Machine review/advice

[Condor]

BaldEagl,

Looks like a great system.  What are you going to do for fun now that you’re done with the research. 

Like you, I have decided to go with the 8800GTS rather than GT.  The performance gain is nice but my major reason is that the GTS has much better cooling.  I could see myself getting the GT and then spending more than the difference between the two cards on an after market cooling fan (I had to do that for my present ATI 800XL card at a cost of around $50).

At one point you were going to use the Abit IP35 Pro.  That is the card I’m planning to use.  Is there anything negative you learned about it other than the lack pf PCI-E 2.0? 

[BaldEagl]

BaldEagl,

Looks like a great system.  What are you going to do for fun now that you’re done with the research. 

Like you, I have decided to go with the 8800GTS rather than GT.  The performance gain is nice but my major reason is that the GTS has much better cooling.  I could see myself getting the GT and then spending more than the difference between the two cards on an after market cooling fan (I had to do that for my present ATI 800XL card at a cost of around $50).

At one point you were going to use the Abit IP35 Pro.  That is the card I’m planning to use.  Is there anything negative you learned about it other than the lack pf PCI-E 2.0? 

Nope, I just wanted the 2.0 slots and as long as the only way to get them was in pairs or more, and I'm an NVIDEA type of guy, I thought I may as well get the NVIDEA chipset to go along with them.  If I had decided to stay with the P-35 route I almost definately would have bought the Abit board.

[Getback]

I have found that I need a floppy drive to upgrade BIOS. Am I wrong?

I have to tell you that I really like the abit pro p35 mb. It's around $135 after rebate. It also gets good ratings on Newegg. If cash is no problem I don't see anything wrong with the Asus board. I do wonder why you need 2 Roms. That could be a personal preference though.

[Tigger29]

BaldEagl.. did you get your system up and running yet?

Just wondering how it's working out for you?

[BaldEagl]

I just got it running late tonight and got to try one flight in AH.  It ROCKS!  I never knew what I was missing.  The game graphics were absolutely stunning (at least to me).

I've got anti-aliasing maxed in the NVidea control panel, running a 22" widescreen LCD monitor (3 ms refresh/3000 contrast/60 mhz) @ 1600x1024 res with the game running 512 textures at 1024 res and holding 59 fps solid.

I'm going to try the high-res pack tommorow and let the game control anti-aliasing and see what that's like but at 512 textures with max anti-aliasing the picture is clean and sharp so I'm not sure yet which I'll find better.

I did make the mistake of not setting up a seperate Administrator account in XP though and now it wont let me install my Sidewinder software (Win95 floppy).  I'm going to mess with that tomorrow.  I bought a Saitek ST290 and used it tonight but it's just not my trusty old Sidewinder and I'm not sure how much new stuff I can adapt to at one time.

[EDIT]  Oh, and for my first build I was SO happy that it booted on the first try... 

[alskahawk]

 Re; Floppy drives. I have one floppy not installed in anything. If I need a floppy I open up the computer plug it in and use it. Used it one time in 3 years. I quit buying new ones few years ago.

[BaldEagl]

For $7 I find them still very handy for small file transfers.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

FYI sidewinder requires no software in XP the support is built in.

[Condor]

Oh, and for my first build I was SO happy that it booted on the first try... 

That's reassuring.  I have visions of a puff of smoke the first time I start mine.   

[Condor]

BaldEagl,

What driver are you using with your 8800GTS?  I as I recall there was once some discussion that the older drivers gave better results.  That was certainly the case with my ATI 800XLS.  It was awful with the newest driver and peformed much better with an older driver.

[BaldEagl]

Last night I was using the one that shipped on the set-up disc.  I updated it today but haven't had a chance to try the new driver out yet.

BTW, stock fan settings, stock Intel CPU fan, stock north bridge fan in a Cooler Master case with a front 80mm and a rear 120mm and it's blowing cool air out the back.  I havent set up temp monitering yet so don't know what the actual temps are but I've had the box open quite often and everything is cool to the touch.  You can't hear anything running except the HD on occasion.  Very happy camper so far 

[Getback]

Last night I was using the one that shipped on the set-up disc.  I updated it today but haven't had a chance to try the new driver out yet.

BTW, stock fan settings, stock Intel CPU fan, stock north bridge fan in a Cooler Master case with a front 80mm and a rear 120mm and it's blowing cool air out the back.  I havent set up temp monitering yet so don't know what the actual temps are but I've had the box open quite often and everything is cool to the touch.  You can't hear anything running except the HD on occasion.  Very happy camper so far 

Booted first time, you pro you. Glad to hear you got it up and running. Very rewarding isn't it.

[BaldEagl]

Booted first time, you pro you. Glad to hear you got it up and running. Very rewarding isn't it.

Yes, although I was astonished how sparse the instructions were with most of the parts.  I started out trying to read the installation instructions and follow them but it was actually a little confusing.  Once I set them aside and just started slapping things together and plugging in wires where it looked like they'd fit it went quite easy.

Condor, I tried out the game again last night with the new drivers installed.  I also D/L'd the high res texture pack and set it to run 1024 textures, pre-loaded into memory (~6xx mb without skins).  I went into the game and all was well but when I went from the hanger to the tower I got a black screen (no way out) and had to power down with the on/off switch.  I then opened the NVidea control panel and re-set a couple of options to allow the application to optimize settings, unchecked the pre-load textures into memory at the game video settings and went back in.  No more problems.  FR is still pegged at 59 solid with all graphic sliders maxed (I thought LCD's didn't have refresh rates but both the NVidea control panel and the game seem to like to set mine at 60).

[Condor]

BaldEagl,

Thanks.  Sounds good.  I'll have to reference your experience when I get mine together. 

You have more guts than me on the building approach.  I realized that there would be little in the way of instructions so I've been searching the net looking for "how to build a computer" guides.  As it turns out there are plenty.  I found a step by step guide in tha Abit forum that is very detailed. I also have a squadmate, Homeboy, who has done this several times.  I'll probably (read definitley) be on the phone to him a lot. 

I'm just holding off a little for availability of the e8400 CPU.

[HomeBoy]

Great news BaldEagl!  Congratulations on the successful install!   

I built my system a year ago (Mar 2007).   At the time, Bruv119 was building almost the same machine I was.  If I remember correctly, we discovered that the driver that shipped on the cd with the card (version 97.92) was the only reliable driver that worked corrrectly.  Version 100.x was out by then but there were problems.  We decided to hold fast with 97.92.  It was only this past weekend that I decided to try a more recent driver and download from the nvidia site the 169.21 (built Dec 19, 2007) and it is remarkable how much better it works than 97.92. 

What driver are you running on yours?  I have an old gunboat 21" crt and there was a little issue with the resolution I was using but after I changed that, the video is beautiful.  Aces High looks fantastic.  With this new driver, it's almost as if I've upgraded my hardware.