Caeradwyn

Exactly what are you addressing? My comment about Gamers Nexus? My comment on it not being possible to both maximize profits AND integrity? You quoted my whole post, and I touch on several different subjects.

Right. First things first: The way GN went about this, was... Questionable. And Steve has a way of presenting content, that can come across as a bit arrogant and "high horsey". Gamers Nexus should also have gotten in touch with LMG before posting the video. It's only fair to allow them to present their side, although, that shouldn't prevent them from posting their concerns. But, Linus isn't "one of the guys". He's not "just some random member of the wider public who loves computers". He's a businessman. He's somebody who has built up a business from basically nothing, to become one of the absolute biggest tech youtubers in the world. And I think that he sometimes forgets that this means that he's no longer "one of us". He's not part of this community, he's part of the media. He's adjacent to the computer industry. And so he will be under scrutiny just like other companies. When running a company, and especially a large company, there will always be a conflict between integrity and making money. And for us as consumers, integrity is what matters, not how much money these companies earn. And if they want our trust and respect, they have to earn it. They have to show they have integrity. And along with that, comes displaying quality over quantity. It requires showing that you're willing to prioritize quality of content and journalistic integrity over maximizing profits. If you can't do that, then you'll simply have to accept not getting our trust and respect. It's that simple. 10 years ago, Linus was a young pimply nerd who made videos about what he loved. Today, he's a grown man doing a job. There's a huge difference between LTT back then, and LMG today. @LinusTech You are not our "bro". You're "that guy on the internet who doesn't even realize he's become rich, and thinks he's still just like us". It might hurt to hear that, but it's the reality of it. You can't both be our "bro" and a successful businessman. Those two things are mutually exclusive. And I understand you have paychecks to cover and expenses to pay and all that. I DO get that. But the quality of content will always be what we, the viewers, care about. If it's impossible to keep up quality, while also keeping the company profitable, then perhaps you've grown too big. Perhaps you've branched out too far into the realm of entertainment over journalism. I don't know. All I know is that "trust me bro" has to be earned. Not by making promises. Not by selling high quality screwdrivers and excellent hoodies (I love mine), but through constantly showing that you can make the highest quality content, not only for entertainment value, but also in terms of journalistic quality and integrity. Thanks.

I recently upgraded from an R9 Fury, and I have to say that's I've had some issues from time to time. Drivers crashing the first time I start a game, game crashes, Windows says drivers have been recovered, and after that, game runs fine. I've also had instabilities with the Radeon control panel, so for a period of time, I couldn't access any of the settings. That being said, it seemed like all those issues disappeared with the drivers that were released late August. And historically, there's been times when Nvidia had shit drivers as well. In fact, I remember a time when Nvidia were a laughing stock on hardware forums etc. due to having the worst drivers. Thanks to that, they really picked their game up and improved. The tables turned, and now it's been AMD who's struggled with less than stellar drivers, but I wouldn't expect that to last. It's not the first time AMD has been declared finished only to come back swinging.

I actually DID say that EAX is a similar type of system to Virtual Surround, except that (and I should have specified this more closely) for gaming purposes, it's better than typical "movie oriented" Virtual Surround. It had/has many more features for per object based positional audio and such. As for audio-fidelity, that's a different issue, and in general all surround type systems before very recent days, used some form for mpeg compression. Even Dolby Digital and DTS. Now, with Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio we get lossless surround sound and "high audio-fidelity" but this carries no relevance in the case of "virtual" anything. Yes, for 7.1 analogue surround, you'll need analogue connections, however, you don't need "virtual surround". You need support for ACTUAL 7.1 Dolby or DTS 7.1 surround systems. For speakers, these are NOT "virtual". So whether or not a sound card supports 7.1 Virtual Surround is completely irrelevant for hooking up seven speakers and a subwoofer. Most line-level sources are not designed to handle high impedance loads, and hence, the volume will be usually lower in high impedance headphones. This isn't ALWAYS the case, but more often than not. Many sound cards (on-board ones included) actually DO have outputs designed for both speakers and headphones, without actually writing this in the specifications, meaning some people get the impression that most line level outputs are intended to work well with high impedance or lower sensitivity headphones.

Juliet Starling On a more serious note: I do find HK-47 to be hilarious. Guybrush Threepwood is great as well. Oh and Murray! The evil demonic skull! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I'm not going to speculate too much into what future plans AMD has for Polaris. For what it (RX 480) was meant to be, a card capable of giving Team Green a run for their money in the mid-range segment, it looks to be a success. This is also where the highest profit comes from, because most people don't go out and buy a flagship card. AMD needs to increase their profits, not prove they have the biggest stick. Purely looking at naming, there's of course room for a RX 490 and an RX Fury in the Polaris lineup, but I'm not holding my breath. Nvidia have a lot of strong non-consumer oriented contracts these days, for CUDA devices for use in super computers etc, which is bringing Nvidia a lot of money to spend on R&D, which is a large part of why they are currently ahead in producing high end GPUs. If AMD can manage to grab a larger piece of the mid-range market, there's a good chance they'll be able to spend more on R&D as well, and perhaps we'll see AMD pushing out some stuff that will be more competitive in the high end as well. For those who are disappointed about RX 480 not being a 1080 competitor: Well, that was never the intention. It's not really fair to be disappointed about something not being what it was never intended to be.

I don't have the Scarlett 2i2, but I have the 18i8, and as for the headphone preamp in that, I can say that is pretty good. Sure, I could have bought a simple external stereo DAC /headphone preamp, and it would probably have been better, but seeing as I needed all the inputs of the 18i8, then that wasn't really an option. Also keep in mind that when it comes to audio interfaces, it's usually not the quality of the DAC itself that makes the difference (even a super-highend DAC chip costs only a few dollars) but it's the circuitry of the preamp that makes for the biggest difference in sound quality.

I don't think anybody has explained this explicitly enough, but "Virtual Surround" has nothing to do with hooking up 5.1 or 7.1 speaker systems. It's for simulating surround sound in headphones. What other people have said though, is that it's crap, which is pretty much true. It's all just about time-delaying different sounds to trick the ear (well, the brain actually) into thinking they are coming from different directions. There are better systems for doing this than Virtual Surround. Creative Labs uses (used?) EAX, or "Environmental Audio eXtensions" which does this trick of fooling the brain very well. I remember playing Unreal on an SB Live soundcard back in the days, with headphones and getting creeped out by how you could hear monsters moving around behind you and such. Not to mention playing as Marines in the original Alien Versus Predator game. For actual 7.1 speaker surround sound setup, the digital output from your onboard sound device will do the job. Onboard audio devices have supported 7.1 surround for years now. Low volume on your headphones when hooked up to onboard sound is probably due to most onboard audio devices, at least the budget ones, not having a dedicated headphone amplifier. They deliver a line-level signal, which is fine for hooking your PC up to speakers, or even smaller headphones, like earbuds and such, but for larger headphones with high impedance, this will result in low volume. This isn't because "the sound card has low volume", but rather because it's not designed for use with high impedance headphones. Hope this is helpful.

Since a few people have already mentioned things such as mastering often being better for some vinyl releases, I won't bother going into that. I'll only say though, that listening to music on any physical media, requires a little bit more "investment" (in terms of time and effort) than simple iTunes or Spotify consumption, which often means you'll focus a bit more on listening to whole albums and might start listening to music in a somewhat different way. I keep noticing that people younger than me hardly has any idea what "album" even means. There's been a lot of music over the years that have been made as more like concept albums, where there's some kind of connection between the songs, and as such should be listened to from beginning to end, and not just listening to random singles. Some albums tell a story, some have a change of moods throughout which takes you through a bit more of an experience than simply putting on a playlist of 1000 songs set to shuffle. Anyway. A cheap Rega RP1 or Rega Planar 1 with a decent quality cartridge would be a good option for simple vinyl playback. You'd have to pay more to get the same sound quality and add in DJing features. If you're not planning on getting into DJing, I'd stick with the concept of "simpler is better". I.e. less features means less waste of money. Also keep in mind that the cartridge is more vital to the end sound than the actual turntable it self. The Rega RP1 comes with a basic "moving magnet" type cartridge, which for most non-audiophiles will probably be just fine. Another alternative is the Pro-Ject Essential II, which comes with a decent entry-level Ortofon cartridge. You'll also need an amplifier with a "Phono" input (not as in the RCA or "phono plugs", but an input actually labelled Phono, short for phonograph). A proper Phono input has RIAA amplification/equalizaion, and is intended specifically for turntables. Something like a Denon PMA520AE, would to the job. There are lots of other alternatives though. Nad and Cambridge Audio both have inexpensive alternatives of decent quality. For speakers? Well, personal preference and budget will play a big part in selecting something good. And as for how much all this will cost? Remember that what sounds great to one person, might sound like crap to another person. It's all a matter of what you are used to. All this stuff can usually be found second hand for reasonable prices. Watch out for worn out styluses on second hand cartridges though.

An external USB audio device can be a lot more than a simple external DAC. It can have various other functionality, like some DSP features etc, so for simplicity, most people refer to all "audio devices" for PCs as "sound cards".

I'm currently running an R9 Fury, but I would love to see how an RX480 would perform on watercooling. I imagine with overclocking, it might even outperform the Fury.

Clearly, I've insulted you somehow, not sure why, as this cannot possibly personal? It's about an item. And I don't find it very interesting whether or not something was perfectly placed in the market in the past, when something newer has come along to fill that niche at a better price. As for playing games at low settings? Nothing wrong with that, as long as the fps is relatively smooth. The point is that when a game is relatively smooth on a 960 (disregarding potential overclocks, as both cards can be overclocked, and it will always be a case of luck of the draw) then it will also be relatively smooth on a 950. The difference simply isn't large enough to defend an increase in price of almost 20%, more if you're going for the 4GB version of the 960. Feel free to disagree though.

By "not being enjoyable" I basically mean "not delivering a satisfying gaming experience" i.e. "would rather not play it like that". The point is, if you need something faster than a 950, you probably need something faster than a 960. Would I be wrong in guessing that you use a 960 yourself?

That one benchmark is the best case scenario out of that test. And at reducing the detail settings isn't going to make the different greater, more likely smaller. The games that are likely to be unplayable on the 950, isn't likely to be very enjoyable on the 960. But then again, if you're after playing AAA titles on higher settings, then budget cards aren't going to deliver anyway.

I checked out plenty of benchmarks of the two not long ago, as I was considering getting one of the two as a gift, and in many cases, there were a 0-1 fps difference, and at most, perhaps 10-15, but that was at games/settings where they would both be above 60fps anyway. Depending on the price you can find them at, perhaps you could defend getting a 960 with 4GB for the extra memory, but if a game is playable on a 2GB 960, then it's playable on a 2GB 950. I've seen nothing to indicate anything different. Just one example: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/08/review-nvidias-gtx-950-is-a-highly-capable-good-value-gpu-for-1080p-gaming/ At Norwegian prices, I found that there was nothing that could compare with the performance of a 950 at a roughly similar price point, but prices vary from time to time and place to place. However, go up in price by about $40 or so (to the level of a 4GB 960) and you could get something faster than either of these two, except it would be labelled AMD, so there's always that.