Another "Rate my Rig..."
Friday, September 4, 2009 by Fuzzy Logic | Discussion: Personal Computing
As everyone seems to be flexing their 3p33n, I thought I'd give you a sneak preview of a build which will start next week sometime.
Case: Antec 900 with all the fans
PSU: Coolermaster 1000W (modular)
Mobo: Asus P6T Deluxe X58
CPU: i7 920 @ 2.66, but eventually getting OC'd to 3.4
Fan: Coolermaster V8
Memory: 6Gb DDR3 1333
HD (System + games): Crucial 128Gb SSD
HD (Data): 500Gb
HD (Backups): 2 x 1.5Tb
Video: 2 x ATI Radeon 1Gb DDR5 in Crossfire
OS: Vista Ultimate, but will be upgrading to W7 (when I feel like it)
+ other usual bits
Of course it's OTT, it's designed to last many years with only basic upgrades.
Basic design concepts:
The i7 920 OC'd is as quick as a i975 at a saving of £480. Though it will run a little hot.
The two 4890s on test smoke a GTX295 at a saving of £70 (the 295 is just 2x 275s anyway).
The SSD is only 128Gb, so my older games will go on the data disk E.G. UT2004 will see no benefit from the SSD, but has 10Gb of maps to eat up valuable space.
The Antec 900 is just big enough to fit everything in, but small enough to fit under the desk (my PC is in a cupboard). It has 5 120mm fans and one 200mm fan on top to keep everything cool. My current Coolermaster case is on a shelf right in front of me - a bit too noisy for my liking... Under the desk is much quieter, but limited in depth (22") - the 900 will have to go in at an angle to avoid squashing the cables. Plus the case is wide enough for the V8 (check this if you are buying a V8!)
For those who like to specify underpowered PSUs, the 1000W is barely adequate for the two 4890s and the OC...
I'l let you know what it feels like when it's done 
 |
|
Page 3 of 5 | |
|
|---|
Reply #43 Monday, September 14, 2009 7:36 PM
Nice Lantec, looks clean. Why was the RAM so bad, are you overclocking it? (Never had problems with RAM except bad ones)
Reply #44 Monday, September 14, 2009 9:44 PM
Lantec, you and I have the same Mother board, ram and processor. I went with the Nvidia GTX 260OC for video, 300GB VelociRaptor drive for the OS, and a 1TB Caviar black for main storage.
Took me a day to decide on the ram after extensive reading at Newegg and Gigabyte to figure what ram would run 8 GB at 1066.
Great system that runs quite stable. I decided against the V8 cooler after reading that it is a bit heavy for the board's suggested CPU fan weight.
Still trying to decide what fan to use but the stock cooler is doing ok for now since it's not over clocked. Suprised it's only at 42 degrees
Reply #45 Monday, September 14, 2009 10:02 PM
Fuzzy, Fallout 3 is an awesome game but when it's patched up to the latest patch, it's unstable as hell.
Keep this in mind when installing. I'd run it without patching if your not going to use the add ons.
Reply #46 Tuesday, September 15, 2009 10:15 AM
Was fine at 800mhz but had to tweak the timings and up the voltages to get them stable at 1066 mhz. I was getting intemittent BSODs while trying to run Vista's setup. All pointed to the RAM. I tested each one individually and they all passed so I started playing with the timings.....
I read somewhere (maybe Tweaktown) where the stock cooler is better than many of the add-ons available (the V-8 being one of the exceptions). I'm going to do my overclocking before Windows 7 arrives so I don't run into setup issues.
At that point I'm planning to add RAID or "maybe" go with a reasonable sized SSD....depends on finances.
Reply #47 Tuesday, September 15, 2009 10:38 AM
I don't think much of stock coolers, but if you get a custom one, get a damn good big one. I saw about 20c drop when I changed my CPU cooler out.
Reply #48 Tuesday, September 15, 2009 10:49 AM
the V8 kicks butt! i got one when they were first released and love it. i switched from a thermalright ultra-120, which was darned good, too. the V8 cools just as well but looks better 
Reply #49 Tuesday, September 15, 2009 10:50 AM
V8 is better than a lot of water cooling systems
Reply #50 Wednesday, September 23, 2009 12:55 PM
Update:
Mobo faulty, new one arriving tomorrow, should all be working Saturday.
Manufacturing quality isn't what it used to be 
Reply #51 Wednesday, September 23, 2009 1:11 PM
I hope you get everything up and running soon Fuzzy.
Reply #52 Wednesday, September 23, 2009 1:16 PM
So do I. It's so frustrating when the damn thing is finished then fails to boot. Bleh.
Reply #54 Tuesday, September 29, 2009 10:42 AM
Well, here I am, posting from my new PC. I haven't got anything installed yet, apart from Office, so plenty of fun to come.
This SSD is damn quick. Programs open almost instantaneously... 
A couple of changes from the above spec:-
Case: Antec 900 with all the fans
PSU: Coolermaster 1000W (modular)
Case: NZXT Beta, with blue led thingies
PSU: Tagan 1100W
The PC seems to be running at fairly good temperatures, though there is a gentle warm breeze coming from under the desk
I won't need the heating on in winter...
Reply #55 Tuesday, September 29, 2009 6:05 PM
Glad you got a good mobo this time. All fun from here on..........
I've been spending some time getting mine overclocked. I'm stable with 8gb ram and my Q9550 OCed to 3.4ghz. Been trying to get to 3.8 but so far I haven't found a stable memory vs cpu configuration.
Cooler Master HAF 932
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P Rev. 1.6 FA
Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83Ghz E0
w/ Cooler Master V-8
XFX Radeon HD 4870 1GB DDR5
4x2GB G. Skill DDR2 1066
Corsair 750W PSU Single Rail
(2) WD 640GB Caviar Black HDD
(1) Seagate 500GB
Samsung 22X DVD Burner SATA
Vista SP1 64-bit
Reply #56 Tuesday, September 29, 2009 6:23 PM
lantec I have OCed a q9550 e0 stepping a on an asus p5q se(flashed the bios to latest to work with the cpu) with 4 * 2gb kingston 1066 hyperx to 3.78ghz(fsb 445mhz 9.5x multiplier) stable the heatsink is a freezer7pro, and the temps when occt ing peak at 59 C with abient at aprox 20 C.
harpo
Reply #57 Tuesday, September 29, 2009 9:42 PM
Lantec...what are you running your memory timings at?
Reply #58 Thursday, October 1, 2009 2:54 PM
Oh, its fassssst....
Rates No1 on all three tests. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Reply #59 Friday, October 2, 2009 7:11 PM
Fuzzy...just got to this thread....you're not a lot different to my specs....it's great to have a machine that isn't quite a dinosaur....yet...
Lian Li PC-A6010 case [black]
Antec TruePower Quattro 1000w PSU
ASUS P6T-se X58 i7 MoBo
Intel i7 920 2.66Ghz LGA1366 CPU
OCZ 12G-Triple [6x2G] PC12800 Gold Ram
CoolerMaster V8 CPU Cooler [that bloody big thing]
Vantec EZ2 Sata hot-swap racks x2
1TB Seagate Sata2 7200 HD x2 [for backup/data]
250G Seagate Sata2 7200 HD x2 [for secondary/alternate OS installs]
OCZ Summit SSD 60G [for OS]
ACR-105 Multi card reader
LG Sata DVD-RW x2
XFX 1G GTX285 Black Edition [vid]
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit RTM.
Win Exp score 7.3
Reply #60 Friday, October 2, 2009 7:56 PM
You get no idea how big a V8 is from the pictures - till you get your hands on one.
One thing I've always complained about is the speed FF opens compared to IE. FF now opens in a fraction of a second - just awesome 
Please login to comment and/or vote for this skin.
Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
- Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums and downloading skins.
- Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
- Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
- It's simple, and FREE!
|
|
Page 3 of 5 | |
|
|---|
Reply #41 Monday, September 14, 2009 11:49 AM
Mines done.......getting 8gb of ram stable was a major PITA but I've got a 24 hour test w/0 errors so I figure I'm good to go
Cooler Master HAF 932
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P Rev. 1.6
Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83Ghz
w/ Cooler Master V-8
XFX Radeon HD 4870 1GB DDR5
4x2GB G. Skill DDR2 1066
Corsair 750W PSU Single Rail
(2) WD 640GB Caviar Black HDD (gonna go RAID when I get my Windows 7)
Samsung 22X DVD Burner SATA
Vista SP1 64-bit