My 2ND RIG! Tell me whatcha think!? *PICS INSIDE*

Well well well...
I have been a member of OCForums for 7+ months now. Everyone here has treated me well, allowed me to learn something new everytime I would come on and check new threads out. I have gone through 2 computers basically from this site, and the experience with both of them has been great. I had originally bought parts and built my first computer using information from here and it turned out well. I was still rather new to everything and a lot went over my head. In a way I felt like I kind of rushed the purchase being as excited as I was. I ended up deciding to sell it for almost what I paid for it after getting 6 months use. So I decided to build a second computer as some of you have probably seen or read. You can see the specs in my signature of exactly what I had bought about 2 weeks ago. I am still very excited and config/getting everything the way I like it.

Here are some pictures:
http://img305.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscn16359gf.jpg

http://img442.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscn16367rh.jpg

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http://img442.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscn16415mm.jpg

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http://img442.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dscn16480db.jpg

I'd like to go over some of the advantageous I have experienced so far in the parts, and some disadvantages. Mabey they are common maybe they are not, but I know when I was looking at buying parts I always liked to hear a second opinion.


My CPU is at (250x10) 2500MHz dual prime95 stable. Running @ 1.32 vcore, Idle is 30C (fanless heatsink), load is 46C
Ram is at 1/01 Ratio, 3-3-3-8 @ 250MHz
GPU is at 490/1330, Idle is 41C, load is 56C

Personal Advantageous:
1. I know I hear it all the time how is Dual core is bad for gaming, and you should go single core 4000 or a 3700+. I play CS:S, WoW. It was definitely worth the extra money upgrading to a 3800+. I can multi-task a lot more, efficiently, and smoothly. More and more advancements are coming out to take 100% advantage of Dual core, drivers and games and such. So its money well spent
2. Going with a Maxtor Diamondmax 16MB cache 200GB over a WD Raptor 10krpm 74GB. Definitely can't tell a stinkin difference. My last PC had a raptor because its all I heard was the best for gaming. I spent the money on one and was impressed. None the less this PC now I decided to go with a bigger HDD without sacrificing anything. For the price/storage and difference between the two, was well worth it.
3. Ballistix ram from what I have seen so far is very nice. I have very little bottleneck or anything stopping me from OC'ing very high except for heat. In my case I had to go aircooling because I didn't want to risk watercooling with moving my case around so much. It can get hot, but with good airflow, or a fan running on it. I see no problem.
4. DFI - Well this is a big controversial subject. I had always used ASUS motherboards. DFI is king of Overclocking and that's what I was interested in doing. People say DFI are too problematic, others say its the best thing since sliced bread. After doing my reading here, other forums, and especially dfi-street.com. I am proud to say I have encountered 0 problems, 0 crashes, 0 errors ever. Do your reading, do your research and everything will go smoothly. Whats that saying? "99% of computer errors, are the computer user."
5. Basically everything else I had bought has been very nice to me so far, and I plan to keep it that way.

Personal Disadvantageous:
1. Not sure what proper 3800+ OC's should be like with cooling similar to mine. The Ninja Scythe is huge, and its nice to be able to run it fanless. I do have the 120mm Panaflo for it, so I'm still experimenting with what I like. Since I don't have a fan controller yet the Panaflo does cool nice but can be noisy. I'm not sure if I should be satisfied with my Overclocks so far, if I can go further, or mine are poor. Sounds like a SI-120 w/ Delta 3 Fan would have been better. I might try and sell my panaflo and ninja scythe if I find out this is the case in my opinion. It very doable, I think it takes up too much room with the Scythe + My Panaflo in my case. Note: The upside down motherboard with the case are great under a few conditions. I'd like to point out that the front 120mm in the case doesn't work yet because it cannot reach any fan connectors on the board. Since I don't have an extension or a fan controller yet I am SoL. I'm also not sure which 3 pin extension cord is what I need because it seems there are 2 different types of 3 pin wires.
2. NV Silencer 5 Rev 3. Great cooling, and helps get hot air out of the top of my case. Wonderful, however it has a downside. I'm sure those who have done their research would know by now they are in a way defective. I had to switch wires because the fan didn't work the way it came, and I am still without a proper working heatsink for the backside memory of the card. I am looking to get some nice ramsinks. (If you have nice recommendations for ramsinks for a 7800GTX let me know)
3. Ahh the 2405FPW. I'm a computer gamer and I like things looking sharp and crisp. I don't know if its a figure of my imagination or I am not used to the big screen or the fast FPS or what. But playing CS:S or any other very fast paced game it feels weird. I don't know if I can blame the monitor for "Lagging" it seems or slow refresh rate or what. I am still undecided on wether the monitor was worth it. Don't get me wrong its very nice for surfing, WoW, or anything that doesn't require top speed if you know what I mean. I personally would have to give it another month or so till I'm completely used to it and try to game some more to get a better idea. I have been mostly working on config/tweaking my system to perfection.

All in all, I am very pleased. Its like a whole new approach at using a computer, its a totally different experience when using it. Let me know what you guys and gals think. I always like to improve. Having things work better and more efficiently is always a A+++ in my eyes too. When you spend so much money on a computer setup you like to have a perfect system. That's my goal and I would say I'm 90% of the way there.

Thanks everyone.

VERY nice setup you have there. What games will you be playing with it?

Viper2004 said:

VERY nice setup you have there. What games will you be playing with it?

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I play CS:S mostly right now, I'm always looking for new games to play. Quake 4 multiplayer should be fun. I have to research some more.

Very Nice Setup You've got there

PrometheuSBoxeR said:

Do your reading, do your research and everything will go smoothly.

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I couldn't Agree more.

Heh I have that exact keyboard + mouse.
Cool beans.

Great setup.

Pretty good OC with so low voltages on it. Decent temps with no fan too. I'd say just go for a fan and set it running at a low rpm if you don't like noise. Use SpeedFan to adjust fans so that you won't have to buy a fan controller, but the fan controller does look cooler.

PrometheuSBoxeR said:

3. Ahh the 2405FPW. I'm a computer gamer and I like things looking sharp and crisp. I don't know if its a figure of my imagination or I am not used to the big screen or the fast FPS or what. But playing CS:S or any other very fast paced game it feels weird. I don't know if I can blame the monitor for "Lagging" it seems or slow refresh rate or what

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Maybe just maybe, the image is not up to your standards due to the VGA cable you are using. Try the DVI that came with the setup and compare. To me it was a night and day difference.

Man thats a nice system, pretty much all i want.

Thank you for the compliments, I feel dumb because I was just at Best Buy, I picked up a DVI Cable for 22 bucks. I figured I would wait a day so I could mabey find out more from this thread Sure enough I did, Glad I didn't buy it because it came with a DVI cable. I feel so stupid for thinking that I was using DVI all along, even on my last computer. Silly me

Nice!

PrometheuSBoxeR said:

Thank you for the compliments, I feel dumb because I was just at Best Buy, I picked up a DVI Cable for 22 bucks. I figured I would wait a day so I could mabey find out more from this thread Sure enough I did, Glad I didn't buy it because it came with a DVI cable. I feel so stupid for thinking that I was using DVI all along, even on my last computer. Silly me

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Yeah, after looking at your pictures I was like "why is he using vga on that monitor"?

You have a 2nd comp a lot nicer than most people's first comps. Looks nice.

so how did it work out. look better, same?

Works better, I can tell when im playing CS:S, It felt perfectly fine. I went 41/4 my first game in like 6 months

CRTs are better for gaming. Running a really good CRT at 80hz or more can't be beat. For picture quality, a good CRT kills an LCD (better contrast, better brightness). LCDs don't have refresh rates, but they do have (forget what's it's called) where there is a certain number of ms it takes for a pixel to change from being off to being on. If it's too slow, or the game is too fast, you get smearing and blurring. A CRT will never do that.
Otherwise it looks like a nice setup
People sometimes like to run a CRT at like 110hz refresh or more, I don't understand the point. Over 85hz is impossible to notice (well, over 75 or 80 really). But at extremely high refresh rates, even the best CRTs will start going out of focus (the beam has to scan the screen 110 times per second, instead of 70 or 80, of course focus suffers).

Well your rig is better than mine... how about a trade?

Very nice comp

dan

Quailane said:

Yeah, after looking at your pictures I was like "why is he using vga on that monitor"?

You have a 2nd comp a lot nicer than most people's first comps. Looks nice.

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Yeah, I was wondering the same thing.

I think he means this is the second computer he's built... either that or I'll trade him my primary rig for his secondary!

very nice. lian-li cases are top notch (and top dollar). do you find your panaflo fans to be noisy? because i have two panaflo 3k rpm intake fans in my A64 case and those two easily drown out my other computer with its 9 or so fans. not even my 90mm cpu fan in my a-xp is as loud as these damn things.

good build

How does the OCZ Powerstream520 fit on that case? Are the connectors long enough for everything, including the video card and the optical drives at the top?

Awesome setup, I <3 upside down mobo cases( or at least the idea of them).

Finally someone with wiremanagement as bad as mine

Hahah JP

(but seriously, your wiremanagement looks like mine)

Haha that rig looks alot like that one i had exactly in mind on building except for the Watercooling and some other little things..even the keyboard, mouse, and monitor