Whore Your RIG! (56K lick my...)

[MinisterofDOOM]

I'm looking at picking up something in the Corei7, 6+ GB RAM, Radeon HD3600/GeForce 9600 range in a couple of weeks. When I get it I'll post up.

[YuNg1's_240sx]

i wouldnt cheap out on the graphics like that...you can get this http://www.newegg.com/Product/...30325 , and still have better graphic power.or this if you want to get ATI http://www.newegg.com/Product/...50337 . -Arash

[audtatious]

Depends on what you are looking for. I have the 9600 GSO simply for dual-monitor support and it does fine. Then again, I don't game.

[s0m3th1ngAZ]

I recommend the ati 4770...awesome card for the money . I would have gotten it but the place I went to get my components had sold out...oh wel, i'm happy with my 4870

[MinisterofDOOM]

I can always upgrade the GPU later. Right now I just need a system with modern compatibilities so I can actually upgrade it. I have a budget and would rather cheap out on graphics now in exchange for a better CPU. My current machine has a wimpy little 2600 which still manages new games. I don't see any reason to be worried about a 3650 letting me down.

[PoorManQ45]

4870 is where it's at.

The 512MB card goes onsale for ~$105.The 1GB for ~$135

[Hoffman5982]

I payed 90 bucks for a refurbished XFX 9800gtx+.It runs games great.they might still have it at tigerdirect

[MinisterofDOOM]

I'm sure that's what I'll end up doing eventually. But I want to make sure my proc is good for a few years at least (as I did with my A64), so I'm willing to shift cost from graphics temporarily.

I'm still trying to decide between ATI and Nvidia, though. I LOVE my 2600...it's a really good budget card...runs Fallout 3 nicely. But Nvidia has physx. So...blah.

[PoorManQ45]

If you play games with physx definately go Nvidia. This will allow you to lighten the processor load.

I personally am running an AMD 5400 OC'd to 3.2Ghz. I've had that setup for a couple years and it runs just fine. It is processor limited in games, but that occurs at ~200FPS

[Looneybomber]

4870 is where it's at.

The 512MB card goes onsale for ~$105.The 1GB for ~$135

The only bad thing about the 1GB 4870 is it's cooling fan is noisey! That thing dominates all the other noise producers (fridge excluded, but that can be turned off while watching movies) in my room. Without it, my computer and and amps are whisper quiet. The next step is going with a Thermalright GPU cooler and quiet 92mm fan.

[s0m3th1ngAZ]

One other slightly odd bug with the 4870 is the instability of the memory clock at anything above 900 MHZ. Even cards shipped with clocks set above this have screen flickering. I've read that some drivers coming out will be fixing this...but just thought you should know (And wish I would have known otherwise I would have went with a similar nvidia option.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Posting now from my new rig.

Core i7 920 2.66 ghz9GB DDR3GeForce GTX260 (960MB)

[pflicht]

Just got an upgrade... hehe!

AMD Phenom II 550BE X2 unlocked to Quad core and running @ 4Ghz hehenot bad considering the Quad version running i think at 3.1Ghz runs about $245... hmmm

[MinisterofDOOM]

The Phenom is definitely a hell of a chip for the price. You can get them cheaper than the Core 2, which they're superior to. I considered going Phenom II x4 this time around, but decided that I'd rather go all-out and get more life out of my system. This is my first non-AMD system in a long, long time.

[Looneybomber]

Just got an upgrade... hehe!

AMD Phenom II 550BE X2 unlocked to Quad core and running @ 4Ghz hehenot bad considering the Quad version running i think at 3.1Ghz runs about $245... hmmm

What did you use to OC? When using the built in ASUS tools, if I bumped up the multiplier, it'd drop my frequency.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Posting now from my new rig.

Core i7 920 2.66 ghz9GB DDR3GeForce GTX260 (960MB)

This thing is a monster. Installed Portal, cranked ALL settings to max (except resolution, which is of course at my LCD's native 1440x900) and came away with a framerate bouncing from 250 to 300fps. With portal render depth set to 9 (i.e. the game renders instances in 9 successively deep portals looking into each other before starting to draw "blanks" instead of full renders) looking into the portals cripples the framerate all the way down to ~75. Half the portal render depth to 4, though, and framerate hovers at about 110 looking into successive portals.

The HL2 Lost Coast (HDR) stress test benchmarked at an average of 175fps.

Vista Experience Index is 5.9s across the board.

I need to download 3Dmark and see how it scores.

Stupidly, World of Warcraft only runs at about 50fps. WoW has always run slow for me (old machine managed only 15-20 fps, which was barely tolerable, and that at only midrange graphics settings) and I'm not sure why. I don't know if WoW's advanced shadow rendering is just poorly coded or what, but if HL2 with HDR and full AA and AF can hit 300fps, WoW should be able to do better than 50.

The machine is really quiet, too. Quieter than my old Athlon system. Even under heavy load the system remains very quiet.

[critic]

e8500 @ 4.3ghz for now9800gtx+ ocedasus 750i1tb of hdds4gbs ramwatercooling kit was pieced together from danger denasus xonar d2 soundcard

[MinisterofDOOM]

Nice.

[initial_jc]

those are all cute

I got a MACBOOK PRO

I love it

[krash]

SHUT UP. YOURE MAKING ME FEEL BAD.



Still a beast though! Just put Snow Leopard on it!

[S133P3R]

because they're just for looks... ricer

i dont give a s*** what it does... , this is defined in wikipedia under "ricer".

no wonder no one on NICO can afford to keep their cars running, theyd rather build supercomputers for social networking (dont try to argue that online-gaming is NOT a form of social networking).

pics of "Ma' Rig" when i get a chance.... sorry, they dont double as night lights either.

[initial_jc]

SHUT UP. YOURE MAKING ME FEEL BAD.



Still a beast though! Just put Snow Leopard on it!

is snow leopard faster??

whats that sfx box next to your mac?

[Micron]

Heehee... Before I started tweaking cars, I was building/tweaking puters! If it's tweakable, I try it. I've done everything from air to peltier, water, A/C and even phase-change cooling on my puters to pull every ounce of performance out of them that I could!

My current desktop rig:Lian-Li PC-V1000B Plus II casePC Power & Cooling 1200W PSUIntel Core i7 975 ExtremeThermalright TRUE Copper w/ NoiseBlocker 120mm PWM fansAsus P6T7 Workstation Supercomputer mobo12GB Corsair Dominator GT PC3-1866C72x eVGA 295GTX FTW (SLI)Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatality ChampionAdaptec 5805Z RAID AdapterAdaptec MaxIQ SSD Cache w/ 4 32GB Intel X-25Es and 4x 146GB Seagate Savvio 15K.2 SAS drivesPioneer 8X BD-RDell U2410 monitor (I had a 2409, but it got scratched in my car )Logitech G9x mouse and G13 Adv GameboardMicrosoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000

Currently running the full version of Windows 7 Enterprise x64 (I have VLs w/SA from my businesses)

[PoorManQ45]

Not bad. That's a little faster then my laptop...

Hehe...

Dell Precision m640017" WUXGA RGB LED backlit1GB Quadro FX3700Intel QX93008GB DDR3 1066, 8GB more on the wayBacklit keyboardCurrently has a 160GB harddrive, looking at 2x 256GB SSDs in a Raid 0

[Micron]

You should definitely go for the SSDs! I've got two lappies that I lug around with me currently. A Studio 15 that's my "me" laptop and a Covet that's my "work" laptop. (Same m6400 model) I went with the 2x256s in RAID 0 and they're spectacular! Mine also has the BD-R, bluetooth, intel 5300 wireless, an AT&T aircard and the fips reader. Mine already has 16GB of ram though...

So what do you do with yours? I do a lot of virtualization on the road, so I went with a beefy system. When the mobile Core i7s roll out later this year, I'll be upgrading. I had to have something earlier this year, or I would have just waited for the newest mobile precisions that should be shipping @ the beginning of 2010.

[PoorManQ45]

I mostly watch BluRay p0rn on it...

Also, I use it as a Hypervisor with terminals connecting to it.

Dell uses the Samsung drives. They are ok, but nothing compared to STEC. http://www.stec-inc.com/product/zeusiops.php

I am looking for a pair of their 2.5" Zeus drives. 350MBps Read/Write, 80,000+ random IOps. That is one by itself. Imagine those in a Raid 0

Oh, and very baller on the 16GB. That is a $3k upgrade...

[Micron]

I am looking for a pair of their 2.5" Zeus drives. 350MBps Read/Write, 80,000+ random IOps. That is one by itself. Imagine those in a Raid 0

Yes, but seeing as the Covet/Vanilla M6400 is incapable of utilizing SAS drives... you might have an issue! SATA II would choke on an Zeus (Their SAS 3Gbps model chokes on itself!), since it is limited to ~300MB/s. The HDDs in the M6400 share a single SATA Phys, so you're essentially sharing that, which further limits things. Unfortunately, they were short-sighted as far as upgrades are concerned and put the HDDs on one Phys and the Optical and eSATA port on another. However, the M6400 is being phased out and will be replaced by the next model in Q4 of this year, though shipments should not be expected until 1Q/2010.

We won't even go into the costs of the Zeus drives, considering the smallest size makes the Intel X25-E 64GB look like a clearance bargain.

Right now your best bet would be the new 2gen X25-Ms if you want more than 128GB of storage. I have a few friends who've been nabbing up the Indilinx controller-based Patriot Torx drives with good results. I wouldn't touch OCZ with my worst enemy's system... They grew out of the ashes from a VERY shady company, and it appears they haven't changed their ways.

[PoorManQ45]

The max speed of the drives will not be fully utilized, that is correct.

But, where did you get your information about the Sata ports. The m6400 has 3 sata ports and 1 esata. All working from an Intel ICH9-M controller.

The interconnect from the ICH9-M to the Q43 Chipset is 2GBps.

This is used by:USBNICAudioSataPCIE mini cards

Combined those devices should not be able to completely saturate that bus.

I do agree that a Fibre Channel would make better use of the drives though.

Also, the M6500 is not slated to come out until mid next year.

[Micron]

Not talking about the interconnect coming out of the southbridge... I'm talking about the SATA ports themselves.

Where'd you hear the m6500 wasn't supposed to be around until later next year?

[PoorManQ45]

I work for dell...

I'm sorry, I think you were still talking about the Zeus drives. I moved on and thought you were talking about 2 regular SSDs in a raid 0 being able to saturate the bus.

Also, the theoretical limit is 384MBps... But that's not including overhead