Into The =PiT=

If i was going to build mysoefl a new putey then atm this would be it!


Intel core i5 750 2.66ghz $250
Gigabyte GA-P55A -UD3R MB $189
Gigabyte Radeon HD5870 Video card $475
8GB ram 4x2gb Kinsgton hyper X 2000 $370

Total $1285

Of course i would overclock the crap out of it and run it at 4GHZ !



with a noctua N12P cooler $75 ! {extra]


If you have to run dual vid cards then i would go for a

Intel Core i7 930 cpu $359
gigabyte X58 A UD3R MB $275
Hyoper X 6gb kit 2000 ram $269
Radeon HD5870 x 2 vid card $950

Total $1850

Ouch ! it still costs a bomb !

if you can use your existing hdd and dvd burners psu s etc case U will save more $$$!

Out of curiousity any one got something similar to either of these?

Cheers

But it's cheaper than a good system cost 5 or 10 years ago

Yes Leone, it is way cheaper these days!

Value for money is getting better all the time . alos the oz $ is nice and high too these days approx 91US cents atm.

well latest and greatest and best value IMO may 2011

could not help myslef any more


ordered some bits to keep myself amused. pick them up today hopefully

intel 2600K cpu = $337
asus p8p67 pro v3 m/b = $235
kingston 1600 ddr3 8GB [ 4GB x2] = $109
gigabyte HD6950 1GB X 2 vid cards = $570 [2 x 285]

total approx = $ 1240

shove in new case and old 850W psu

been hanging out to try dual vid cards for last 4 yrs. i am so over waiting any longer ! hahah

with a better cooler i would be hoping for around 4.8ghz overclocked
_________________

reuse everything you currently have, just buy these parts:

CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K $220
Mobo: Asrock P67 Extreme4 B3 $209
RAM: Kingston 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1333 $95
SSD: Corsair Force Series 60GB $159
GPU1: 2GB AMD Radeon HD6950 $273
GPU2: 2GB AMD Radeon HD6950 $273

upgrade cost: $1229

- - best source of bang-for-buck systems bookmark it!

i would stick with what i got there grrrdian. you aint psoted much diff to what what i got n e ways.

i would not choose an asrock m/b

and i would still go for the 8gb of ddr3 1600 [$14 xtra]

and i would stick with a 2600k [extra $100], it has xtra 2mb on board cache overclocks just as good

your 60gb ssd is too small to worry about. wait for 120gb to come down in price


ordered new antec Lan boy air case now , try out something diff ! hehe

cheers

well so far it seems to be quite good there rusty ! i benchmarked it in 3dmark20011 got pretty much what i should get .

on performance std setting it scored P7523 3dmarks.

yes i had those same worries rusty. but i just wanted to fuck around with some different shit hey! haha

i thought about it a lot. and had to compromise price wise. but i wanted something that would currently play pretty much all games in a 1 card setup so it had to be
some thing close to top end and price factor as well, not to expensive. you can now buy the Radeon HD6950 1gb cards for only $259 each so they are cheap.
my cousin bought a single GTX580 =$580 a few months ago [$550 now], it is fastest single core card avail atm . nice card but, runs cool and very fast/ but lot of money. For games that work good with xfire and sli 2x 6950 is faster than single gtx580. for single card games it is slower. most new games that are any good would support xfire and sli me thinks. gotta remember- dual is good, QUAD is better. haha


for 3dmark2011 most of the higher scored same set ups had overclocked their cpus to around 5GHZ but mine for the moment is only at std 3.4ghz.
Just got new cooler the other day which i will put in soon, maybe tomorrow. got the noctua NH-U9BseII .it is compromise of weight and performance.
The NH-U12BseII would be better but it weighs nearly 1kg [940gms] and i dont want a cracked mother board cos it gets carted around a lot .

u9b is only 640gms with 2 fans, and 500gms with one. quite a lot lighter.
also std cooler form intel is barely adequate and i am sure this new cooler will be light years ahead of it . std cooler is a small low cut piece of alluminium with a copper core. new u9b has 4 heat pipes up each side and 2 cpu fans with bucket loads more fins so it is a monster over the std one. i also like to run std cooler for a little while to get to know what temps it runs at
idle and under full load. idle seems to be around 26C and around 70C at full load. so expect something like 20C at idle and around maybe 50 full load std cpu spd. OCed will go up a bit 4 sure , must keep it under 60C max but . to allow for high ambient temps in summer.

also there is a bug in the bios, i guess, that at idle it says its running at 60C doing nothing, but in windows it says its about 26 C or so. and the looking at the screen in the bios i can only see 1/4 of it . stupid problem. its like the res is wrong and wont display it all. i managed to figure out a way around it, but it only seems to occur with a crt monitor . now i bought a cheapy 24" benQ led and i can see it all properly. hehe

i havent had it long, and have yet to come across any issues but i am sure i will find incompatibilities somewhere along the way!

only played - duke nukem 4 eva , bulletstorm, bioshock , homefront, just cause 2 , dragon age 2, medal of honour airbourne. 3dmark 2011

they all seem ok but i am not really sure how to tell how if they are running in xfire mode?
maybe look at the desktop radeon thingy ? ATI drivers right click on desktop properties , advanced . radeon control panel etc?
any clues would be greatly appreciated?

cheers

By the sounds of it your setup is running pretty swell all up.

I found the intel coolers are fine for stock speeds.... cant say much about overclocking temps cause I couldn't be bothered with it these days. But I'm sure the NH-U9BseII will keep temps down. 1kg for a cooler... fark lol that must be huge, probably best as you say not to use that one if your moving your pc alot.

Regarding the xfire modes... I know back it the HD3870 days that I ran it you could go into the ATI display properties and enable or disable it all in there and check xfire status. Also GPU-Z will tell you ALL about your vid card/s and down the bottom will show a xfire status.

it is running pretty sweeet now have the vcore of the cpu slightly above std and it runs all day long at 4415mhz. with all 4 cores maxed out the noctua U9BSEII keeps it to about 55C +\- 5C depending on ambient. the dual cards are mint and the only game i have problem with in Xfire mode was red faction armageddon. It crashesthe whole putey

got the putey to run sweet at 4.8hghz but with higher vcore @ 1.375V but it runs hot 65C +\-5C which is too hot for my liking especially around summer. had a breif go at 5ghz but it crashed on boot up and i didnt want to kill it!

Been flogging World Of Tanks to death lately, Fuck it is GOOD ! hehe free too !

the Putey is ALL GOOD !

Well i have kept going with my system since last post, which was quite while ago.

Updated the cpu cooler to the corsair 100 sealed watercooler put in a crucial m4 128gb ssd.

Corsair 100 definately helps heaps with temps, and the ssd makes installing stuff [win7 incl] super fast and loading stuff on it very fast too.

And of course much more overclocking ! hahah

Had this 2600k baby cranked to the max at 5.2ghz and it is actually pretty good had to run at 1.520V to do it but so the vcore is really high on the upper limit of the chip. I got it to boot at 5.3 but would crash when start prime 95. At 5.2ghz Seems stable after a few hours running aida64 stress test and pcmark vantage simultaneously! quite odd you say to run those 2 programs . Well Asus engineers say ti should work as good as prime 95 for checking stability etc but a little cooler but it runs on the edge for heat with all 4 cores maxed out ! seem to be around 75 -80 with the odd spike to 85C. Not for 24/7 use . but i have been playing around to find that it seems perfect at 4.2ghz std vcore . a step up and at 4.7ghz it runs sweet as at 1.350V at around 60C maxed out in prime 95 and 3dmark11 running simultaneously all night ! no errors or crashes. This is my 24/7 setup.

Dual vid cards Radeon 6950s still running sweet . have not really found any more games that dont work propeprly . Just red faction armageddon had a mental in xfire mode . Some games have been made to run in single card mode from the application profile. Notyhing you would care about ie no big titile i can think of.

Any one else out there had a play with sandy bridge overclocking?

cheers