obobskivich wrote:

RacoonRider: 4870X2 is a very neat card. While I don't miss the fan noise, I'm still kind of bummed that mine developed issues. It did a great job with anything I threw at it, even fairly new games like Hitman Absolution or Mass Effect 3, and handled higher-level AA (16x and above) in even semi-recent games like Oblivion without much trouble. Something I noted on both of my 4800s, and I'm not sure if this will be true of your card or not, is that the built-in clock management (which will drop the GPUs down to around 500MHz at idle) would not engage at default settings, but manually over- or under-clocking them by 1MHz would somehow get this working. It doesn't make any difference in 3D performance or temperatures, but it can lower idle temperatures a good bit. I vaguely remember Tom's Hardware showing that engaging a 3D application (Aero not working) would also force the clock management to work, and that the X2 played along with that, but that's kind of annoying to do every time the machine is started (unless you leave the machine on all the time so that this wouldn't be a common thing).

I'd also probably move that WiFi card away from the X2 if you can - the X2 will get very warm when running in 3D, and it will heat up things around it (and we aren't talking insubstantially - it sheds enough heat that it could warm my idle 4890 enough to force that one's fan to spin up, and it's certainly nothing you want to touch right after it's been cranking in 3D for hours).

Still a very cool build that brings back some memories, and should be very solid even with newer games.

Thanks for the advice! I tested the 4870X2 with AIDA, the clock management is working well with latest drivers. However, during windows install (I did it on an open bench), there is no clock management at all, as no driver is loaded. Man, that thing is hot at default clock 😁 I could not keep my hand on it 😁

Considering the network card, it's in a very nice spot not obstructiong any airflow to the GPU, next to the plastic shroud so I see no reason for it heating up... Besides, there's a cooler blowing right next to it (on the side panel).

RacoonRider wrote:

Thanks for the advice! I tested the 4870X2 with AIDA, the clock management is working well with latest drivers. However, during windows install (I did it on an open bench), there is no clock management at all, as no driver is loaded. Man, that thing is hot at default clock 😁 I could not keep my hand on it 😁

Considering the network card, it's in a very nice spot not obstructiong any airflow to the GPU, next to the plastic shroud so I see no reason for it heating up... Besides, there's a cooler blowing right next to it (on the side panel).

At least they finally fixed the clock thing in drivers. 🤣 In response to both touching the card and the WiFi card: the X2 can run 80*C or better on both GPUs, and has a TDP close to 300W. Not something I'd touch when it's running in 3D, and give it some time to cool after powering off if you have to work on it. Even that plastic shroud will get pretty hot; the card produces enough heat that it will radiate heat away basically all around. I'm not saying that I'm certain the WiFi card will have trouble - it may not care about the heat - but it's just something to keep in mind. 😊

My current:

Asus Maximus V Extreme
Intel Core I7 3770k @3500 Mhz
32 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 @1600 Mhz
Sapphire HD 7970 Dual X OC
OCZ Vertex 4 256 GB SSD
Seagate 1 TB 7200 SATA III hdd (RMAing right now, failed Seagate tools test)
WL 750 GB SATA III hdd
Corsair H80i CPU Liquid Cooler
Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1200W PSU
Asus ProArt PA248 1920 x 1200 24" lcd monitor
Cooler Master HAF-X tower on wheels
Logitech G110 keyboard
Asus ROG MOBKUL gaming mouse
Windows 7 Pro / Ubuntu 12.04

My specs

Phenom II 1045T (OC to 3.9GHZ)
8GB Corsair Vengeance 1333mhz at 1500mhz
GTX 660 (OC ~ 1.03ghz)
500GB WD Blue hdd
320GB WD Blue 2.5 hdd
Asus M5A78L-M LX PLUS
650 Watt PSU

jwt27 wrote:

Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-X79-UP4 CPU: Core i7-4930K Memory: 16GB Kingston 2400-CL11 Video: ASUS Nvidia GTX780 Audio: SB X-Fi Elite […]
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Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-X79-UP4
CPU: Core i7-4930K
Memory: 16GB Kingston 2400-CL11
Video: ASUS Nvidia GTX780
Audio: SB X-Fi Elite Pro
Storage: Samsung 840Pro 256GB + Seagate ST3000
Power: Seasonic M12II Evo

Just finished installing new silent fans. Made this 6-way splitter cable to connect all of them to the single controllable fan header on the mainboard:

Some attempt at cable routing: (I think I failed)

Isn't this dangerous? All the amps going through that single header could burn it up couldn't it?

Well, typically a single header can supply at least 1A of current (on most modern boards it goes up to 1.5A). The average case fan draws about 0.25A, so on a modern motherboard you can easily connect 4-6 fans onto one header.I personally prefer having 2-3 on one header.

With six high-speed fans, this would be dangerous. But as I said, I installed only very silent fans 😉 My reasoning was that filling the case up with slow fans would provide more airflow with less noise, compared to having only one or two high-speed fans, and any noise would be a low rumble instead of a high-pitched whine.
In the current configuration I have two fans of 140mm/1000rpm taking 120mA, two 140mm/600rpm taking 60mA, and two 120mm/1300rpm taking 70mA each. So the total load never even exceeds 0.5A 😉
I drew my own fan control curves in Speedfan so that they're all practically off/idling all the time. At full speed, all the fans combined still make less noise than the yoke coils in my monitor...

Recently I upgraded my main PC with C2Q Q6600 and wooh, still faster than E6420 @ 3 GHz, which served me from the beginning 🤣
But Intel stock cooler is not that good for quad-core monster 😵

Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 rev 3.3
Patriot 2x4GB DDR2-800 and GEIL 2x1GB DDR2-800
ZOTAC GeForce 9800GTX+ 1GB
XFX Core 550W 120mm (replaced Chieftec GPS-400W, fan started to be very noisy)
Zalman Z3 (for future PC upgrade, replaced Chieftec Bravo BA-01B-B-B. Now it's home for Pentium III-S setup)

My current PC:
Mainboard: MSI-7255
Processor: Pentium Dual Core E2180 2 Ghz
RAM: GoodRAM 2GB DDR2 800 but run at 667Mhz
Videocard: Gigabyte GForce 8600GTS
Harddisk: Fujitsu 80gb 2.5" and Seagate 3.5" 80gb, both are on SATA
Optical: DVD-RW Samsung SH-S182
PSU: Modecom 500W

Now that is old PC but I don`t need more.

i7-4930k @ 4.3GHz (1.15v)
Asus Rampage IV Gene (x79, mATX, LGA2011)
Asus Strix Geforce GTX 970
32GB DDR3-2133 CL9 @ 1.55v (G.skill TridentX)
256GB 840 Pro SSD, 4TB 7200RPM/128MB Barracuda XT
LG Blu-ray/HD-DVD combo drive
Silverstone Temjin TJ08-E mATX case

And all very easily powered by a 560w Seasonic. The thing doesn't even break a sweat. 😀

Standard Def Steve wrote:

i7-4930k @ 4.3GHz (1.15v) Asus Rampage IV Gene (x79, mATX, LGA2011) Asus Strix Geforce GTX 970 32GB DDR3-2133 CL9 @ 1.55v (G.ski […]
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i7-4930k @ 4.3GHz (1.15v)
Asus Rampage IV Gene (x79, mATX, LGA2011)
Asus Strix Geforce GTX 970
32GB DDR3-2133 CL9 @ 1.55v (G.skill TridentX)
256GB 840 Pro SSD, 4TB 7200RPM/128MB Barracuda XT
LG Blu-ray/HD-DVD combo drive
Silverstone Temjin TJ08-E mATX case

And all very easily powered by a 560w Seasonic. The thing doesn't even break a sweat. 😀

That would probably shut down during high end gaming (Crysis, BF4)

MrEWhite wrote:

Standard Def Steve wrote:

i7-4930k @ 4.3GHz (1.15v) Asus Rampage IV Gene (x79, mATX, LGA2011) Asus Strix Geforce GTX 970 32GB DDR3-2133 CL9 @ 1.55v (G.ski […]
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i7-4930k @ 4.3GHz (1.15v)
Asus Rampage IV Gene (x79, mATX, LGA2011)
Asus Strix Geforce GTX 970
32GB DDR3-2133 CL9 @ 1.55v (G.skill TridentX)
256GB 840 Pro SSD, 4TB 7200RPM/128MB Barracuda XT
LG Blu-ray/HD-DVD combo drive
Silverstone Temjin TJ08-E mATX case

And all very easily powered by a 560w Seasonic. The thing doesn't even break a sweat. 😀

That would probably shut down during high end gaming (Crysis, BF4)

Utterly false claim.

MrEWhite wrote:

Standard Def Steve wrote:

i7-4930k @ 4.3GHz (1.15v) Asus Rampage IV Gene (x79, mATX, LGA2011) Asus Strix Geforce GTX 970 32GB DDR3-2133 CL9 @ 1.55v (G.ski […]
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i7-4930k @ 4.3GHz (1.15v)
Asus Rampage IV Gene (x79, mATX, LGA2011)
Asus Strix Geforce GTX 970
32GB DDR3-2133 CL9 @ 1.55v (G.skill TridentX)
256GB 840 Pro SSD, 4TB 7200RPM/128MB Barracuda XT
LG Blu-ray/HD-DVD combo drive
Silverstone Temjin TJ08-E mATX case

And all very easily powered by a 560w Seasonic. The thing doesn't even break a sweat. 😀

That would probably shut down during high end gaming (Crysis, BF4)

You know, if it was shutting down during high end gaming, I probably wouldn't have said that it was very easily powered by the 560w PSU. 😀

IIRC, full load power draw at the wall is something like 350w. I limit my overclocking to the highest the CPU can go at its stock voltage, which really helps to keep the power consumption down. I'm also fairly confident that the X-560 would have no problem pushing 600w if it ever had to. It's a very well built power supply.

I actually decided to do an upgrade to my main rig not too long ago; here's the revised specs:

Intel Core i5-2500 @ 3.6GHz
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3, LGA 1155 mobo
8GB G.Skill Eco Series DDR3-1333
Gigabyte nVidia GeForce GTX660, 2GB GDDR5 VRAM
128GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD + 750GB & 1 TB Samsung F3 HDDs
Lite-On DVD burner
Rosewill Challenger ATX case
Rosewill Green Series RG530-S12 530w PSU

MrEWhite wrote:

Standard Def Steve wrote:

i7-4930k @ 4.3GHz (1.15v) Asus Rampage IV Gene (x79, mATX, LGA2011) Asus Strix Geforce GTX 970 32GB DDR3-2133 CL9 @ 1.55v (G.ski […]
Show full quote

i7-4930k @ 4.3GHz (1.15v)
Asus Rampage IV Gene (x79, mATX, LGA2011)
Asus Strix Geforce GTX 970
32GB DDR3-2133 CL9 @ 1.55v (G.skill TridentX)
256GB 840 Pro SSD, 4TB 7200RPM/128MB Barracuda XT
LG Blu-ray/HD-DVD combo drive
Silverstone Temjin TJ08-E mATX case

And all very easily powered by a 560w Seasonic. The thing doesn't even break a sweat. 😀

That would probably shut down during high end gaming (Crysis, BF4)

Super fail.
Probably it would not draw more than 300W in heavy gaming.
Definitely under 400. And I'm talking about consumption from the wall, not DC power supply.

GeorgeMan wrote:

Definitely under 400. And I'm talking about consumption from the wall, not DC power supply.

Which would always be higher unless you have a magical >100% efficient PSU.

The current Mothership:

AMD FX-8350 @ 4.8
Noctua NH-D14
Asus Crosshair Formula V
Lian-Li PC-A05N natural silver [back-to-front venting]
850w Corsair TX850M
8gb G-Skill DDR3/2133
Radeon 7870 Ghz Ed
1TB SSD Samsung 850 Evo [upgraded this month]
3TB SATA3 Seagate Baracuda
Lite-On DVD

Me of not a lot of budget.. my system is a weird mash up of 'normal desktop parts', and server parts fit in to them, then everything overclocked as far as it will go and fed as much voltage as necessary to keep it stable. It's not pretty, it's not elegant, and it's not fun to look at, but it's pure flat out performance and that's all.

CPU: Xeon W3520 (the exact same as the I7-920, just with a different label), clocked to 4398 - 4399.9 mhz, 1.435v cpu vcore and on a corsair H110 water cooler with 4 x yate loon 140mm fans in push-pull (top of the case, sandwiched around the top radiator inside and tucked up in the top). Sleeve-Bearing, high static pressure, low rpm low noise.
Ram: Mushkin Blackline Ridgeback 3 x 4GB (I've recently added a 4th for 16 GB) DDR3-2400, but currently runs at just 1676 Mhz (This CPU's memory controller won't go higher.. I used to have a 6 core that did 2400 at one point in time).
Video card: Matched pair of EVGA GTX 470 Hydro Copper FTW cards, clocked @ 850 Mhz core, 3700 Mhz memory, and 1.175v, running on their own dedicated custom water loop.
Motherboard: EVGA CLASSIFIED x58 3-WAY-SLI (E760)
Storage.. two sections, primary and secondary.
Primary storage: Dell PERC 5/i hadware sas raid card. Using 8 x 15,000 rpm, 16MB buffer, SAS 3 Gbps @ 73.4 GB Seagate Cheetah 15k.5 hard drives in raid-5, 512Gb primary storage.
Secondary storage: 3 x Seagate 7200 rpm, 16MB buffer, Sata 3 Gbps drives @ 750 GB, raid-0 for 2TB secondary storage, on raid-0 on onboard intel raid chipset.
Power: Seasonic Platinum 1000 watt Power Supply.
Chassis: Antec Twelve-Hundred

Larger version: http://www.outfoxed.net/i7-current/inside-large.jpg

Current CPU was $12 used on ebay, pair of video cards were $100 total shipped, and the big purchases for it were the power supply and ram in 2013. The segate sas drives are $10 - $14 each used, and the seagate desktop drives I got on a ebay listing for $24/each in 2014 (One's on it's last breath and dying.. needs replacing soon). Using 6 x matched ADDA 120mm fans on the radiator for the GPU's, which are high static pressure, but low rpm and low noise, and on a fan controller in the front. ADDA fans are push-pull and push in to the back of the case actually, and help cool motherboard components, then go out through the top cpu radiator.

GPU's aren't that amazing, and they're not enough to play modern-day AAA DirectX-11 games (Sadly), but they're a heck of a lot better than the pair of stock-clocked HD4890's I had before.

I'm currently working on savings to attempt to buy some sort of large newer GPU some time this year, most likely something maxwell from the GTX 900 series, or a used 700-series titan, not sure which yet. But what ever I get, will be bought before the end of this year for sure. Probably sooner.

And then shortly after I get that bought.. I plan to get another 6 core 12-threaded chip for it, I've seen some 6-core xeon chips for this platform for $129 - $160, and plan to get one of those in the first part of 2016. And during 2016, planning to expand the storage on this system as well. Most likely upgrading it to a dell H700 Sas 6 Gbps pci-e 2.0 card, and look in to 8 x 300GB 6 Gbps drives, or possibly (if prices come down) raid-array of samsung pro ssd's.

kithylin wrote:

Primary storage: Dell PERC 5/i hadware sas raid card. Using 8 x 15,000 rpm, 16MB buffer, SAS 3 Gbps @ 73.4 GB Seagate Cheetah 15k.5 hard drives in raid-5, 512Gb primary storage.
Secondary storage: 3 x Seagate 7200 rpm, 16MB buffer, Sata 3 Gbps drives @ 750 GB, raid-0 for 2TB secondary storage, on raid-0 on onboard intel raid chipset.

Informative. Aren't those SAS drives noisy?

bristlehog wrote:

kithylin wrote:

Primary storage: Dell PERC 5/i hadware sas raid card. Using 8 x 15,000 rpm, 16MB buffer, SAS 3 Gbps @ 73.4 GB Seagate Cheetah 15k.5 hard drives in raid-5, 512Gb primary storage.
Secondary storage: 3 x Seagate 7200 rpm, 16MB buffer, Sata 3 Gbps drives @ 750 GB, raid-0 for 2TB secondary storage, on raid-0 on onboard intel raid chipset.

Informative. Aren't those SAS drives noisy?

Nope! Modern day SAS drives are actually not very loud. Idle sound is 33db, I checked in depth before buying em. Seagates are the quietest, hitachi ones are 40db, and western digital ones are 37db. And that's these 3 Gbps ones, the 6 Gbps ones are about 30db - 33db from every manufacturer. They're actually quieter now a days because less noise = less vibration, which makes the drives last longer.

I chose this arrangement because when it's up and running, the IOPS performance exceeds most mid-range Sata-III SSD's. And the controller was just $35 + two cables ($13 x 2). And now a days the more modern controllers the PERC 6/i are down to $30.