As promised... better late than never... pics of the new rig

[JRD]

^+-+

Can I have his old one? ;)

Please, tell me you are talking about a PC... pleeeease!!

[mandru]

 ^+-+

[Art Blade]

Please, tell me you are talking about a PC... pleeeease!!

JRD: "We are talking about a PC."

Now, to the rest of you guys: About that hairy old rig...  :-()

[fragger]

LOL JRD ^+-+

I was a tad punchy when I posted and didn't read the preceding posts properly at the time. Now I see - duh :-[ So let me state most emphatically that yes, I am definitely, positively, most assuredly talking about a PC. I'm very happy with my own hairy old rig, to which I've grown very attached over the years, thank you very much :-()

[JRD]

I'm very happy with my own hairy old rig, to which I've grown very attached over the years, thank you very much :-()

^+-+  :-X

[Art Blade]

 ^+-+ ^+-+ ^+-+ :-X

[Binnatics]

I completely missed this topic, too bad because I asked for the pics in the first place right ;)
Damn nice looking D_B
The part I like the best is the clos-up on these graphic cards you have there. I like the copper glance of raw industrial material, cultivated in a powerfull cooling operation :) Great system.

I really like the case as well. Indeed perfect like that. Too much neon shiny crap is not good to any. I have some glowing lights in the frontpanel due to a ven there that has blue led-lights. Like that. But for the rest I have the same iron "gründlichkeit". I like the handgrip you have on the upperpart. That's extremely useful. Especially if you have to take it to someone else's place to check some stuff and so.

Nice rig, thumps up for the pics  :-X :-X

[Dweller_Benthos]

hehe, thanks. I'm not sure what those other guys are on about, "rigs" and all.... the old PC still needs to be cleaned out, and is sitting there taking up space. Problem with it is, it has a cheapo video card I stuck in it long enough to run it until I got the new system. Not sure even what it is, gforce something or other, 250 maybe? It'll run games at a decent rate, but nothing you'd think was awesome. I'll probably get what I can for it from someone at w@&k. Or the local used computer shop.

[Binnatics]

Try putting it on the local marketplace (internet) for second hand stuff. That seems to help out allmost everyone. Comment which games still run fine with it and don't ask too much. You'll probably get more for it than the local hardwareshop. Good luck  :)

[Dweller_Benthos]

New pics of the upgrade process.

The loot in the boxes, I'm not going to show an inventory here of the contents, there are other places people can look that up.

[smg id=4705]

The new mother board with the CPU, fans, and memory installed. So far no problems.

[smg id=4706]

The video cards out and waiting to be reinstalled.

[smg id=4707]

Everything back in and ready to go, I had to put the sound card between the two video cards, it wouldn't fit anywhere else, but there were only three choices anyway.

[smg id=4708]

Except for one small detail. When I was looking at new boards, I checked expansion slots, USB ports, CPU types, etc, all the fun stuff. Forgot one thing. My keyboard is an old PS/2 jobby, and the motherboard has no PS/2 port. Ooops. The keyboard is built like a tank with a solid metal plate inside, sorta like this one

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with handy power buttons, plus a large, backwards "L" shaped return key, only mine has a small backspace key and the backslash key is next to the backspace key, but you get the idea. I've been using this keyboard for probably 10 or 15 years and I didn't want to get a new one, I like the key layouts the way they are, and I don't like the new layouts on most keyboards that have a small return key and the backspace key is all big, etc. they don't make them anymore, and even finding a new keyboard with the key layout and power buttons I like has been impossible, I know I've looked. Anyway, I have the computer reassembled and I find an old PS/2 to USB adapter that came off a microsoft keyboard at w@&k. I put it on and power up. Boot screen comes up and says new processor detected, hit F1 for setup. Of course, the adapter didn't w@&k, I didn't think it would. So off to Staples I go, with a detour to Five Guys for lunch. I look around staples and find a cheap keyboard to get me by until I can figure out what to do. Then, walking down the next aisle, I see a PS/2 to USB adapter for a mouse and keyboard. Ironically, it costs $5 more than the whole keyboard I already had in my hand. I hedge my bets and buy both, figuring one will w@&k and I can return the other. I get home, plug in the adapter and power on. Takes a few seconds and the num lock light comes on, so I know it's found the keyboard. Much relief on my part.

A few hours of driver installs later and I'm up and running. Minecraft is nice and smooth now, no laggy hesitations like it used to have, and Kerbal Space Program is also smooth, though loading a rocket to the launch pad is still a bit slower than I would think it should be. Might be because I'm running KSP from a regular hard drive and not the solid state drive.

The only problem with the adapter is that the keyboard isn't recognized until sometime when Windows loads. During POST when I get the message to hit del to enter setup, hitting del does nothing because the keyboard isn't loaded yet. I will have to borrow a real USB keyboard from w@&k and use it to get to the bios and tweak all those fancy overclocking settings this mother board has.

So, a not too awful upgrade experience, took a few hours to do the hardware, and that included switching around the card reader like I wanted, which is now much easier to deal with. Not too bad I would say, considering on my way back from Staples I drove past a computer shop and they had a sign out advertising their virus removal service. For only $139.00!!! I had entertained the thought of having a shop like that do my upgrade, now I'm glad I didn't, no telling how much they would charge for that. Now I just need to take the old mother board CPU & ram to the used place and see what I can get for it.

[PZ]

I'm envious D_B!  :-X

[Art Blade]

D_B, that is some serious hardware you got there, well done  :) :-X

[Binnatics]

D_B :o :o :o hhhhk.... hhhk.... hk....

You you realised true envidia ;)

Massive rig mate!!!! Is that stuff on your mobo carbon fibre? It kinda looks that way :) :-X

[mandru]

Nice job D_B.  :-X  I admire anyone that can pull one of these things apart and put it back together with out the hammer marks or scorches from the cutting torch showing.  :-D

Now you've got me chomping at the bit more than ever for the shop to finish up my rebuild but it always seems to be something slowing things down.  I'm afraid I lost the big old HAF case my rig was packaged in as it was the source of the problem causing the short that made my video drop out intermittently.

I'm waiting for the shop to receive the new case but other than that the new system has been bread boarded externally and is reported to be running like a champ so it should plug right into the equally large Azza Hurrican once it arrives.

Mrs. mandru's Centrino laptop is slowly (very slowly) killing me.  :'(

[fragger]

That's a bunch of seriously sexy hardware D_B, like something from one of C3PO's wet dreams :-() :-X

Jealous I may be, but I'll rise above that and wish you all the best with it :)

[Dweller_Benthos]

Thanks guys. Wasn't too bad a job, most of the time was taken up getting my card reader in a new front panel bay. I can see why they didn't install it there from the factory, kind of a hassle, but I got it in there and it's much more convenient to get at now.

Next upgrade is the video cards, but I've promised my self I need to get this paid off first, then take care of some other expenses, then upgrade the video. Haven't even started looking at cards yet, but I'm figuring two nvidia 500 series cards at least, if not the new 600 series. Depends if I want to spend upwards of $1000 or not. Maybe a Christmas present to myself.....

[PZ]

I say go for it, D_B; life is so short.  Besides, don't forget the world is coming to an end on 12/21/12

[Art Blade]

  @ end of the world.

D_B, have you ever compared the results of a single with two active (SLI) vid cards? I've not yet found a reason to think about SLI because the power of a single good vid card (at its prime time) seems to have been sufficient for games. Maybe you could save $US 500.- if you went for just one vid card and perhaps later add a second one for SLI if you really think it's worth it.

[PZ]

I've often wondered about SLI as well  ????

[Art Blade]

Indeed.

The funny thing: you don't get twice as much vid mem from the cards because each vid card loads all and therefore the same information and then they produce the frames in turns (hence SLI for Scan Line Interleave). If you use different cards, if they w@&k together at all, the faster card will level down to the slower card's performance.

Even if you got everything set up nicely the AFR method (Alternate Frame Rendering) which should, in theory, w@&k nicely with two cards as it lets one card process the odd and the other the even frames doesn't always w@&k as promised (you need really proper coding for it to w@&k). The effect is called micro-stuttering, basically a delay between the two cards' output. Sometimes V-Sync and TripleBuffering doesn't w@&k in a multi-GPU environment.

Generally speaking: the problems or disadvantages are multi-GPU inherent and not related to any specific form, so it doesn't matter whether you use SLI, crossfire, or whatever else there is. Generally speaking, from what I've gathered, you only get few applications that really benefit from multi-GPU computers. And in my book that doesn't justify the purchase of a 2nd GPU and a mobo with a chipset capable of SLI or some such.

But IF/WHEN it works.. hell yeah, jolly good show :)

[mandru]

One nice thing I've noticed about the 600 series GPUs is that they not only have significant muscle but they provide it at a substantially lower wattage demand.

It's worth checking to see what your system's wattage draw will be with both options 500's or a single 600 so you can determine if an upgrade on the power supply would be needed along with a pair of 500 series cards to be sure they won't cost more in the long run than a stout 600 series card.

I figure it never hurts to run the numbers and comparison shop.

[Art Blade]

excellent point, the power consumption and of course the heat they produce that needs to be removed from the case. Needs bigger PSU, more vents, maybe alternative cooling systems, perhaps even more (suitable case and so forth). The costs go through the roof but the vid output is not really better only faster on occasion.

D_B, know what.. get one good vid card and the extra money.. buy a large widescreen monitor  :-D

[Art Blade]

SLI for Scan Line Interleave

I should add that it is now known as Scalable Link Interface.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Forgot to check back on this thread until now. oops.

As far as the SLI goes? Yeah, I don't really notice it being that much faster, considering. I just might forgo two cards in SLI when I upgrade and just get a nice 600 series card that's maybe one step down from top of the heap. I really need to run Crysis 2 with those high resolution textures I loaded back then and see how it goes on the new machine.

[Art Blade]

OK :) cheers.