Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Bino on April 28, 2010, 09:40:32 AM
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Last time I built a completely new machine was January Y2K. Then I did a major rebuild reusing that tower case in July 2004. I figure I'm about due.
A major part of my reading up on hardware has been right here in this forum. And so thanks, Skuzzy, and to all of you who post in here! :salute
My plan is to water-cool the cpu, X58 north bridge, and video cards. And then clock the livin' snot outta this baby. Y'see, I *really* like tinkering with my toys. ;)
case: NZXT Tempest EVO
mobo: ASUS P6T Deluxe V2
psu: SeaSonic X750
cpu: Intel Core i7-930 2.8 GHz
ram: Corsair XMS3 (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600
vpu: 2 crossfire x XFX HD-577X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5770
disk: 2 JBOD x Seagate Barracuda ES.2 500 GB
sound: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme
os: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
The ICH10R south bridge and the MOSFETs will sport Enzotech solid-copper heatsinks. The water-cooling parts will come mostly from Danger Den (http://www.dangerden.com), like their MC-TDX for the CPU and MPC for the chipset. Two full-coverage EK blocks will keep the video cards cool, and an AC-powered Eheim aquarium pump will circulate the fluid.
Almost ready to place the order. Almost...
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:O Sounds....................... .expensive. Should be a very cool setup when you get it assembled...can we assume some cathode eye candy is going to adorn the interior?
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The basic box will be around US $1900, with a few hundred more for the water cooling parts. If I'm going to put in the effort to build a new box, I want to build a very *fast* box. And I plan to re-use my old 22" Philips CRT. I plan to post some pictures of the construction process. Stay tuned...
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It is your choice to get XFX video cards or not...their 5770's have cheaply made PCB. You can take the lifetime warranty if yuo'd like. Good system.
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It is your choice to get XFX video cards or not...their 5770's have cheaply made PCB. You can take the lifetime warranty if yuo'd like. Good system.
I must have got a good one no probs so far.
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I must have got a good one no probs so far.
Yeah. I guess in all reality it is a slim chance, and even then the warranty covers it, but I despise XFX for doing such a thing.
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It is your choice to get XFX video cards or not...their 5770's have cheaply made PCB. You can take the lifetime warranty if yuo'd like. Good system.
I'm not married to the XFX brand. Any others out there with better construction? And since I will install water-cooling, the warranty is voided, anyway. >shrug<
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The basic box will be around US $1900, with a few hundred more for the water cooling parts. If I'm going to put in the effort to build a new box, I want to build a very *fast* box. And I plan to re-use my old 22" Philips CRT. I plan to post some pictures of the construction process. Stay tuned...
All that and you're REUSING A CRT?!?! No offense, but ARE YOU CRAZY??
Not to sound rude, but have you used a LCD in the last 12 months or so? Believe me... HUGE DIFFERENCE... you have no idea.
Also LCDs are bigger than CRTs, as 100% of their screen is viewable (your 22" might only have 19.5" viewable measured diagonally, whereas a 22" LCD will be 22" viewable).
Or better yet, go for a 58XX series video and get three monitors (eyefinity)... hehe.
With that kind of money to spend, you have many better options available to you than Watercooling, Crossfire/SLi, etc... than you did 6 years ago...
Also, keep in mind that today's processors run much cooler than the last couple generations... Watercooling should only be necessary if you plan to O/C to the point of failure...
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I have to agree. Skip the liquid cooling, get a good air cooler and buy an LCD with the left over money. You'll be much happier and you'll still get an easy 20% overclock, probably without even raising the vcore. I had my 2.66 Ghz E6750 clocked to over 3.5 Ghz stable on air but dropped it to 3.2 Ghz for everyday use.
I also had SLI'd 8800 GTS 512's for a while with no heat issues but I used Riva Tuner to manually run the fans at a constant 70%. As far as that goes I'll never crossfire or SLI again. I'll spend that money to get the best single card I can.
New LCD's provide a much sharper picture than a blurry old CRT. Even my Trinitron CRT doesn't hold a candle to my LG 22" LCD.
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I have to agree. Skip the liquid cooling, get a good air cooler and buy an LCD with the left over money. You'll be much happier and you'll still get an easy 20% overclock, probably without even raising the vcore. I had my 2.66 Ghz E6750 clocked to over 3.5 Ghz on air but dropped it to 3.2 Ghz for everyday use.
I also had SLI'd 8800 GTS 512's for a while with no heat issues but I used Riva Tuner to manually run the fans at a constant 70%. As far as that goes I'll nevel crossfire or SLI again. I'll spend that money to get the best single card I can.
New LCD's provide a much sharper picture than a blurry old CRT. Even my Trinitron CRT doesn't hold a candle to my LG 22" LCD.
Agreed...
Get a Noctua air cooler...i7 flavor...liquid cooling is way more hassle than its worth...been their and done that multiple times...even liquid cooled ram, north bridge, southbridge and the gpu in the past...liquid is a hassle, its expensive...and it wont turn your i7 2.8 into a fps demolisher...
Save your money on the liquid junk and buy a faster proc....
And can I ask why in the world would you pick up a pair of vid cards that are basically 2 generations behind the curve just so you can crossfire them?
Get a single 5870...or better yet a single 5970 and ash heap the hassle of xfire...
Sounds like the bells and whistles train pulled up to the station and its "all aboard"
Oneway
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Take a looksie at the MSI R5770 Hawk...or MSI R5870 Lightning...both have dual fans for great OCing...I personally have two Sapphire 5770 Juniper XT's...
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Spikes, I have to say... after a disappointing few hours in the movie theater, looking at your post made me realize... perhaps I DO like Avatar after all!
Oh another thing I forgot to say about that build.. have you considered SSD for the boot drive? Makes a huge difference apparently, and they've about worked out all the quirks. I think if I were building one now, I'd be tempted to go that route rather than dual 500GB drives... (SSD for boot, regular drive for storage).
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And can I ask why in the world would you pick up a pair of vid cards that are basically 2 generations behind the curve just so you can crossfire them?
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According to what I read on the web, a pair of 5770s may - sometimes - slightly outperform a single 5870. And a pair of 5770s costs about US $100 less than a single 5870. :aok
The VPU in the 5770, the Juniper XT, is actually of the same generation as the Cyprus XT in the 5870. Both run DirectX 11 and Shader 5.0. While both have GDDR5 video RAM, it is true that the little card has only a 128-bit data path and the big one, 256-bit. The 5870 also has twice as many stream processors as each 5770.
Despite all this, I might still elect to use a single video card. Most reasonably-priced motherboards can only provide their three PCI-E slots in 16/16/1 or 16/8/8 mode. If I ever want to add a good RAID disk controller card, or even better, one of OCZ's Z-Drive SSDs (http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/solid-state-drives/pci-express/z-drive-r2/ocz-z-drive-r2-m84-pci-express-ssd-.html) >drool!< I will need to have an eight-lane slot available. Decisions, decisions... :headscratch:
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And can I ask why in the world would you pick up a pair of vid cards that are basically 2 generations behind the curve just so you can crossfire them?
Two 5770s outperform one 5870.
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A year ago I'd of said, why spend money on an LCD.
Then I went to AH con and saw what the new LCD monitors are doing.
Less than 2 weeks after returning I was flying on a new 23" LCD monitor, and yes I'm loving it.
The wife kept looking over her shoulder at my monitor and saying things like "wow, look at that color!"
So we got one for her too.
Mine was on sale at Sam's club for 196$ and sales tax.
Blows CRT's right out of the water.
One way or another I'd find another 200$ to upgrade your monitor also.
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A year ago I'd of said, why spend money on an LCD.
Then I went to AH con and saw what the new LCD monitors are doing.
Less than 2 weeks after returning I was flying on a new 23" LCD monitor, and yes I'm loving it.
The wife kept looking over her shoulder at my monitor and saying things like "wow, look at that color!"
So we got one for her too.
Mine was on sale at Sam's club for 196$ and sales tax.
Blows CRT's right out of the water.
One way or another I'd find another 200$ to upgrade your monitor also.
I grabbed a 24 inch monitor and like you I was stunned by the color. When I go over mom's to work on her computer I cannot stand that tiny 17 inch crt. It look dull yellow by comparison to an LCD.
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Hard drive.
Go black
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136544&cm_re=Caviar_black-_-22-136-544-_-Product
Larger drive. same speed but with a 64 MB Cache
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Careful about that the SATA 3 drives do not always pair well with SATA 2 MBs.
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Thanks very much for the input, folks! :salute
Interesting that several of you had such negative comments about water-cooling. That flies in the face of various items I've seen on Anandtech, Tomshardware, Maximumpc, and others. There seems to be pretty broad consensus on tech web sites that water *is* needed for an i7-920 to reach 3.8 or higher, especially if "over-volting". Interesting...
Also found your comments about the CRT vs. LCD thing intriguing. I have some pretty nice LCDs on machines at work, and I just don't see such a night-and-day difference. (Though I do often wonder during FSO frames if FrodoVision (tm) isn't partly the result of using a big LCD.) Well, I can always upgrade that part later, with a supplementary appropriation from the Binoland Minister Of Finance. Might be easier to get that approved by her as a separate, smaller request. ;)
I have an SSD-equipped dual-core Win7 64-bit laptop at home that I use for dialing in to work over the VPN. Other than boot times - which are much improved - I don't see all that much of change from the days when it had a spinning platter hard drive.
Anyway, thanks!
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Bino, you have to realize that the hardware recommendations we make here often reflect the biggest differences you'll notice playing AH and other games. While there ARE several guys here that overclock to the limits, the vast majority of us (if we overclock at all) don't push it to its extreme limits, and as a result water cooling, in our eyes, is a waste of money. It's not that we are against water cooling, it's just an unnecessary expense for most of us... and if money isn't the factor, then it's unnecessary as far as maintenance and voiding of warranty and all that.
While an LCD may not make that much of a difference on a work machine, it makes a HUGE difference in games such as this one, where you can make out the shape of a plane that is well beyond the 6.0K icon range... or a tank that is way off in the distance. It really can make a life-or-death difference in the game. If you look at things from a 'how much difference will this make in Aces High' perspective, then you'll see that an LCD upgrade will provide a MUCH, MUCH, MUCH higher level of gameplay quality compared to overclocking and water-cooling.
Yes your SSD laptop may boot faster but not make much of a difference FOR WORK USE (especially through a VPN), you have to realize two things. Laptop-grade SSD's aren't notoriously fast, and the difference in gaming is a lot more noticeable. A lot of micro-stutters will be eliminated.
And then there is common sense. If you have money of your own to play with and want to risk damaging your new components with water cooling (potential leaks) and overclocking... AND voiding the warranty in the process... I say.. GO FOR IT! Whatever floats your boat! BUT WHEN YOU HAVE TO GET PERMISSION from the Mrs. to purchase these components... well you have to use a little common sense. You said yourself that it may be hard to get her to agree to the added expense of an LCD monitor. If she might get mad at you for spending an extra $200 of an LCD, then imagine what's she's going to do when you blow $1200 worth of processor, motherboard, memory and video because water leaked onto it (or because they burned up due to overclocking) and there is no warranty because of this!
Believe me, I understand wanting to play and tweak and all that, but really.. what do you do with your computer that requires you to do all of this? There is a saying that a lot of people tend to forget these days, "Just because you CAN doesn't mean that you SHOULD"
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Interesting that several of you had such negative comments about water-cooling. That flies in the face of various items I've seen on Anandtech, Tomshardware, Maximumpc, and others. There seems to be pretty broad consensus on tech web sites that water *is* needed for an i7-920 to reach 3.8 or higher, especially if "over-volting". Interesting...
If you're going to add a full 1 Ghz to any CPU you're right; you will have to water cool it. Even then you'll run the risk of premature CPU failure. You have to understand that a 35% overclock is extreme and that most that do this don't run those machines at those levels in day to day use; they do it for test purposes, benchmarking or bragging rights.
Remember, I got mine to a 32% overclock on air and was still running within the temperature tolerences of the CPU, although somewhat higher than I was comfortable with on a day to day basis (about 65-68C under full load) and I spent a whopping $30 on an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro. Is another 3% worth the $400+ you'll spend on liquid cooling? Regardless of whether you go with liquid or air will you be willing and able to replace the CPU next year due to extreme OCing?
At a 20% OC I'm comfortably under 60C under full load on a hot day. That's because Intel has built their CPU's with OCing in mind for the enthusiast market but as you begin to exceed the built-in OC tolerances the heat issues increase exponentially and eventually the CPU will fail no matter what you're cooling it with due to exceeding internal voltage tolerences.
Also found your comments about the CRT vs. LCD thing intriguing. I have some pretty nice LCDs on machines at work, and I just don't see such a night-and-day difference. (Though I do often wonder during FSO frames if FrodoVision (tm) isn't partly the result of using a big LCD.) Well, I can always upgrade that part later, with a supplementary appropriation from the Binoland Minister Of Finance. Might be easier to get that approved by her as a separate, smaller request. ;)
As mentioned above, yes, I was using LCD's at work too and didn't see much difference between them and my CRT's at home, that is until I got one at home and started playing games on it. There is absolutely NO comparison in terms of picture clarity and sharpness. It seems a shame to put in a wicked video system and then waste it on a CRT.
Also be aware that the reason I pulled the second card out of my system was that in SLI mode I couldn't enable vsync. I was running 280 fps in AH but with an LCD monitor you NEED vsync or you get screen tearing which is very annoying. Maybe they've fixed that since it's been a year or so since I did it and maybe ATI never had this problem to begin with but I'd do some research on it before moving forward with Crossfire or SLI.
Obviously it's your money and your decision and you can do as you please. Just know that we've all been through most of this before and we really are just trying to help you allocate your budget for the most satisfying result possible.
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If you're going to add a full 1 Ghz to any CPU you're right; you will have to water cool it. Even then you'll run the risk of premature CPU failure. You have to understand that a 35% overclock is extreme and that most that do this don't run those machines at those levels in day to day use; they do it for test purposes, benchmarking or bragging rights.
Remember, I got mine to a 32% overclock on air and was still running within the temperature tolerences of the CPU, although somewhat higher than I was comfortable with on a day to day basis (about 65-68C under full load) and I spent a whopping $30 on an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro. Is another 3% worth the $400+ you'll spend on liquid cooling? Regardless of whether you go with liquid or air will you be willing and able to replace the CPU next year due to extreme OCing?
At a 20% OC I'm comfortably under 60C under full load on a hot day. That's because Intel has built their CPU's with OCing in mind for the enthusiast market but as you begin to exceed the built-in OC tolerances the heat issues increase exponentially and eventually the CPU will fail no matter what you're cooling it with due to exceeding internal voltage tolerences.
As mentioned above, yes, I was using LCD's at work too and didn't see much difference between them and my CRT's at home, that is until I got one at home and started playing games on it. There is absolutely NO comparison in terms of picture clarity and sharpness. It seems a shame to put in a wicked video system and then waste it on a CRT.
Also be aware that the reason I pulled the second card out of my system was that in SLI mode I couldn't enable vsync. I was running 280 fps in AH but with an LCD monitor you NEED vsync or you get screen tearing which is very annoying. Maybe they've fixed that since it's been a year or so since I did it and maybe ATI never had this problem to begin with but I'd do some research on it before moving forward with Crossfire or SLI.
Obviously it's your money and your decision and you can do as you please. Just know that we've all been through most of this before and we really are just trying to help you allocate your budget for the most satisfying result possible.
Excellent post Bald.
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Excellent post Bald.
And at a 20% upclock (Crush's fall back from peak) you can ash can the H2O...temps can be well contained within the published limits of the proc...on Air...check out Noctua's i7 cooler...I use one and idle stock 29C...
Water is a complete hassle to deal with...every time you want to break your box down to add/swap hardware it turns a trivial task into a non-trivial task...
On liquid it is only a matter of time before your system springs a leak...needless to say computers and water do not get along well together...
As Crush said...unless your pushing your system for 3DMark scores...day to day operation with mild up clocks can be handled completely on Air Alone...
Save yourself the trouble and hassle and find an air solution to your cooling needs...
And buy the LCD...
Oneway
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... It's not that we are against water cooling...
Im completely against water cooling... for any reason. Spending extra money to shorten the lifespan of your equipment just isnt smart. Ever. Even if you dont overclock your playing with fire.
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Im completely against water cooling... for any reason. Spending extra money to shorten the lifespan of your equipment just isnt smart. Ever. Even if you dont overclock your playing with fire.
Actually it's playing with water.
Paying 100 bucks extra to get a performance increase of 200-300 bucks more expensive cpu is smart if you know what you're doing. Not only that, the same watercooling rig can later be transferred to a new rig and ooze extra performance again. Kind of an upgrade of an upgrade. Watercooling can serve to extend the lifespan of your hardware (i.e. if you watercool and not overclock, keeping stress temperatures near ambient).
It's not a necessity that a watercooling system will ever leak one drop of coolant anywhere. Yes, it can happen and beginners usually learn the hard way. But it doesn't have to.
The anti-overclocking crowd is always worried about the lifespan of components. All of my computers (apples excluded) are overclocked. Yet they last way beyond their useful life and I end up dumping perfectly good outdated hardware to trash when I upgrade the boxes. In 4-5 years a component is not worth the plastic in the trashbag.
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Well I noticed that Bino hasn't been back in a few days. I'm guessing that he was waiting for us to give him all kinds of 'ooohs' and 'aaahs' over what he's planning to do and when that didn't happen, he just moved on.
I still stand by my post though. It's simple common courtesy. He has to get permission from the wife to purchase these components (he said himself the reason he's not yet upgrading the CRT is because the wife might not approve an extra $200). I have a feeling that she has no idea that his modifications will void warranties, otherwise she's have bigger problems with this whole deal than the price of an LCD monitor.
All I'm saying is that if I was in his shoes, and was given an $1800 budget, I could build a MUCH FASTER and reliable system without having to modify it like that (INCLUDING A NICE LCD).
Now if I got my kicks out of doing such modifications, it may be a different story... but only if it were my money (and mine alone) to play with.
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Actually it's playing with water...
How very clever of you. :rolleyes:
No matter how you think of it if you increase voltage to the point where you need water cooling then you are taking lifespan off your components. I usually upgrade every three to six months and components will easily last that long and yet I dont use water.
I also think your endorsement could cost a noob a lot of hard to come by cash. Way to go.
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Well I noticed that Bino hasn't been back in a few days. I'm guessing that he was waiting for us to give him all kinds of 'ooohs' and 'aaahs' over what he's planning to do and when that didn't happen, he just moved on.
I still stand by my post though. It's simple common courtesy. He has to get permission from the wife to purchase these components (he said himself the reason he's not yet upgrading the CRT is because the wife might not approve an extra $200). I have a feeling that she has no idea that his modifications will void warranties, otherwise she's have bigger problems with this whole deal than the price of an LCD monitor.
All I'm saying is that if I was in his shoes, and was given an $1800 budget, I could build a MUCH FASTER and reliable system without having to modify it like that (INCLUDING A NICE LCD).
Now if I got my kicks out of doing such modifications, it may be a different story... but only if it were my money (and mine alone) to play with.
Tigger, I find your attitude... puzzling. Thanks for your input, sir, but I think you and I are done. :salute
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Hrmmm well I find your wanting to water-cool yet stick with a CRT to be puzzling... but to each their own.
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Hrmmm well I find your wanting to water-cool yet stick with a CRT to be puzzling... but to each their own.
give your opinion or say what you have to say but ultimately is his choice. If he does right or wrong is really up to him.
semp
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How very clever of you. :rolleyes:
No matter how you think of it if you increase voltage to the point where you need water cooling then you are taking lifespan off your components. I usually upgrade every three to six months and components will easily last that long and yet I dont use water.
I also think your endorsement could cost a noob a lot of hard to come by cash. Way to go.
Who are you to say a 'noob' is not allowed to have an experiment with watercooling? What are you now, fun police? :D
I'm typing this on my 3rd watercooled rig and it has served me for two years without one glitch. I mean OMG how can this overvolted and near explosion thingy still be running?
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Are you a noob Ripley? :D Noobs would have to be complete geeks (I know some of us are) to have 'fun' experimenting with water cooling. I have a lot of tech noobs in my squad and one of them WAS running water cooling. The problem he ran into was the maintenance requirements since you MUST monitor water levels regularly. It seems the coolant disappears out of the system over time. As a man that has experienced the decay of fuel and cooling systems over time I know for a fact that the system MUST degrade overtime (even if it isnt used at all) and eventually it WILL become a non-viable system. Apparently that can happen a lot more quickly then I suspected and I find it shocking (though not surprising) that you would suggest this for any novice system builders.
Way to go. :aok
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It didn't sound to me like Bino was exactly a n00b or anything. I'm sure he can handle putting in a water cooling system if he wants to.
It did sound to me however that he might have gotten caught up in the techno-hype while researching and got a bit misdirected given his budget and what new stuff can do.
I'll ask you both one simple question: If you had a choice of liquid cooling with a CRT or air cooled with an LCD which way would you go? I bet I already know the answer.
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Bino...please, for the sake of us...get the LCD! You simply won't need water cooling...hell my Q9550 is at a 1ghz+ overclock on air...
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It didn't sound to me like Bino was exactly a n00b or anything. I'm sure he can handle putting in a water cooling system if he wants to.
I wouldnt assume it but it doesnt matter if he is worried about money the voiding of his warranties from the very beginning is like tossing money to the gutter.
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Well, what did you decide to do? Curious minds want to know.
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Are you a noob Ripley? :D Noobs would have to be complete geeks (I know some of us are) to have 'fun' experimenting with water cooling. I have a lot of tech noobs in my squad and one of them WAS running water cooling. The problem he ran into was the maintenance requirements since you MUST monitor water levels regularly. It seems the coolant disappears out of the system over time. As a man that has experienced the decay of fuel and cooling systems over time I know for a fact that the system MUST degrade overtime (even if it isnt used at all) and eventually it WILL become a non-viable system. Apparently that can happen a lot more quickly then I suspected and I find it shocking (though not surprising) that you would suggest this for any novice system builders.
Way to go. :aok
How do you think people switch from noob to 'experienced' status? What you're saying essentially is that nobody should try anything outside YOUR comfort zone. Way to go! :aok
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Well, what did you decide to do? Curious minds want to know.
No final decisions yet, BaldEagl. :salute
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Watercooling is a waste of time these days, use to be fun when CPUs were expensive and you gain a quite few more clocks than stock over air. But these days easier and faster improvement is to take the money from watercooling budget and just put towards a faster CPU and add a high end air cooler.
Plus why the crossfire, when you can just get a 5850 or 5870 far better option plus later down the track if you really need more perf just add a second one. For the moment a single 5870 is more performance,less hassel,less voltage and lower temp. Plus save a few bucks and get a 5850 instead. Best bang for buck at moment imho.
I have a 5870 and there isn't anything that it can't run maxed out smooth as silk. Complete overkill for AH.
<S>...-Gixer
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I've yet to see anything showing more than 10 - 15% gain running SLI over a good single card.
Plus on a new system with a good video card if you did get 20%, you won't see it anyway.
As any new system with a decent video card should be getting more than 75 fps with everything maxed out.
I don't know about you, but I don't see many monitors nowdays doing more than 75 mhz. So anything above that in fps your not going to see, as your FPS will be locked to your monitors refresh rate.
So is it really worth spending money on speed you'll never see?
I suspect you can get a really good air cooling for your CPU for 1/4 of what you'd spend on water.
Enough that you could certainly play with OC if that is what you want to do.
Take all the money saved and get yourself a kick butt large monitor.
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All the parts came in last week, and so I had a nice present on Father's Day:
case: Lian Li Pc-P50 "Armorsuit" mid-tower (air cooled)
mobo: ASUS P6X58D-E
psu: SeaSonic X750
cpu: Intel Core i7-930 2.8 GHz
fan: Zalman ZALMAN CNPS9900ALED (32 C. idle, 57 C. maxxed)
ram: Corsair XMS3 (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600
vpu: XFX HD-585X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5850 1GB
disk: 2 JBOD x Western Digital RE3 WD1002FBYS 1TB
sound: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme
os: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Running at 1600 x 1200 @ 85Hz vertical refresh, AH running with 512 textures and all the check boxes checked and all the sliders slid:
solid 85 FPS in furballs, so far. :aok
Thanks for the input, folks! :salute
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All the parts came in last week, and so I had a nice present on Father's Day:
case: Lian Li Pc-P50 "Armorsuit" mid-tower (air cooled)
mobo: ASUS P6X58D-E
psu: SeaSonic X750
cpu: Intel Core i7-930 2.8 GHz
fan: Zalman ZALMAN CNPS9900ALED (32 C. idle, 57 C. maxxed)
ram: Corsair XMS3 (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600
vpu: XFX HD-585X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5850 1GB
disk: 2 JBOD x Western Digital RE3 WD1002FBYS 1TB
sound: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme
os: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Running at 1600 x 1200 @ 85Hz vertical refresh, AH running with 512 textures and all the check boxes checked and all the sliders slid:
solid 85 FPS in furballs, so far. :aok
Thanks for the input, folks! :salute
You can go straight to 1024 textures and 4096 shadow textures on that box. 8k textures I'm not sure it might be too much for the 1Gb radeon.
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Ripley it should be fine...my 5770 could almost pull it with slight, slight studdering.
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say what you want..... but a good quality IT / Professional series CRT was absolutely an excellent choice of monitor being CRT type....
although the Best / Better ones cost near $500+ for a 19" to 22" even up to near $1K for even larger display, when 17" LCD monitors were costing prob less than $250.00......
the only plus I can see is the "heat" issue & the "required room needed" issue between the (2) types .......
LCD's have though, come a very long way in the past few years...... if you like the DVI lock on Frame Rate.... most LCD's have when staying direct digital signal......
YMMV......
wonder what Skuzzy prefers these days???
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What does YMMV mean? If you don't mind me asking.(Sorry if dumb question)
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What does YMMV mean? If you don't mind me asking.(Sorry if dumb question)
"Your mileage may vary"...
I'll just chime in here... he should easily be able to handle 4092 shadow textures. I have an inferior processor (E7300 C2D 2.7GHz overclocked to 3.0GHz), an inferior video card (ATI 5830 slightly overclocked), and less ram (4GB DDR3 1066) and I can handle it. 1920X1200, 1024 Textures (+hires), All sliders maxed, all eye candy on EXCEPT other planes' shadows. I stay pegged 99% of the time, even during FSO takeoffs, however if there is a lot of fog/smoke/fire and a lot of planes around, I might get a quick stutter accompanied with a FR drop to about 55 or so. Switching back down to 2048 shadow textures removes that completely, but isn't as pretty.
Nice system by the way!
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As you predicted, gents: the 1024 plane texture pack and 4096 shadow textures do not pose a problem for this rig. I'm a happy camper.
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Now have things clocked up a bit:
CPU from 2.80 GHz up to 3.358 GHz
RAM from DDR3 1066 up to DDR3 1600
Video up from 725 MHz / 1000 MHz up to 775 MHz / 1125 MHz
(see the CPUZ info link in my AH BBS signature)
This boosted my 3dMark06 score from about 18500 up to 21252.
Thanks again for all the feedback! :salute
EDIT:
Aces High is *beautiful* with all the eye-candy turned on! I never realized how much I was missing.