"Rate my Rig" thread

Post by **Beowulf** » 2007-07-31 05:20pm

Datana wrote:
Beowulf wrote:I have a P150. It's not flimsy at all. It's a very solid steel case.
Okay, that sounds much better. Most photos make it out to look like significant portions of the case are plastic, which seemed at odds with the price. How does it look in person?

It gets that look because it's got a glossy black paint job, and a plastic dampening layer on the inside of the panels. The front bezel is a plastic/aluminum composite. It looks really nice. It's a bitch to keep clean though. All the dust shows up. Make sure you wipe it off every week or so or keep it in a relatively dust free room. Or you could just hide it under the desk.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-08-01 11:03pm

Corsair has released a new power supply which, from the reviews and from one of the developers, seems to be just right.

'therapy' at the SA forums wrote: "Not everyone needs a 1000W Mega PSU"

We've been saying that shit for years now and more and more people are releasing super-high-end ultra-wattage CPU that require their own personal generators and harness the power of wind, water, fire, earth, and heart in order to drive the meager trappings of a mid-range gaming box.

The problem is most 400-500W PSUs are either pieces of shit that cost $20-40 or worse yet, come free with your case, or they're high quality units that cost like $150 a pop which is a hard place to be.

There's some in-between play, like Antec's TruePower or TrioPower series, but while they are very technically solid usually, they don't have some stuff people want, like sleeved cables, or a nicely finished enclosure or industrial grade caps.

That stuff adds cost, not much, but some, and if you're going to be selling your PSU for a good value, every dollar of margin helps.

Well I got kind of tired of having to recommend $100+ PSUs to people that really didn't need that kind of shit, so we ended up developing something a little better that came out today.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/544/1/
http://www.jonnyguru.com/review_details.php?id=125
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=438

I'm not trying to pimp my company's shit or anything, I'm just trying to point out that guys here in SH/SC for the past 3-4 years have a direct result on products that major companies release. The PSU Guide specifically (Dr. Fred) has led to a lot of people here being educated, but sometimes it's hard to gauge just how many of those people can take that info and parlay it into a wise product purchase.

The idea behind this 450W PSU was to give everyone a cheap yet quality product with none of the shitty blinged out chrome or LED fans or "adjustable pots" or whatever that other people brag about as features. This is black, with a green sticker, fully sleeved cables, and 105C rated caps inside. It's rated at 50C and 450W continuous, and is nearly silent until 400W load is applied.

While I did help design and develop this thing, it was really the input and experience I got here over the past few years that led me to a better understanding of how to create what I think is the perfect product. Luckily I have a company that listens.

It even comes with a white cloth bag that you can store your D&D Dice/Extra Screws & Bolts/Marijuana & Rolling Papers/Pencils and Pens inside.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2007-08-06 09:23am

So I'm looking for a Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600; the motherboard is well, up in the air, but I'm looking at a ASUS P5N32-E Mobo, since it does have a NVIDIA NForce chipset; and the last two machines we have bought (my machine now, and my brother's machine) have had NForce chipsets and have been quite good and stable.

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2007-08-13 02:06am

I'm more than happy with my Corsair HX520W even though it's probably a little overkill for my system.....
Which has gone through an 'intermediate' upgrade over the last month or so.

To start with, I replaced the 2 gigs of Kingston DDR2-667 with a 2 gig dual channel Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 kit.
The kit was $104, but there's a $45 rebate that's coming in a few weeks and I got $35 out of my old RAM, so it basically cost $25 to upgrade my memory for the next step.

Which was replacing my stable, but non overclockable MSI 945P Neo-3F* board with a Gigabyte 965P-DS3 rev 3.3 board. With this board and RAM, I can run my E6400 C2D at 3.2Ghz (1.35v, 400FSB, 2.5 memory divider, and 5-5-5-15 timings on the RAM) instead of stock 2.13, and it's stable as a rock.
However, temps were a little high with the stock Intel HS/Fan and the passive cooled northbridge heatsink was almost too hot to touch, but my case (Antec TX640b) has an air guide in the door with a mount for a 92mm fan at the end of it.
Mounting a fan in the air guide and a 50mm fan on the northbridge to cool it a bit eliminated the heat issues.

The next upgrade was the videocard. I used eVGA's 'trade up' program to trade in my recently purchased 8600GT for a 8800GTS.
I recently started gaming again, and it was almost painful to play GTR2 with that 8600GT unless you cranked the video settings way down.

The final bit was to use a dremel and cut a hole to mount a 120mm fan in the front of the case to replace the factory stock 80mm mount.

Pics:

Final Setup:
Corsair HX520W PSU in an Antec TX640b case.
Gigabyte 965P-DS3 revision 3.3 motherboard
Intel E6400 Core2Duo@3.2Ghz (400FSBx8)
2 GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800
eVGA 8800GTS video card.
4 SATA hard drives
2 SATA DVD RW's
Floppy, Firewire card, and modem for faxing.

Alexandrov · Post by **Alexandrov** » 2007-08-26 06:26pm

Case COOLER MASTER CAVALIER 3 CAV-T03-UK
CPU E6550
VPU Evga 320-P2-N811-AR 8800GTS
MB Gigabyte GA-P35 DS3R
RAM CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
PS SeaSonic S12 Energy Plus SS-550HT
HDD WD4000K
RDD Lite-On 20X DVD-Burner model LH-20A1S
Monitor Samsung 940BX
OS Vista 32-bit Home premium

How does this look? It comes to $1350 with shipping, and is intended to last 4-5 years.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2007-08-27 01:53am

Quite good, except remember that the 32-bit OS could bite you in the ass in 2-3 years time.

Alexandrov · Post by **Alexandrov** » 2007-08-27 02:22am

My bad. I forgot to update that, and the RAM. I am getting the 64-bit version, and thus will get 4GB instead of 2GB of RAM.

Acidburns · Post by **Acidburns** » 2007-08-27 08:20am

My new system:

NZXT Lexa Blackline
OCZ 700W Gamexstream PSU
EVGA 680i Mobo
Core 2 Duo E6850
Thermaltake Blue Orb 2
2Gig OCZ DDR2 PC6400 800Mhz Gold
Geforce 8800GTS 640MB
Vista 64 Bit Home Premium

Runs like a dream, thanks to anyone who offered me advice, especially those folks who told me to wait for the Intel price drop.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2007-08-27 10:39am

Ace Pace wrote:Quite good, except remember that the 32-bit OS could bite you in the ass in 2-3 years time.

Yes, but a 64-bit OS will bite you in the ass now with poor driver and app support.

Post by **Beowulf** » 2007-08-27 12:01pm

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:
Ace Pace wrote:Quite good, except remember that the 32-bit OS could bite you in the ass in 2-3 years time.
Yes, but a 64-bit OS will bite you in the ass now with poor driver and app support.

I've only gotten bitten in the ass by webcam drivers and the nyetwork stack. Webcam I don't care too much about. The nyetwork stack is annoying though. It might equally be a problem with 32-bit though.

Alexandrov · Post by **Alexandrov** » 2007-08-28 01:56am

Beowulf wrote:
Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:
Ace Pace wrote:Quite good, except remember that the 32-bit OS could bite you in the ass in 2-3 years time.
Yes, but a 64-bit OS will bite you in the ass now with poor driver and app support.
I've only gotten bitten in the ass by webcam drivers and the nyetwork stack. Webcam I don't care too much about. The nyetwork stack is annoying though. It might equally be a problem with 32-bit though.

I am going to dual-boot XP Pro for now, with Vista, so I should be able to avoid these problems.

Edit: Additional questions:

Which of these two monitors is better?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824014146

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824009105

Will the 640 MB version of the 8800GTS last longer (i.e. provide playable/decent frame rates farther into the future) than the 320MB version?

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2007-08-28 10:36am

GTS 320 vs 640 is a tough call. When the 320 came out, there was no difference at all at resolutions below 1920 x 1200. But in Bioshock, there's a significant difference at lower and higher res's, although not nearly enough to justify the price difference. In future games, there's no telling for sure, but I suspect that the 320 version will never completely chug on a game the 640 version plays fine. Normally I err on the side of caution, but $100 is a huge price difference for a card that's otherwise identical, and I suspect you'd still come out ahead even if you had to upgrade your GPU a few months sooner than you would have otherwise.

Datana · Post by **Datana** » 2007-08-28 12:06pm

My system is now mostly pulled together, though I haven't gotten a sound card for it yet. I halted on the X-fi XtremeMusic because it had no front panel interconnects and lousy connection support for S/PDIF coax. The alternative, CMedia-based sound cards (such as the HT Omega Claro or Auzentech X-Meridian), still offload significant portions of sound processing to the CPU and don't support as many simultaneous sounds as even the Audigy series, making them bad for gaming (though very good for multimedia due to a Soundstorm-like realtime DTS encoder and better components).

Auzentech's newest offering is the X-fi Prelude, a card based on the X-fi chipset but with generally better design (having both of the features that I had wanted that the regular X-fi lacked). Does anyone with this card have any comments on how well it works? It's fairly new and Newegg doesn't even have it in stock yet, though NCIX does. As only an occasional gamer, I'm waffling between this and the Claro.

Fingolfin_Noldor · Post by **Fingolfin_Noldor** » 2007-08-28 12:23pm

Alexandrov wrote: I am going to dual-boot XP Pro for now, with Vista, so I should be able to avoid these problems.

Edit: Additional questions:

Which of these two monitors is better?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824014146

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824009105

Will the 640 MB version of the 8800GTS last longer (i.e. provide playable/decent frame rates farther into the future) than the 320MB version?

I tried Dual boot once and it screwed just about everything. Nothing worked. Had to reinstall XP. I guess I will resort to the hard way of disconnecting hard drives or something.

Post by **Beowulf** » 2007-08-28 12:36pm

Dual-boot is a tricky proposition, especially given that you're going to have 32-bit XP and 64-bit Vista. It's made trickier by the fact that BIOS settings are going to have to be different between them. Simply put, 32-bit won't boot with certain setting required to utilize all 4GB of RAM in Vista.

Alexandrov · Post by **Alexandrov** » 2007-08-28 09:47pm

Beowulf wrote:Dual-boot is a tricky proposition, especially given that you're going to have 32-bit XP and 64-bit Vista. It's made trickier by the fact that BIOS settings are going to have to be different between them. Simply put, 32-bit won't boot with certain setting required to utilize all 4GB of RAM in Vista.

So if I want all 4GB running in Vista, and still want to use XP at the same time, I'll have to change a BIOS setting?

Alexandrov · Post by **Alexandrov** » 2007-08-31 01:17am

Case COOLER MASTER CAVALIER 3 CAV-T03-UK
CPU E6550
VPU Evga 640-P2-N821-AR 8800GTS
MB Gigabyte GA-P35 DS3R
RAM 2x Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB)
PS SeaSonic S12 Energy Plus SS-550HT
HDD WD4000K
RDD Lite-On 20X DVD-Burner model LH-20A1S
Monitor BenQ FP202W V3
OS Vista 64-bit Home premium

Will be purchasing tomorrow. Any last recommendations?

P.S. Sorry for double post.

Glocksman · Post by **Glocksman** » 2007-09-03 08:56pm

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:
Alexandrov wrote: I am going to dual-boot XP Pro for now, with Vista, so I should be able to avoid these problems.

Edit: Additional questions:

Which of these two monitors is better?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824014146

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824009105

Will the 640 MB version of the 8800GTS last longer (i.e. provide playable/decent frame rates farther into the future) than the 320MB version?
I tried Dual boot once and it screwed just about everything. Nothing worked. Had to reinstall XP. I guess I will resort to the hard way of disconnecting hard drives or something.

Almost every motherboard I've seen in the last several years has a 'one time boot menu' where you hit the F12 (or whatever key your board uses) to bring up a boot drive selection menu when you first power up the machine.

Fingolfin_Noldor · Post by **Fingolfin_Noldor** » 2007-09-04 12:43am

Glocksman wrote:Almost every motherboard I've seen in the last several years has a 'one time boot menu' where you hit the F12 (or whatever key your board uses) to bring up a boot drive selection menu when you first power up the machine.

I have seen that done before. Hopefully it still works. The trouble is, I still have to trick Vista into thinking that there's no other OS installed. So I have to disconnect the existing drive before I actually install Vista.

I only have the 32bit version of Vista, so I probably won't have too much trouble with potential mobo conflicts with regard to memory addressing I hope.

Darth Quorthon · Post by **Darth Quorthon** » 2007-09-08 10:11pm

I decided to upgrade after I saw what I thought was a pretty good deal in the local Fry's ad (CPU and mobo for $228 U.S.). I ended up giving my rig a major facelift, with very few parts from my previous system being imported into the new build. I also decided to switch from Antec PSUs after many years of buying them, and I was surprised at just how many Fry's carries.

New Parts:

CPU: Core 2 Duo E6750 (2.66 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB, 4 MB L2 Cache)
Motherboard: Abit IP35-E "Off Limits" : pretty basic board with Intel's P35 chipset.
Memory: 2 GB Corsair PC2-5300 DDR2 667, 5-5-5-15
CPU Cooler: Asus Silent Knight
Case: Antec Nine Hundred
PSU: Seasonic S12+ 650 (650W)
HDDs: 2 320 GB SATAII Hard Drives

"Old" Parts:

Video: eVga nVidia GeForce 8800GTX
Sound: Sounblaster X-Fi Xtreme Music
Optical Drives: One Plextor 16x Dual layer SATA DVD-RW, One plextor 12x single layer SATA DVD-RW
19" Widescreen ViewSonic Monitor, 1440 x 900 resolution
Logitech G5 v2 laser mouse
Saitek Eclipse II Keyboard

Comments and suggestions are welcome. All new parts are still sitting in their boxes, I plan on starting assembly tomorrow.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2007-09-09 12:11pm

With a setup that powerful and only 1440 x 900 res, you should be running new games 2 years from now at high settings.

Seggybop · Post by **Seggybop** » 2007-10-02 01:34am

Hay guys!
Does this thread yet live?
I'll post what I'm planning to get for my new compubox!

Intel Dual-Core E2180 Allendale 2.0GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E2180 - Retail Target speed 10 x 333 = 3333mhz

GIGABYTE GA-G33M-S2 LGA 775 Intel G33 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail Integrated graphics zomg yay!

Transcend JETRAM 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model JM2GDDR2-8K - Retail x 2 (4GB total)

What you say?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2007-10-02 01:40am

Not bad, but prepare for getting good cooling if you want that excessive of an overclock.

Ubiquitous · Post by **Ubiquitous** » 2007-10-03 05:33pm

Is this a good deal for a £700 laptop? It's the best I have been able to put together in a night of trying:

ase Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7500 Processor (2.2GHz,800MHz,4MB L2 cache)
Microsoft Operating System Genuine Windows Vista® Business - English
Memory 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x1024)
Keyboard Internal Keyboard - UK/Irish (QWERTY)
Video Card 256MB nVidia® GeForce® 8600M GT
Hard Drive 160GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive
Modem 56.6k V.92 Capable Internal Modem & Adapter - UK
Optical Devices Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
Wireless Networking Intel® Pro Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g Mini-Card - Europe
Shipping Documents English Documentation with English Power Cord
Gedis Bundle Reference List N1015003 - Vostro 1500 (3)
Microsoft Application Software Microsoft® Works 8.0 - English
Standard Warranty Base Warranty - 1 Year Business Hardware Support
Enhanced Service Packs Base Warranty - 1 Year Business Hardware Support
Protect your new PC No Security/Anti-Virus Protection - English
Power Supply 90W AC Adapter
Order Information Vostro Notebook Order - UK
Primary Battery Primary 6-cell Lithium-Ion Battery (56 WHr)
Carrying Cases No Carry Case
Dell System Media Kit Resource CD - contains Diagnostics and Drivers
Colour Choice Matte Jet Black without Camera
Accidental Damage Support No Accidental Damage Support
Online Promotion Option for GEDIS Configs Dell Internet Order.
LCD 15.4" Wide Screen WXGA (1280 x 800) Display with TrueLife™

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2007-10-05 03:26am

Special request for Stofsk

Prices are listed in AUD.

Part Model
CPU Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 $249
M/B GA-P35-DQ6 $279
RAM 1GB Kingston DDR3 single $289
HDD Western Digital 80 GB - SATA 8MB $55
Video Card 8800 GTS 320MB PCIE $435
Monitor Viewsonic 17"LCD-VA1703W $219
Sound Card Creative X-Fi Xtreme Cramer $169
Speakers Bose Companion 3 Speakers Series 2 $399
DVD - ROM , Floppy Lite on DVDROM / Happy, generic $38
Keyboard , Mouse (key) Microsoft Comfort Garve , Intellimouse $74
CASE Asus $70
Printer HP Lasejet 1022 $259
OTHER Smoke detector, surge gard $77
O/S Windows XP Pro w/SP2 $209
Software Microsoft Office 2007 Pro Academic $249

Total : $3070.00

I want to get your opinion and [snip]
The CPU - is it dual core? it must be special
The Motherboard - can you tell me about it ?
The RAM - amazingly pricey,Could I go DDR2 for cheaper?
Video card - any comment?
Monitor - same
Sound cards and speakers - the speakers are extremely expensive and I remember Aerius having a problem with Bose,
The guy has these speakers and they have surround sound and a subwoofer. It sounds impressive but one of my friends balked at any set of speakers that cost $400
I also wonder what the sound card can give me , particularly since motherboards these days come with the jack for speakers already installed .So any comments?
The Asus case - any comments?
Printer - I'm tempted to drop it .It would be nice to print out letters , though on the other hand I could find other ways to print off documents.
OS - it has to be bought , I'm afraid
Software - this includes games of course though I didn't note them down. But I need an Office program .Unfortunately Microsoft Office is absurdly priced. Can Open Office be bought and if so , for how much?

I have some thoughts here, but I also want to see what you guys see.[/quote]