The (new) Official PC building thread!

Since this is the building thread, here you go kiddies!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...MC-IGNEFL030308-_-VideoCards-_-L0C-_-14130319

$209.99 with product code: EMCADAEDC

Enjoy,
Russ

 

Nice price but again in the States

 

Pepp77,

It's tempting for me too! I've been up to my hipbones in broke computers lately, so I could. The problem is, I know me! If I get into it, look out! This coming from the man who back in the day duplicated most of the cockpit of a Mig 29, For the game, Mig 29! Three screens too! Worked pretty good with the multiple views in Ace,s of The Pacific (Old School)! If you get my drift! LOL!!

BTW! I noticed in your sig the Pioneer DVR-215DBK. How loud is it when burning? I just installed one for a customer a couple of weeks ago, and it was the loudest drive I ever heard in my life. Man, it was noisy!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Ill let you know when I burn a disc on them - they only arrived this morning - I wanted a drive with a plain black front (no writing in white) and the pioneer and an Optiarc are the only ones Ive found - I have an IDE of the optiarc but wanted SATA so went for these. They cant be louder than the Sony one I used to have - it was so loud I even refused to stick it in my old comp for when I sell it.

 

Pepp77,
Don't they have these where you are?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118002

I was going to try one of these, but I couldn't find any in silver! I can paint it and it will match perfectly, but it's a PITA! I did my Floppy (yes Floppy!) drive and it looks real nice. Bigger PITA than the Opticals! Why a floppy? When you work on computers, you need one. I have a beautiful Teac Dual drive I've been thinking of putting in a 5 1/4 Bay. Before you ask, I still run into data stored on a 5 1/4 disk that has to be coppied to a 3 1/2 drive. Maybe 2 or 3 times a year. To paint it will be quite a challenge, as a lot has to come apart. Great drive though. They haven't made them in years and they still get 45 to 50 dollars for them, on line. I forgot to tell you this drive was a gift from a customer. She needed it to transfer all the old 5 and a quarters to 3 and a halfs for their new system. They were on a Mainframe before and all their records and such were on them. When the job was finished, she just told me to keep the drive! LOL!!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Hope you're going to make good use of a quad core in the short space of time you own it!
Theone: A crisp picture indeed. The image definition on the 3007WFP is better than usual because it's pixels per inch is quite high, 101. With those 19"s it's an impressive 104. A 19" standard size monitor at 1280x1024 is only 86ppi.
As for emachines, typically prebuilt PCs come with better Power supplies than the cheap awful rubbish you find on newegg, but not as good as proper ones like Antecs. Unfortunately with emachines, it's the cheap useless ones all round, usually Besteq. I don't even build/repair PCs for a living, but I'm well aware that emachines PSUs are dump.
I didn't comment on the 9600GT as while it's an awesome offer, I'm not in the US to take advantage of it! I'm echoing Pepp's comment about the 8800GT too...

Here's a neat offer for those of you in the UK...
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/132860

 

Well Ive now been told Im not allowed a monitor as Ive been told my 26" TV is enough lol

Anyway moving on I have just installed my two new drives and my card reader (has writing on it which I didnt think it did):-

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/pja77uk/DSCF1073.jpg

And Ive almost got the cabling complete - moving to all SATA and no IDE drives makes the cabling that bit nicer, Ive manaed to get a lot of the wiring between the motherboard rack and the case side so its fairly empty however the front audio cable is annoyingly long and messy due to the mass of single cables it came with - Ive used the HD header which is in the middle. My question is can I lopp off the cables that are not being used and are after the header I have plugged in or will that cause a problem and secondly any advise on where I could possibly route it, its not long enough to go round the back so at the moment it is just dangling across the middle of the case, see pic if it helps:-

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/pja77uk/DSCF1072.jpg

Once Ive routed that cable and put the top and front back on the build is complete

Ill post a pic of it turned on once its running.

 

If it was me I'd just make do without the front audio ports, but if you have to have them I think you could probably just remove the connectors you're not using as IIRC the connector is in three different forms of the same thing.

 

ok fella's with some helpfull insite i got my fans arranged to where i got a good air flow. top 2 fans as exhaust as is the rear fan. the front antec tricool fan as intake set on hi speed. ive cooled down a good 8-10c.heres a couple screen shots. tell me what ya think. this is with orthos running for 9+ hours

Orthos


and for you Russ.33,000+ hows that?
MIPS
Cpuz

 

Rob - I think you could probably lower the CPU VCore from the 1.3 it is set as - mine was also at 1.3 (acording to Bios standard was 1.225 if I remember corrctly) before I dropped it.

When originally overclocked my Volts were on auto and went to 1.3 when I set the FSB to 400 and I had temps similar to yours - when I dropped the VCore to 1.25 my temps dropped by a few degrees allround and the PC still runs stably. The reason I dropped it was because I read a couple of reviews that said the E8xxx chips can handle some overclocking on their standard vCore and one person says they have got 3.92Ghz out of the E8400 at 1.25V.

 

@pepp
not doubting you , but iagree with russ all these people say they are getting 3.9-4.4ghz on the E8400 but they show nothing to back it up. with me haveing one and knowing what little i know about OC'ing thats a tought number to reach and be stable.

as for your monitor just use the 26in TV for your monitor.....lol

 

Rob: It makes logical sense to have equal airflow in to out. of course, you can allow for some minor differences in Coolermaster cases since they provide additional vents. Two 140mm exhaust fans is a lot of exhaust airflow, full speed on a pair of Aerocool Streamliners is pushing well over 100CFM, add a 120mm to that and it'll probably be close to 200.
As for your E8400 I think the overclocking prowess of these CPUs is vastly overrated. Regardless of your experience in overclocking, it soundslike you've done everything right, and getting overclock percentages in the 20s is disappointing for a Duo, even if it is a top end model.
For reference, my CPU at 3.16Ghz pushes 26204MIPS in Dhrystone and 19952MFLOPS.

 

sammy I think that rob forgot to mention his side fan and if not then there is ample vents on the CM-690 case.

As for OC'in I have arguments both directions BUT I'm just going for the HIGH end Duo's right now. I believe these processors are made and then tested (of course I don't have black & white proof) and therefore you get something that will handle the 3.0 (E6850 & E8400) every day and all day for the 5 years or so they are supposed to run. My opinion and NOT backed up I know.... The REASON I say this is that the E6750 (and E8300 I'm sure) will do almost every bit as much as the HIGH Duo's but for how long and how much do you have to push them.

I for one am very new to the OC scene and to be truthful about it have taken very little steps in OC'in my E6850. I've been in touch with Russ and docTY (the last few weeks or so) and I've gotten mine to 3.8 (NOT stable but I could post some numbers if I wanted) on air but really what's the use when these things run so friggin fast anyway.... lol. My little AMD X2 3800 is my every day rig until it gets moved to the bedroom then the Intel E6850 takes over that spot but I want some REAL stability and that has happened with mine at about 3.6 and I'm OK with that. Sure I want to get to the 4.0+ mark on air but I have to "alter" or "mod" my mobo even further than I already have. You know TR NB & SB heatsinks plus mosfet coolers too!!! I may do that sometime but NOT right now. I have to buy a new gpu for this "new" Gigabyte build I stumbled onto....

Somewhat all over the place but I think you get my general drift.

I'm helping a friend of mine right now and I think he's gonna go with the E6750 for that very reason. Well for one the E8400 is almost non-existent right now and the E6750 is one of the best cpu's out right now. Again my opinion but I think most that have it would agree...

rambling on.....

.....gm

 

@sam look at the last mips i just posted.33,000+ im happy with that very happy.im at 3.6ghz stable on orthos for 9+hrs and has been running non stop for over 30hr. im saying right there. and am happier than a kid in a candy store...

i dont have the knowledge or the cash flow to get one of these up to 4.0+ so im not even gonna try..lmao

i'll leave the 4.0ghz+ to boozer. im sure he can and will get it as soon as he gets his Q9450..i cant wait for that. and no thats not sarcasim either..lol

 

Rob have a read of this - this is what I was reading when I found out I could drop my Vcore :-
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/intel-wolfdale_12.html

Well my build is now finished and completely up and running some final pics for you guys:-

Final Shot of Cabling - managed to route the audio cable quite nicely in the end.

Shot from front - showing Pioneer drives and card reader.

Set-up showing BIOS

Shot of my PC setup in its full showing Quake 4

Above shot with flash

Im happy with it - I put 6 episodes of Heroes onto DVD using ConvertX last night and it took 38 minutes at highest quality setting - couldnt tell a difference in the quality compared to the avi either.

 

Rob, I appreciate the words but I doubt I could get a Q9450 to 4Ghz. That's 500FSB, and even part from that fact, I can't afford the CPU itself right now

 

The Q9450 is only supposed to be an 8x multi (why Boozer said 500FSB). Anyway it'll still be faster clock for clock than the older C2D's and quads at around 3.6

 

@pepp
how did you get your PSU cable behind the mobo tray? that looks good inside there. way better than mine with the big old clumsy IDE cables

so i not only need another sata HDD but 3 new sata burners....
i like how it looks also with that card reader in there.
convertxtodvd is so simple now its funny. what used to take 2 hours take 20-30 min's.
i did a 1.37gb xvid(2 700mb files) and only took 33 mins..

@pepp
hows that PSU fan noise? is there any?

 

The cable goes through a little hole just under the bottom edge of the mobo and then up and across the back and around to the socket.

Its only actually about 3 inches more distance and just fits with a little slack.

Ive put most of the cables round the back that the side is a tight fit now lol

The fan is very quiet, basically inaudible, the loudest part of the setup is the one touch III external harddrive, but then that is old.

Only issue is there are only 4 sata power connectors with the 520 and Ive now used them all up but have 3 spare sockets on the motherboard.

Typically the 620 comes with one extra SATA power cable which would cover all three of those

 

In all honesty Greensman, I'm sure I could probably get my E4300 beyond 3.15, or beyond 3.0 when it was with the P5N-E board, but really, I don't see the need. It's fast enough for me even now, processing speed just isn't a problem for anything I do, I'm limited solely by graphics cards for games performance and hard disk performance for loading times. Whenever I use a slow PC for games etc. I suddenly remember what memory or CPU related lag looks like because it's been so long since I've seen it.
Right now the E8400 is still rare as rocking horse poop in the UK, as is the Q9450, so currently I still think the E6750 is well worth going with because it's going to be ages until you see the new 45nm CPUs in any reasonable amount.

Pepp: Hehey, Quake 4! Good choice...
Rob: The Corsair is about the quietest PSU you can buy, it will never be the main source of noise in any system.