Tiger433 wrote:

In my opinion your CPU is bottleneck for that cards, I see somewhere that for normal SLI of 7800GTX is good a OC`ed Athlon 64 to 3 Ghz, so will be good use a Athlon 6400+ or Phenom with 4 cores if you can use him at your mainboard.

I do plan on overclocking soon after I get a new cooler. We'll see how it turns out. My board supports both the Athlon 64 X2 and the Phenom II quad core CPUs, I wonder how cheap those are?

AlphaDangerDen wrote:

Yawnald wrote:

This is so funny... I'm doing the exact thing right now: building the machine I had in late 2006. I went with a Core 2 Extreme X6800 and two 8800 GTXs. I still had my Pcpowerandcooling 1KW SR psu lying around. 😁

You should start a build log thread of this system, I'd love to see it!

Edit: Gonna try to stop with the double/triple/quadruple posting and condense my posts after this one. Mods are probably getting upset with me right now 😜

I may throw up a couple pics in a bit. I should have made a thread before I started it. 😵
I'll make a thread for sure when I build my next one. I'm thinking a MAXIMUM socket 775 machine with a QX9770 and nforce 790I board. Maybe three GTX 285s as well.

I'm out of town today and I'll be back home tomorrow. When I get back, I'm gonna roll back GPU drivers, work on installing the Ageia PhysX PPU, work on SSD optimization for XP, see if I can remove the OEM extensions from the GPUs for better cooling (I'll go more in depth about this soon, stay tuned), and install some more games. Pretty excited to be working with this build!

AlphaDangerDen wrote:

I'm out of town today and I'll be back home tomorrow. When I get back, I'm gonna roll back GPU drivers, work on installing the Ageia PhysX PPU, work on SSD optimization for XP, see if I can remove the OEM extensions from the GPUs for better cooling (I'll go more in depth about this soon, stay tuned), and install some more games. Pretty excited to be working with this build!

Those things will come off no problem. I bought ~10 Dell GTX 7900s a year or so ago, all with those stupid long card braces. They come right off.

Yawnald wrote:

AlphaDangerDen wrote:

I'm out of town today and I'll be back home tomorrow. When I get back, I'm gonna roll back GPU drivers, work on installing the Ageia PhysX PPU, work on SSD optimization for XP, see if I can remove the OEM extensions from the GPUs for better cooling (I'll go more in depth about this soon, stay tuned), and install some more games. Pretty excited to be working with this build!

Those things will come off no problem. I bought ~10 Dell GTX 7900s a year or so ago, all with those stupid long card braces. They come right off.

When the first card 7950GX2 arrived I removed the bracket but I noticed that the top PCB (with the video outputs) was only held in place by the screws for the video connectors, the interposer PCB (connects the top and bottom PCB) and one tall plastic spacer which has a screw on both sides. The top PCB flexes and wobbles a lot, especially when plugging in the PCIe power connector and SLI bridge, so I put the brace back on.

I believe on the retail version of the card there are more of those plastic spacers because there's holes for them on both PCBs that line up perfectly, the metal bracket on the OEM card screws into those holes, effectively replacing the spacers. It's a bit confusing to think about but I'll see if I can go to the hardware store soon and get more of those spacers. It will definitely be interesting.

Okay some quick updates.

I reinstalled Windows 10 Professional because it on boot up it would give me a never-ending black screen with the mouse cursor. I assumed it was a hardware compatibility or driver issue. After reinstalling, thing surprisingly went well. Most of the hardware installed fine, and most of it was auto-detected and automatically installed without having to download special drivers. PhysX card still doesn't work 😜

I did get the system hooked up to the internet, via a Linksys router acting as a switch (my main rig is also hooked up to this router) -> powerline adapter -> main router -> modem -> internetz. Pretty sweet.

I'll be heading to Ace Hardware tomorrow to find those plastic spacers (and maybe screws depending on what they have) for the GPUs so I can ditch the OEM brackets. Hopefully my Rosewill RC-211 will come in tomorrow.

I also have a KVM switch that I can use to toggle between my main rig and this rig, really wanted to use the same keyboard I use for my main rig (Custom Unicomp Classic 101-key) and my mouse (MSI DS200), I have everything I need except a PS/2 -> USB adapter I ordered from Hong Kong.

EDIT: RC-211 came in like 2 minutes after I posted this post, will upload pics later tonight.

Quick Update:

1.) I believe my PhysX card is dead. Can't get it to be detected in multiple OSes with any driver available.

2.) Couldn't find those hex coupling spacers for the GPUs, not a huge deal, though.

3.) The IDE -> SATA converter for the optical drive makes the whole system run super slow, don't know why but it does. May consider getting a SATA optical drive from a friend.

I'm liking it!

Can you even still get drivers for the Aegia card? It was my understanding that nVidia dropped support for it right after they started including Phys-X support in their own cards and that games released beyond a certain point in time won't recognize it any longer. I wouldn't think that any version of Windows beyond XP would recognize it, either.

sliderider wrote:

Can you even still get drivers for the Aegia card? It was my understanding that nVidia dropped support for it right after they started including Phys-X support in their own cards and that games released beyond a certain point in time won't recognize it any longer. I wouldn't think that any version of Windows beyond XP would recognize it, either.

The review I read used Athlon 64 3700+, x1900XT and XP SP2 as test config for Ageia PhysX. So that might be true, however I thought Ageia was there at the time Vista was new and hot OS.

sliderider wrote:

Can you even still get drivers for the Aegia card? It was my understanding that nVidia dropped support for it right after they started including Phys-X support in their own cards and that games released beyond a certain point in time won't recognize it any longer. I wouldn't think that any version of Windows beyond XP would recognize it, either.

You can still find old Ageia drivers online, granted not on Ageia's site (via Wayback Machine) or Nvidia, but some sites still have it. I think even some versions of the PhysX software from Nvidia still supported the Ageia PPU shortly after Ageia was acquired, but they eventually cut off support for the PPU. I've tried both the Ageia and Nvidia PhysX software in both Windows XP 32-bit/64-bit and Windows 10, with no luck. I'm almost sure my PPU is dead. Something I didn't noticed until recently is the PCB is super warped, not sure how I didn't notice it before.

EDIT: I've read online that you can mod the latest version of Nvidia's PhysX software to support the Ageia PPU, but this probably won't help my situation. Just thought it'd be neat to point out.

Hey everybody, here are the updates:

1.) The fan mounting bracket and 80mm fans recently came in. Everything is fine but I noticed that the bracket actually supports 92mm fans, which the eBay listing didn't mention. A bit disappointed that I could've used 92mm fans over 80mm but the current setup works well. I barely got the fans hooked up without having to unplug any of the other fans, I really need some 3-pin fan power extensions to improve cable management.

Here are the links to the fan bracket and the 80mm fans:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/251879093930?_trksid= … K%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
http://www.ebay.com/itm/271529838019?_trksid= … K%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

2.) I'm currently in the process of finding the right Forceware driver to fix the Far Cry texture bug, can't use the 7950GX2 launch driver because it doesn't support XP 64-bit (why!??!).

3.) I'm like 95% sure my PhysX PPU is dead. The seller doesn't accept returns or refunds so I'm SOL on this one, although thankfully I only paid $10 so it's not a huge loss, but pretty disappointed. The fan spins up but no driver/OS combo I use will detect it, although it's detected as a coprocessor in device manager in all the versions of Windows I've used. The PCB is warped as hell so that's probably why it's dead.

4.) Considered getting a slim SATA optical drive, which I can take out of a laptop here, and (figuratively) slap it into one of these bay adapters:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/191675930907?_trksid= … K%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

In the 3.5" bay on the adapter will be a 3.5" floppy drive with a rounded cable, and in the other 5.25" bay in my Define R4 I'd like to get a Creative Labs Live Drive, whether it's the Audigy 2 ZS or the X-Fi one depends on what sound card I upgrade to. I would also need to get a slim SATA data/power to normal SATA data/power cable, no biggie, they're super cheap.

5.) I'd like to get some RAM heat spreaders. Yes, I know these won't really improve cooling and I'm not worried about that (for the RAM, anyway), but I'm not a huge fan of bare green PCB RAM, super ugly IMHO.

Here's the ones I'd like to get soon:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/220816786718?_trksid= … K%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

6.) I moved the Cooler Master 120mm fans around and took the Corsair 120mm fans out, those things were so freaking loud. The rig is super quiet without them haha. I also altered the fan speed curve on the AMD stock cooler, that thing at full speed (which was all the time) was louder than the Corsair fans! Once again, this system is super quiet now 😀

7.) Gonna get some molex splitters and extensions. I'm pretty much out of free molex power connectors on the PSU. There's a PCIe power connector on the motherboard for providing extra power to the GPUs, which I'd rather use than not. Better to be safe than sorry. A nice long braided molex extension would be nice.

8.) I won a KVM switch on eBay when I won the the first 7950GX2 around 2 weeks ago. I had to order some PS/2 to USB and USB to PS/2 adapters because my Unicomp is PS/2 and my mouse is USB. Come to find out, my keyboard works fine with the KVM but my mouse doesn't, I'm guessing it draws too much power because It has tons of LEDs on it (MSI DS200), tried a shitty generic mouse and it worked fine. Doh! Will have to get a different GOOD KVM switch here soon.

But anyway, here's what the rig looks like now, rear red fan is an intake to retain positive air pressure:

I/O shield is missing, didn't come with the board. I'd love to get one soon!

You got the texture bug? Wow what driver are you using?

I got Far Cry working flawlessly on a GTX660. But I did tell you, stick with 32 bit Windows XP for compatibility 🤣

philscomputerlab wrote:

You got the texture bug? Wow what driver are you using?

I got Far Cry working flawlessly on a GTX660. But I did tell you, stick with 32 bit Windows XP for compatibility 🤣

I was using the latest driver (307.83), last night I switched over to 285.58 but I didn't test Far Cry. I'll test it, and other drivers if necessary, when I get back home tomorrow. Regarding XP, I'm actually surprised how well XP 64-bit runs, considering how I've heard how unstable and buggy it is from other people, whether that's actually true or not I'm not sure.

Green LED strips arrived from Hong Kong today, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand DOA. Sweet!

I had a rig with quad SLI with the 7950gx2. Still have the cards. I remember that running two cards had little advantage over single card.

sprcorreia wrote:

I had a rig with quad SLI with the 7950gx2. Still have the cards. I remember that running two cards had little advantage over single card.

part of it would be drivers, however I can also imagine a situation where there would be a severe CPU bottleneck (a C2D would probably still bottleneck a single 7950 GX2, let alone SLI)

Very nice system, not for actual gaming (microstuttering must be extreme on this thing), but very nice showcase of the best mid-2006 hardware. 😀

AlphaDangerDen wrote:

sliderider wrote:

Can you even still get drivers for the Aegia card? It was my understanding that nVidia dropped support for it right after they started including Phys-X support in their own cards and that games released beyond a certain point in time won't recognize it any longer. I wouldn't think that any version of Windows beyond XP would recognize it, either.

You can still find old Ageia drivers online, granted not on Ageia's site (via Wayback Machine) or Nvidia, but some sites still have it. I think even some versions of the PhysX software from Nvidia still supported the Ageia PPU shortly after Ageia was acquired, but they eventually cut off support for the PPU. I've tried both the Ageia and Nvidia PhysX software in both Windows XP 32-bit/64-bit and Windows 10, with no luck. I'm almost sure my PPU is dead. Something I didn't noticed until recently is the PCB is super warped, not sure how I didn't notice it before.

EDIT: I've read online that you can mod the latest version of Nvidia's PhysX software to support the Ageia PPU, but this probably won't help my situation. Just thought it'd be neat to point out.

I would think it would be easier just to use a GeForce card in a PCI slot like a 9500GT or GT430. The Aegia card probably doesn't do PhysX processing anywhere near as fast as either of those two cards do.

BTW, here's nVidia's last driver to support the Aegia card, and it does work with Vista but not anything after that.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_8.09.04_whql.html