Not claiming that I remember all its requirements, but the only reason I see is that it means using an Intel processor. At this point I've stuck with AMD.as the platform of the system - remembering its requirements - can anyone think of a practical reason not to use the Asus P5B?
[Tech] New PC System questions
There is then a need to guard against a temptation to overstate the economic evils of our own age, and to ignore the existence of similar, or worse, evils in earlier ages. Even though some exaggeration may, for the time, stimulate others, as well as ourselves, to a more intense resolve that the present evils should no longer exist, but it is not less wrong and generally it is much more foolish to palter with truth for good than for a selfish cause. The pessimistic descriptions of our own age, combined with the romantic exaggeration of the happiness of past ages must tend to setting aside the methods of progress, the work of which, if slow, is yet solid, and lead to the hasty adoption of others of greater promise, but which resemble the potent medicines of a charlatan, and while quickly effecting a little good sow the seeds of widespread and lasting decay. This impatient insincerity is an evil only less great than the moral torpor which can endure, that we with our modern resources and knowledge should look contentedly at the continued destruction of all that is worth having. There is an evil and an extreme impatience as well as an extreme patience with social ills.
-
Salvation122
- Grand Marshall of the Imperium
- Posts: 3776
- Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2002 7:20 pm
- Location: Memphis, TN
Right this very second Intel beats the everliving fuck out of AMD from a price/performance standpoint.Marius wrote:Not claiming that I remember all its requirements, but the only reason I see is that it means using an Intel processor. At this point I've stuck with AMD.as the platform of the system - remembering its requirements - can anyone think of a practical reason not to use the Asus P5B?
This may or may not change in six months, but right now...
I don't know about this very moment, but two months ago I found that to be the common knowledge, but to actually be quite false.
There is then a need to guard against a temptation to overstate the economic evils of our own age, and to ignore the existence of similar, or worse, evils in earlier ages. Even though some exaggeration may, for the time, stimulate others, as well as ourselves, to a more intense resolve that the present evils should no longer exist, but it is not less wrong and generally it is much more foolish to palter with truth for good than for a selfish cause. The pessimistic descriptions of our own age, combined with the romantic exaggeration of the happiness of past ages must tend to setting aside the methods of progress, the work of which, if slow, is yet solid, and lead to the hasty adoption of others of greater promise, but which resemble the potent medicines of a charlatan, and while quickly effecting a little good sow the seeds of widespread and lasting decay. This impatient insincerity is an evil only less great than the moral torpor which can endure, that we with our modern resources and knowledge should look contentedly at the continued destruction of all that is worth having. There is an evil and an extreme impatience as well as an extreme patience with social ills.
In this case, it's more about thermal management than price/performance, anyway. It's hard to find an equivalence in performance, since AMD and Intel chips current excel in different types of computation, and you'd have to take into account mobo price/performance, as well, but the price per performance per watt is pretty clear, and the Core2Duo takes it. Jeff has some ventilation and noise considerations that make heat generation very important. Not least because there will be a fanless 8600GTS running directly below the processor.
Okay, I hope to have the final system specs for everyone to look at tonight, probably in the form of a shared Newegg wishlist. I'm currently looking at 2gb of Kingston ValueRAM; Jeff and I have considered whether he needs more. If he's ever going to run Vista, it seems to me like he may as well start with 4gb. Does anyone think he needs anything more fancy than ValueRAM?
Okay, I hope to have the final system specs for everyone to look at tonight, probably in the form of a shared Newegg wishlist. I'm currently looking at 2gb of Kingston ValueRAM; Jeff and I have considered whether he needs more. If he's ever going to run Vista, it seems to me like he may as well start with 4gb. Does anyone think he needs anything more fancy than ValueRAM?
Okay, I'm ready for final approval from Jeff and last words of advice from everyone else. First, I need some advice on a type of product with which I have virtually no familiarity: DVD burners and readers. I have a DVD-ROM drive, but I don't think I've ever used it. I certainly have never needed to burn a DVD. Suggestions?
here is the planned system. This should be feature-complete, so if you notice anything I'm missing, please, point it out! [Sorry for the delay, Jeff; my daughter is living with me, and I'd rather go swimming with her than design a computer for you. Mea culpa.
]
Jeff, you'll notice that, indeed, you're getting basically a better computer [both objectively and for your purposes] for US$1000 less than the other. So, you know, yay me. Show your thanks with oral sex.
here is the planned system. This should be feature-complete, so if you notice anything I'm missing, please, point it out! [Sorry for the delay, Jeff; my daughter is living with me, and I'd rather go swimming with her than design a computer for you. Mea culpa.
]Jeff, you'll notice that, indeed, you're getting basically a better computer [both objectively and for your purposes] for US$1000 less than the other. So, you know, yay me. Show your thanks with oral sex.
-
Jeff Hauze
- Wuffle Trainer
- Posts: 1415
- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
I suppose you're not ordering an optical intentionally. I like the 120mm case fan you picked. Just occurred to me I really need one of those. The one that came in the Pininfarina runs like a Cessna.
There is then a need to guard against a temptation to overstate the economic evils of our own age, and to ignore the existence of similar, or worse, evils in earlier ages. Even though some exaggeration may, for the time, stimulate others, as well as ourselves, to a more intense resolve that the present evils should no longer exist, but it is not less wrong and generally it is much more foolish to palter with truth for good than for a selfish cause. The pessimistic descriptions of our own age, combined with the romantic exaggeration of the happiness of past ages must tend to setting aside the methods of progress, the work of which, if slow, is yet solid, and lead to the hasty adoption of others of greater promise, but which resemble the potent medicines of a charlatan, and while quickly effecting a little good sow the seeds of widespread and lasting decay. This impatient insincerity is an evil only less great than the moral torpor which can endure, that we with our modern resources and knowledge should look contentedly at the continued destruction of all that is worth having. There is an evil and an extreme impatience as well as an extreme patience with social ills.
It's a good balance of airflow and noise. I prefer the Nexus 120mm, but it's very low airflow, and in high-heat situations, it's not workable. The Antec Tri-Cool is kind of nice because it's adjustable, but if you have a PCM motherboard, you can just use Speedfan to control it along with everything else [if you have enough headers].Marius wrote:I like the 120mm case fan you picked. Just occurred to me I really need one of those. The one that came in the Pininfarina runs like a Cessna.
Honestly, any "quiet fan" will satisfy those of us with loud machines. I'm still using a, whatever, six-year-old machine with a generic power supply, and when I built a machine with just a stock Antec power supply and couldn't tell when it turned on, I realized those guys at silentpcreview.com have a different standard. I like their standard, but for most of us, it's overkill. Jeff's machine as speced should be inaudible under normal conditions, and if you're a meter away at night with no blockage, you should just be able to hear it, and that's with these Scythe fans. I figured, if it gets got in his room, and I'm using a fanless video card, I should get as much airflow as possible without generating audible noise. I had to make some strange compromises to fit his needs - like the Zalman CPU cooler, which I think is great, but is louder than, say, a Scythe Infinity with a Nexus 120 on it, and not suspending the drives in the case's clever elastic so Jeff can move the machine without wondering if he's destroying it - but I think it should whip ass. I'm just happy I managed an 8-series card, fanless, for less that US$200. I can't believe you can build this machine for about a grand.
Oh, and: your new video card [in theory], reviewed. Short form: it's awesome, although they recommend the cheaper GT because of the cost difference; however, you're not paying the extra cash for the performance, but rather the SilentPipe III, which should make a big temperature difference for you.
If nothing else, it'll help you [and I] calibrate the video card for best performance in specific games [like Oblivion], since someone's already done all the work, although for the games you play right now, just setting everything to "badass meltdown" should work fine.
If nothing else, it'll help you [and I] calibrate the video card for best performance in specific games [like Oblivion], since someone's already done all the work, although for the games you play right now, just setting everything to "badass meltdown" should work fine.
-
Jeff Hauze
- Wuffle Trainer
- Posts: 1415
- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
That price is incredibly nice to see. I'll try to track down some drives to toss in there today. At that price (and the really reasonable price on the RAM), I'm seriously considering moving that up to 4 GB.
Screw liquid diamond. I want to be able to fling apartment building sized ingots of extracted metal into space.
Here's the thing: it can't hurt. [Usually.] I mean, RAM's nice to have lots of, so why not? I'd recommend a 2gb x 2 configuration, so you've still got room to add another set down the road.
Does anyone know of any WinXP problems from having 4gb of RAM? I see to recall it used to degrade performance, but that was addressed in a service pack. Am I just making this shit up?
Does anyone know of any WinXP problems from having 4gb of RAM? I see to recall it used to degrade performance, but that was addressed in a service pack. Am I just making this shit up?
-
Salvation122
- Grand Marshall of the Imperium
- Posts: 3776
- Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2002 7:20 pm
- Location: Memphis, TN
I know that you can't address more than 4GB of RAM without running a 64-bit OS, which would be the height of retardation since there is effectively no driver support for it. YMMV, but unless you're running, like, AutoCAD or some other hardcore number-crunching software you should be fine with 2GB, and by the time that stops being enough you'll probably need a new machine anyway.3278 wrote:Here's the thing: it can't hurt. [Usually.] I mean, RAM's nice to have lots of, so why not? I'd recommend a 2gb x 2 configuration, so you've still got room to add another set down the road.
Does anyone know of any WinXP problems from having 4gb of RAM? I see to recall it used to degrade performance, but that was addressed in a service pack. Am I just making this shit up?
Or, more importantly, before you'll first notice any benefit from more RAM the price for that grade will have dropped even more than it is now.
There is then a need to guard against a temptation to overstate the economic evils of our own age, and to ignore the existence of similar, or worse, evils in earlier ages. Even though some exaggeration may, for the time, stimulate others, as well as ourselves, to a more intense resolve that the present evils should no longer exist, but it is not less wrong and generally it is much more foolish to palter with truth for good than for a selfish cause. The pessimistic descriptions of our own age, combined with the romantic exaggeration of the happiness of past ages must tend to setting aside the methods of progress, the work of which, if slow, is yet solid, and lead to the hasty adoption of others of greater promise, but which resemble the potent medicines of a charlatan, and while quickly effecting a little good sow the seeds of widespread and lasting decay. This impatient insincerity is an evil only less great than the moral torpor which can endure, that we with our modern resources and knowledge should look contentedly at the continued destruction of all that is worth having. There is an evil and an extreme impatience as well as an extreme patience with social ills.
-
Jeff Hauze
- Wuffle Trainer
- Posts: 1415
- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
Sorry for the delay on this end, Module. Work has been rather crazy busy lately. I likely won't have much time to figure out the final details until Tuesday afternoon. I'll drop you a line then to work out the last of the arrangements. For the moment, I think I'll just end up dropping in 3 GB on the RAM side, and keep it to a 3x1GB configuration. I still need to look up and decide on the media drives, and then we'll get this rolling right along.
Thanks again for all the assistance Module, and the rest for comments and suggestions as well.
Thanks again for all the assistance Module, and the rest for comments and suggestions as well.
Screw liquid diamond. I want to be able to fling apartment building sized ingots of extracted metal into space.
Hey, don't worry about it. I'm in no rush; it ain't my computer!Jeff Hauze wrote:Sorry for the delay on this end, Module. Work has been rather crazy busy lately. I likely won't have much time to figure out the final details until Tuesday afternoon.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't he want to stay with two DIMMs? For DDR reasons?Jeff Hauze wrote:I think I'll just end up dropping in 3 GB on the RAM side, and keep it to a 3x1GB configuration.
Yup.
There is then a need to guard against a temptation to overstate the economic evils of our own age, and to ignore the existence of similar, or worse, evils in earlier ages. Even though some exaggeration may, for the time, stimulate others, as well as ourselves, to a more intense resolve that the present evils should no longer exist, but it is not less wrong and generally it is much more foolish to palter with truth for good than for a selfish cause. The pessimistic descriptions of our own age, combined with the romantic exaggeration of the happiness of past ages must tend to setting aside the methods of progress, the work of which, if slow, is yet solid, and lead to the hasty adoption of others of greater promise, but which resemble the potent medicines of a charlatan, and while quickly effecting a little good sow the seeds of widespread and lasting decay. This impatient insincerity is an evil only less great than the moral torpor which can endure, that we with our modern resources and knowledge should look contentedly at the continued destruction of all that is worth having. There is an evil and an extreme impatience as well as an extreme patience with social ills.
-
Jeff Hauze
- Wuffle Trainer
- Posts: 1415
- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
Well, I guess it is doubly good I'm not building the system myself. It goes to show how out of the loop I am. Glad I asked about it first. I'm also really glad I didn't decide to go with the 3 DIMMs on the current PC those few years back.
Screw liquid diamond. I want to be able to fling apartment building sized ingots of extracted metal into space.
-
Van Der Litreb
- Bulldrek Pimp
- Posts: 894
- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 9:17 am
- Location: Denmark
I think WinXP only supports up to 4 GB of memory, including the memory on your graphics card. I have 4x1 GB memory, for example, but Windows "only" recognises 3,2 GB of that. Vista should be fine with the extra memory, but unless you have extra money to throw around or happen to work for an electronics distributor (like myself), there's really no reason to put in more than 2 GB. IMNHO.
\m/
-
Jeff Hauze
- Wuffle Trainer
- Posts: 1415
- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
Unfortunately, some unexpected expenses came up last week, which required me to wait for another paycheck. That's all handled now. So I'll be ordering sometime early next week. Still need to figure out the DVD drives.
Oh, and I'll need an address to ship it to soon, Earl.
Oh, and I'll need an address to ship it to soon, Earl.
Screw liquid diamond. I want to be able to fling apartment building sized ingots of extracted metal into space.
-
Jeff Hauze
- Wuffle Trainer
- Posts: 1415
- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
So I take my daughter over to my parents' house for dinner last night, and there's a box sitting in the entryway from Newegg. I get all excited, my daughter gets all excited. "What's in the box, Daddy?" she asks, as I'm anxiously cutting through the packaging tape.
I pull out its contents. Dryly, I say, "It's the least possibly exciting part they could have shipped: a copy of Windows XP."
So that's arrived, anyway. Presumably, the rest won't be far behind.
I pull out its contents. Dryly, I say, "It's the least possibly exciting part they could have shipped: a copy of Windows XP."
So that's arrived, anyway. Presumably, the rest won't be far behind.
-
Jeff Hauze
- Wuffle Trainer
- Posts: 1415
- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
A "really, really big" box showed up this afternoon, so I'm guessing that'll be it. I'll go in this weekend and see what all has arrived; even if not everything's there, I'll probably be able to start putting bits on bits, so long as the case itself has arrived. I'm beginning to twitch in anticipation.
-
Jeff Hauze
- Wuffle Trainer
- Posts: 1415
- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
-
Van Der Litreb
- Bulldrek Pimp
- Posts: 894
- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 9:17 am
- Location: Denmark
-
Jeff Hauze
- Wuffle Trainer
- Posts: 1415
- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
Have you tried running Speedfan to find out what's overheating? [Or, indeed, if anything's overheating at all?]Van Der Litreb wrote:Hm, maybe I should have you come drill some holes in my tower when I come over. Something in there really doesn't seem to enjoy the heat generated from playing BioShock.
After work last night, I made the pilgrimage out to my parents' house to bask in the presence of power. Everything had indeed arrived, in two large boxes which I quickly hauled out to their living room and began to empty. Briefly inspired, I grabbed my daughter's digital camera and started taking pictures. Unfortunately, the first shot of the case itself was far too dark, but suffice to say it's pretty. Very pretty. The kind of glossy black which shines brighter than my gloss black car, and which of course picks up fingerprints so well you can probably impersonate me from these pictures.
The case itself has some special features - many of them, really - one of which is a layer of sound-deadening material on the inside of both case sides.
Fortunately, for such a massive project, I had plenty of assistance, in the form of my parents' cats. Here's my father's, Tiger, checking out my sidecutters.
The front panel doesn't need to be opened under normal use, as it has a normal front panel for drives, but it can be opened to expose the twin 92mm fan intakes and their cloth dust shields. Wait, did I say 92mm? Hmm. Those 120mm fans I had Jeff buy aren't going to be of much use, then. Well, I'll buy the 92s and put them in; I'm sure the 120s will find some use, perhaps replacing the Antec Tri-Cool in the back.
I've bought a power supply or two in my day, and I've never seen one like this. Exquisitely packaged in tough foam, it includes power cable, cable ties, black mounting screws, detachable cables, and a faux-canvas case to store the leftover cables in. Shit, I remember when they just came in brown boxes with nothing but, you know, the power supply.
The heart of the matter, the motherboard, alongside the processor. What the fuck need is there for a box that big? Oh, right: cooling fan. We've got our own, visible here as a silver-and-copper mass so heavy light bends toward it. I'm suddenly glad I asked Jeff how often he moves his case, because if I'd opted for the all-copper one, he'd have gained 2 degrees of cooling and a giant crack in his motherboard.
Little. Silver. Not particularly different, but I'm picky.
Processor mounted, cooling fan mounted. Jesus H Christ, was that an ordeal with one pair of hands. I was genuinely concerned I'd crack something, partially because one of the S-clips was machined improperly. Zalman, I expect better from you! Only boot-up will tell if all went well. Notice the fan pulls in air past the passive northbridge cooler, which was my clever but untested plan.
And with the RAM installed.
For a week after high school, I tried selling US$1400 vacuum cleaners door-to-door for a living [remember, this was 15 years ago, when US$1400 was even more than it is today]. One day my fellow salespeople dropped me off at a trailer park, where I was guaranteed not to sell a fucking thing. Thanks, guys. After several failures, I stopped trying to sell and would just approach the door, saying, "Look, I'm supposed to sell you this vacuum cleaner you can't afford, and I'll get in trouble if I don't try, so can you let me in? I'm supposed to clean one rug and one piece of furniture, and you don't have to listen to me talk or anything." A nice lady let me in, and she and her boyfriend chatted with me while I worked. They had an adorable gray-striped kitten, which I remarked on the adorability of. "You want him?" she asked. "Seriously?" I responded. That night, I returned and picked up my kitten, the only payment I ever received for my week in sales hell. When I left for my brief stint at college, the cat - Misha - had to stay. When I returned, my father informed me I wouldn't be getting my cat back, as he would have "no one to nap with." So here he is, twice as large as life and very, very helpful.
Mobo, mounted. This is one small-ass case, and one big-ass mobo, particularly with the oversize cooler on it. I really didn't think it was going to fit in there without cutting something, but here it is, screwed in and everything.
My [large] hand is included here for size reference. Motherboard box, you ask?
Nope. Video card box. This mother is huge.
Given that it needs to cool what will be the hottest element of the system, and will be cooled only passively, obviously it needs a cooler the size of god, which sticks out of the rear of the case, something I've never dealt with before.
Everything's together. You wouldn't believe how difficult the installation of that card was, with the fins all over the damned place and shit sticking out everywhere and me with two hands and 12 paws. [My daughter's cat somehow managed to escape capture by the camera this time.] But I persevered, and got all the board-stuff inside and routed. You can't see the clever extra-cable system Antec included, but it's there, and you can tell by how you can't see any extra cable. This is nearly what the machine will look like once the drives are in, too, once I cablegami the IDE for the DVD-ROM and tuck away the SATA cables.
Assembly, of course, is the easy part. Next up, drives installed. Then OS. Then comes the long, irritating process of making sure it all works, and dealing with the inevitable fact that some of it won't. But we'll race screaming across that bridge when we reach it.
The case itself has some special features - many of them, really - one of which is a layer of sound-deadening material on the inside of both case sides.
Fortunately, for such a massive project, I had plenty of assistance, in the form of my parents' cats. Here's my father's, Tiger, checking out my sidecutters.
The front panel doesn't need to be opened under normal use, as it has a normal front panel for drives, but it can be opened to expose the twin 92mm fan intakes and their cloth dust shields. Wait, did I say 92mm? Hmm. Those 120mm fans I had Jeff buy aren't going to be of much use, then. Well, I'll buy the 92s and put them in; I'm sure the 120s will find some use, perhaps replacing the Antec Tri-Cool in the back.
I've bought a power supply or two in my day, and I've never seen one like this. Exquisitely packaged in tough foam, it includes power cable, cable ties, black mounting screws, detachable cables, and a faux-canvas case to store the leftover cables in. Shit, I remember when they just came in brown boxes with nothing but, you know, the power supply.
The heart of the matter, the motherboard, alongside the processor. What the fuck need is there for a box that big? Oh, right: cooling fan. We've got our own, visible here as a silver-and-copper mass so heavy light bends toward it. I'm suddenly glad I asked Jeff how often he moves his case, because if I'd opted for the all-copper one, he'd have gained 2 degrees of cooling and a giant crack in his motherboard.
Little. Silver. Not particularly different, but I'm picky.
Processor mounted, cooling fan mounted. Jesus H Christ, was that an ordeal with one pair of hands. I was genuinely concerned I'd crack something, partially because one of the S-clips was machined improperly. Zalman, I expect better from you! Only boot-up will tell if all went well. Notice the fan pulls in air past the passive northbridge cooler, which was my clever but untested plan.
And with the RAM installed.
For a week after high school, I tried selling US$1400 vacuum cleaners door-to-door for a living [remember, this was 15 years ago, when US$1400 was even more than it is today]. One day my fellow salespeople dropped me off at a trailer park, where I was guaranteed not to sell a fucking thing. Thanks, guys. After several failures, I stopped trying to sell and would just approach the door, saying, "Look, I'm supposed to sell you this vacuum cleaner you can't afford, and I'll get in trouble if I don't try, so can you let me in? I'm supposed to clean one rug and one piece of furniture, and you don't have to listen to me talk or anything." A nice lady let me in, and she and her boyfriend chatted with me while I worked. They had an adorable gray-striped kitten, which I remarked on the adorability of. "You want him?" she asked. "Seriously?" I responded. That night, I returned and picked up my kitten, the only payment I ever received for my week in sales hell. When I left for my brief stint at college, the cat - Misha - had to stay. When I returned, my father informed me I wouldn't be getting my cat back, as he would have "no one to nap with." So here he is, twice as large as life and very, very helpful.
Mobo, mounted. This is one small-ass case, and one big-ass mobo, particularly with the oversize cooler on it. I really didn't think it was going to fit in there without cutting something, but here it is, screwed in and everything.
My [large] hand is included here for size reference. Motherboard box, you ask?
Nope. Video card box. This mother is huge.
Given that it needs to cool what will be the hottest element of the system, and will be cooled only passively, obviously it needs a cooler the size of god, which sticks out of the rear of the case, something I've never dealt with before.
Everything's together. You wouldn't believe how difficult the installation of that card was, with the fins all over the damned place and shit sticking out everywhere and me with two hands and 12 paws. [My daughter's cat somehow managed to escape capture by the camera this time.] But I persevered, and got all the board-stuff inside and routed. You can't see the clever extra-cable system Antec included, but it's there, and you can tell by how you can't see any extra cable. This is nearly what the machine will look like once the drives are in, too, once I cablegami the IDE for the DVD-ROM and tuck away the SATA cables.
Assembly, of course, is the easy part. Next up, drives installed. Then OS. Then comes the long, irritating process of making sure it all works, and dealing with the inevitable fact that some of it won't. But we'll race screaming across that bridge when we reach it.
-
Jeff Hauze
- Wuffle Trainer
- Posts: 1415
- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
Just wondering on the status here. The sound card is slowly melting down in the current case, and the lack of music is beginning to annoy me. Though more importantly, the lack of BioShock is beginning to result in some kind of rash.
Screw liquid diamond. I want to be able to fling apartment building sized ingots of extracted metal into space.
Switch hands for a while.
There is then a need to guard against a temptation to overstate the economic evils of our own age, and to ignore the existence of similar, or worse, evils in earlier ages. Even though some exaggeration may, for the time, stimulate others, as well as ourselves, to a more intense resolve that the present evils should no longer exist, but it is not less wrong and generally it is much more foolish to palter with truth for good than for a selfish cause. The pessimistic descriptions of our own age, combined with the romantic exaggeration of the happiness of past ages must tend to setting aside the methods of progress, the work of which, if slow, is yet solid, and lead to the hasty adoption of others of greater promise, but which resemble the potent medicines of a charlatan, and while quickly effecting a little good sow the seeds of widespread and lasting decay. This impatient insincerity is an evil only less great than the moral torpor which can endure, that we with our modern resources and knowledge should look contentedly at the continued destruction of all that is worth having. There is an evil and an extreme impatience as well as an extreme patience with social ills.
If all goes well, I should be 100 percent done this weekend, and ready for burn-in. Obviously, the hardware is complete, it's just waiting for me to go over and spend some quality time with Windows. I have more pictures, too, but I didn't bother to get them online. I'll probably put them up while it's installing shit, along with some benchmarks and such to get a sense of what's working and what's bottlenecking, and the kind of heat issues we're going to have. [Particularly since the fans I had you buy won't fit where they need to; I believe I have a solution for that, as I bought a very nice Zalman 80mm that should fit without us having to wait for Newegg, and the other 120mm can replace the shitty tri-cool that comes with the case, but that means I need to take apart my PC, which I haven't done yet.]
I was actually somewhat disappointed with the level of noise that came out of the machine when it first booted. I considered sacrificing some of my Adda 80mms - rare and valuable - but when I got them out of the Godbox, I discovered they were absolutely coated in several years' worth of dust. [Thanks, Paul! Nice house. Cabin. Whatever.] So I fiddled with Cool N Quiet until I got what I wanted, and this way Jeff will be able to crank them when it gets hot. So far, my max temps on the video card - the only component I was really worried about - have been extremely reasonable, like, reasonable enough that I'm considering disabling a fan or two. We'll see. I can't test in high temps, though, and I suspect Jeff will be pleased enough to not give a fuck about a little additional noise so long as it's not a jet engine. Still, myself and Engine Jr will be inside the case for a time today checking out the source of a low-frequency resonance that's 90 percent of the discernible noise. I suspect we'll want to pull the board and drop in rubber washers. We'll see.3278 wrote: [Particularly since the fans I had you buy won't fit where they need to; I believe I have a solution for that, as I bought a very nice Zalman 80mm that should fit without us having to wait for Newegg, and the other 120mm can replace the shitty tri-cool that comes with the case, but that means I need to take apart my PC, which I haven't done yet.]
Um, as for benchmarking...it's fast. I'll post some shit if and when I have time, but Iustatia - the Goddess of Justice; Jeff gets to name and call her whatever he pleases, but her name is Iustatia - is the fastest PC I've ever laid hands on.
For hardware, less than a thousand, if I recall. And that's with extra spent on specialized parts; I could trim more off that. I was really impressed by what's at that price point right now. That doesn't include what Jeff's paying me, or what he's spending on delivery, but it's a tremendous bargain, considering a similar but less powerful machine was going to cost him over twice as much.
And actually, I've decided to use pretty much the same parts list in upgrading my current computer. It's been years since I've done so, and it's now basically crap for gaming. Now that my finances have finally stabilized, I figure it's time.
I'm only changing the parts list in two primary ways... I'm putting a bit more premium into the case - seriously considering an Antec p180. I've also decided to go with Vista Home Premium, primarily for dx10. I'll probably throw in a DVD burner, but those are pretty cheap. Otherwise, I'm going with what 32 put together.
I'm only changing the parts list in two primary ways... I'm putting a bit more premium into the case - seriously considering an Antec p180. I've also decided to go with Vista Home Premium, primarily for dx10. I'll probably throw in a DVD burner, but those are pretty cheap. Otherwise, I'm going with what 32 put together.
If you go with a P18x - and it's a good idea - you should use a Scythe Ninja instead of the Zalman, which Jeff couldn't do for ruggedness issues. I would also recommend getting Nexus 120mm fans, and Fanmate controllers of some kind; a lot of the PWM control for the fan speeds is problematic, and even in the Solo, not all the fans are needed. I'm going to end up giving Jeff a Fanmate from the Godbox for his Zalman, and unplugging two of the fans until summer.
-
Jeff Hauze
- Wuffle Trainer
- Posts: 1415
- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
Let me just say that Justiciar is fucking amazing. Bioshock is scary looking on this monster. Even with both extra fans hooked up, it is at maximum a very low hum in the background. Considering the last tower's monstrous jet turbine noise...this is nothing sort of amazing.
As cool as Bioshock looks (oh...and the game itself blows...how the fuck did these same people make the beauty of System Shock 2), the real prize on this machine had to be an entire library of Module Music. Thanks for the spectacular system and the visit, sir.
As cool as Bioshock looks (oh...and the game itself blows...how the fuck did these same people make the beauty of System Shock 2), the real prize on this machine had to be an entire library of Module Music. Thanks for the spectacular system and the visit, sir.
Screw liquid diamond. I want to be able to fling apartment building sized ingots of extracted metal into space.
-
Jeff Hauze
- Wuffle Trainer
- Posts: 1415
- Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2002 10:31 pm
-
AtemHutlrt
- Bulldrekker
- Posts: 327
- Joined: Mon Apr 29, 2002 11:27 pm
- Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan
I'm just about ready to order everything, per 32's basic build plans. However, I'm considering an SLI capable motherboard, just in case I want to stick in another video card sometime in the future - I'm just not sure if SLI worth it at this point. What's the cost-benefit like if I plan on maybe using two lower end cards? Would I simply be better off spending that money on a single higher end card?