Passing of the Guard................................

[Pudgie]

Well the time has finally arrived...................... ............................. ..........................

The money that was in my pocket had burned brightly & deep for quite a while & finally it burned it's way out of my pocket & into Newegg's!
 

I just ordered all the parts to build a new Intel X79 box, including the case & OS.

While I was checking my order status to ensure that all went thru I looked at my order history...................... ............................. ............

It's w/ tears in my eyes that my current box has performed so valiantly for the last 3 yrs 2 months w/o any interruption that I will be soon putting it out to the computer pasture in the sky (also known as my closet). This is the longest time frame that I've ran a box w/o touching it (even though I wanted to sooooooo badly  )!

I am going to miss all the hot air that it blew out on my right leg as I was desparately trying to evade the gunsights of some of y'all over the last 3 yrs.

This will be the 1st time in my building career since the very 1st box that I built some 12 yrs back that I will be building a new box from the ground up (not reusing any parts from the prior box). This is a solemn moment for me as it marks a place in time that ole Pudgie will get to experience what it is like to build something from completely new parts!
  

 

[zack1234]

 

[Getback]

LOL, Best of luck in the build.

[LCAMerciful]

it marks a place in time that ole Pudgie will get to experience what it is like to build something from completely new parts!

You're not kidding anybody.  We all know that you're going to end up reusing that power cable!

[SilverZ06]

specs of new machine?

[Pudgie]

it's alive!!!!!!

 

All went together very well & w/ the exception of 1 of the HDD's being defective went w/o a hitch.

Parts List:
Win 7 Home Premeium SP1 OEM OS
Asus Rampage IV Gene ROG X79 mobo (micro ATX)
Intel I7 3820 Sandy Bridge-E CPU
Corsair Vengence LP 16Gb 4 x 4Gb DDR3 1600 mem (for quad channel)
2 Western Digital Caviar Black 500Gb 6G/sec HDD's (no RAID)
Sony Optiaric Optical Drive
Artic Freezer i30 CPU HSF
Corsair THX 850 PSU
CM Storm Scout case

I didn't use any used cables in this honey, BUT I forgot to get a vid card when I ordered this soooooooo I did have to use a USED vid card (EVGA 560Ti SC vid card) to get it up & running...............so much for all new........ Was drooling over the 680's this past weekend...................... ..........................

Am typing this post on it right now. In process of loading everything back (won't finish until NE sends replacement HDD).

Right now all is set up to auto config off XMP mem profile. Love me some EFI BIOS.......once I got past the eye candy!

I decided to go w/ the Rampage IV Gene due to knowing what I wanted & where I'm gonna stay so didn't need any extra board.
Same rationale for the I7 3820.

Since I was going w/ Win 7 HP I got the 16Gb 4x4Gb set to max out the mem & get in quad channel config.

This box is darn strong....................... ............................. .................

 

See y'all up there soon!!

[TwinBoom]

..........................................................

It's w/ tears in my eyes that my current box has performed so valiantly for the last 3 yrs 2 months w/o any interruption that I will be soon putting it out to the computer pasture in the sky (also known as my closet).

sell it here or ebay dude

[Getback]

That was fast Pudgie. WTG!

[Pudgie]

That was fast Pudgie. WTG!

Go Newegg!!!!

Took me longer to map out, run & secure the cable management (PSU, front panel wires, fans & doctor a cut on my rt thumb knuckle doing it) than it did for the parts install but the payoff was WELL worth it!

 

Had it together, fired up, set up the BIOS, loaded OS & updates in 3 1/2 hrs (I usually do this w/ 1 HDD installed).
It's when I installed the 2nd HDD that the box went nuts on me. Was up all night trying to figure out what was going on. Went to work next day w/o any sleep--NOT COOL! 

Was figuring that I had a bad SATA cable so I swapped the drives across the cables after I got home from work (& grabbed a few hours of shut-eye) to see & saw that the cables were good but the 2nd drive did the same thing on the 1st SATA header as it did initially on the 2nd 1 (BIOS had problem detecting & ID'ing HDD). Pulled the 2nd drive out, put the boot drive back on SATA 1 & rebooted--ran like a champ. There's my sign!

This was the 1st WD HDD that I've owned, whether bought used or new, that was bad out the box. Guess I was due........

RMA processed & drive sent back to the Egg...............waiting on replacement to finish.

 

[Pudgie]

I forgot to note that the Win 7 HP SP1 OS is 64-bit (I bet that all y'all gurus already had figured that out).

BIOS set in AI Overclock Profile to X.M.P. mode:
This mode reads the SPD of the mem modules & sets the mem accordingly but the BIOS also sets up the CPU & optimizes it's settings according to the mem SPD. So the I7 3820 is auto set in Turbo Mode, to Hyperthread, Virtualization, all cores on, etc. All from 1 setting choice! Intel SpeedStep is also enabled by default (I left it on to see if this would create any issues running AH).

BIOS in this Asus Rampage IV Gene is smarter than me! (which isn't that big of a stretch)
 

Loaded AH, copied over settings, defstick & sounds folders from other box & calibrated controllers after doing the same for CH CM.
Set up Q-Fan control in BIOS for CPU & Chassis fans & loaded Asus X-PertFan control software & set both on Turbo profiles (most aggressive cooling).

Flew for approx 2 1/2 hrs last night........................ .......it was BEAUTIFUL! (except when I got shot down, of course!   )

Game set up in Video Settings for 1024 textures (hi res tex pack installed) & Most for AA. Vid card set up for Application-Control for AA, AF & V-synch, AA-T set for 4xSS, Texure Quality set for High Quality, power set for Adaptive, TB set On.
In game set for full graphics (both sliders set full left), all shadows enabled & shadow textures set for 4096.

Idle temp on CPU was 38*C. Full load CPU temp off AH was 46*C. Idle temp on GPU was 34*C. Full load GPU temp off AH was 70*C. CPU fan speeds held between 833-937 rpms thruout. Chassis fan speeds were a little higher, between 834-1014 rpms thruout. The only fan that I could hear between flights was the GPU fan throttling & it was faint at best. This is 1 QUIET box!

FPS held constant between 57-60 & ran smooth as glass--even the CH HOTAS inputs were MUCH more precise than on my prior box. The potential of the 560Ti SC was realized (GPU did not have to wait (clock down) on the CPU at all, CPU was waiting (speed stepping) on the GPU so GPU ran at full clocks all during flight time-even w/ Adaptive set-verified on Precision). Seeing that was FANTASTIC, but I'm still drooling over the 680's!

 

I'll test it w/ 8196 shadow textures later.

Man I am STOKED by the performance of this set up--to know that it's dong all this essentially in STOCK settings (CPU stock speed is 3.6, turbo'd to 3.8 w/ Speed Stepping enabled) is what I would call for AH-----FUTUREPROOF!

 

[guncrasher]

if you have your evga vc registered download evga precision x, which is a really good oc utility for your video card.  but the best part of it as the fan settings, you can  change it from stock to whichever you want. and it's simple to use and it will keep that vc cooler.


semp

[Pudgie]

if you have your evga vc registered download evga precision x, which is a really good oc utility for your video card.  but the best part of it as the fan settings, you can  change it from stock to whichever you want. and it's simple to use and it will keep that vc cooler.


semp

Sorry for the delay to reply ( you know why.......................bee n flying my.....................off lately!  ).

Semp I did have an active fan control profile set up in Precision when I got those numbers (since AB came out w/ this feature I've NEVER ran my Nvidia vid cards w/o it active. Switched back to Precision as soon as EVGA got this feature added to it......) so those GPU temps given were
w/ an active fan profile that I set up.

Ok, back to play!

 

[Pudgie]

Replacement HDD came in today (WD Caviar Black 32Gb cache 500Gb SATA 6Gb/sec HDD).

Popped it in & booted up & checked in BIOS............BIOS recognized & ID'd it!  YAY!

Went into Disk Management & set it all up. Once that was done I then went into the Performance tab, into virtual mem, turned off the "automatically manage the paging file across all disks" & moved the page file off the C:\ drive (set to no paging file) & onto the E:\ drive (set for system manage). Applied, saved & rebooted box.......................... .....ohhhh  YEAHHHHHH!

 

Man I LOVE this setup!
 

Yeah Skuzzy I know that the OS is not loading data from 1 disk into ram & writing data out to page file on another disk from ram at the same time but it's doing it sooooooooo fast that it sure seems like it. I can certainly tell the difference.

It's complete now!

I set the shadow textures at 8196 yesterday & this 560Ti started choking on that setting once the scene had a lot of fire & smoke going & 20+ planes in view (defending a large base).........never got any error messages, the game didn't try to cut back on any shadow settings...........FPS dropped to 47 & was very choppy until the plane count dropped to around 12 in view at which time the FPS went back up to 57-60.

So far I haven't gotten into/found a graphical event large enough to choke the card when shadow textures are set to 4096.
I'm figuring that it's the vid card that is overwhelmed as if it was the CPU the game would read this & shut down some/all of the shadow texture settings to free up enough CPU cycles to not allow the game to go into fault (this would happen on my old box if I pushed the shadow textures to 8196 & more than 5-6 planes along w/ a burning base in view).

I can feel a 680 tapping me on my shoulder just asking to be bought!

Salute!

 

[guncrasher]

Sorry for the delay to reply ( you know why.......................bee n flying my.....................off lately!  ).

Semp I did have an active fan control profile set up in Precision when I got those numbers (since AB came out w/ this feature I've NEVER ran my Nvidia vid cards w/o it active. Switched back to Precision as soon as EVGA got this feature added to it......) so those GPU temps given were
w/ an active fan profile that I set up.

Ok, back to play!

 

there's a new utility that replaces the old precision now is known as precision x.  just got released a couple of months ago.


semp

[Pudgie]

there's a new utility that replaces the old precision now is known as precision x.  just got released a couple of months ago.


semp

10-4 good buddy.

Already installed & running.