Quake3World

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Havn't started overclocking it yet.
But I have high hopes. And I'm extremely happy with the choice to watercool.
Stock temps on both cores are 30-35°C idle, never go over 40 @ load. GPU is ~45/50°C (idle/load).

:icon26: :icon14:

Ooo... envious. How much extra does a watercooling rig set you back these days?

Very nice, awesome job!

olo @ the Federer pic

Dr. Watson, the ultimate PC customizer
Killer rig, cool project :icon14:

obsidian wrote:Ooo... envious. How much extra does a watercooling rig set you back these days?

~$350

the video block was $120 though... without a full-cover special block it's quite affordable now-a-days.
though I did spent a few weeks pondering if a quiet and cool GTS320 was better than a loud and hot GTX.
I'm happy with my choice though.

Kills On Site wrote:Nice setup you have there Watson. How do you like the Abit AB9?

the bios that came on it was interestingly buggy (wouldn't boot if a USB drive was plugged in; it would POST and then *beep* restart). but that's nothing flashing up to the current version didn't fix.
speaking of buggy, unfortunately all the uGuru/flashmenu windows tools are totally fucked in Vista... so I have to use everest for temp monitoring, and a boot-cd for bios flashing; minor annoyance.
So far, i have my hopes up that it's going to be as rock-solid kick-ass as the Ic-7 was for the p4. (which is still running happily)
They added a nice pile of features that i've not seen before.
1. next to the Optical audio out is a switch to reset the CMOS jumperless.
2. their famous LED Post-Code readout is back, + it has two little buttons next to it that will to power and reset. so you don't have to have it in a case to test it.
3. the space around the CPU socket is fantastic... its the roomiest aftermarket Heat-Sink install i've ever done.

I'll see how well she overclocks in a few days, but the word on the street is that it will do 400+ FSB without batting an eye.

Captain Mazda wrote:olo @ the Federer pic

those chaps at EK do a fine job of machining copper. :icon26:

Kills On Site wrote:
What RAM would you recommend, something that overclocks and is stable as hell? Corsair, Kingston or Crucial?

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory ... 2-800.html

that^ + other reviews is why i picked up the corsair 6400C4 sticks.
bang-for-the-buck++

Also helps that the only Corsair chip i've ever had go bad was a PC150 stick that ran trouble-free for 8 years.
i've also never had any problems with Crucial (mainly budget applications) or OCZ for overclocking.

christ... i don't know if i'm even going to bother overclocking for a while, now that i've run some benchmarks.

[lvlshot]http://www.rit.edu/~tjf6635/q3wshit/base-3dmark.jpg[/lvlshot]

Direct 3d: F.E.A.R.
Quality: Maximum
Resolution: 1024x768
Min: 56 FPS
Avg: 117 FPS
Max: 284 FPS

OpenGL: Quake4
Quality: High
Resolution: 1280x1024
demo1 (Hallways - light fighting): 113.6 FPS
demo2 (confined space + heavy fire): 96.6 FPS
demo3 (open / exterior spaces + heavy fire): 87.4 FPS
Avg: 99.2 FPS

i'm happy with that performance... mind as well save wear'n'tear + electricity until I'll get a payoff that isn't just pure overkill gravy.

Hmm... that's still quite a lot for water cooling. Though I am having problems with my current GPU fan. It sounds like a motorcycle revving up so I think I may need to replace it with a nice Zalman cooler.

Water cooling maybe on my next rig in a year's time.

Jesus Watson, that's some ace work there. :icon14:

By the way, your el-cheapo deburring tool is called a 'ridge reamer' if anyone is looking for one at the hardware store.

Nightshade wrote:a 'ridge reamer' if anyone is looking for one at the hardware store.

and it even has a most excellent name. though it may be hard to keep a straight face when you walk up to a guy at home depot and ask "You look like someone who can give me a ridge reamer."