Published on September 4, 2009 By Fuzzy Logic In 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


Comments (Page 4)
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on Sep 15, 2009

Why was the RAM so bad, are you overclocking it?

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.....

 

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

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.

on Sep 15, 2009

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.

on Sep 15, 2009

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

on Sep 15, 2009

V8 is better than a lot of water cooling systems

on Sep 23, 2009

Update:

Mobo faulty, new one arriving tomorrow, should all be working Saturday.

Manufacturing quality isn't what it used to be

on Sep 23, 2009

I hope you get everything up and running soon Fuzzy.

on Sep 23, 2009

So do I. It's so frustrating when the damn thing is finished then fails to boot. Bleh.

on Sep 23, 2009

I've had that happen. Yes it sucks.

on Sep 29, 2009

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...

on Sep 29, 2009

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

on Sep 29, 2009

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

on Sep 29, 2009

Lantec...what are you running your memory timings at?

on Oct 01, 2009

Oh, its fassssst....

 

Rates No1 on all three tests. Not bad. Not bad at all.

on Oct 02, 2009

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

 

on Oct 02, 2009

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

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