The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

sam have you tried it with only 1 4870x2 /4830?

 

The voltage on the northbridge, if it exceeds a certain level, causes the PCI express controller to destabilise. This seems to happen on all boards, but with a single card, is so high I've not found it. With two cards, it's much lower - unfortunate, as due to the stress of having two cards installed, you need to raise the NB voltage higher to reach the same overclock. I have not tested the single card with the DS4, but I have with the DS5 and found I could overclock much further (I made it to 3.95Ghz once with it I think, not ultimately stable, but that's much further than I got with two cards)

 

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=19959

WANT

 

It's hideous, it's ridiculously expensive, and it's Thermaltake, so it won't even be well made...

 

Hahaha. Come on, Sam. Don't hold back. Tell us how you REALLY feel.

 

Well for £400 you can buy an artistic statue which is a better idea since that's all that case is, £350 worth of statue and a basic £50 case - one 140mm and one 120mm fan with two 60 (yes 60!) mm fans for the HDDs. a full 25kg worth of weight, and the same number of drive bays you get in an Antec 900 (or even a compact NZXT lexa with an adapter)

 

and yet NO WIRES showing, an its uber unique. major e-peen factor

 

"Major e-peen." Didn't you get banned once for saying that, lol.

I was wondering about the fans too, like only 4 fans, and two of them are 60mm for the hard drives. What??

That's like a family member was gifted an imac cube. I went over there to see why she could't play youtube videos, and the first thing I said was "This is the most beautiful computer I have ever seen. No wonder an icube is in the Smithsonian. It's absolutely gorgeous." Everything about it was beautiful - the monitor, the keyboard, the mouse, the two round speakers plugged into the keyboard, the little cube on the floor.

Of course the thing, vintage 2000, had no power, only 400mhz - I don't remember the chip - and couldn't play some wmv files I happened to have with me - although I was impressed that windows media player actually opened up. The file played, but was dropping frames like mad. The laptop I had picked up at microcenter for $280 played the files flawlessly. The difference was a newer 1.6ghz pentium M chip with 2MB L2 cache. I said, "This imac is way more beautiful than this laptop, but why don't you donate the imac to a school, and I'll get you one of these so you can play youtube videos."

Shaff wants the e-peen. Plus the carrying handle. And the 3 free included chiropractor visits that you will need after lugging the monstrous thing around. Hahaha.

 

That case is super fugly and way overpriced for the features. I wouldn't even consider it. An Antec Nine Hundred would be pretty sweet though. I don't even care if they're super common they are nice

 

You totally got it. The only thing more common is the HAF. I was in love with my antec 900!

I got it on sale at Microcenter for the unbelievable low price of $129 (they went back up to $189) and had to trade for a spedo with 8 expansion slots after I thought I was getting a rampage extreme mobo and needed to put a graphics card in mobo slot 7.

Then I discovered the DFI board with spacing - using slots 2 and 6 - and I have been saying for 6 months now "I coulda kept the antec!"

But I just found out that the disk controller that I plan to put in slot 7, has a battery that either installs with its controller asic as a daughter card, or for $10 more you get the fake asic to mount the battery and battery controller in its own slot, slot 8, with cable to the disk controller in slot 7.

That makes WAY more sense to me than loading up an already hot controller card, with a battery that is sensitive to heat and starts to act ugly if it thinks the place is too warm. Ugly means it turns itself off and you lose your write cache and performance goes down the tubes (read cache is still fine - maybe I don't really need the battery - one newegg reviewer didn't use it - but all the other guys said "You HAVE to have it - don't quibble!") So all of a sudden that 8th expansion slot is looking good.

On the other hand, Lian Li's have 10 expansion slots, so if I were to go that way, I'd be covered. Shaff talked so highly of his Lian Li, I've been thinking about it ever since.

I have learned two things from modding this little p4:

#1 I want intake filters to be VERY easy to get to, without removing any panels or screws.
#2 Steel is very strong, and very hard, and steel is a total bi*ch to drill through to mod an extra fan.

If I can be convinced that Aluminium, is strong enough to hold up to everything reasonable (except for Shaff's little brother) then maybe I'll just sell off the spedo.

Rich

 

No wires? Only way that works is if you can't see the motherboard, which surely a non-windowed side panel takes care of...
Also, a case that weighs 25kg empty does not want a carry handle. Since it's thermaltake it will probably break (lol), and even if it doesn't, carrying 40kg worth of PC is not for the weak (and if you're the sort of person who buys a $400 PC case you probably aren't the strongest man)
My concerns over the weight are so public because I have broken a PC carry bag due to going over the weight limit. Fortunately, a minor scratch on the bottom is all that resulted from that incident.
Jeff: That's one of the reasons I sold mine, when i bought mine in January 07 I was about the only one to own one, now every man and his dog has a 900. Shortly after buying it I realised that it actually is nowhere near as great as it claims to be. Quite adept at cooling, but that was part of the problem, even if you turned all the fans off it was noisier than most cases as it's essentially a wire mesh rather than a case. It suffers the same pitfalls that all SECC cases do, look at them a funny way and they scratch badly (The HAF and Lexa Blackline are no different in this regard, before you say) but the biggest reason I sold it was the drive bays. It being my server I wanted regular access to the HDDs. In the 900 it's a good 20-25 minute job to change a hard disk due to the impossible way in which you have to do it. With the Lexa I reckon if rushed I could get it down below 30 seconds.
Rich: Having been to a 2000-man LAN party and seen how many HAFs were there, I'd agree with that statement! I thought you had a Twelve Hundred though?
Hah, easy access intake filters! If you thought changing a hard disk was bad. By contrast the HAF#s "filter" (which does actually do a reasonable job) is accessed in a spit second.
Aluminium is not just strong enough, it's superior to SECC in every way.

 

aluminium also help with the coolings better

im not saying id buy the case, im sayign i want it. its uber unique

(PS aluminium > aluminum)

 

A PC inside a Giant Chocolate Orange is also unique, I'd sooner have that, despite it melting all over my components.
By the way, how on earth does an aluminium case cool better?

 

al is a better conductor of heat?

 

I see what you're getting at, but I don't really think that makes much of a difference to the cooling performance of a case unless you're going for a pseudo-passive system like mine. That case gets as warm as a human body...

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/videos/digitalfoundry-uncharted-2-tech-analysis?size=hd

OMG sexy!

 

There's no chance the used Q-tech 300w unit my uncle just gave me is going to power my PC is there?

actually I can guess the answer: NO.

Tee-hee its got a zip drive connector :-D

 

Once again, the PSU should be the most important part of your build, not the least important.

 

Oh, pick up a 500W Coolermaster Silent as heck, and'l power anything. ROFL!!! (Totally Joking)

 

Joke as you will, it'd still be a much better bet than a Qtec!