Each week on Show Us Your Rig, we feature PC gaming's best and brightest as they show us the systems they use to work and play.
Dan Baker is the head of Oxide Games, currently developing RTS Ashes of the Singularity, which leaves Early Access for its full release this Thursday. We've previously talked about Oxide's drive to make AMD and Nvidia cards live in peace with one another, and Baker's two PCs are prime examples of that. His main PC has both a Radeon R9 390X and a Nvidia GTX 980, defying the universe's attempts at tearing itself apart from the very thought. Instead of galactic catastrophe, Baker is left with an incredibly unique and extremely powerful rig. He was kind enough to take some time and tell us about it.
What's in your PC?
Click the arrows to enlarge.
I have two development boxes. My primary development box, as you can see, is a Haswell-E 8-Core, Intel PE500 PCI SSD, Radeon R9 390X (primary), GeForce GTX 980 (secondary), Corsair 850 watt power supply, 32GB DDR4 RAM. My secondary box is also a Haswell-E 8-core. I change GPUs out a lot so it currently has two GTX 980s in it, but sitting next to the box is a Radeon Pro Duo card which I will swap in/out. I have three monitors, a Dell 2560x1600, a Dell 3840x1440, and a dell 1920x1080 turned vertical. I also have a 4k HDR LG 52" but that's too big to put in my workstation space.
What's the most interesting/unique part of your setup?
The most unusual thing is that my primary dev box has GPUs from both AMD and Nvidia in it, I use this to test our Directx12 Multi-GPU feature with Ashes of the Singularity since it will use both GPUs and can get good results.
What's always within arm's reach on your desk?
Three bottles of Scotch. The Monkey Shoulder is for 'everyday' drinking. The Balvenie is more refined, but I’m saving the Lagavulin for when we ship Ashes. I'm not much of a beer drinker as I am a bit of a super taster and don't like bitter things.
What are you playing right now?
Lately I've been playing Kerbal Space Program and still play Team Fortress 2 occasionally on Twitch. Kerbal Space Program has taught me that getting men to Mars is easy—it's getting them back that's tricky. I've also learned how to mount rescue missions when Mission 'accidentally' forgot to put a parachute on the spacecraft. I grew up being a big space geek because my dad (retired now) was a rocket scientist.
What's your favorite game and why?
I know I'm biased since I was the Graphics Lead for it, but Civilization V is my favorite game, at least in the modern era. I could go into a whole long discussion of favorite games when I was a kid, but I'd pick Chrono Trigger, Star Control II, and X-Com. I suppose it's fitting that I've worked directly or indirectly on sequels of Star Control and X-Com—life is funny that way.
