My new rig

[guncrasher]

This one does everything i want it to and then some. I think it will stay as is for quite a while. Hell I even turned off the over clock to run at stock speed as it is plenty. Then if I get in the mood to mod ill just click a few buttons 

I bet 5 bucks that within a month you will get the itching to change something that doesnt need changing.  or just take everything apart to redo your wiring.  once you build your first one, you are serously messed up as you will always want to "improve it"  .  it's like a drug, I think i need help  .

semp

[TequilaChaser]

I like the setup, it is extremely fast. A full boot up from the time i hit the power button until windows is fully loaded and ready to use is 24 seconds. 10 of those seconds are just BIOS screen and POST.
As far as helping with game play I really cant tell you as this system is a huge overall improvement over my other computer so I dont know if the SSD alone would really make that big of a difference. I would have to assume it (SSD) would not make a noticeable difference in AH. I think the GPU and CPU are by far the more important components.

SilverZ,
did you update the firmware from 001 or 002  to the recently released 009 version for your M4 series SSD ?

I upgraded mine to 009 and my seq read shot up to around 525 ~ 550 MB/s Seq. Read and my Seq. Write is hovering around 290 MB/s now.............. before the firmware update I was almost right inline with the default specs of my M4 128 SSD at 415 MB/s Seq. Read & 175 MB/s Seq. write

my i7-2600k system boots so fast from the time the monitor power light turns green the next thing you see is the Win 7 login/password screen........  I had to go in to my bios and add a 10 second pause, just so I could see what was loading/initializing ........ so I am loading at 10 secs now

AH, MS Office, etc  load instantly............  clicking on logging into an arena in AH is like 2 blinks of an eyelid and I am there

I recommend you update your SSD firmware to 009  * BE CAREFUL AND FOLLOW THE firmware Instructions THOROUGHLY !!! * ( and also do a complete back up & disc image before attempting to upgrade firmware for extra measure of recovery )

Crucial SSD Firmware update link:   http://www.crucial.com/support/firmware.aspx

hope this helps................ nice build so far


TC

[SilverZ06]

SilverZ,
did you update the firmware from 001 or 002  to the recently released 009 version for your M4 series SSD ?

I upgraded mine to 009 and my seq read shot up to around 525 ~ 550 MB/s Seq. Read and my Seq. Write is hovering around 290 MB/s now.............. before the firmware update I was almost right inline with the default specs of my M4 128 SSD at 415 MB/s Seq. Read & 175 MB/s Seq. write

my i7-2600k system boots so fast from the time the monitor power light turns green the next thing you see is the Win 7 login/password screen........  I had to go in to my bios and add a 10 second pause, just so I could see what was loading/initializing ........ so I am loading at 10 secs now

AH, MS Office, etc  load instantly............  clicking on logging into an arena in AH is like 2 blinks of an eyelid and I am there

I recommend you update your SSD firmware to 009  * BE CAREFUL AND FOLLOW THE firmware Instructions THOROUGHLY !!! * ( and also do a complete back up & disc image before attempting to upgrade firmware for extra measure of recovery )

Crucial SSD Firmware update link:   http://www.crucial.com/support/firmware.aspx

hope this helps................ nice build so far


TC

I just did this update and it actually seemed to slow the boot time down. now i can see the full windows initial starting screen where as before it would boot before finishing that screen.

[SilverZ06]

My passmark performance test results:
PassMark(TM) PerformanceTest 7.0 Evaluation Version (http://www.passmark.com)
Results generated on:  Sunday, September 11, 2011


Benchmark Results

Test Name: This Computer
CPU - Integer Math: 3079.1
CPU - Floating Point Math: 3835.3
CPU - Find Prime Numbers: 1764.9
CPU - SSE: 30.5
CPU - Compression: 10173.7
CPU - Encryption: 26.1
CPU - Physics: 506.6
CPU - String Sorting: 5816.7
Graphics 2D - Solid Vectors: 1.8
Graphics 2D - Transparent Vectors: 2.1
Graphics 2D - Complex Vectors: 182.5
Graphics 2D - Fonts and Text: 336.7
Graphics 2D - Windows Interface: 125.9
Graphics 2D - Image Filters: 520.4
Graphics 2D - Image Rendering: 879.4
Graphics 3D - Simple: 5239.7
Graphics 3D - Medium: 1187.7
Graphics 3D - Complex: 118.9
Graphics 3D - DirectX 10: 65.0
Memory - Allocate Small Block: 8158.0
Memory - Read Cached: 3420.7
Memory - Read Uncached: 3259.0
Memory - Write: 3189.7
Memory - Large RAM: 4792.3
Disk - Sequential Read: 200.2
Disk - Sequential Write: 101.8
Disk - Random Seek + RW: 43.7
CD - Read: 1.6
CPU Mark: 8895.8
2D Graphics Mark: 543.6
Memory Mark: 2287.9
Disk Mark: 1250.5
CD Mark: 191.1
3D Graphics Mark: 3663.5
PassMark Rating: 2862.9

System information: This Computer
CPU Manufacturer: GenuineIntel
Number of CPU: 1
Cores per CPU: 4
CPU Type: Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.30GHz
CPU Speed: 3293.2 MHz
Cache size: 256KB
O/S: Windows 7 (64-bit)
Total RAM: 8174.7 MB.
Available RAM: 7233.0 MB.
Video settings: 1920x1080x32
Video driver:
 DESCRIPTION: AMD Radeon HD 6850
 MANUFACTURER: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
 BIOS: 113-695CDD80-113-C2050200-100
 DATE: 7-28-2011
Drive Letter: C
Total Disk Space: 59.5 GBytes
Cluster Size: 4.0 KBytes
File system: NTFS

[Flifast]

Nice
2862

[Pigslilspaz]

Very nice, Built a sandy bridge i5 machine for my little brother before he left to go play football for the beavers. I myself am waiting for the 460 se 1gb's to come back in stock and then adding a 2nd and another monitor. 

[TequilaChaser]

I just did this update and it actually seemed to slow the boot time down. now i can see the full windows initial starting screen where as before it would boot before finishing that screen.

ouch!  that doesn't sound right at all.......... all reviews I have seen, people are reporting 20% to 30% performance boost

did you follow the instructions step by step?

burn firmware to CD
switch HD/SSD setting in BIOS from AHCI to IDE
insert CD with firmware on it, and  reboot PC letting the CD Load the firmware
then follow onscreen instructions
update firmware
shutdown PC once firmware updates
restart PC, enter BIOS and re set HD/SSD SATA ports back to AHCI save BIOS settings
reboot pc to Windows

all should be faster if you followed the firmware installation instructions correctly,
also make sure you enabled the SATA port to be recognized as 6.0 GB/s SATA III ......... instead of being set to AUTO  or to 3.0 GB/s SATA II


hope this helps


TC

[SilverZ06]

I forgot to switch my ports back to ahci, now my seq read doubled to over 400mB/s but write is still around 100mB/s. It is now booting quite fast. I ran another passmark benchmark test and OC'd to 4.6
Test Name   This Computer
CPU - Integer Math   3244.5
CPU - Floating Point Math   4057.9
CPU - Find Prime Numbers   1869.5
CPU - SSE   32.2
CPU - Compression   10768.1
CPU - Encryption   27.6
CPU - Physics   524.4
CPU - String Sorting   5927.2
Graphics 2D - Solid Vectors   2.5
Graphics 2D - Transparent Vectors   2.5
Graphics 2D - Complex Vectors   200.2
Graphics 2D - Fonts and Text   374.4
Graphics 2D - Windows Interface   147.9
Graphics 2D - Image Filters   554.5
Graphics 2D - Image Rendering   943.8
Graphics 3D - Simple   5231.3
Graphics 3D - Medium   1165.6
Graphics 3D - Complex   123.7
Graphics 3D - DirectX 10   67.3
Memory - Allocate Small Block   8511.3
Memory - Read Cached   3605.3
Memory - Read Uncached   3402.1
Memory - Write   3324.4
Memory - Large RAM   7944.4
Disk - Sequential Read   431.2
Disk - Sequential Write   105.4
Disk - Random Seek + RW   71.0
CD - Read   2.0
CPU Mark   9348.9
2D Graphics Mark   620.6
Memory Mark   3137.0
Disk Mark   2197.6
CD Mark   248.7
3D Graphics Mark   3703.2
PassMark Rating   3547.6 Huge improvement

Thanks again for your help TC, you've been great through out this entire build.

[M0nkey_Man]

I bet 5 bucks that within a month you will get the itching to change something that doesnt need changing.  or just take everything apart to redo your wiring.  once you build your first one, you are serously messed up as you will always want to "improve it"  .  it's like a drug, I think i need help  .

semp

i know, its terrible . its Kinda like owning a gun, you keep wanting to take it apart and put it back together

[BB Gun]

BTW - how do you like that blackhawk case?  It looks to be the perfect blend of features and price, and is what I am looking at using for my next build.

BB

[SilverZ06]

I love it. nice features, a decent price, and it looks great.. The air cooling is fantastic but it has ports in the rear if you go the water cooling route. it is a pretty big case though so make sure you have somewhere to put it.