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My New Computer!

El Xando

"Dam whippersnapper"
Hey,
As some of you know, I bought a shitload of new PC parts recently. I just finished it today, so thought I'm make a thread with all it's specs and some pictures.

Coolermaster CM 690 II
Intel Core i7 2600k 3.40GHz
Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD3 (Which I will unfortunately have to replace at some point because of the Sandy Bridge motherboard recall...)
XFX ATI Radeon 6950 2048MB
2x G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (1x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz
Novatech PowerStation Black Edition 750W Silent ATX2 Modular Power Supply
OCZ 60GB Vertex 2E SSD 2.5" SATA-II Read = 285MB/s, Write = 275MB/s
Zalman CNPS10X Performa CPU Cooler

_IGP6229.jpg

_IGP6230.jpg

_IGP6235.jpg

_IGP6236.jpg

_IGP6237.jpg

ujelly.png

Bought the CPU cooler today as when running prime95 my temperatures were above 70 degrees with the stock cooler, with this one they stay at 50 degrees :)

Planning to overclock soon, should be able to get the CPU subscore to 7.9 :D
Also, got the RAM score up to 7.8 by setting it to 1600MHz (was originally set foolishly to 1333MHz :p)
 

MenaceInc

Staff Member
Aww, I have the first gen CM-690 case. The update looks nicer with all black D:
You could do a bit of a better job with cable management. Also, I'd suggest moving the top fan to the spot just to the left of it. It'll pull more air through the fins of the cooler.

Is that still a 4530 nestled in there just below the top graphics card?
 

Trigun

That guy, who Records Music.
Cables look like a mess despite the routing.(Especially since you have a modular PSU and all Sata connectors, if my disc drive was sata my case would save a lot of clutter from the IDE cable)

The CM HAF series have fantastic routing that can hide nearly all wires

164509_1608292769783_1310105117_31521732_8267752_n.jpg

dscn4786j.jpg


* note, ignore the wire going up at the top, I had to take the side case off that has a fan on it and leave it on the top to take the picture.

Still looks nice regardless. The all black is sexy
 

x3sphere

Administrator
Staff member
Enforcer Team
Game Info Editor
Looks nice, but like others have mentioned, you could tidy up the cables.

That 6950 is a beast :)
 

El Xando

"Dam whippersnapper"
Aww, I have the first gen CM-690 case. The update looks nicer with all black D:
You could do a bit of a better job with cable management. Also, I'd suggest moving the top fan to the spot just to the left of it. It'll pull more air through the fins of the cooler.

Is that still a 4530 nestled in there just below the top graphics card?

True enough about cable management, I'll probably do that some time :) I just had those goddamn front panel connections...

And nope, it's a 5450 :)

Just tried overclocking it to 4.5GHz with Turbo, and the second Prime95 workers actually started doing the Lucas-Lehmer operations my PC froze and got a 0x00000124 blue screen, which according to the guide I'm going by could mean too little VCore, despite the guide saying it should be 1.25V at the moment and it's set to 1.32V...

EDIT: Hmmmm, this was my 1000th post :)
 

MenaceInc

Staff Member
True enough about cable management, I'll probably do that some time :) I just had those goddamn front panel connections...

And nope, it's a 5450 :)

Just tried overclocking it to 4.5GHz with Turbo, and the second Prime95 workers actually started doing the Lucas-Lehmer operations my PC froze and got a 0x00000124 blue screen, which according to the guide I'm going by could mean too little VCore, despite the guide saying it should be 1.25V at the moment and it's set to 1.32V...

Individual CPU voltages can vary between even between samples of the same batch. Your mileage may vary greatly when it comes to overclocking and it's very rare to get the same overclock as samples sent to reviewers in my experience.
 

El Xando

"Dam whippersnapper"
Individual CPU voltages can vary between even between samples of the same batch. Your mileage may vary greatly when it comes to overclocking and it's very rare to get the same overclock as samples sent to reviewers in my experience.

Ah OK, however I'm not sure it actually was 1.32... It was set to Auto, but 1.32 was written next to it (and I think Auto usually does that...)

I'm just looking into whether I should be increasing CPU Clock Ratio or Turbo Ratio in order to overclock... When I used Gigabytes "Quick Boost" program to 4.2GHz it put Core 4 at 42, core 3 at 43, core 2 at 44 and core 1 at 45 in the BIOS for Turbo...

---------- Post added at 11:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:57 PM ----------

Just tried setting the CPU Clock Ratio to 45 and just turning off Turbo and prime95 seems fine - seems Turbo off is the way to go.

---------- Post added at 11:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:08 PM ----------

Think I'm going to stick with 4.5GHz for now. May go up to 4.8GHz at some point though.
Current Windows Experience Scores:
CPU: 7.8
Memory: 7.8
Graphics: 7.9
Gaming Graphics: 7.9
Primary Hard Disk: 7.6 (Went up 0.1 for no reason :p)
 

FrozenIpaq

Justin B / Supp. Editor
Enforcer Team
Nice...really makes me wish I could upgrade my rig myself but I really don't need to. I've been meaning to overclock my own processor (i7 920) to 3.0+ but I'm just not comfortable with overclocking just yet
 

x3sphere

Administrator
Staff member
Enforcer Team
Game Info Editor
Nice...really makes me wish I could upgrade my rig myself but I really don't need to. I've been meaning to overclock my own processor (i7 920) to 3.0+ but I'm just not comfortable with overclocking just yet

All I did was raise the BCLK to 149. I don't see any value in pushing it higher than 3.1 GHz right now, every game I play has been GPU bound.
 

El Diablo

Member
I'm really jealous of you. I was planning on buying a 2600k and motherboard this week for my own upgrades despite the recalls but it's impossible to find a motherboard anywhere :(. But I'm buying a 6950 to hold me off while I wait for new motherboards so I guess that's good enough. Did you unlock yours to a 6970 by any chance?
 

Trigun

That guy, who Records Music.
Individual CPU voltages can vary between even between samples of the same batch. Your mileage may vary greatly when it comes to overclocking and it's very rare to get the same overclock as samples sent to reviewers in my experience.

SO TRUE, it's a shame really.
Because Overclock.net got a 950 stable @4ghz with only 1.12 Vcore and my 950 needs 1.27 to be stable at 3.8ghz



El-diablo, your RAM should at least get a 7.9 with 1600 at stock timings.

I have 6GB ram at stock 9-9-9-24 settings @1600mhz with a 7.9 rating.

Mind you mine is an X58/1366 board with triple channel so maybe that makes some kind of difference.
 

El Diablo

Member
Xando has the diesel computer not me, mines still a POS :p.
 

FrozenIpaq

Justin B / Supp. Editor
Enforcer Team
Yeah haha, So. Why are you not comfortable with overclocking ?

Afraid of blowing it up? or frying it ? hah

Just no comfortable with changing settings I'm not 100% sure on. I still need to do some reading on how to overclock my i7. I did try a while back but got tired of going back and forth from the bios and was changing the settings without fully knowing what they did
 

Trigun

That guy, who Records Music.
Well, once you get an overall idea of how it works it's pretty easy. The part that sucks is trying to find stable settings(Prime95, OCCT, 3DMark and other benchmarks) or figuring out what is screwing with you because every chip is different. Some people with 920's say that odd CPU multipliers make their systems more likely to be stable and etc.

i'll link to a guide for ya that will help you out if you take some time to go through it all. If you have a hard time remembering it when you have to turn your PC off and whatnot, I'd write important stuff down somewhere(I do it all the time)

http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/overclocking/22106-core-i7-overclocking-guide-beginners.html

One thing I do recommend over the guide though is that depending on your motherboard ,you might or might not be able to get 1.66v on the DRAM (like my ASUS Rampage II Gene goes from 1.65 to 1.67) but you really don't need 1.66 anyway



However things it doesn't tell you to turn off that should be off for overclocking stability.
C1E
Spread Spectrum
Speedstep(in my experience when it's ramping the speed up when you play games it causes a lot of stuttering and issues, and I'm pretty sure others recommend turning it off, but look around it varies)
C-state


here is another guide as well
http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/overclocking/22106-core-i7-overclocking-guide-beginners.html
 

Trigun

That guy, who Records Music.
No problem. Let me know how it goes. Just start off slow like the guides suggest.

You don't wanna OC it too much and have to reset the CMOS by the jumper method if your mobo doesn't have a CMOS button on the back or an Overclock failure feature that retains default settings for when things go wrong.
 

El Xando

"Dam whippersnapper"
SO TRUE, it's a shame really.
Because Overclock.net got a 950 stable @4ghz with only 1.12 Vcore and my 950 needs 1.27 to be stable at 3.8ghz



El Xando, your RAM should at least get a 7.9 with 1600 at stock timings.

I have 6GB ram at stock 9-9-9-24 settings @1600mhz with a 7.9 rating.

Mind you mine is an X58/1366 board with triple channel so maybe that makes some kind of difference.

I can't explain that RAM thing, unless triple channel makes a difference...
Also, found that 4.5GHz wasn't stable. Got BSOD Stop 0x00000124 using prime95, which can apparently mean too little VCore but it was on 1.32V which is apparently more than enough according to the guide on Clunk... Down to 4.2GHz now, and just now running prime it went through 5 tests and I started smelling burning... Yet the temps were all around 60.
 
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