i agree 100%, and it's a nice case, i say go with it. best case (feature-wise) for the money that i could find as well.

8/6/2010 12:16:47 PM

Quote :

"^^except he's got 10'C to spare until 70, and 40'C to spare before the CPU starts throttling. "

I know the threshold is higher on the i7's, but personally, I'd rather be on the safe side and run a little bit cooler. There's a reason there's a threshold limit. But yeah, running a bit hotter tends to reduce the life of the CPU, but really isn't that much. I like to keep my OC very conservatively. If my PC blows up, I really don't want to spend $$$ to rebuild it until I make $$$ to where it's cheap for me to do it all the time.

Yeah, I agree on the case, pick out a new one. I have it on my older rig, love it, very well built, but I got mine for $50 with a power supply 4 years ago.

I picked up a "cheap" lian li steel case for my new build, really good quality and actually pretty light compared to the cooler master. I think I paid about $70 when it was on sale at newegg with free shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112239&cm_re=lian_li_case-_-11-112-239-_-Product

8/6/2010 12:31:26 PM

[Edited on August 6, 2010 at 12:44 PM. Reason : ]

8/6/2010 12:44:17 PM

Been breaking in my new machine for SC2:

GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
SAPPHIRE 100283L Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5
Patriot Viper 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s

Running pretty well so far.

Even got myself a new monitor:

ASUS VH242H Black 23.6" 5ms HDMI Full 1080P Widescreen LCD Monitor

8/6/2010 12:44:24 PM

I decided against buying a 460. I'm just going to wait until i have the budget to upgrade to an i7 from my Core 2 Quad.

I've able to run everything on High at 1920 by 1200. In truth I really can't tell much a difference between Ultra and High settings. Especially when i'm actually playing the game and not just trying to find differences.

8/6/2010 1:33:23 PM

I upgraded from a Q9300, and realistically could have just done with a new video card (was on a Radeon 2600 HD), but figured its been almost 3 years since i built that machine, it was time to upgrade to the newest platform (trying to convince myself in the future I can just buy a new processor or more memory, but that never actually happens )

8/6/2010 2:47:55 PM

Yeah as long as you have a Core 2 Quad you're not going to gain much in regard to gaming by upgrading to an i7. It's mainly about the video card.

What'd you do with the C2Q?

8/6/2010 2:54:11 PM

Sold it, it's still a great machine as you mentioned.

8/6/2010 3:06:06 PM

Hehe, I came from an e6600, it's a little more apparent to an i7. But those core2 quads, they still hold their own. My friend dumped 5870 in his q6600 machine and it plays pretty nice, much better than the e6600 when I had the 5870 in it.

8/6/2010 3:39:25 PM

So, during boot, prior to Windows, I see:

"Memory frequency for DDR3 1066 MHz"

But I thought I bought 1600 MHz stuff. I have also configured the memory to that speed in the bios, and confirmed that it saved properly by re-entering the bios on a second boot.

What am I misunderstanding?

Also is there a way to ensure that triple channel is working properly?

[Edited on August 10, 2010 at 12:29 AM. Reason : ]

8/10/2010 12:26:05 AM

http://www.filehippo.com/download_cpuz/

Download and run this, then post a screenshot of the memory tab.

8/10/2010 12:51:14 AM

^ Thanks. It says Triple.

And I restored factory defaults in the BIOS, then set the memory to 1600, and it stuck. I must have tweaked something else that didn't jive.

But given how little I know, does the rest of this look good? Am I missing any tweaks I should be taking advantage of?

Thx all



[Edited on August 10, 2010 at 1:25 AM. Reason : ]

8/10/2010 1:24:30 AM

yeah, change your memory timings from 11-11-11-29 to 9-9-9-24

8/10/2010 1:41:07 AM

wait, what ram did you end up going with wylock? thought you got lower CAS timings then that... Shit, my g.skill ram is 7-8-7-24 being pretty cheap ram.

8/10/2010 9:19:28 AM

^at what frequency?

typically the higher you go in frequency the higher the CAS, ideally you want high frequency and low CAS but you pay $texas for it.

He got Corsair XMS3 it's in the screenshot. His memory is CAS 9 it's in the model #. stepmaniadud is right the timings should be 9-9-9-24-2T, set the frequency to 1600 and make sure the voltage is set to 1.65V. If you have it on Auto these settings should be programmed in the SPD.

Settings typically don't stick if there isn't enough voltage to meet the timings/frequency then it drops the speed or timings. So make sure the voltage is right.

[Edited on August 10, 2010 at 10:56 AM. Reason : .]

8/10/2010 10:55:06 AM

^ Set to 9-9-9-24-2T, and the BIOS would not post. Fans turned on and that's it.

Reset CMOS and it starts again. Whew. You sure about that timing?

Update: tried again for the heck of it and the settings held, and everything started up. Strange. Were you referring to the CPU voltage being at 1.65? Right now it's at 1.27 and I don't think I can go anywhere near 1.65 unless I get some third party cooling going on. My average idle is 53 C.

[Edited on August 10, 2010 at 6:22 PM. Reason : ]

8/10/2010 6:15:28 PM

no i was referring to your VDIMM the voltage for your memory.

it's listed IN YOUR MEMORY'S SPD.... look at your screenshot of CPU-Z, bottom middle image at the bottom right under your timings table... it shows what it "should" set automatically, but like i said if the default VDIMM for your motherboard is set too low it will not (can not) post the SPD settings like it's set to.

this issue has dated back to DDR2 and people just don't seem to grasp it, the JEDEC standard for DDR3 is 1.5V DIMM that usually suffices up to 667Mhz (DDR3-1333), but when you go over that you need higher voltage to get the speed up to 800Mhz (DDR3-1600) to lower the timings. i think it has to do with manufacturer's capabilities. that is ONE of the many reasons I like G.Skill memory, they can "typically" meet higher frequencies and low timings all WITHOUT increasing voltage too far from JEDEC spec allowing for the greatest compatibility (plug & play) without having to mess with the BIOS to custom set the memory.

this is why you should never read reviews for memory modules, people don't understand this concept and they complain about DOA memory or compatibility issues when it's a simple voltage increase that's needed.

perfect example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231225 (1.5-1.6V = within JEDEC)
vs.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145222 (1.65V = not within JEDEC)

higher grade memory can hit lower timings at speed with lower voltages:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231335 (cas 7 @ 1.5V)

all memory is not created equal as some believe.

[Edited on August 10, 2010 at 6:41 PM. Reason : .]

8/10/2010 6:28:00 PM

Thx for the explanation. Looks like my voltage was indeed at 1.65. I have no idea why it didn't start on the first attempt, but it's working now.

8/10/2010 6:43:01 PM

ok good. i've had to set memory manually many times... seems 'most' budget motherboards will set the SPD timings just fine but won't automatically adjust the voltage so it drops down in speed

[Edited on August 10, 2010 at 6:45 PM. Reason : .]

8/10/2010 6:44:04 PM

prospero, the g.skill 1600, the one you linked. Well I call it cheap since it's a good value. Shit I paid I donno 300+ for my 4gb 4 years ago?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231335

8/11/2010 12:32:19 AM

srsly, I remember when Corsair Dominator DDR2 came out it was like $300 for 4GB

[Edited on August 11, 2010 at 12:39 AM. Reason : .]

8/11/2010 12:39:06 AM

exactly what I got.

8/11/2010 12:59:51 AM

Ok, now my turn to get unscrewed. Parts came in today. Everything comes up, fans, leds, etc. on all parts including gfx card. I even hear a slight spin on the drive. The only thing that doesn't come up is a display.

The monitor just sits there with it's asleep led on. I'm toying with the idea of the monitor simply looking on the wrong input, but I believe I've toggle that. I may have to break down and swap a known-to-be-working gfx card out. In the meantime... any ideas.

8/11/2010 9:08:09 PM

^Update. I tried the good video card in both pci-e slots. No go, so I can't narrow it down to the video card.

8/11/2010 9:43:12 PM

Wanted to get in before the triple post. I'll answer the questions I know are coming:


Did all the standard stuff. Unplugged everything except:
1) 24 pin power connector
2) 8 pin power connector for CPU
3) One stick of memory
4) GFX card, with two 6 pin power connectors.
5) Power button connector
6) CPU fan.
Also, the mobo is installed on the standout pins. Not directly to the case itself.

All 4 led lights are on on the mobo (GA-P55A-UD3).

Faulty mobo? Should I attempt to reseat the CPU?

[Edited on August 11, 2010 at 10:24 PM. Reason : -]

8/11/2010 10:23:11 PM

I finally got it to post. After leaving it a few hours I came back. Turns out it won't post with the memory in the two blue memory slots. If I move them to the white slots it posts fine.

8/12/2010 12:23:50 AM

yea, always read the manual when it comes to which slots to use for memory, it varies based on manufacturers, some like DIMM1&2, some DIMM1&3, some 2&4, etc.

here's what the manual says:
Channel 0: DDR3_1, DDR3_2
Channel 1: DDR3_3, DDR3_4

DDR3_2 - blue closest to CPU
DDR3_1 - white
DDR3_4 - blue
DDR3_3 - white

So it makes sense. To run in dual channel, when you only have 2 modules the manual says DDR3_1 & 3, so that means you should fill up the white slots first. See page 16.

[Edited on August 12, 2010 at 12:57 AM. Reason : ,]

8/12/2010 12:51:38 AM

wow, must of felt like a n00b when that happened huh jb?

8/12/2010 9:11:12 AM

^Yup. I was working under the assumption that the problem was something more serious, and I've never had a mobo that required the memory to be in certain slots (other than what's required for dual channel). So when it came to putting in the memory I was all... "Yeah, I got this."

Posting from the new rig now.

[Edited on August 12, 2010 at 9:47 AM. Reason : -]

8/12/2010 9:46:58 AM

http://www.logicbuy.com/deals/Belkin-N1-F5D8232-4-Vision-Wireless-N-Router/2855.aspx

That a good router?

-k nevermind. it's old and not that great. alright deal though.

[Edited on August 13, 2010 at 4:18 PM. Reason : s]

8/13/2010 4:16:43 PM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167023

I want to put in this SSD drive as my new main drive. Currently im running windows xp, plan on putting windows 7 pro on it, and installing a few games on the drive. The rest will be on my secondary disk drive.

Have SSDs rewrite capacity pretty much a thing of the past now?

8/16/2010 2:25:25 PM

Considering their mean time failure is like 1/2 million hours, I think you are in the clear. :p

8/16/2010 2:54:06 PM

I need 4gigs of PC2-6400. Any recommendations?

8/18/2010 8:31:34 PM

I like G.Skill, get what you can afford, the lower timings & voltage the better.

[Edited on August 18, 2010 at 11:18 PM. Reason : v]

8/18/2010 11:18:35 PM

+1 for G.Skill

8/18/2010 11:27:54 PM

I like my g.skill. good performance, great price, awesome quality.

8/19/2010 12:58:47 AM

Sounds good. On my original machine I built I had and liked it. Didn't know if there were any deals you guys had in mind. Looking on ebay/amazon/newegg

8/19/2010 8:11:32 AM

I think I've got a problem with my memory. Here's the history:

1) One day I got a lot of errors (popups about failed dlls) coming back after a windows update. I rebooted and they went away.
2) After another windows update I got more errors. This time no 32 bit apps work, just 64. The popups cited wow64cpu.dll. I had to do a repair, which Windows 7 calls an "upgrade"

So I was fine. I'm having problems extracting rar files, the archives are spread over many files and I get random CRCs on the various files, sometimes one of the first few files of the archive, sometimes one of the middle or later files. I had this issue before the windows repair, but I chalked it up to a genuinely bad rar file. This is the second archive file it's CRC'ed, and I know it's good because it extracts on other machines.

I've run memtest, which has gone through several passes and is clean so far (it will run overnight). I've chkdsk'ed my hard drive and it came back ok.

Any thoughts?

Also, it's just larger archives, like 5gig, that it has problems with. Trying to get some VMs unpacked and it's driving me nuts.

-Should also mention that before the repair it BSOD'ed when I went to safely eject a USB hard drive.

Never had so many issues with a computer before.

[Edited on August 26, 2010 at 9:16 PM. Reason : -]

8/26/2010 9:10:26 PM

Download Prime95 and run the Blend test, it should error relatively quickly if the memory is at fault.

8/26/2010 9:44:16 PM

Thanks. I'll do that.

By way of update, I was able to get around the issue with rar files by adjusting my memory timings from 9 9 9 24 to 8 8 8 21.

Still leery though.

8/26/2010 9:50:51 PM

timings and voltage, typically the culprit.

as listed earlier with Wyloch's machine, load up CPU-Z, check the SPD (recommended settings per manufacturer) and make sure your motherboard set the timings and voltages right

8/26/2010 10:47:25 PM

Live and learn.

^, ^^^ Thanks for your help.

8/27/2010 7:16:15 AM

So bored in between classes, I read this article about building a $2k CS5 system from extremetech. Holy shit, it's probably the worst tech article that I've read in a long while, not including some of the BS that dailytech pumps out.

They went with an $800 nvidia quadro fx 3800, amd 6-core 1090t, 4gb ddr3 1600, 250gb hdd, and a shitty case with an ok antec psu.

Wow... what a lackluster $2000 money spent. Why would you budget an $800 video card for such a low performing system? If you are building a workstation for content creation, spread the money out or invest more money to utilize that expensive card properly. 4GB of ram and a 250GB hdd is so pathetic, I hardly took this article seriously; specially for being an extremetech article.

With ram and hdd prices being uber cheap these days, 6-12GB and a pair of 2TB along side with an OC i7 920/930 system with a 470/480 fermi system is a much smarter move and probably cheaper. Anyone that's serious about content creation, ps or premier, would invest double that easily.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2367945,00.asp

8/30/2010 12:05:18 PM

I would actually use 2TBs for storage, but for primary drive I'd strongly consider an SSD for scratchdisk for any content creation, along with a min. of 8GB for RAM. The Phenom X6 isn't that bad and would save quite a bit of money over a i7 setup and faster than i5. I honestly don't have any issue with a workstation card. I'd also throw in a Blu-ray burner as well.

8/30/2010 1:30:03 PM

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=18443367

~$2200 AR... that's what I'd do. save $400-$500 if you go with a GeForce 460/470 instead of the Quattro 4000

you kinda have to lose respect for anyone who suggests a system for content creation when they have no concept of why a fast hard drive is needed or proper quantity of memory.

probably should go with Intel on CPU though for maximum performance with Adobe suite and how they utilized MP/HT

[Edited on August 30, 2010 at 1:58 PM. Reason : .]

8/30/2010 1:45:20 PM

I agree with the SSD part, but for a 2k content creation workstation, spending 800 on a card is a bit over the top, save that money and put it towards more ram or more storage, HD vids eats up disk space very quickly and personally would run a raid 5 for storage. I'd also go with a 470/480 setup to save money but you can get the gpu accelerator engine working on the non-fx card fairly easily of what I've told on fermi based chips.

And yes, I was flabbergasted with the lack of power on this system, I mean 4gb is what I had on my old 4+yr old e6600 machine and that's slow on HD video editing. I'm not even sure that their motherboard even supports usb 3.0.

If I was doing this as a budget system for video editing, I might do a fast 1TB black WD drive as the main apps and master boot disk, 60GB ssd as the scratch disk, and 3 2TB drives in raid 5 for storage. Right there we are already talking 500-600. Go with an i7-930 OC with a 470 SC and maybe spend 300 on a decent water cooling rig and take them up a notch; add 12-24gb of 1600 ram and it's set. Still be around the 2200-2400 mark or so, but you got a machine that should last a while.

[Edited on August 31, 2010 at 12:43 AM. Reason : ]

8/31/2010 12:42:56 AM

Ok I admit I still have an e6600 and a 8800GTX. The system still runs great but I got it in 2006 and would like a little more power. I'm seeing if a friend will buy the old components (cpu/ram/gpu) to fund my new build.

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=18446407

Any thoughts?

-ok probably need a different motherboard. Any ram suggestions for the 930? I wouldn't mind getting a nice overclock with it.

[Edited on August 31, 2010 at 2:02 PM. Reason : s]

8/31/2010 1:58:52 PM

Wait till Intel finalizes the i7 950 at $300 in the next week. Its already $308 at amazon and bestbuy.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9182766/Intel_ups_speed_with_two_new_desktop_chips?source=CTWNLE_nlt_dailyam_2010-08-31 From the article

Quote :

"The company also cut the price of a high-end Core i7-950 processor by 48% to $294. "

Also get the GTX465 with 3 game coupons for $220. Just Cause 2 from newegg combo. Also, Evga has a deal that metro 2033 and maffia 2 are free with any gtx465 and above. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.456535

8/31/2010 2:08:49 PM

^i agree, except the 460 is much better than the GF100 based 465

looks good, i'd recommend either of these 2 for your mobo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128423
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131641

[Edited on August 31, 2010 at 2:24 PM. Reason : .]

8/31/2010 2:16:47 PM

Yeah 460 is better. How's this ram: should i go better?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231225

So looking good. So wait on i7 950? Next week? Might do it.

update: newegg has updated the 950 to $299.

[Edited on August 31, 2010 at 2:56 PM. Reason : s]

8/31/2010 2:33:25 PM