New Gaming Rig ... maybe a dream but

Damian Henderson · Nov 30, 2009

Sounds like you got the rig setup perfect, nice 3d Mark scores!

Lee Downham · Nov 30, 2009

lus1: ... I got a fairly similar setup but nowhere near those scores - "very well done!"

Overclocking my q6600 to 3.5Ghz on air just sends my temps OTT and I get BSOD's, despite having a very decent cooler on board.

Conclusion: Must try harder

Damian Henderson · Nov 30, 2009

Lee Downham said:
Overclocking my q6600 to 3.5Ghz on air just sends my temps OTT and I get BSOD's, despite having a very decent cooler on board.

What voltage you been trying? but I have heard the different batches of the q6600 can vary when trying to clock them, maybe you got bad one?

Derek Day · Nov 30, 2009

Lee Downham said:
Overclocking my q6600 to 3.5Ghz on air just sends my temps OTT and I get BSOD's, despite having a very decent cooler on board.

Conclusion: Must try harder

Disable everything in your Bios thats unnecessary. What mother board are you using, and how much are you over volting for north-soulth bridge, cpu ect? PM me, we'll get her hooked up.

My buddy went out after I showed him and he runs the same CPU and clocks in a hotter chassis. Did you use the white thermal compound in a bag that comes with the processor? It's not bad, but I would swabb it off with some alcohol and get a tube of arctic silver. Also in your Bios did you set all of you fan speeds, sometimes people accidently forget.

Thanks Damian.

Lee Downham · Nov 30, 2009

Thermal wha'??

I just put some wd40 on the back the CPU and stuck a regular fan on to it on with a bit of SuperGlu ... :eek:

Sorry ... just a little jest bud :wink2:
Yeah ... been a techy and building my own boxes for a wee while now (~15 years), so kinda know a bit about some of this ... got a reasonable thermal compound on there, not Arctic Silver AFAIK some decent(ish) stuff that I got with my Tuniq Tower cooler - I used to have it running stable at ~3ghz, which at load would not go over ~46ºC with the fans on a fairly inaudible speed ...
The fans BTW are wired to a Kama Panel which allows me manual control over them (ie to get best noise v cooling ratio).
The motherboard (Asus Striker Extreme) is reputed to have issues with Q6600's, and I have had issues with updating BIOS's on this box too - one such update caused me 3 days work getting it back to where is was and working again - not something I have ever had with a BIOS update before, and it came at a time when I really didn't need it, since which its made me nervous of messing too much with this little bugger in case it does it again :thinking:

My main problem is time to dabble with stuff is too sort generally ... coupled with the fact that this machine is needed daily for work, and I really can't be bothered stripping the machine and rebuilding it to put new thermal paste on and stuff.

Actually ... now that I am thinking of this a bit more, I think I came to the conclusion that it was not the CPU but the northbridge temps that went thru the roof (striker NB generally run hot from what I read). Never got round to sorting any extra cooling out for the northbridge and trying again or messing with voltages enough to get them lower.

If I could up it to around 3.2Ghz and be stable, then I would be happy at that, as I know that come summer, the air temp down here is also about the same as my idle core temps, and we don't do air-con

If you have a few mins spare and want to send suggestions mate, then please be my guest - would probably appreciate a few starting ideas once more to give me the spark needed to start dabbling again (as long as it does not cost me 3 days' work

Lee Downham · Nov 30, 2009

might have to do a change of tack due to today's events ...
My wife's rather well used Rock laptop has died for the second time in 12 months ... in fact less cos I only rebuilt it last Feb :damnit:

So its forced the decision to get me/her a new machine. :question:

As luck and a bit of foresight would have it tho ... I configged a new NAS box this weekend and it backed up all her data beautifully and automatically about 30 mins before her machine died - lots of sexual favours might have to be called in for saving her booty on that one :kiss2:

Anyways ... as I have no idea what Mr Tax man will say, I can't afford to buy a full blown rig as described at the beginning of all this, so ... I am either gonna go with a cheap but cheerful solution for the missus to work on (pure solid performer. office workstation type stuff with no gaming / overclocking required) ... or I am gonna try to do a bit of a pick and mix to upgrade my rig at the same time.

One idea is to go with an I7 860 CPU and decent mobo that will allow me good overclocking and SLi / Crossfire, which will also allow me to use my existing graphics cards and memory.
I have 2GB of reasonably decent Gskill PC6400 HK RAM sticks kicking around that I can chuck into my wife's machine, and as she does not do any gaming, I can bung in a cheapish graphics card that will see her good for dual view with office app's.

On top of that lot I will need a PSU (was looking at the new NOX Apex 800W) plus ~500GB WD HDD (no solid state gubbins yet) and a reasonable cooler.

I have a couple of old cases kicking around here, but am not sure I wanna rebuild my old system from scratch, so might also grab a case (for me) if I can get a decent one at a reasonable price. Nice looking full tower with PSU at bottom and water cooling possibilities would be nice ... Nox Coolbay HX hits a decent middle ground between price/performance and being spacious ... its also available immediately (as is the rest of the stuff I listed) from my usual HW supplier down here.

Thoughts especially on mobo's appreciated ... was briefly looking at Asus Maximus III Formula ... anyone any feedback on that?

Damian Henderson · Nov 30, 2009

If you want to go on a budget just get a Athlon X4, can get a nice build for her that runs fast and is a solid performer for her needs quite cheap on the AMD route.
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/176579

Or give her your old rig with a mix of other stuff like you suggested.

PSU wise go for Cosair

And am a Gigabye man myself but I've heard good things about the Maximus III Formula.

Damian Henderson · Nov 30, 2009

Here's a good review of the Mobo Lee:

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...s-iii-formula-lga1156-motherboard-review.html

I would recommend the Samsung F3 500gb for HDD if you need to get one.

Dietmar · Nov 30, 2009

As you are anyway looking at Deluxe Boards, I would go for one with USB 3.0 support, otherwise you will be angry with yourself in a year from now

Lee Downham · Nov 30, 2009

Thx ... USB3 almost forgot about support for that and very true ...

Also skimmed this article just now which does a direct comparison of all these CPU's with interesting results - and is making me look again at the I5 since its €70+ cheaper here and seems to deliver about the same results when overclocked to the same as an I7 860 or nearly a 920:moneymouth:

Damian Henderson · Nov 30, 2009

Ye the i5 is good bang for the buck.

Derek Day · Dec 1, 2009

Lee Downham said:
Thermal wha'??
If you have a few mins spare and want to send suggestions mate, then please be my guest - would probably appreciate a few starting ideas once more to give me the spark needed to start dabbling again (as long as it does not cost me 3 days' work ) ... system Specs as below:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 | Tuniq Tower | 2 x nVidia 8800GT 512MB's in Sli | Zalman OEM and Thermaltake DuoOrb GPU coolers| GSKILL PC2-8500 PK Dual Channel 4 Gb (2 x 2048) | ASUS Stiker Extreme (BIOS 1901) | NOX Pulsar 650W PSU | Windows Vista 32 Ultimate SP2 | NZXT Lexa case with 7 Silenx fans and Kama Panel Fan Speed Controller

For sure Lee

Opps looks like you got more going on.

http://www.xfxforce.com/en-us/products/motherboards/7series/790.aspx#1

More budget orientated, plus you will be able to use your Q6600 in it and OC it, lots. The asus is nice but the wife would get on with it just fine. You'll get to use your 8800's and saved enough loot to get another to triple up if you catch me

. Now that they are much more affordable...

http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/product.php?product_id=2810

You'll want to keep the asus in the case it sits in now then, after all time is money lol. So leave the power supply in to and look into maybe this.

http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/product.php?product_id=2753

Then swap your ram around like you mentioned, bang! Saved more cash, sweet liquid cooling time for the Q6600 and pow bet you are deep in the 4 mhz zone all day long. and even thought you still spent a little bit. it would be a whole lot less then if you started with a mobo like this.

http://www.xfxforce.com/en-us/products/motherboards/Xseries/X58i.aspx

Depending on the amount you spent on this platform whats above will still keep up or even walk over.
I would try to save a bit of loot, but I would still be really tempted lol

Lee Downham · Dec 1, 2009

Thanks for the info Derek ...
I am with you on some of this buuuut ... for pretty much the price at which I can buy a Q6600 and XFX 790i mobo, I can get a similarly specced I5 750 and Asus Maximus III Formula ... and looking at the performance info on the review page I posted earlier, at the same clock speeds, the I5 combo would be somewhere in the region of 50% faster than the Q6600 ... and that is for the same money. :bang:
(EDIT: I just re-read yer post ... rebuilding the entire machine so that I can change CPUs is not something I was hoping to do, although another thought that just occurred to me is that I still have the stock cooler for my Q6600, so if I did that, and if it were to fit the I5, I might be able to use the Tuniq Tower to cool the new machine until funds are a bit more in order and I can do the water thang! ... time to investigate tuniq tower and I5)

I also have to consider what I can actually get at short notice here in Portugal - as I have often found that what I want and what I can get are quite different beasts

The HAF932 is still high on my list and as it will probably outlive all my other hardware components for this hybrid "new" build, it is still a very serious contender.

Still digging around, and its bank holiday here today ... so any more feedback and updates welcome chaps :good:

Damian Henderson · Dec 1, 2009

Ye I would get the i5 & Asus Lee, just as thingy mentioned make sure you go for USB3 though. Take a look at the Gigiabyte UD6 also. I know your a Asus fan but just take a look

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=3234

Lee Downham · Dec 1, 2009

Ta mate ... one of the reasons for Asus right now is that my usual supplier folks don't seem to have Gigabyte boards to support the I5 :sad:
I have been wondering about testing Gigabyte boards for some time now, as Asus boards are lovely but can be a bit tricky (read: crap) at times

and just checked ... if I had the new Tuniq Tower I could just buy a backplate for it, but cos its the old one, no dice :doh:

Craig Stevenson · Dec 1, 2009

I don't think anyone has anything to match Gigabyte right now, they have the X58A-UD7 and a full line up of P55A's already in the stores, Asus doesn't have any X58A's out yet and I think they only have two P55A's neither of which seems to be as readily available as the Gigabytes and neither of which really float my boat. There is a new Maximus III Extreme due out though with SATA 6.0 & USB 3.0 and I really wouldn't bother buying a mobo without those now.

I am a fan of Asus, my current mobo in this system is a Crosshair and before that it was the A8N-SLi Premium, I'm also a big fan of Gigabyte and have two systems running 7NNXP's.

I'm currently waiting for OCUK to get back to me as to whether they will accept my offer for the kit or if some more negotiating is required. If they accept the offer then I will be going with Gigabyte, if they turn me down and the new Asus kit hit's the street I may end up re-thinking...........AGAIN :eyeroll: and you just know Asus will come out with a Killer mobo 2 days after I install the Gigabyte :crying:

I would go with UD5 though if you're going for 1156, unless 24 Phase power is vitally important to you, that is about the only difference between UD5 & 6 and it costs around £30 extra.

l8r

Lee Downham · Dec 1, 2009

^^ There is less than that in the price I can get it over here ... ~€20 diff, and reading the following marketing hype, it sounds like a good way to go, especially if I ever want to upgrade the CPU
Gigabyte marketing blurb on 24 phase power

I was likewise considering putting a list in to ocuk to see how much they would charge including shipping to here (but the euro has lost a bit of its strength this last week, so might not be as sweet a deal as it was before).

Still sussing things out, but getting closer to making some kind of decision, and have ended up doing all the stuff I didn't want to do (ie. learn all about all the options available to me once more

)

Damian Henderson · Dec 1, 2009

If you get the Gigabyte Lee you will love it, never had a single crash, flawless and rock solid stable, clock like a dream to.

Lee Downham · Dec 1, 2009

Tempted ... very tempted indeed (as I have been for a while to try out more Gigabyte kit).
Ooooh my head is hurting - been looking at reviews and specs and numbers and stuff all afternoon and ... I am getting fed up of it all now, I just want to build a machine and have done with it

EDIT: Current spec / ideas I am considering to follow ... later

Craig Stevenson · Dec 1, 2009

The difference on OCUK between P55A-UD5 & 6 is £37 which seems a lot. By comparison the new Maximus III Extreme only has 11-Phase VRM which does suprise me a bit seeing as it's a RoG board and if Asus are releasing RoG kit with only 11-Phase VRM you have ask if the 24-Phase is just marketing speak or is it really worth the extra?

I've looked at so many mobo's or to be more precise a few mobo's many times this last week and I'm sure I saw an Asus or Gigabyte that quoted 48-Phase VRM but damned if I can find it again now.

I'm seeing facts, figures and ££ in my sleep at the minute which is usally the case before I upgrade and for a couple of months afterwards while I watch the prices for the kit I've bought drop by 30%

I changed my choice of PSU, Coolermaster M850 to a Corsar HX850 because a review on a well respected site said the M850 didn't have a power switch and today TCM posted this http://www.tcmagazine.info/comments.php?shownews=31230&catid=2 which shows that it does have a switch, still the Corsair does seem to get better reviews overall so I'm sticking with it now.