Oh hell, I need to brag!Follow

Did you leave marks?

How much did this cost?

Both.

Right around $1400 and I've now successfully got it up to 2.5 stable. Although I have that set as the gaming profile in my nTune utility.

Fugly case. :\

Everything else is nice, I have the same monitor, CPU heatsink, love them both.

If you ziptie all those internal cables into a tighter bundle you will get better airflow. Or better yet sleave them all and then tie them

A round IDE cable will definitly help. As for sleaving, there are a variety of routes you can go. The do it yourself route is cheap, but takes alot of time and practice. You can get the sleaving here:
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=32&zenid=623973c9c014d4e1f987e346778c559b

If you do the power supply, you'll need a molex power supply pin removal tool for the round pins and the smaller square pins.

If you have the budget, a pre-sleaved power supply is well worth the money. I tend to go for the higher end Enermax power supplies, using an enermax liberty in the main computer and an enermax noisetaker II in the secondary rig, but there alot of pre sleaved midrange power supplies available too. You can grab an Antec 550W sleaved off newegg for $64.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103937

That one also has the modular connectors so you can remove any wires you won't be needing, which also helps clean things up.

I know you already have a power supply, but I can tell you this, after the third power supply I did myself, I swore I'd never do it myself ever again. the professionally sleaved ones just look better and the amount of labor you put into sleaving makes it worthwhile for the slightly added price.




Edited, Sep 30th 2006 at 7:48pm PDT by Kaolian

50 degrees celcius under load is about 122 degrees fahrenheit, so that's not too bad. it's a little on the high side for an AMD by a few degrees, you usually see the intel socket 775's starting around that range or higher, but it's not high enough to worry about. You could cut a top blowhole 120mm fan if you are concerned, but for just a few degrees worth of cooling I wouldn't worry about it on that case. Of course water cooling would drop that dramatically... but that gets a little expensive. Worth it though if you have a 120mm fan on the back of the case and an extra $215 sitting around you could spend.

For curiosity's sake, what do you run in your gaming rig, Kao?

This is what is currently in the main gameing rig. The secondary rig is similar, but not quite at this level.

Motherboard: Asus P5N32-SLI Delux 9will be replaced soonish now that the nvidia 590 board chipsets are out)

Processor: Intel Core Duo extreme edition 965 3.8GHZ Dual core with hyperthreading (Core2 came out 2 weeks after I bought this one, the bastards!)

Memory: 2GB (4x512) Corsair XMS2 PRO (basically the same as yours but with a slightly bigger heatsync)

Hard disk drives: 2x 74GB 10,000 RPM Western Digital Raptor drives in Raid 0 mode, and one WD 250GB 7400rpm secondary data drive. I'll put another 250gb drive in there soon, but it's currently in the other machine so I could eliminate all IDE drives.

Graphics cards: 2x Leadtek 7950GX2 1GB cards in SLI mode

Heatsink: Koolance ICM 510 water cooling kit. 3 120mm Vantec stealth fans.

Case: Custom Sleaved Thermaltake Eureka case with an additional top blowhole fan http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=114&products_id=4303

Monitor: Viewsonic A90f 21 inch CRT (slated for upgrade to flat screen relitivly soon)

Power: Enermax Liberty 650 watt

Sound: Soundblaster XFI Fatality edition

Jesus Christ, that system doesnt eff around! GX2s are wicked! I'm more of a fan for the AM2 socket simply because I know that AMD will keep it around for a while.

I'll be willing to bet the upcoming FX-70 will put the Core2 Duo back in its place. I don't like the memory controller off-die like that, personally. Still, I'm holding out for the drop to 65nm AM2 chips or if this X2 will hang for a while, see what AMD drops in the 45nm range.