Time for a new rig!

[Mike_182]

Mine's started misbehaving, and I've been toying with the idea for a while just didn't want to unless I really had to... Well, it's now taking 5-6 boots to get into the 6th fresh rebuild of Vista, and I'm running stock settings. I may try getting rid of the SAS drives, but TBH I don't see it causing this issue.

Got so far:

Am I missing anything obvious (except drive controller, I have that!). I hate doing this bit, as I always chunting forget something!

 

[Mike_182]

Not going watercooled on this rig, as I'll be sticking to stock clocks. TBH I've found very little to be had other than benchmark improvements on my current rig, even going to a 50% overclock - although it did make my dick feel bigger, all I need it to do is sit there in the corner and play Crysis of a weekend, and store my p**n.

 

[Adam]

Blimey and I thought I spent alot on my rig lol.

Excellent choice of parts, but aren't 2x 295's abit over kill!

What display have you got???

 

[Mike_182]

Got a Dell 2707WFP, and I do enjoy my games - Crysis/Warhead + sequel, BF2142 although that runs on my laptop... FSX/Acceleration and Race '07 although rarely as I don't have any form of wheel currently.

 

[Scottydog]

£5000?

Jesus, I love computers but if I had the urge to spend £5k, a computer would not be at the top of my list!

But it looks like a good bit of kit that. As said though 2x295 is a bit OTT?

EDIT:

Also a strange choice of HDDs. Why 8x 1TB drives AND 4 300GB drives?

 

[Adam]

Got a Dell 2707WFP, and I do enjoy my games - Crysis/Warhead + sequel, BF2142 although that runs on my laptop... FSX/Acceleration and Race '07 although rarely as I don't have any form of wheel currently.

Very nice . Well I have been playing a few games recently including Crysis Warhead and I have had no issues at all running 1x 295.

Also are you planning on putting in more case fans as I don't really see need for a fan controller.

Unless you do plan to watercool, which I think you should lol

 

[Mike_182]

Nah, not watercooling - no need to as it'll run stock settings and I wanted the two 295s as the sequel to Warhead will need it. Hell, Warhead needs it with the settings up full...

 

[Adam]

Yeah I just spotted the amount of HDD's lol. Way overkill imo. 8TB of storage and and 1.2TB on your os drive I presume.

Surly you can half your amounts!

 

[Mike_182]

6TB in RAID6 for data storage, and OS HDDs will be 600GB (RAID 1+0).

 

[Adam]

Nah, not watercooling - no need to as it'll run stock settings and I wanted the two 295s as the sequel to Warhead will need it. Hell, Warhead needs it with the settings up full...

So why the fan controller then?

The Lian Li case fans are already on speed controller switches.

Well if you are going to spend 5k then 2x 295 is a drop in the ocean lol.

 

[Scottydog]

Yeah I just spotted the amount of HDD's lol. Way overkill imo. 8TB of storage and and 1.2TB on your os drive I presume.

Surly you can half your amounts!

+1

you can probably half the RAM too who needs 12GB at the moment?

Fairplay for future proofing though if that's the idea behind it..

 

[Adam]

How does the drive controller work then. Have you got enough power connections for 12 HDD's and 2 GPU's?

 

[Mike_182]

So why the fan controller then?

The Lian Li case fans are already on speed controller switches.

Well if you are going to spend 5k then 2x 295 is a drop in the ocean lol.

Yeah, as £1500 is HDDs!

The F/C is for the Lian Li fans (which will be replaced, bad habit of mine!) and also for power consumption and temperature monitoring - got an MFC-2 currently in my rig and wouldn't be without it!

12GB RAM because I do run VMware Workstation on it as I also use this as my main machine, which on occasion I need to do guides for customers who are running XP.

 

[Adam]

Yeah, as £1500 is HDDs!

The F/C is for the Lian Li fans (which will be replaced, bad habit of mine!) and also for power consumption and temperature monitoring - got an MFC-2 currently in my rig and wouldn't be without it!

12GB RAM because I do run VMware Workstation on it as I also use this as my main machine, which on occasion I need to do guides for customers who are running XP.

Haha indeed.

I was tempted to go for 12GB of RAM when I bought my rig, so far I haven't needed it for what I use the system for but in your case I can see where you're coming from .

 

[Mike_182]

How does the drive controller work then. Have you got enough power connections for 12 HDD's and 2 GPU's?

Plenty of power connectors - the 4x2.5" caddy I have uses 4-pin Molex and I'll just use a 4-pin Molex to SATA converter for the ODDs. GPU wise it's got 6 6+2 GPU connectors...

HDD controller, I have one of each of the following:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMCC...al-ATA-II-Hardware-RAID-Controller-Kit-8-port

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMCC...ts-High-Performance-3Gb-s-SAS-RAID-Controller

However the 9690SAs have been temperamental in their time, so I may stick with the 9650SE as it's never missed a beat. Undecided, but it'll be one of those two and the onboard RAID for the OS.

 

[Mike_182]

I was tempted to go for 12GB of RAM when I bought my rig, so far I haven't needed it for what I use the system for but in your case I can see where you're coming from .

F'ucked if they're having any of my normal running mammaries, that's for me and my interwebs/Photoshops.

 

[Adam]

Plenty of power connectors - the 4x2.5" caddy I have uses 4-pin Molex and I'll just use a 4-pin Molex to SATA converter for the ODDs. GPU wise it's got 6 6+2 GPU connectors...

HDD controller, I have one of each of the following:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMCC...al-ATA-II-Hardware-RAID-Controller-Kit-8-port

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMCC...ts-High-Performance-3Gb-s-SAS-RAID-Controller

However the 9690SAs have been temperamental in their time, so I may stick with the 9650SE as it's never missed a beat. Undecided, but it'll be one of those two and the onboard RAID for the OS.

Sound, was just checking .

Can the RAID configuration not be done via the mobo. Sorry I am not 100% clued up on RAID as I have never setup my HDD's this way. I know on my extreme II board I can set it up on RAID etc...

One other thing are you not tempted to get any SSD's??

 

[Mike_182]

SSDs did click on the radar, but they still have a finite life which is degraded by the use of a RAID controller. The RAID will use onboard (hence the 4x300GB) as my HDD controllers are 'only' 8 port. Whilst it's tempting to get the 12-port, I don't think it's worth doing as it's another £800 for the 3Ware one.

 

[Mike_182]

Thinking I quite like the EVGA Classified board... But then I'll be watercooling it... And that's the plans back out of the mailbox for the £1000 case...

Must... restrain...

 

[Scottydog]

Save your money:

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/st...-35614&fm=undefined&sm=undefined&tm=undefined

lol

 

[Mike_182]

I think I can have restarted my current rig the 3 times it needs to to boot up before that one will be booted up... I may roll back the firmware on my SAS controller, and maybe even swap back to my old 74GB Raptors first though. I really wanted to make it through to at least Christmas before doing this, and potentially for the die shrink on 6-cores as this with it's 8800GTX isn't incapable of playing the games I like...

 

[Adam]

Thinking I quite like the EVGA Classified board... But then I'll be watercooling it... And that's the plans back out of the mailbox for the £1000 case...

Must... restrain...

f**k it, just do it lol

 

[Mike_182]

Looks like it may have been firmware/driver - downgraded everything to 9.5.1 and it's booted up first time twice now. Will have to speak to 3Ware on that one!

With a bit of luck, I'll be able to hold out to the DX11 generation of GPUs.

 

[Adam]

Looks like it may have been firmware/driver - downgraded everything to 9.5.1 and it's booted up first time twice now. Will have to speak to 3Ware on that one!

With a bit of luck, I'll be able to hold out to the DX11 generation of GPUs.

Also keep this in mind.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2009/06/05/confirmed-core-i7-920-940-950-to-go-soon/1

 

[Mike_182]

As I said at the start, I was hoping to hold out for 6-core... Cheers for link though!

 

[Mike_182]

Onto another reinstall of Vista, as my registry was all over the place it seems - no drivers were installing, Code 28 (subtitles, your registry is fucked).

 

[Adam]

As I said at the start, I was hoping to hold out for 6-core... Cheers for link though!

Sorry missed that bit

 

[DanFreemanPhoto]

Get a supercharger kit for your clio (if you have one!) instead m8!

And can today's OSs use 12GB of RAM?!

 

[Mike_182]

Supercharger is already fitted to the car I'm buying, although it'll be getting upgraded. Cheers for that thought though!

And yes, today's OS's can use 8GB RAM. Mine currently uses 8GB

 

[Mike_182]

Mushbetter.

 

[Darren S]

Nice to see the priority item sat at the top of the list, Mike.

Great case there, too. If I ever get limited/bored by the Antec offerings, Lian Li is the way I'll be heading.

D.

 

[Mike_182]

Haha - well, it probably won't make it to the final list as word from a friend at Logitech is that they may have something lined up to replace it, but they aren't sure. Ahem.

Loving the Lian Li case, looks fantastic - much better than my CM Stacker in terms of build quality.

 

[Andy.]

The thing is going to be a monster! How often do you upgrade your stuff? What is your current set up?

 

[Mike_182]

Upgrade every 2 years really, although I'm going to push to 3 this time as I've also got a house to save for... Haha!

Current setup:

ASUS Maximus Formula
8GB DDR2-800
Intel Core2Quad
eVGA SSC 8800GTX, Watercooled and clocked to Ultra Black Pearl speeds.
4x 2.5" 15k 146GB SAS disks
4x WD 750GB 7200 RAID Edition
3Ware 9690SA-8I
Auzentech X-Fi Prelude
Enermax Galaxy 1000w PSU

That's the important stuff, it's running a 750lph pump and watercooled CPU/GPU as well...

 

[Andy.]

Wow, your current set up already shames mine. Do you not get a ridiculous amount of noise from the sas drives?
I'd love to upgrade to i7 but have to buy a new camera lens/ bike/ car for the wife first. One day...

 

[Mike_182]

SAS drives aren't too noisy TBH - it's not exactly quiet anyway as there's 4 Noctua fans cooling the radiator + chipset, plus it's got the Crossflow fan to cool the RAM.

It's a bit of an ugly fucker though:

But it was an epic machine back in the day...

 

[tyranical]

this s**t will depreciate faster than a brand new clio, in 3 years that'll probably be worth about a grand and i don't see how any home user requires this sort of equipment for anything other than e-penis enlargement.

You can build a tower capable of running Crysis and the like on max settings, with room to upgrade for about £500, do that, spend £500 on other peripherals, job done for 3 years.

 

[Munson]

Not read all the comments but that's an epic build.

Echo the comment about 2x295s being overkill though. Well, I say overkill...I mean that they are so powerful, I think you'll be CPU limited in most games. Unless of course you get a 30" 2560x1600 monitor. Do it. Do it. Do it.

Other than that, I'd not question any of that. Classic 'why buy one can you can have two for twice the price?' type of build. The kind of ethos that biblical PCs are made from :approve:

God damn it. This is pushing me even further to an i7 build. All I'd need is a mobo, CPU, memory and another GTX295, and a 30" monitor :evil:

 

[Munson]

You can build a tower capable of running Crysis and the like on max settings, with room to upgrade for about £500

No. No you can't.

Crysis on maximum, my QX9650 @3.8Ghz + GTX295 at 1920x1200 with 2xAA, produce around 40-50fps outdoors (60+ indoors). The thing with PC gaming is that 'run' is open to interpretation. Some people are happy with 20-30fps.

 

[Mike_182]

You can build a tower capable of running Crysis and the like on max settings, with room to upgrade for about £500, do that, spend £500 on other peripherals, job done for 3 years.

AFPMSL!

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-295-review-bfg/15

A modern day, £500 graphics card not able to run Crysis at max settings, in a rig that's not a million miles away from mine.

That's possibly the single reason I'll hold off until the next generation of cards - if Crysis is still beating new cards, then god only knows what the next instalment will want!

I've got my rig running again now, so I may have to just outlay a little to replace my ageing 8800GTX for a GTX295, but after that it'll be a hold off for at least Gulftown. 32nm 6-cores is just too tempting - complete with Win7/DX11. Then I think I'll be selling my GTX295 to someone who wants Quad SLI, when I go to something equally rediculous.

I'd go to Quad SLI now, but I'm running on an X38 board, and it's only got 2x PCI-e x16s. One of them has a RAID controller in it.