Which configuration should I use/buy.

[Disruptor]

So, I'm in the market for building a new rig for gaming. The problem is I can't decide on a graphics card. My budget is around $500 and I am definitely going with ASUS, my question is since I am putting a Xonar D2X sound card in I only have 3 pci-e slots left open; I decided I was either going to put in two Direct CU II ENGTX 560 TI 1 GB DDR5 or one Direct CU II ENGTX 580 1536 MB DDR5. Which one should I purchase or is there a better configuration for my new rig. My current specs are: Corsair AX1200 W psu, 12 gb of 2000 mhz corsair dominator gt ddr3, asus rampage iii extreme motherboard, asus xonar d2x sound card, core i7 960 3.2 ghz processor, and I'll be putting these in a thermaltake level 10 gt case.

 

[Griffolion]

There is no need for that sound card unless you're a major sound whore, and i mean major as there will be no noticeable difference in sound quality in games between that or the IAP on the motherboard. Also, doesn't the rampage come with it's own little sound card? Why are you using a Xonar?

Anyway, 2 x 560Ti's will generally beat out a 580, but the 580 will be best as it's a very powerful single GPU solution, your PSU also has the capability to support another in SLI should you wish to do so in the future which will blow anything else out of the water currently.

 

[Disruptor]

There is no need for that sound card unless you're a major sound whore, and i mean major as there will be no noticeable difference in sound quality in games between that or the IAP on the motherboard. Also, doesn't the rampage come with it's own little sound card? Why are you using a Xonar?

Anyway, 2 x 560Ti's will generally beat out a 580, but the 580 will be best as it's a very powerful single GPU solution, your PSU also has the capability to support another in SLI should you wish to do so in the future which will blow anything else out of the water currently.

Thank you for the quick reply, I was looking at the soundcard for a few reasons, but the main one was I was hoping to get a little bit better performance out of my z-5500 speakers from logitech. As far as why I chose the xonar would probably be specs and word of mouth from friends who own or have owned the card and have told great things about it. Anyhow in your opinion would the 2x 560ti's be able to compensate cooling and performance wise under a large workload such as stress testing/benchmarking, or should I be looking for an external fan. ( I plan on leaving an open pci-e slot between the gpu's to compensate with some of the higher temps; or should I just go and grab the 580 for the generic configuration and not have to be as concerned about temps as long as I have proper cooling to keep it under the temperature threshold. I don't plan on overclocking the components as of now but I am a fairly hardcore gamer/performance junkie.