my new build

[Trias]

e8400 3.0ghz clocked to 3.6ghz - air cooled by Tuniq Tower
4gig ddr3 1333 ocz platinum
evga 790i ultra sli P03 bios
evga 9800GTX(will add another in a month or so for sli)
Antec 900 case - lots of good air flow, though smaller than i was used to building into
Creative Xfi Fatality Gamer sound - bitch with driver issues but got it working well
Vista Ultimate 64x
2x WD raptors in a stripe array.

this system screams so far; it oc'd easily with very little temperature increase...i had some issues with 64bit vista but got past those without too much trouble. it has been running completely stable for a week now.

i'll be adding another 9800gtx and a blu-ray drive somewhere down the line...and eventually i'll jump up to 1600 or 1800ddr3 once prices come down somewhat.

i highly recommend the e8400 core 2 duo; it runs super cool and is plenty fast...its probably the most cost effective very OC'able processor out there right now($209)

[Winnow]

looks great! speed demon!

As for Blu Ray, I'm going to wait and get a Blu Ray burner when they drop a bit in price. I have no interest in Blu Ray for movies but for storage if the price of 50GB recordables and rewritables drop substantially. I'm tired of relying on spinning HD's to store my stuff without a longer term (large capacity) backup. It kind of sucked losing 200GB of art images. (time, effort, and wasted bandwidth of getting them back)

[Psyloche]

Since I only really play WoW and TF2, what games are out now that would really need that kind of hardware? Or will for that matter? Are games like Conan or Warhammer gonna be pumping out crazy graphics with DX10? Or Crysis? I built a comp a few months ago with a q6600, 8800gt, 650i motherboard (or 680? I forget), and 2GB of 1066 ddr2 RAM, running XP thinking it'd be decent enough for a while. I see specs that you put up and I can't help thinking, even if I played newer games, I'm not even sure I'd even want to drop the kind of money you probably did for that system. Or maybe it's that I'm stuck with old ddr3 RAM pricing, because I remember the price jump was fucking huge.

[Ashur]

How loud is that rig Trias?

[Canelek]

I am totally going to copy your build. That 3rd Video Card option may just squeek out a couple more years from it.

Were you considering the quad-core, or is the e8400 the best option?

[Winnow]

Were you considering the quad-core, or is the e8400 the best option?

I've been noticing more things taking advantage of multiple cores (finally)

If your primary focus is going to be gaming, a speedy dual core should be fine. I grabbed X-Plane 9 off the newsgroups though the other day and noticed in the docs that it took advantage of multiple cores.

ALMOST NO DELAY IN SCENERY-SHIFTING! (but you need a multi-core or multi-processor machine to fully realize this benefit!) Now you can fly around the entire planet without ever having a significant pause to load scenery... you can look at continuously-varying textures across the whole Country from San Diego to New York and ditto that world-wide. Imagine: You get into a light plane in San Diego and fly it clear to New York, watching the terrain change from the green coastal conditions to the deserts of the SouthWest, then transition to the fields of the midwest, then forests of the Northeast, then the cities of New York, right down to Central park greenery. It's ALL THERE, and you can watch the whole thing in one continuous flight, with hardly a delay to load scenery if you have a dual-core or multi-processor machine. It is simply stunning, just like doing it for real.

As well, QUICKTIME MOVIES are now much, much faster, also using multiple cores, to give you much higher framerate during QuickTime movie creation.

That's just an example. I'm liking the multicore tasking within games as opposed to just taking advantage of multiple cores for running other applications while you're also playing a game.

[Canelek]

Pretty much just gaming for me... I keep all of my work at the office. However, I do like to have the ability to have multiple processes running...at least having some downloads going in the background, although that is mostly I/O bound....will tackle that subject soon enough!

Really leaning towards this build!

[Ashur]

Canelek - I have a pretty shitty video card in my phenom rig and I zone before everyone.

I think I'm also using my new video card cash for GenCon, so I may have that card until Christmas (or until the nice cards that are $200ish now are $100ish)

[Trias]

How loud is that rig Trias?

actually the only loud part at all was the fan in the tuniq tower cooler...i've since replaced that fan and its quiet as a mouse...the cases smallest fan is 120mm so they are large fans that move more air at a slower rpm, thus creating less noise.

[Trias]

I am totally going to copy your build. That 3rd Video Card option may just squeek out a couple more years from it.

Were you considering the quad-core, or is the e8400 the best option?

i went with the e8400 based on tons of positive reviews in terms of operating temperature, stability, and overclocking ability. and the price for performance cannot be beat by anything right now($209)

the case i have is awesome but may be a little small in a 3 graphics card / tri-sli situation...you may want to go for a full tower set up.

my only regret is that i wish that 1600+ ddr3 was a little cheaper...as soon as it is a bit more reasonable in price will be picking up new ddr3 and ebaying my current stuff.

- i run wow on raids with everything maxed at 88fps when shit is hitting the fan...i run at 125 to 225fps while about the world.

- i run LOTRO at max graphical settings and DX10 options on at about 78+fps in all situations, sometimes dipping down to 60ish momentarily in high graphical areas and where there is a large population of players moving around.

- crysis with max settings is playable but not super playable...high settings with some settings at very high make it perfect to play...once i throw in a 2nd card for sli i see myself enjoying this game highly.

-- i've had some challenges with vista x64 ultimate but have since resolved them - in intitial install i had to start with 2 gigs of ram installed, install new bios, install the OS, do the appropriate vista updates and sp1, then shut down and install the other 2 gigs...windows recognizes all 4 gigs fine and is running stable.

-- the motherboard defaulted my memory to a 1.5v setting and the memory is rated at 1.8v...before doing anything you will need to up the voltage setting in your bios if you use this board and same memory(i'd advise always checking the voltage versus your rated voltage on any mobo/memory combo)...many people have said that 1.8 was the best setting on various forum posts, but i had 2 blue screens over the course of the first week of having this system running; i was talking with OCZ techs via email where they gave me the heads up to set the memory to 1.7v...since then i've been 100% stable for a couple/few weeks now.

-- the tuniq tower was the largest and heaviest aftermarket cpu cooler i've ever used...i did not use the supplied thermal paste, i used arctic silver 5 compound...installing this heatsink/fan was intense as I felt like i was crushing my cpu, however it is fine...my cpu temperature is 29/30C idle to 35/38C under max load over an extended amount of time...i'm pleased with these results so far, however i plan on lapping the processor(only because it was cheap) and lapping the heatsink contact in order to shave off some temps before i move to overclock any further(though i don't really need to at this time)....others have posted better temperature results than mine with the same set up; i may just have to remove my heatsink, put on a fresh line of paste and reseat it. - if you go with the stock cooler you can expect 40C as most people are reporting.

-- this is the first time i've purchased a motherboard and graphics card in the first week of their release and it made some settings iffy...now that they have been out nearly a month you can find tons of info on getting past their quirks if need be.

-----------------------

now i just need to pick up some new games; i haven't done much pc gaming past WoW and some lotro in years.

[Trias]

you will definately want 4 gigs of memory if using vista x64...the system idles using over a gig of memory at any given time...granted i have not shut down any services as of this time and am running vista at its default settings. 4 gigs runs everything like a champ.

i'll see if i can post some video encoding results in the next couple of weeks when i get some time...since building this system i've had plans every single weekend and have had not much time to just sit and play with my new toy hah.

[Winnow]

This might be helpful for those looking for a new nVidia (best) graphics card:


8800GS << 8800GTS (G80) << 9600GT << 8800GT < 8800GTS 512 < 8800GTX ~ 9800 GTX <= 9600GT (SLI) << 8800GT (SLI) << 9800GX2 = 8800GTS 512 (SLI) << 9800GTX (SLI) < 8800GTX (SLI)

<.....small improvement
<<...improvement
<=...greater than or equal too depending on the game
~.....cards trade blows in almost every game with both cards seemingly better than the other depending on the game
=.....cards are equal

[Canelek]

Trias - Did you have any cable routing issues with the Antec 900?


edit: Also, will the case fit 2 9800s? I mean like fit easily, not like removing/hacking shit off to make it work.

[Trias]

i had minimal cable routing issues, i ran most right out behind the case and back in.

it will fit 2 9800GXT's easily...i had to remove the internal harddrive fan holder thingy that is pointless anyways(this was to fit one).

fitting three will require some wiring trickery i think and i would probably have to buy a new power supply...but i have no plans of tri-sli...dual sli i'll jump up to over the summer at some point.

sorry for the late reply!

[Trias]

oh, if you use a Tuniq Tower or other large cooler, make sure you connect the 12V power supply connector to the motherboard before you install the board...otherwise you will be unscrewing your motherboard and taking it back out...like i had to.