommend a 7800 gtx 512 MB if you can find one. 78xx cards are not affected by the solder problem. I have three 7950 gX2s, and three 7800 GTX 256 MB cards. One 7950 gx2 was bought brand new six months ago and died in three months of light use due to the solder issue. I bought two more and now run three 120 mm fans on top of the cards to try to dissipate the heat. DON'T let a 7950 gx2 run more than 75C or it will surely brick itself. The 7800 gtx 256 MB cards have no such issues, but the 256 MB really holds them back in newer games due to stuttering from lack of vram. This is why I recommend 512 MB.

I've never owned a 7900 gtx but they do use a hefty heatsink and might not be as prone to failure as the other 79xx cards. 7900 GTs were prone to failing as well.

I originally wanted to use Quad SLI in Windows XP, using a pair of 7950 GX2. Not for frame rate, though, but strictly for SLI AA.

However, with newer cards like GTX 280 (Tesla) and such, it seems similar level of AA can be achieved without using Quad SLI - or even without SLI at all - due to the greater fill rate of the newer cards.

I chose GTX 280 because it belongs to Tesla generation - same generation with the GeForce 310M in my Lenovo B460 laptop. It's compatible with every old (Windows XP) games I run; MDK, MiG Alley, Neverwinter Nights 1, Crimson Skies, Warcraft III, Emperor: Battle For Dune, you name it. The only game fails to run is Jane's WWII Fighters, but the game won't run in the much older GeForce 6800 GT either. The problem with the 310M is that it's quite slow, but a faster GeForce of the same generation should do well.

I'm actually interested to test 6xx generation as well, although newer generation means newer driver version, and it seems nVidia tends to break backward compatibility in newer drivers. Well at least it's better than Radeons, where AA is a pain to apply on old games.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

I originally wanted to use Quad SLI in Windows XP, using a pair of 7950 GX2. Not for frame rate, though, but strictly for SLI AA […]
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I originally wanted to use Quad SLI in Windows XP, using a pair of 7950 GX2. Not for frame rate, though, but strictly for SLI AA.

However, with newer cards like GTX 280 (Tesla) and such, it seems similar level of AA can be achieved without using Quad SLI - or even without SLI at all - due to the greater fill rate of the newer cards.

I chose GTX 280 because it belongs to Tesla generation - same generation with the GeForce 310M in my Lenovo B460 laptop. It's compatible with every old (Windows XP) games I run; MDK, MiG Alley, Neverwinter Nights 1, Crimson Skies, Warcraft III, Emperor: Battle For Dune, you name it. The only game fails to run is Jane's WWII Fighters, but the game won't run in the much older GeForce 6800 GT either. The problem with the 310M is that it's quite slow, but a faster GeForce of the same generation should do well.

I'm actually interested to test 6xx generation as well, although newer generation means newer driver version, and it seems nVidia tends to break backward compatibility in newer drivers. Well at least it's better than Radeons, where AA is a pain to apply on old games.

7950GX2 in QuadSLI will do 32x MSAA via SLI-AA, which is different than the "higher than 8x" modes a lot of single-GPU cards offer through filtering/post-processing/etc (like nVidia CSAA or Matrox Edge AA). The performance hit for SLI-AA is pretty substantial though - remember that you're essentially giving up SLI to have all four GPUs work on AA. For example, my QuadSLI system in 3D01 goes from an MT fillrate of around 39,000 MTexels/S to around 4900 MTexels/S with 32x SLI-AA enabled. All of the game tests retain "playable" framerates (nothing drops under 30 FPS), but it drops from running them at ~200-400 FPS to running them at ~50-100 FPS. Power consumption also goes up with SLI-AA enabled (max with non-SLI-AA is around 330W; with SLI-AA that goes to just over 400W). I've never noticed either of my cards to get overly hot in either mode though - the fans start to cycle out of idle with SLI-AA enabled, but it's nothing I'd call loud, and they're only moderately warm to touch (temperature measurements I've been able to take from the cards indicates idle in the 30s-40s and loading peaks in low 60s; I'm using the stock heatsinks with AS5 applied to the GPUs and bridge chips and everything is kept fairly clean).

As far as "does it look a lot better" - it's cleaner looking than ATi's 32x AA via tent-filter imho (it doesn't have the "blurring" effect), but vs "normal" 8x AA it isn't as dramatic a difference as no-AA to 8x AA. I think for older games it would probably be worth enabling (along with vsync) vs letting it run uncapped at multi-hundred FPS and risking tearing. But for newer games at high resolutions it probably wouldn't result in playable frame-rates (but that's just a guess - I haven't actually sat the system down with something like Skyrim).

Also remember that the 7950GX2 isn't "universally compatible" with PCIe motherboards - the bridge chip can have enumeration issues with certain BIOSes/chipsets. nVidia used to maintain a list of tested-and-compatible motherboards, but it hasn't been updated in a while. I think in general nVidia-based boards should be OK (or may just need BIOS update), but otherwise it's kind of a hit-or-miss thing IME. Finally remember that with GeForce 7 in SLI you give up multi-monitor - you can disable SLI and run four monitors (2x DL-DVI per card) but you may have to reboot if you change certain SLI settings (thus far I've had it drop SLI and run multi-monitor with no reboot, but on re-enabling SLI it needed to restart).

The multitude of AA modes always confuses me. I really like the look of super sampling AA. Very costly in regards to performance but the resulting image is so uniform and "one piece" with almost all crawling lines gone.

obobskivich wrote:

7950GX2 in QuadSLI will do 32x MSAA via SLI-AA, which is different than the "higher than 8x" modes a lot of single-GPU cards offer through filtering/post-processing/etc (like nVidia CSAA or Matrox Edge AA). The performance hit for SLI-AA is pretty substantial though - remember that you're essentially giving up SLI to have all four GPUs work on AA. For example, my QuadSLI system in 3D01 goes from an MT fillrate of around 39,000 MTexels/S to around 4900 MTexels/S with 32x SLI-AA enabled. All of the game tests retain "playable" framerates (nothing drops under 30 FPS), but it drops from running them at ~200-400 FPS to running them at ~50-100 FPS. Power consumption also goes up with SLI-AA enabled (max with non-SLI-AA is around 330W; with SLI-AA that goes to just over 400W). I've never noticed either of my cards to get overly hot in either mode though - the fans start to cycle out of idle with SLI-AA enabled, but it's nothing I'd call loud, and they're only moderately warm to touch (temperature measurements I've been able to take from the cards indicates idle in the 30s-40s and loading peaks in low 60s; I'm using the stock heatsinks with AS5 applied to the GPUs and bridge chips and everything is kept fairly clean).

Indeed, but isn't SLI AA is basically supersampling AA whose work is distributed to multi-GPUs? If that's the case, then applying supersampling AA on a single video card with substantially higher fill rate could theoritically achieve the same result as SLI AA.

obobskivich wrote:

As far as "does it look a lot better" - it's cleaner looking than ATi's 32x AA via tent-filter imho (it doesn't have the "blurring" effect), but vs "normal" 8x AA it isn't as dramatic a difference as no-AA to 8x AA. I think for older games it would probably be worth enabling (along with vsync) vs letting it run uncapped at multi-hundred FPS and risking tearing. But for newer games at high resolutions it probably wouldn't result in playable frame-rates (but that's just a guess - I haven't actually sat the system down with something like Skyrim).

Also remember that the 7950GX2 isn't "universally compatible" with PCIe motherboards - the bridge chip can have enumeration issues with certain BIOSes/chipsets. nVidia used to maintain a list of tested-and-compatible motherboards, but it hasn't been updated in a while. I think in general nVidia-based boards should be OK (or may just need BIOS update), but otherwise it's kind of a hit-or-miss thing IME. Finally remember that with GeForce 7 in SLI you give up multi-monitor - you can disable SLI and run four monitors (2x DL-DVI per card) but you may have to reboot if you change certain SLI settings (thus far I've had it drop SLI and run multi-monitor with no reboot, but on re-enabling SLI it needed to restart).

Well I'm definitely going to use supersampling AA with the GTX 280. After all, it's the old games that I'm going to apply the AA to. I just wonder how would they look with maxed supersampling AA, and whether the frame rate is still acceptable or not.

Anyway, is there a way to enable SSAA in OpenGL? On the GeForce 310M, the nVidia Inspector only give options to enable SSAA on Direct3D games, but not OpenGL. 😵

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

The multitude of AA modes always confuses me. I really like the look of super sampling AA. Very costly in regards to performance but the resulting image is so uniform and "one piece" with almost all crawling lines gone.

Same here. 😀

I just wonder why GPU doesn't go the CPU route - multiple cores and the likes. Imagine a quad-core GPU whose AA-related works are distributed through its cores. Or probably GPUs actually have, but with more abstracted approach?

Anyway, what do you people think about Zalman PSU? I'm interested to use Zalman ZM700 GLX, but I have read not-so-encouraging reviews about Zalman ZM PSUs - albeit different models (like GT and HP models). I haven't seen a single review on Zalman GLX models.

Anyone experienced using Zalman PSUs? Are they noisy? Are they silent? Are they stable?

^If you want quiet, try Seasonic X-750. I'm using Corsair HX850 (7-years warranty!) and it's quiet for the most part. AFAIK the fans on the Seasonic don't fire up until about 200W or so. Can't go wrong with Seasonic/Corsair, esp. their higher end models (top quality caps, build etc and excellent performance).

+1 on the Corsair/Seasonic PSUs - they're generally quite good. I'm using an HX 520 in the QuadSLI system actually; no problems thus far.

As far as SLI-AA - here's an article from Tech Report http://techreport.com/review/8574/sli-antialiasing-debuts/2 that explains it with pictures. It isn't true supersampling (32x SSAA would be *incredibly* demanding), it's a form of multi-sampling that is relatively similar to nVidia's xS modes "blown up" across multiple chips.

archsan wrote:

^If you want quiet, try Seasonic X-750. I'm using Corsair HX850 (7-years warranty!) and it's quiet for the most part. AFAIK the fans on the Seasonic don't fire up until about 200W or so. Can't go wrong with Seasonic/Corsair, esp. their higher end models (top quality caps, build etc and excellent performance).

The Seasonic X-750 sounds interesting. Alas, it's modular, so it can't be used in SG08 chassis with full-length video card.

obobskivich wrote:

+1 on the Corsair/Seasonic PSUs - they're generally quite good. I'm using an HX 520 in the QuadSLI system actually; no problems thus far.

Yes, I believe Corsair CX600 (non modular) is good enough to power the GTX 280. I'm still tempted to choose Zalman ZM700 GLX though, provided Zalman is good enough.

obobskivich wrote:

As far as SLI-AA - here's an article from Tech Report http://techreport.com/review/8574/sli-antialiasing-debuts/2 that explains it with pictures. It isn't true supersampling (32x SSAA would be *incredibly* demanding), it's a form of multi-sampling that is relatively similar to nVidia's xS modes "blown up" across multiple chips.

Well I cannot use SLI with Silverstone SG08 (PSU will be a problem), but I think it would be an acceptable compromise for such a small box on my desk. After all, I'll be using it for office works too. It's more a "general purpose system with great gaming capability for old games".

It would also be the primary audio source and HTPC as well.

However, I'm also tempted to build Windows 7 system with backward compatibility for old games - a "proof of concept" system like this one. It'll be Windows 7 32 bit, of course. Neverwinter Nights 1 may need tweaking, as well as some other old games. Some games won't probably run at all. Nonetheless, the Win 7 system will of course have Quad SLI. 😉

Hmm, I see if you're going to use that SFF case the choices will be very limited. But you don't need 750W for a single GTX 280 though. And you maybe in for a treat here, Silverstone has just released a 600W SFX PSU which is semi fanless i.e. no fan under low loads. At high loads, your GTX 280's fan will certainly be much noisier anyway. It's modular but since it's shorter than regular ATX PSUs (only 100mm in depth) it would be a match for your SG08. Their 450W SFX version looks good but has no semi-fanless feature unlike the 300W or this new 600W version. So keep an eye on this one.

As for that Zalman 700-GLX, I'm not sure, but you can definitely see it's got a Su'scon...

archsan wrote:

Hmm, I see if you're going to use that SFF case the choices will be very limited. But you don't need 750W for a single GTX 280 though. And you maybe in for a treat here, Silverstone has just released a 600W SFX PSU which is semi fanless i.e. no fan under low loads. At high loads, your GTX 280's fan will certainly be much noisier anyway. It's modular but since it's shorter than regular ATX PSUs (only 100mm in depth) it would be a match for your SG08. Their 450W SFX version looks good but has no semi-fanless feature unlike the 300W or this new 600W version. So keep an eye on this one.

As for that Zalman 700-GLX, I'm not sure, but you can definitely see it's got a Su'scon...

Wait... wait. 50A from its +12V rail?

Yes, it's modular, but at 100mm long, I believe it won't be a problem.

I'd like to suggest that you use software to control the fan speed on your PNY GTX285. I have a PNY GTX260 and in my opinion the fan is too lazy. It doesn't ramp up enough with increasing temperature, so it allows the GPU to get into the 85-90C range pretty easily.
I've been using SpeedFan to change the fan behavior, but there are other apps that do the same thing. The fan is still quiet at the desktop, but it keeps the temperature below 70C in games. I believe this is much better for the card's longevity.
The other thing that can still kill the card is if the fan dies someday. Speedfan can be set to alert you if the temperature gets too hot, like by playing a .wav file repeatedly. Other apps might be able to do something like that.

shamino wrote:

I'd like to suggest that you use software to control the fan speed on your PNY GTX285. I have a PNY GTX260 and in my opinion the fan is too lazy. It doesn't ramp up enough with increasing temperature, so it allows the GPU to get into the 85-90C range pretty easily.
I've been using SpeedFan to change the fan behavior, but there are other apps that do the same thing. The fan is still quiet at the desktop, but it keeps the temperature below 70C in games. I believe this is much better for the card's longevity.
The other thing that can still kill the card is if the fan dies someday. Speedfan can be set to alert you if the temperature gets too hot, like by playing a .wav file repeatedly. Other apps might be able to do something like that.

+1. I know a lot of reviews and nVidia/ATi all insist running at 85-90*C (or higher) is within the limits of the card, but I also know that my 4870X2, after running at those temperatures while gaming (and not much lower at idle) has run into issues/failed within ~5 years of use, whereas I have other, older, cards that still work and I think the fact that their coolers don't let them run hot enough to boil water in their off-time has something to do with it. 😵

SpeedFan can be very useful, another one that I've tried in the past is MSI Afterburner, but I don't know if it works with GeForce.

obobskivich wrote:

shamino wrote:

I'd like to suggest that you use software to control the fan speed on your PNY GTX285. I have a PNY GTX260 and in my opinion the fan is too lazy. It doesn't ramp up enough with increasing temperature, so it allows the GPU to get into the 85-90C range pretty easily.
I've been using SpeedFan to change the fan behavior, but there are other apps that do the same thing. The fan is still quiet at the desktop, but it keeps the temperature below 70C in games. I believe this is much better for the card's longevity.
The other thing that can still kill the card is if the fan dies someday. Speedfan can be set to alert you if the temperature gets too hot, like by playing a .wav file repeatedly. Other apps might be able to do something like that.

+1. I know a lot of reviews and nVidia/ATi all insist running at 85-90*C (or higher) is within the limits of the card, but I also know that my 4870X2, after running at those temperatures while gaming (and not much lower at idle) has run into issues/failed within ~5 years of use, whereas I have other, older, cards that still work and I think the fact that their coolers don't let them run hot enough to boil water in their off-time has something to do with it. 😵

SpeedFan can be very useful, another one that I've tried in the past is MSI Afterburner, but I don't know if it works with GeForce.

Interesting, I'll definitely try it. Thanks, folks.

Anyway, I have changed my motherboard of choice into Gigabyte H61N-USB3. The mobo has better sound chip (ACL 889) than the ASUS or newer Gigabyte (ACL 892).