Thought I might pop this up, my main system I built a couple of years ago. Always up for feedback / ideas for improvement. Specs as follows CPU: Phenom II x4 955BE Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 Motherboard: Crosshair IV Formula RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws 4GB DDR3 1600 Graphics: 2x MSI HD6870 PSU: Corsair AX1200 HDD1: 1TB WD Caviar Black HDD2: 2TB WD Green Zalman fan controller ASUS DVD-RW Lian Li PC-P50R case Down to business Unfortunately I suck balls with a camera so the outside photos are all poo, but here's a couple anyway Let me know what you think Sam
Since then some things have changed. I had a lot of trouble with Crossfire which turned out to be a dud 6870. I got it replaced and still had problems so gave up for a long time. Turned out the card they sent back was also faulty so I got it changed again. This time they sent a 6950 back, which of course won't crossfire with the working 6870 because of the different cores. Currently running a single 6950 instead of the 6870s. I had a play around tonight with RBE and unlocked the shaders of the stock BIOS, worked beautifully and without a hitch. 3dmark11 Score 5047 --> 5194 Have yet to overclock the 6950.
Just for **** 'n' giggles I ran 3dMark11 on my rig, 5164 no overclocking, and 5392 with. Thats mild overclocking and factory cooling. Its a ASUS 6950 1GB.
I bet your CPU is better than my 955 ?? Forgot to mention that 6950 they sent me is a 2GB model, but a non reference PCB MSI TFII card (no dual BIOS switch) making it safer to edit the original BIOS than to try flashing a 6970 one in. I'll also jump in before anyone says I don't need an AX1200 - you're absolutely right this one went in for troubleshooting and I haven't got around to changing it back out yet
Looks pretty good. I'm just wondering why your running on only 4gb of RAM on a system like that. Unless you have a 32 bit OS (which you shouldn't have, 64 bit all the way nowadays). Consider at least doubling that, hell I'm running on 16gb at home, and even this ****-box work computer I'm typing on here has 12gb. Everything else on that system looks pretty good, your creating a bottle neck in the memory department though.
Funny you should mention that. I set my page file manually to zero because I do that on all my win7 setups. Just the other day was the first time EVER I got a memory warning message, was playing Skyrim of all games (with lots of HD texture mods, other mods and ENB). Only time it's ever come up short. And it only got close, I had my eye on the usage and still had about half a gb to spare. I have 8GB Corsair RAM sitting in my drawer here, and was actually planning to throw that in today if I can sneak it under without pulling that cooler off. It disagreed with the last system it was in but hopefully it'll work OK in this. OS is Win 7 64bit.
Yeah a bit Its a I5 2500k overclocked to 4500mhz and running so perfectly stable, running a cheap $40 cooler. Love it.
Hyper 212 cooler? This 955 is a black edition, been running at 4.06 for months now, before that it was 3.9something high pretty much since I built it. Flawless stability I had it almost stable at 4.2GHz but I chickened out because the Denebs don't really like to get above 61degC and it was pushing 62/63 at that speed. I say almost stable because it lasted almost an hour (?) before it failed Prime95.
Yeah thats the one, single fan and the CPU never gets hot, I love this CPU. I've run this though some serious testing when I put it together and the CPU is 100% stable at 4.5Ghz.
Well I had a good win today, picked up a fairly new system from a guy moving overseas and I think I got quite a good deal. 8350 Crosshair V Formula Z Corsair 500R black case 12GB Corsair Dominator GT, 2000MHz, 9-10-9-27, 1.65V HX-1050 HIS 5770-ish (1GB) all for $800. Now to decide which parts make their way into which case. The 500R is a beautiful case but I think I like my Lian Li better with its sexy AMD dragon up the side. I'm thinking 8350, CH V F Z, Dominator GTs into the Lian Li PC-P50R, then make a system out of the rest and sell it off. I have some intent to sleeve the finished product (the one I'm keeping) and pop an ELC240 in it, perhaps even a full custom loop although I have serious reservations about chopping the case up.
Well I am in love with Windows 7 all over again. I put the CPU/mobo/RAM into my own system this afternoon, and as soon as I turned it on Windows loaded everything just fine. A couple of drivers off the motherboard CD and it's all running 100%. Not that it's much of a benchmark but my Windows Experience Index went up from 7.4 / 7.5 on CPU / RAM to 7.8 / 7.8, with all the other scores maxed at 7.9. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of overclock I can achieve on this setup with the NH-D14 before I move to water. I took a couple of photos today, hopefully some came out nicely - I'll put them in here later.
So after I changed the CPU for the 8350, and added an SSD as the OS drive: Score 5194 ---> 5412 Graphics 5192 ---> 5176 (??) Physics 5357 ---> 7535 Combined 4986 ---> 5014 New score is 5412.. Honestly I had expected more, however I haven't even touched an overclock yet. I think my graphics card may be starting to really hold the system back, it may be time to consider an upgrade there.
OK time for another photo update (once again, sorry for my camera skills) After breaking the 500R machine down into its components, the best bits were laid out to be moved over into my own system. Here's the new CPU: A couple of comparison shots of new/old hardware, I think I have made a pretty decent upgrade And a couple of pics of it all installed in the Lian Li case: This little red illuminated strip was a nice surprise when I powered it up for the first time: I haven't tried overclocking the 8350 yet (I have been busy lately with this Intel build) but I'm looking forward to it. One of the huge advantages (in my eyes) of owning a Crosshair board is the sheer amount of guides / support there is for overclocking the bigger processors on them. You will never be left in the dark.
Pics should work, I have the spare parts all built into the 500R so I'll get some pics of that and advertise it soon.
