New Gaming Rig

[Matt34]

I've been long overdue for one, been using my Dell XPS M1210 and the graphics card finally gave up the ghost.

Spec:
Asus motherboard
AMD Phenom II 3.2gig Quad core
Geforce GT250 GPU
8 gigs DDR3 1333 ram
150gig WD Velociraptor 10,000rpm boot drive
1terabyte WD 7200rpm storage drive
OCZ Stealth Stream 700w power supply
Thermaltake Armor VH6000 case
Logitech G9 mouse
Logitech G15 keyboard





Pull out motherboard tray!










More of the cable mess, I'll get a pic tomorrow of it all cleaned up and zip tied.


First boot

[Matt34]

All buttoned up


No overclocking, the games I play really don't call for it.

[audiobliss]

Looks very nice! I'm sure you'll be happy with it. Running A variant of W7 64-bit?

[Matt34]

Looks very nice! I'm sure you'll be happy with it. Running A variant of W7 64-bit?

I will as soon as I can find my disk!! Just my luck though, computer goes together rather easily and now I can't find the disk for the life of me.

[Sherardp]

Nice rig, I would overclock the heck out of that quadcore. I have a 965BE C3 chip and got it stable at 3.9 just off multi and vcore change. I also have a Phenom 920 and another 965BE I'm trying to decide what to do with. I run 4GB Kingston ram as I don't have need for much more. I run GTX 275 and it is awesome.

In regards to your build, the only thing I would suggest is use SSD for boot drive and see the increase performance over the raptor. I have an Intel SSD in route, should be here tomorrow. Here is my rig

[Matt34]

I really wanted to get a SSD drive but I had to keep it under budget or face the wrath from the one that must be obeyed.;)

[BIZILL]

sherard, looks like we share some of the same tastes...the antec 1200:

[dorokusai]

That's a nice setup Matt...when is the cool heatsink coming and I see dual Grphx boards in your future, why the hell not.

[Sherardp]

Wow Bizill looks killa bro. I love the Antec 1200. I normally do run full size cases but in this recent build I went with the Antec 902. Still have yet to try water cooling, therefore I'm using the Xigmatek Dark Knight with dual fans (120mm x2 in push/pull )config.

I've changed so much in the past 3-4 months with this recent build I have a few spare parts on hand. So I'm going to purchase a mobo, PS, DVD rom, Ram and put together another rig here next week to replace my daughter's old rig. I bought a Antec 300 last week for 50 bucks NIB so it will be a pretty good build. I'll probably let her run the Phenom II 920 X4, heck she's only 9 so there's only so much power you need to play barbie dress up games.

[BIZILL]

hey matt, do you feel the 700 watts is ample power? i'm barely scootin' by with my 1000.

[BIZILL]

Wow Bizill looks killa bro. I love the Antec 1200. I normally do run full size cases but in this recent build I went with the Antec 902.

I've changed so much in the past 3-4 months with this recent build I have a few spare parts on hand. So I'm going to purchase a mobo, PS, DVD rom, Ram and put together another rig here next week to replace my daughter's old rig. I bought a Antec 300 last week for 50 bucks NIB so it will be a pretty good build. I'll probably let her run the Phenom II 920 X4, heck she's only 9 so there's only so much power you need to play barbie dress up games.

BHTLT: bedroom home theater laptop for her.:D

[Sherardp]

Also Matt I like your case bro. Mobo tray is very convenient. When mounting my cooler, talk about time consuming. Again nice build, and perhaps you can go SSD in the future.

[Sherardp]

hey matt, do you feel the 700 watts is ample power? i'm barely scootin' by with my 1000.

700 is plenty for what he has going on. I run a TP650 in my rig and even overclocking it is sufficient. Using the power supply calculator I'm only using 572 watts to include my overclock, etc.

[BIZILL]

ahh, yes. but the upgrade bug doth bite.

[Sherardp]

ahh, yes. but the upgrade bug doth bite.

True indeed bro. What are the specs on your pc? Very nice rig to both of you guys. Also if you guys want something better than onboard sound check out Asus Xonar cards, they sound freaking awesome. I picked one up about two months ago.

[ryanjoachim]

I'm curious as to why you didn't go with an i7 processor? Even the lower end is a match for AMD's Phenom line, and that gives you the easy upgrade option for the future.

Just curious. Otherwise, nice rig! Upgrade to an SSD in the future and that rig should last you for years to come!

[Sherardp]

I'm curious as to why you didn't go with an i7 processor? Even the lower end is a match for AMD's Phenom line, and that gives you the easy upgrade option for the future.

Just curious. Otherwise, nice rig! Upgrade to an SSD in the future and that rig should last you for years to come!

I like AMD due to allot of bang for buck with their processors. Easy to overclock also. Intel is good stuff, but the prices are somewhat higher.

[Matt34]

700 is plenty for what he has going on. I run a TP650 in my rig and even overclocking it is sufficient. Using the power supply calculator I'm only using 572 watts to include my overclock, etc.

Have a link to this power supply calculator?

I'm curious as to why you didn't go with an i7 processor? Even the lower end is a match for AMD's Phenom line, and that gives you the easy upgrade option for the future.

Just curious. Otherwise, nice rig! Upgrade to an SSD in the future and that rig should last you for years to come!

I thought about it and at first was going to go with Intel but like Sherardp said the AMD offered more for the buck. I had a strict budget going into this (hey, I have audio purchases to make;)) so the AMD did it for me this time.

I like AMD due to allot of bang for buck with their processors. Easy to overclock also. Intel is good stuff, but the prices are somewhat higher.

[bigaudiofanatic]

Looks good I will be building a new one soon probably will be a media/gaming pc. Will have 3 boot systems ubuntu, Hackintosh snow leopard and win 7. The linux for class the mac for music and the love of mac and win 7 to game with.

[concealer404]

Nice case... i've used that case a few times in the past, love it.

[bigaudiofanatic]

Have a link to this power supply calculator?



I thought about it and at first was going to go with Intel but like Sherardp said the AMD offered more for the buck. I had a strict budget going into this (hey, I have audio purchases to make;)) so the AMD did it for me this time.

I agree with getting the amd I have been with them for years and cheaper speed and easier to overclock. That being said because I am going to be doing hackintosh I will pretty much have to go with intel. But I will saw that i7 is overkill for pretty much anything even gamers want to do.

[concealer404]

It's not REALLY about the watts, much like in audio.

In power supplies, you're really just looking at how many amps you have on the +12v rail(s).

I have a "500w" OCZ power supply sitting around here somewhere that would probably run that setup without a hitch, even after overclocking.

[Shizelbs]

Looking good

[Lowell_M]

Looks great! Now get a bigger CPU cooler and OC the hell out of that Phenom! I've got my quad core overclocked from 2.6mhz to 3.2mhz with a little room to push it, but my benchmark scores went up 20%. It's a screamer for video editing.

[Lowell_M]

Oh yea... I don't know how important disc access time is for gaming, but if you can swing 4 hard drives for RAID 10, the improvement in disc access time is amazing.

[MacLeod]

Here is the link for the PSU calculator. Youll be surprised at how small a PSU youll actually need.

Nice rig there. The GTS250 is a great card especially for the price. Itll handle any game at 1680x1050 resolution with high graphics. If youre going to be using a monitor bigger than a 22" incher though, youll need to upgrade or run the games at reduced settings.

You should play with overclocking that CPU. Thats a Black Edition processor which means you just have to bump up the multiplyer to get more speed and you should be able to get that thing up to 3.5 without any voltage increase which is free speed. Itll also give you more FPS in your games.

Download Rivatuner and try overclocking that 250 as well. By overclocking the CPU and GPU you can get around a 10% bump in framerates.

[BIZILL]

True indeed bro. What are the specs on your pc? Very nice rig to both of you guys. Also if you guys want something better than onboard sound check out Asus Xonar cards, they sound freaking awesome. I picked one up about two months ago.

built december '08
antec 1200
i-7 oc'd to 3.6 stable (can go higher, but haven't fine-tuned it and i pretty much just cruise the net)
swiftech gtz watercooling with dual radiator
ocz freeze thermal paste
evga classified x58 mobo
6gb ddr3 corsair dominators 1600
ati radeon 4780x2 (single card, not crossfire, not watercooled)
antec 1000 watt psu
lg bluray burner (fugg them blank media prices, even a year later!)
2 1tb western digital caviar blacks, no ssd of yet
hanns g 28" 1920x1200 resolution
4 12" blacklight cold cathodes
yada, yada, yada...

too bad i built it to play pc games and never do so. i was playing wow rotlk at full 1920x1200 resolution with zero issues at all. but i don't think that game is very graphics-intensive.

i'm just happy i build big back then as normally computers built one day are obsolete in a month or two. only down side is it's loud with all the fans and it's quite the space heater. thus i don't overclock it over 4ghz. man, doing any video editing in high def avchd would be rediculous with anything less.

[bigaudiofanatic]

Why would you dump that much money into an i7 when all you pretty much do is surf the web?

[shadowofnight]

Why would you dump that much money into an i7 when all you pretty much do is surf the web?

Pretty much for all the same reasons people buy supercars all the time here in the states when the speed limit is 70mph. It gets from zero to 70 faster then anything else with ease, and when you want to open her up ( Say you see a new killer game coming out in a few weeks ) you can play it with with all the eye candy turned on and not be limited whatsoever.

I have only played one game since building my i7 , but it sure plays it sweet.

[dorokusai]

I'm really liking eVGA products.