Your Custom PC

[Ironduke]

Since I couldn't find the old thread, I'll start a new one:

SPECS
Case: Antec 900
Mobo: ASUS P5Q Pro
CPU: Core 2 Duo e8400 (OC'ed to 3.6Ghz on 1.6Ghz FSB)
RAM: 4x2GB OCZ DDR-1066
GFX: XFX GeForce 9800 GT 512MB 256-bit
HDDs: 1x640GB Caviar Black, 1x750GB Caviar Black RAID0
PSU: RAIDMAX 730W Modular

COOLING
CPU: Arctic Freezer Pro 7
HDDs: 2x EVERCOOL HD-F117
GFX: MASSCOOL VF1-PLUS (49C idle, 88C 100%, can't recommend. Others have had better results.)
Mobo: 17x 10x10x14mm copper heatsinks w/Arctic Thermal Adhesive

All case fans on high.

The cores run at 41C stable idle (26C CPU). Running Prime 95 and putting the CPU under 100% load, the max is 48C Core 0, 44C Core 1 (41C CPU). To try to get some additional cooling, I'm going to mount an 80mm fan (producing 35CFM) on the two empty bottom 5.25 bays (DVD-RW up top). Thought about going with the Vantec 80mm that produces 84CFM, but as 50+ dBA seems a little loud. I'm then going to run it using a Evercool AD-01 80mm Air Duct directly to the AFP7, and using an 80 to 92mm adapter, engulf the fan and zip tie it to the adapter/duct. Basically going to shotgun cool air from outside the case directly to the CPU.

[Ironduke]

Didn't have enough space inside my case with the VGA cooler to mount a 120mm fan... then I got to thinking. Why not reverse the window? A 180° flip up and down, a 180° flip side to side, and the 120mm fan goes into the holder insert on the outside of the case.

[gunnut]

I need to dig up my photos later. I thought I had them on photobucket.

[Ironduke]

Ended up replacing my Arctic Freezer Pro with a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Pro. Lowered the temperatures on the CPU a rather lot. The temperature sensors on the Wolfdale chips (e.g. e8400) are faulty in that they cannot register temperatures below a certain temperature (e.g. 35C - 45C).

With the AF7, I was registered 41C on the cores idle (where the temperature reading sticks) and 48C max running Prime95 max heat 100% load. Now the cores don't budge above the 41C minimum reading.

The CPU, however, reads a frosty 24C idle (75F) and 37C (hey, 98.6F) under 100% load.

On my XFX 9800GT (a notoriously hot card), I ditched the $10 Masscool VF-1 (impressive results for its price) which delivered 50C idle and 88C at 100% load. Swapped it out for the Arctic Accelero S1, mounted 2x120mm fans pushing 140 cubic feet per minute of air.

I now have temps of 42C idle and 68C max under full load (which I think I can get lower with a few tweaks.

[gunnut]

I use a Corsair H50 water cooler for my CPU (Phenom II x3 720). It idles at ambient temperature and hits just a few degrees over ambient under full load. It's not a very good OCer. The stock speed is 2.8 GHz and tops out (stable) at 3.2 GHz.

Video card is Radeon 5770, driving a 23" LG LED monitor and a secondary 17" NEC LCD monitor. I think this guy hits 70C plus under full load.

[USSWisconsin]

Heres my computer - its a little older but it has plenty of power 48 x 800 Mhz PARisc64 CPU 96 GB RAM and 550 TB disk:cheers:. I've got another upgrade planned in a few days ...

[gunnut]

Heres my computer - its a little older but it has plenty of power 48 x 800 Mhz PARisc64 CPU 96 GB RAM and 550 TB disk:cheers:. I've got another upgrade planned in a few days ...

Yeah...but does it play Crysis 2?

[USSWisconsin]

Yeah...but does it play Crysis 2?

nah, this one doesn't play much .. oracle and perl with some kornshell and SynSort .. but it knows many things and many people want to know what it knows and it has a fibre channel Brocade fabric with 15 DMX VSAN's and a georedundant NAS archive - BUT I did have multiplayer DOOM ported to a Cray in Chippewa Falls back in the 90's - a T3E-196L back when GFLOPS were hard to come by, we were burning it in for an Aerospace Outfit with the initials LM ... Moore's Law, what a buzz kill.

[gunnut]

nah, this one doesn't play much .. oracle and perl with some kornshell and SynSort .. but it knows many things and many people want to know what it knows and it has a fibre channel Brocade fabric with 15 DMX VSAN's and a georedundant NAS archive - BUT I did have multiplayer DOOM ported to a Cray in Chippewa Falls back in the 90's - a T3E-196L back when GFLOPS were hard to come by, we were burning it in for an Aerospace Outfit with the initials LM ... Moore's Law, what a buzz kill.

Yeah, that Cray can fit into a smart phone now. :banana:

[gunnut]

I would like one of these please...

[RadioPatrol]

HAF 935 Case
Asus Striker II Extreme
Core 2 Quad 2.83 (OC'd 3.0)
GTX-280
6 Gb DDR3 Crucial Ram
sound blaster x-fi titanium fatal1ty
Zalman CPS for Socket 775

2 Dell 24 inch FP - native 1080i one S2409w and an ST2420L



everything except the Processor was a Maximum PC rated 9 Kick Ass 2.5 yrs ago - time to upgrade the Mobo, Memory and Video Cards

[gunnut]

That Core 2 Quad should be able to hit much higher clock speed than 3.0. I have a Pentium Dual Core (same core as a Core 2) stock at 2.60 and I have it running at 3.46 stable on smallish Zalman heat sink.

[RadioPatrol]

yeah true .....


I built a budget system for a friend ... Asus P8P67 Pro and an iCore K2600 3.4 - it will automatically OC to 4.2 under load ..... and ran 48 without a hicup running Prime 95 also sporting a Zalman

my system has alwas seemed a bit shakey ..... it will run stable for months then I get a rash of Video driver crashes or the sound card driver ....... this happend under x64 XP and now running Win 7 Ultimate x64


my son has almost the exact same build, but an ATI card and a basic X-FI Gamer card and has had no issues like I do (he just gets viruses or has had drives fail)

[gunnut]

One of my 2 RAM sticks took a dump last night. Loading up a game in World of Tanks and my computer bluescreened. Rebooted, but with driver errors. Re-booted again and again, always came up with driver errors, and sometimes just bluescreened. One of the bluescreen said "memory management." Decided to yank out one of the 2 RAM sticks. No dice. Still errors. Put the stick back in but yanked out the other one. Everything was fine! No errors...

I was pissed, but then I was happy. Out of all the possible failures in a computer, this is probably the easiest and the cheapest to fix. Ordered 8GB of RAM from Amazon last night. It should be here late next week. Meanwhile I will have to make do with 2GB of RAM in single channel mode.

[bigross86]

Dunno about the specs. I'm not a gamer so I don't need 8GB of RAM (I don't think). It has to be a laptop, I'm fine with my 17.1" screen. Vent MUST be on the side and not on the bottom like all HP laptops are at the moment (What were they thinking?!). Has to be able to run heavy programs like SPSS/PASW smoothly. I mainly use it for work and movies/music and the like, so it's gotta have really strong speakers. My current laptop has a remote which is kinda cool. Battery life is optimum, must be able to last 6-7 hours on battery while doing work in Office. At the moment I'm lucky to get 3 hours using OneNote, but that's because my laptop is designed as an PC replacement/entertainment laptop and is designed to be plugged in most of the time