OT: Technology and Geek Stuff Thread

[Topweasel]

Thanks for the bump. I wondered why Mark was posting his PC problems in the Forum Admin thread!

Your new machine sounds pretty darn awesome.

Thanks.

[Malto Marko]

Thanks for the bump. I wondered why Mark was posting his PC problems in the Forum Admin thread!

Your new machine sounds pretty darn awesome.

Because I was struck by a case of the stupids.

Sorry.

Nice Machine, Top.

What did it cost to build it?

[Topweasel]

Because I was struck by a case of the stupids.

Sorry.

Nice Machine, Top.

What did it cost to build it?

Well I had a generous brother get me two of the three most expensive parts for Christmas and for my birthday. Not counting those $1500, counting those $2300.

[Tony G]

How much heat does it add to the room? My Nephew ran a custom built screamer and the damn thing raised his room temp 10 degrees if he had the door shut.

[Malto Marko]

Wow!

That is a real bargain for such a powerful machine.

[Topweasel]

How much heat does it add to the room? My Nephew ran a custom built screamer and the damn thing raised his room temp 10 degrees if he had the door shut.

Well nice thing is that at idle, the (PSU fan shouldn't spin dispating heat very slowly) so really all it should be is somewhere around 125W of worth of heat that the CPU and Video card idle at. That means that during general usage it should only output 2/3rds the heat of an Xbox playing a game.

Playing a game that also pushes the CPU a bit (like BF3 MP) would be about 2x the power usage of Xbox (130W for CPU 200W for the Vid card).

That in a smallish room would probably heat it up to 80ish within 4 hours of continuous gaming. That isn't a problem for me I don't go on long gaming binges that often.

[Topweasel]

Wow!

That is a real bargain for such a powerful machine.

Yeah I worked on getting this part by part for awhile (~4 months). Example I got the memory for $200, which I managed by buying 2 2x stick sets, at $100 a set which were normally $150 on a one day sale. The Power supply and case I had targeted separately, but found them not only a part of a combo deal on newegg, but both having limited time rebates as well. I waited to get the Radeon 7950 till Nvidia had a new product out to force a pricing war. Saved $100 from original cost in late February. Few other things like the SSD and the Blu Ray drive just watched for sales by manufacturers I liked.

The 3TB drive was actually pretty funny. Seagate has two locations where drives are made. Thialand and China. The Chinese drives have hit nearly last years pree flood costs. The Thialand ones have been more reliable, and faster, but still have a decently high cost post flood. I found out that with their external drives, they don't change prices based on what drive they put in there. So I went to best buy found an external drive with a made in Thialand upc, and proceded to buy it for less the Newegg was selling the Chinese internal drive OEM style and tore it open to get a cost effective but reliable storage drive.

2 Tips for high performance systems. 1.) Always build them yourselves, these are the systems that Manufacturers get the most margin on. 2.) If going all out. Never go truly all out. In just about every way my system is with 95% of the performance of a system costing 1k more. Always get the step down from the top. Its already being a bit wasteful, no reason to go straight to burning money. Technically their is a third one. 3.) This only applies to home computers. It's not worth it for work. Get it from Dell.

Edit: This got me thinking. What would it be without making any changes really to capacity (or adding a second video card) what would it have been if I went that next step up and got the best of everything. It ended up being 3.5k. Chasing that dragon isn't worth it.

[Coop]

At the pace of change with technology, you're absolutely right Top - pretty much the motto I live by. Your build reminds me of mine last winter, we have similar components. I almost went with water cooling but decided against it as the extra cost wasn't going to net me that much more cooling. One thing I've found with SSD's - update their firmware.

Noticed HDD prices have finally come back down - just in time for me to get more 2 TB drives to upgrade my second array.

[Topweasel]

At the pace of change with technology, you're absolutely right Top - pretty much the motto I live by. Your build reminds me of mine last winter, we have similar components. I almost went with water cooling but decided against it as the extra cost wasn't going to net me that much more cooling. One thing I've found with SSD's - update their firmware.

Noticed HDD prices have finally come back down - just in time for me to get more 2 TB drives to upgrade my second array.

The main reason I went with the H80, is due to the fact that I was thinking at the time I would be getting a blower style cooler on my video card. In that way only the hard drives would actually be dispensing heat into the case. In the end I went with the Sapphire because it was cooler and quieter, and still probably a quarter of its heat goes out the back vent.

Other advantage being compatibility. I don't have to worry about sink size, I don't have to worry about whether the first 16x slot is the first or second expansion slot because the sink can get in the way. Nope now I can make sure if I want to double up on memory, or mess with any connectors on the top half of the motherboard I don't need to remove the HSF. Most of this is because I tend to go overboard on CPU cooling.

[Coop]

you can never have enough fans - totally agree, as those hex core chips are NOT cheap. are you putting VMWare on that box?

Regarding the cooler - definitely an often overlooked "oops" is when the damn thing is so big that it conflicts with add on cards, Ram, or too big for the case.

[Topweasel]

you can never have enough fans - totally agree, as those hex core chips are NOT cheap. are you putting VMWare on that box?

Regarding the cooler - definitely an often overlooked "oops" is when the damn thing is so big that it conflicts with add on cards, Ram, or too big for the case.

Yeah. Workstation 8. I might even toy with esxi within a VM.

As for the Cooler. Yeah, I see a lot of people recommending the NH D-14. Looking it over I found out that the fan clips can hit the GPU if the GPU was in the first expansion slots. I find a lot of Asus and Gigabyte boards use a 1x slot there and the 16x in the next one. But since I didn't pick-out the board (lesson learned be more picky about parts on a Christmas list) The first 16x is at the top. It was at that point that I decided, its an expensive CPU, an extra $40, to avoid all compatibility issues, was a no brainer. Then I got geeked about being able to keep the ambient temp in the case at room temp buy having all the CPU heat and at the time GPU heat going immediately out of the case.

[bimmer84]

Nice unit Top. Have fun. I still love my QuadCore. IT has been so long ago I don't remember the specs, but it is still plenty fast with the SSD.

[Coop]

One of the things that sold me on the air cooler for my new rig is that it physically bolts on from underneath the motherboard. No clips or plastic brackets.

[Malto Marko]

Ya, you just have to remember to bolt it on before installing the motherboard.:-D

[Topweasel]

Ya, you just have to remember to bolt it on before installing the motherboard.:-D

Depends a lot of enthusiast cases today have a cutout on the motherboard tray to install the bracket if need be. Luckily with the LGA2011 they have a back-plate fused to the socket. So any cooler for for that is just screw in and go.

But yeah LGA1156, 1366, and 1155, the standard coolers and their plastic clips and crappy brackets are pretty annoying.