Ravynmagi
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Upgrading my computer.
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I've reached the point I can't really hold off on upgrading my computer much longer. I was going to wait for Ivy Bridge. But after recent events forced me to remove my water cooling parts, I found I could no longer run my computer at 3.9GHz anymore and had to drop the CPU speed down. While the air cooling was fine for the CPU, my motherboard was struggling with it's extra voltages.
Also I damaged some of my memory a couple months ago. And Patriot wasn't able to replace it with the same kind. So I have 2x2GB of Patriot DDR2-1000 and 2x2GB of Patriot DDR2-800 memory (they no longer make DDR2-1000). I'm not thrilled about mixing memory, but it does pass MemTest86+ at 900Mhz.
I lost some CPU speed, I got mixed memory, and I'm somewhat feeling a little bit of a CPU bottleneck in a few games. I figure let me just upgrade now.
Current parts:
Intel Q9550 (overclocked to 3.9GHz, now 3.6GHz)
Patriot 4GB DDR2-1000 and 4GB DDR2-800 (at 900MHz 2.1v)
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P
What I've just ordered:
Intel i5-2500K
Corsair 2x4GB DDR3-1600 low profile
ASUS P8Z68-V Gen 3
2500K because I really don't need hyper threading for gaming. And at high overclocks hyper threading may have to be disabled anyway. Also don't want to spend too much if I might be getting an Ivy Bridge replacement in 6 months.
Went with Corsair because it was only $40 and has low profile heat spreaders. Memory sockets looks a bit close to the CPU socket and I don't want something that might block the Hyper 212 EVO cooler I have.
I picked ASUS because their UEFI BIOS is said to be more refined. And it's been quite a while since I had an ASUS motherboard anyway. Also this "Gen 3" board includes PCI-E 3.0 and Ivy Bridge support.
Also, I ordered a third party graphics cooler for one of my 6950s. After I removed the water blocks from both cards. I discovered one of the stock heatsinks would not seat properly. I was thinking about just selling it on eBay real cheap. But changed my mind and decided to get an Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme Plus II. Seems to be a 3 slot cooler, so I should still be able to fit this and my other 6950 on the motherboard, I just won't be able to use my PCI sound card anymore (not a big loss).
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Ravynmagi
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Upgrading my computer.
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Installing the Accelero Xtreme Plus II. Oh m god, what a pain in the ass. And the instructions are just cave man drawings. Arctic Cooling hasn't developed a written language yet I guess.
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Nakal
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Upgrading my computer.
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See what excessive overclocking in high heat environments do to your computers, kiddies!? lol
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Ravynmagi
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Upgrading my computer.
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Hopefully that glue all over my PCB is non conductive. 
I'm a bit worried about what the VRM temps will be like, because I had to use the thermal pads for the VRM heatsinks. I just couldn't get the heatsinks to stay in place with the glue.
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Mortosa
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Upgrading my computer.
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I have a Core-I7 2600K running at 4.3Ghz with a Corsair H80 self contained water cooling kit and it works great.
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Ravynmagi
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Upgrading my computer.
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I'm home. Got my computer on the floor. About to start tearing into it now to swap out the motherboard, processor, an memory.
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Ravynmagi
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Upgrading my computer.
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You don't realize how much you miss a PS2 port until you don't have one. Ugh.
Windows 7 wants to run a consistency check on my 3TB drive, which will take hours. I can't get past this, because it doesn't recognize my USB keyboard at this point. Legacy keyboard support works during POST, but seems to shut off before Windows loads.
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Dresler
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Subject:
Upgrading my computer.
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Ravynmagi posted:
You don't realize how much you miss a PS2 port until you don't have one. Ugh.
Windows 7 wants to run a consistency check on my 3TB drive, which will take hours. I can't get past this, because it doesn't recognize my USB keyboard at this point. Legacy keyboard support works during POST, but seems to shut off before Windows loads.
I felt the same way when I realized my new motherboard didn't have an IDE connection for my DVD/RW. Did it still have a floppy drive connection? Yes, yes it did.
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Aerlinthian
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Subject:
Upgrading my computer.
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Ravynmagi posted:
Legacy keyboard support works during POST, but seems to shut off before Windows loads.
Hmm, what make and year is your CMOS code?
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Ravynmagi
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Upgrading my computer.
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Spent about 12 hours yesterday on the computer and pretty much come to the conclusion that the motherboard is defective.
Legacy keyboard support is very hit and miss. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. No real pattern on why it works or doesn't work. It's more a surprise when it does.
If I plug in 6 USB devices, I'll get a "USB over current" error and the computer will shut off. My old motherboard had no problem with any of these devices and the board supports 10 USB devices. Not sure why it fails with only 6 plugged in.
Motherboard sensors are garbage. CPU temp sensor is really low. While my CPU cores are running at 70C, the "CPU" sensor says 50C. This cause the CPU fan to run much slower than it should be. Also I sometimes see a second "CPU" sensor that randomly shows up and when this happens, the CPU fan will drop to minimum speeds, because this second sensor has a temp of 0C.
I can't run Prime95 stability test on this motherboard, because of that rogue 0C CPU temp shows up, my CPU fan will basically almost shut off, and that'll overheat my CPU.
Over 2 or 3 reboots, some of my SATA and USB drives will disappear and then be reinstalled by PnP after I logon to Windows as if they are new hardware.
It just blows my mind how many things are malfunctioning on this motherboard. I debating heading out and getting an MSI Z68 GD65 board from my local Fry's Electronics.
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Ravynmagi
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Upgrading my computer.
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Worst... Upgrade... Ever!
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Marzuk
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Upgrading my computer.
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Sucks. Stuff like this is why upgrading or building a computer makes me nervous. People tend to respond in a kneejerk fashion to that and say that "Oh building a computer is easy." Sure it is. Its also tedious and problematic. Once something dies, I don't always have enough parts to *properly* test what is dead. Even if all the parts work, sometimes putting them together is rage worthy (heatsinks and mobo headers I'm looking at you!)
So many people just play "Well, I *guess* this part is bad lets RMA it. Whelp, wasn't that part lets RMA the next part. Nope, wasn't that one so here is the only thing it can be." It resembles a Jerry Springer episode more than troubleshooting. YOU ARE NOT THE FATHER! This type of thing is why customers pay to ship "defective" items back, because it gets abused.
Even if its not a hardware issue, you then face any number of potential driver / software based issues. At the end of the day, I've been lucky and for the most part I've not had any significant trouble with a computer build, but that's not to say I couldn't get a bogus part or two the next time I go to build a computer and end up wasting 20 or 30 hours in the process.
Its all in the context as well that most people don't build a completely new computer, they cannibalize an existing computer, so the end product is either an upgraded computer or no computer. Not having a computer is just cringeworthy.
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Ravynmagi
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Upgrading my computer.
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I always get excited when I get new hardware. Especially a new motherboard and processor. So it's an incredible let down for me when it doesn't work. And then I get obsessed trying to fix it. I figure I could just be doing something wrong. Or maybe I just need to reflash the BIOS. Maybe it doesn't like this particular memory I bought or maybe this or maybe that...
And before I realize it, I've wasted more than a day. And now I'm upset about not having a new toy to play with and all the time I lost because of it.
Oh well. I pissed away enough time. Got my old motherboard back in. And I definitely picked a bad time to be doing an upgrade anyway, right before Christmas. 
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Reavarrockyou
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Upgrading my computer.
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Bro asus has horrible quality control every single motherboard I've gotten from asus has been bad or DoA I always go with MSI now.
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Nlg313
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Upgrading my computer.
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Odd, for my last 2 builds i've used Asus motherboards and never had a problem. Guess i've just lucked out :/
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Acidspits
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Upgrading my computer.
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My new 24" Asus LED monitor is awesome. My N series Asus laptop is amazing also. I can't vouch for their desktop hardware though, but everything else seems to be great quality.
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heiromancerdrackus
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Upgrading my computer.
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When it comes to boards, I almost always go Gigabyte. But that's me.
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Ravynmagi
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Upgrading my computer.
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I had my ASUS board all packed back up and ready to return to NewEgg. But I decided to give it another try, but this time in a different case and power supply.
But first thing I wanted to do was get rid of the RAID0 I was running my OS on. I had no reason to believe RAID was a problem, but figured after all the issues, it would be better to just keep things as simple as possible. So I deleted the RAID. I reinstalled a fresh copy of my OS on one of the SSD drives in my original computer and got that back up and going again.
Then with the new motherboard/processor system, I installed the OS on the other SSD drive for this computer. This time the install went fine. Legacy keyboard worked. Other USB devices working normally as well. CPU sensor and fans working. And no quirky behavior in Windows. I tested this for over a day trying to find anything oddly behaving.
After I was satisfied. I swapped the motherboard into my main case, hooked up my all my other hard drives. And after a couple more days everything now seems to be working great.
I'm still completely baffled why the board was behaving so badly. Maybe something wasn't seated properly, maybe it really didn't like my SSD RAID0, not sure. But I'm finally pretty happy that it's working and I don't have a defective motherboard, processor, or memory.
I now overclocked it to a very modest 4.0GHz. I'll push it further in a few days. I had briefly tested it at 4.5GHz before and quick test results of that seemed positive so far.
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Ravynmagi
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Upgrading my computer.
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I was very close to getting an MSI Z68 GD65 motherboard. It was between the ASUS and MSI boards, because both were advertised as "Gen 3" support, meaning they already support PCI-E 3.0 and Intel Gen 3 Core processors (Ivy Bridge).
My last two motherboards were Gigabyte. I usually like to change things up every other upgrade. So it was time to use something other than Gigabyte this time. Also no Gigabyte board advertised itself as "Gen 3". Though Ivy Bridge may still work on them.
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Lannai
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Upgrading my computer.
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Ravynmagi posted:
I'm still completely baffled why the board was behaving so badly. Maybe something wasn't seated properly, maybe it really didn't like my SSD RAID0, not sure. But I'm finally pretty happy that it's working and I don't have a defective motherboard, processor, or memory.
SSD RAID 0 ...are your hard drives really creating a bottleneck to the point that it's cost effective to raid 0 your ssd drives? SSD drives still aren't near my price point where I'll buy one...but that really boggled my mind.
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Lannai
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Marzuk
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Upgrading my computer.
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Lannai posted:
[quote=Ravynmagi]SSD RAID 0 ...are your hard drives really creating a bottleneck to the point that it's cost effective to raid 0 your ssd drives? SSD drives still aren't near my price point where I'll buy one...but that really boggled my mind.
Meh I have 3x in a RAID, but that was an older SSD that was not as fast as the current ones. I think if I were to do it again one of the newer SSDs would suffice. I can say that I enjoy the speed I get out of it though I'd not argue it as being cost effective.
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Lannai
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I'm not at all trying to be critical...especially toward Ravyn. I read most of his posts to keep myself up-to-date with current tech info. I was actually surprised to read that a setup with raid0 ssd drives would give you a speed boost. I figured ssd had reached a point where data transfer was beyond what the other hardware could handle.
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Ravynmagi
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Upgrading my computer.
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It's probably debatable if everyone would notice the performance boost between a single SSD and 2x or 3x RAID0 SSD configurations. But I think there are plenty of people that would see the difference. I certainly do.
Even with SSD RAIDs, they are still a bottle neck, your memory and processor are many many times faster.
But you'll need to be aware of the limits of your SATA controller. For example the ICH10R on my P45 board had a cap of 750MB/s. My Vertex 1 SSD drives have a sustained read speed of 250MB/s, so I could of safely RAIDed three of them together. Any more and it would have been kinda wasted (from a performance point of view).
Off hand I'm not sure what the cap is on the Z68 SATA controller. But it only has two SATA6G ports and I've seen newer 500MB/s SSD drives reaching 1000MB/s on that controller when paired together. That's some insane speed.
With current gen SSD drive being twice as fast as my older SSD drive, I'm also not sure I'd RAID0 again. Because RAID0 can be a hassle. But I suspect there is a chance I'll probably do it again.
With my ASUS board, I wonder if maybe my mistake was not deleting my RAID0 configuration from before and not remaking it fresh. I should have done that and didn't.
PS. For gaming, SSD won't boost FPS. Games typically load what they need into memory ahead of time. But it does significantly improve loading times between zones and launching the game.
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Lonestar_1
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Subject:
Upgrading my computer.
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Ravynmagi posted:
I was very close to getting an MSI Z68 GD65 motherboard. It was between the ASUS and MSI boards, because both were advertised as "Gen 3" support, meaning they already support PCI-E 3.0 and Intel Gen 3 Core processors (Ivy Bridge).
My last two motherboards were Gigabyte. I usually like to change things up every other upgrade. So it was time to use something other than Gigabyte this time. Also no Gigabyte board advertised itself as "Gen 3". Though Ivy Bridge may still work on them.
I would email gigabyte and ask if GA-Z68XP*** boards are able to support ivy bridge or have the necessary stuff to do so. I would think they would of. At least on later hardware versions.
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dramprar
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Upgrading my computer.
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i have asus board and have no issues what so ever
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Ravynmagi
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Subject:
Upgrading my computer.
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dramprar posted:
i have asus board and have no issues what so ever
Yeah, my ASUS board still working great now. No idea what went wrong. But I guess sometimes it just helps to take everything apart, threaten it with an RMA, then it it back together again.
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Ravynmagi
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Upgrading my computer.
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Also the Arctic Cooling Accelero XTREME Plus fan/heatsink is working great on my Radeon 6950. I had to install that because the stock heatsink seems to be defective. I am just running at the high setting all the time (I barely hear it) and it gets my GPU about 30C cooler. And the VRM temps are staying good too. Was worried about the VRM temps, since those are weak areas for third party coolers and I have difficulty installing those heatsink on the VRMs.
And even more good news. XFX finally replied back and told me my card is still covered by warrant even though I removed heatsink for water cooling. I wasn't sure, because the screws had "Warranty Void" stickers on them, which I had to break to remove the heatsink. But they said it's fine. It'll be good to get that fixed, so I can resell the card later.
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Lokkie_the_Fierce
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Upgrading my computer.
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You have incredibly bad luck with tech lol
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Seffrid
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Upgrading my computer.
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The more people fiddle with their machines the worse their luck gets...  !
Good news tho' Ravyn, you did well to pursue the point.
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dramprar
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Upgrading my computer.
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Ravynmagi posted:
Also the Arctic Cooling Accelero XTREME Plus fan/heatsink is working great on my Radeon 6950. I had to install that because the stock heatsink seems to be defective. I am just running at the high setting all the time (I barely hear it) and it gets my GPU about 30C cooler. And the VRM temps are staying good too. Was worried about the VRM temps, since those are weak areas for third party coolers and I have difficulty installing those heatsink on the VRMs.
And even more good news. XFX finally replied back and told me my card is still covered by warrant even though I removed heatsink for water cooling. I wasn't sure, because the screws had "Warranty Void" stickers on them, which I had to break to remove the heatsink. But they said it's fine. It'll be good to get that fixed, so I can resell the card later.
which card are you selling?
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graard
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Upgrading my computer.
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If I may ask, What are you doing with your old m/b, proc and memory?
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Ravynmagi
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Upgrading my computer.
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dramprar posted:
Ravynmagi posted:
Also the Arctic Cooling Accelero XTREME Plus fan/heatsink is working great on my Radeon 6950. I had to install that because the stock heatsink seems to be defective. I am just running at the high setting all the time (I barely hear it) and it gets my GPU about 30C cooler. And the VRM temps are staying good too. Was worried about the VRM temps, since those are weak areas for third party coolers and I have difficulty installing those heatsink on the VRMs.
And even more good news. XFX finally replied back and told me my card is still covered by warrant even though I removed heatsink for water cooling. I wasn't sure, because the screws had "Warranty Void" stickers on them, which I had to break to remove the heatsink. But they said it's fine. It'll be good to get that fixed, so I can resell the card later.
which card are you selling?
I'll eBay both of my 6950 2GB cards this summer when I buy an Nvidia GTX 780 (or whatever they call it).
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Ravynmagi
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Upgrading my computer.
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graard posted:
If I may ask, What are you doing with your old m/b, proc and memory?
Often I horde old computer stuff. But I definitely got to sell it this time. Especially because I want to upgrade my new 2500K processor again this Spring when Ivy Bridge comes out.
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graard
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Ravynmagi posted:
graard posted:
If I may ask, What are you doing with your old m/b, proc and memory?
Often I horde old computer stuff. But I definitely got to sell it this time. Especially because I want to upgrade my new 2500K processor again this Spring when Ivy Bridge comes out.
how much would you be asking for them?
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dramprar
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Subject:
Upgrading my computer.
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reason im asking abotu the vidcard bc im in the market of buying a new one for my i7-920 build. has 2 hdd 300g raid-0, 6gig ram and 5670vidcard. the rig works well for me and figured i should get a SSD and a vidcard to see any reall improvement.
btw i only play Rift and used to play daoc(which i might sometimes). i hardly do anything else on it. i do everything else on my laptop LOL. laptop is a media build but sucky graphics card (230m i think).
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Rift-Gnarlwood (G):Joncrichton, Aerysunn, Rigel, Kahdargo
i7-920 3.8GHz, air-cooled Everyday im husslin'
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Ravynmagi
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Subject:
Upgrading my computer.
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Today I saw that Arctic Cooling announced the Accelero Xtreme 7970. This got me concerned, because I just bought the Accelero Xtreme Plus II, which I had assumed would be compatible with the 7970 and future cards with an adapter.
Someone on the Hexus.net forums contacted AC and they confirmed the Accelero Xtreme Plus II will not be compatible with the 7970. While I don't plan to buy a 7970, it now puts serious concern in my mind this will be Kepler compatible.
It's a gamble with these universal coolers. Never know how long they'll be supported. And I think I just spent $100 on a product that might be at the end of it's life. So I decided to return it, especially in light that XFX is going to fix my 6950 heatsink.
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Locuus
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Subject:
Upgrading my computer.
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I actually bought the same Mobo and CPU to upgrade my step son's PC this weekend. Will report how it went once it's all done.
Got 2x4Gb of Patriot 1600 memory though. I've had good experience with these guys from previous builds.
How do you like the ASUS version of UEFI?
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Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable. ~ G. K. Chesterton
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Ravynmagi
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Subject:
Upgrading my computer.
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Locuus posted:
I actually bought the same Mobo and CPU to upgrade my step son's PC this weekend. Will report how it went once it's all done.
Got 2x4Gb of Patriot 1600 memory though. I've had good experience with these guys from previous builds.
How do you like the ASUS version of UEFI?
ASUS's EZ Mode UEFI seems nice and easy to use. Haven't had any complaints about it. Things seems to be working perfectly fine now after redoing my build.
The POST process was pretty slow at first. I had to go into the UEFI and disable the "Display OptionROM in POST" and this did speed it up a bit. I think I was still expecting it to be a bit faster, but it's not a problem. I think the AMI BIOS is still present, just hidden, because I see it's screen flash for about half a second during the POST when I disable the ASUS splash screens.
I have had problems with the chipset temps on my P45 board when using two video cards and overclocking the CPU. I liked that this ASUS board had a larger heatsink on the chipset. Not sure how important that really is for Z68 since there is less of a chipset now. But the motherboard temps have definitely stayed on this good side even with my two 6950s hovering over it.
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