Oops!

[barnez]

Someone please give me a virtual slap upside the head.

I'm (finally) in the process of building my new system - but forgot that IDE cables are a thing of the past (gotta order new DVD drive)

then, to top it off, realized just now my old case will not fit with new board layout (my SATA cables will be crushed against the HDD mounting enclosure)

So much for keeping my old beloved case of 6 yrs! (ya it's been THAT long! This was a system build to last, it's honestly not overly outdated, except for higher-end graphics like RW3)

Hoping the wife doesn't get too upset when she finds out I had to spend extra coin on this!

Still, this all should be worth it when I'm finished:

AMD Phenom IIx4 955, 8GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 560 1GB video card

-barnez

[arizonachris]

I love my new rig, Phenom II 970, 8Gb DDR3 RAM, Gigabyte AM3 board. Yeah, no IDE port or floppy, those are a thing of the past.

I would really recommend, see if you can sneak a Cooler Master HAF 922 case in there. It's a mid tower but has a ton of room. New Egg has it for $100. No PSU tho.

[barnez]

I love my new rig, Phenom II 970, 8Gb DDR3 RAM, Gigabyte AM3 board. Yeah, no IDE port or floppy, those are a thing of the past.

I would really recommend, see if you can sneak a Cooler Master HAF 922 case in there. It's a mid tower but has a ton of room. New Egg has it for $100. No PSU tho.

Close! Are you spying on me?

I went with: Cooler Master NV-692A-KWN2 CM 690 II Nvidia Edition ATX Mid-Tower Case

A cheap SATA DVD burner is on its way, should be here early next week.



-barnez

[ex-railwayman]

Someone please give me a virtual slap upside the head.

Hoping the wife doesn't get too upset when she finds out I had to spend extra coin on this!

-barnez

I think your wife might give you more than just a VIRTUAL slapping when she finds out.....

I hope you have plenty of medical insurance.

Have a great weekend.

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.

[arizonachris]

The 690 is also a great case. That's the one I had before this HAF 922. I love Cooler Master products, just so well made, great quality. Like the Hyper 212 CPU cooler. For $30 one of the best air coolers around.

[micaelcorleone]

The 690 is also a great case. That's the one I had before this HAF 922. I love Cooler Master products, just so well made, great quality. Like the Hyper 212 CPU cooler. For $30 one of the best air coolers around.

I can second that. I also love my new CoolerMaster HAF.

[barnez]

Like the Hyper 212 CPU cooler. For $30 one of the best air coolers around.

As a budget conscious hardware-geek who doesn't do any over-clocking, I'm taking the wait-and-see approach here. If the stock heatsink performs to my satisfaction I'm not going to bother, however, if the temps creep up under gaming stress, that is the heatsink I'm getting.

Speaking of not over-clocking, here's a question for those that do, sorry, it's a bit long-winded:

My new system (mostly built now) has a mobo that defaults the DIMM rail to 1.5v however, the RAM I ended up getting is Corsair 1600mHz DDR3 (listed as supported by the mobo manufacturer) but what I didn't realize when I was ordering everything is that the RAM spec is 1.65v

As things stand now letting BIOS set clockspeeds and such at [auto] the RAM is running at 1333mHz (clock multiplier 6.67, rail 1.5v). I'm assuming this is mainly because the mobo defaults to 1.5v rail so the RAM is running underclocked.

Is there any issue/ potential problems with tweaking the BIOS to run get the RAM to run at its spec of 1600mHz? (I'm guessing I'd have to manually set the rail to 1.65v for stability)

thanks,

-barnez

[arizonachris]

RAM voltage should not affect RAM speed. You can run a program like CPU-Z http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html which will tell you all the info about what speed everything is running at. But, if the system isn't stable under load, then you may have to increase the RAM voltage.

I generally just let the BIOS decide when I first build a PC, then if I have issues, I'll make changes. Most boards these days will auto detect RAM speed and voltage, CPU speed and voltage, etc.

Overclocking is a whole nother ball of wax. I don't O/C so I can't give you any advice there. I push my rig hard enough at stock settings. Try running Folding @ Home on your video card (99% usage) and on your CPU (100% usage) That will test your system (and help cancer research)

[barnez]

I generally just let the BIOS decide when I first build a PC, then if I have issues, I'll make changes. Most boards these days will auto detect RAM speed and voltage, CPU speed and voltage, etc.

This is generally how I do things also, I was just surprised when I booted everything up and the BIOS reported the RAM running @ 1333mHz instead of 1600mHz.

Overclocking is a whole nother ball of wax. I don't O/C so I can't give you any advice there. I push my rig hard enough at stock settings.

Again, I'm pretty much in the same boat as you are (hence the original question). I guess the simplest is to install cpu-z when everything is fully up and running.

I'm also wondering if the RAM is running @ 1333 because the native memory clockspeed for the 955 B.E. cpu is that speed, a simple couple of setting changes in BIOS should do the trick, then again, is the 267mHz difference really going to be noticable? (and as everything appears stable running at defaults, will I begin unraveling the yarn-ball-of-instability by playing with the BIOS settings?)

-barnez

[arizonachris]

If you are happy with how it's running right now, as the saying goes, "if it ain't broke don't fix it" But changing RAM voltage and timings to what the manufacturer recommends is easy enough. Well, providing you can decipher all those darn BIOS settings. This new Gigabyte board I got is really a challenge. I've never seen so much "stuff" you can change. That's pretty much why I made just a few changes and left all the rest at default.

[barnez]

This new Gigabyte board I got is really a challenge. I've never seen so much "stuff" you can change.

Do we have the same (or similar) board? I went with the Gigabyte 990XA-UD3

And yes, I was blown away by the bazillion items that can be played with (read messed up) in the BIOS

My SATA DVD drive arrived today, but the little guy should be up from his nap soon & I work tomorrow - so looks like I'll begin the software adventure Wednesday. The fun part there will be chatting with Microsoft (I didn't realize how strict the Win7 OEM license is ) to get a new activation code

-barnez

[arizonachris]

I got the GA 990FXA-UD3. Yeah, MS was fun, but at least it was the automated thing, didn't have to talk to someone who could barely speak English.

[barnez]

I got the GA 990FXA-UD3.

Ah, virtually identical then. So, if I might ask, did you go with 1333mHz RAM or 1600?

Yeah, MS was fun, but at least it was the automated thing, didn't have to talk to someone who could barely speak English.

hoping for the same outcome. Planning to have results (or a new copy of Win7) Wednesday.

-barnez

[glcbn]

(and as everything appears stable running at defaults, will I begin unraveling the yarn-ball-of-instability by playing with the BIOS settings?)

This is very possible. If you are wanting to push (OC) your hardware,it's best to do some research and know what your components are capable of. Overclocking can be very rewarding,but it is also nothing to mess with if you don't know what you're doing. I guess what I'm saying is do your homework and learn about OC'ing before you go fooling with anything. There are a number of sites dedicated to overclocking,it may be beneficial to visit a few.

As Chris stated if it ain't broke don't fix it,but I also agree that the memory is tested at a specific voltage and that is what it should be set to.

Greg

[arizonachris]

Barnez, I went all out with 1866 RAM. Fastest this board could do. And it does see it and runs it as such. Voltage is low, but that's OK with me. Voltage = heat, heat = shorter life span for components. I do have a top notch case with really awesome cooling, but just the same, I'm not pushing anything more than I already am. Folding @ Home will tax any system. And, Greg is right, if you don't know what you're doing, just a little overvolt or overclock can cost you a lot of money. Take it slow, take it a step at a time, and read! Read!