Finally Built

shaz` · 20 May 2009 at 23:48

Hey chaps, you may have remembered my posts with regards to what parts to buy etc. I have got all the bits and now built the system and its all running awesomly. Had a wee problem with a bios error msg saying "Chassis intruder" which turned out to be a missing jumper on the board.... after a bit of panic of an RMA I got it sorted by nicking a jumper off an old cd drive :cool:

Pics of my bits sitting on my desk

My new 26" monitor in its box

Hadn't opened it at this point, though did sneek a peak.

At this point I was waiting on my Noctua NH-U12P cooler and some Noctua case fans. They arrived on Tuesday so I started building!

Managed to put it all together, no in progress pics but got it all running with Win 7 RC1 and here are some temp screenshots etc.

The temps look pretty good I think? This Noctua cooler is the business.

I Idle at around 35-37c, is this normal? Seems pretty good from what I've seen.

Will start overclocking in a few days or so, will let the system run and burn in a bit

.

Will take a pic of the system too, managed to hide most of the cables (I have a new found love for modular PSUs) so airflow should be pretty decent. I'm amazed at how much air the Noctuas push whilst being totally silent!

shaz` · 21 May 2009 at 12:56

Haha yeah, the monitor is HUGE... taking a bit of getting used to. Just watched the 1080 trailer for transformers on it and I gotta say it looks amazing

Will take pics of the inside of the case, this kingston memory is pretty nice to look at haha! Noctuas push a lot of air for making no noise too!

I will be oc'ing. Going to run it stock for a week or so and stress test everything to make sure it's all good, then start with an oc'ing. I loaded the i7 965 profile in the RIIE bios and ran prime95 for about an hour and everything ran fine, but temps were getting a bit high (high 70s) so pulled it back and will oc manually. Just did it to check if it'd run stable at that speed. Memory is sitting at 1866mhz triple-channel which is nice

edit: Yeah thats a lot of storage, but I thought why not! I always buy a HD thinking... thats enough space, and always always run out. And yeah i have lots of media currently on about 4 different HDss (internal and external) so will be nice to have them on one HD and then stream to tv/xbox/laptop whatever from there!

shaz` · 21 May 2009 at 19:54

I've already got 1080p, and my last 20" LCD was a viewsonic that did 1600x1200 so could run 1080p videos, but they just look amazing on this LCD.

I'll be getting a 46" Samsund LED LCD soon for the living room

shaz` · 22 May 2009 at 19:19

Righto, some pics of the case. Photo's are brutally honest eh, as hard as I tried to tidy cables they seem to be all over the shop on the pics!

Please forgive my dire photography skills.

Check the fins on the 1866mhz Kingston 6gb kit

Some pics of my monitor as requested

Some pics of Terminator: Salvation trailer in 1080p

Ran Everest cache and memory benchmark just to get some numbers

And SuperPi 1mb

shaz` · 22 May 2009 at 22:40

Some help folks.

My idle temps keep creeping up. Just put system back to stock as I didn't like the load temps > 90c so will play with more settings when I am more awake lol!

But right now, idle, my temps are around 51c, is this normal on the Noctua cooler? Or should I check the heatsink is seated properly? Temps across the cores are pretty much the same.

shaz` · 22 May 2009 at 22:56

I'm getting two different readings for my temps. Realtemp tells me around 50c idle, Speedfan tells me CPU temp is 41c, but core temps are around 48-50c.

Is it core temps I need to watch?

shaz` · 22 May 2009 at 23:02

Yeah, I'll reseat it tomorrow and have a play around with settings and see what I get.

P4 to i7 is a learning curve lol!

I shall post back results!

shaz` · 22 May 2009 at 23:19

Any tips on applying thermal compound? when I fitted heatsink, I added some and spread it around the cpu thinly... is this the right way to do it?

shaz` · 23 May 2009 at 13:38

Turns out I didn't put enough on, as when I took the heatsink off there was metal on metal contact between the cpu/heatink.

So I reapplied the thermal paste in the rice grain method as that has worked well for me in the past and reseated. Sitting at around 38c across the 4 cores according Real Temp. Biggest difference is full load doesn't go over 60c now.

shaz` · 23 May 2009 at 15:01

Indeed!

shaz` · 23 May 2009 at 15:18

Just overclockerd to 3.4ghz

Temps seem not too bad at idle, few degrees above standard wich is exected. Currently running OCCT to stress system and see how I get on with temps and whatnot.

Under full load temps are just over 70c. This still seems a bit high?

shaz` · 23 May 2009 at 15:27

My Noctua cooler/heatpipes are still cool/warm to the touch tho CPU temp is hitting 75c under full load.

shaz` · 23 May 2009 at 16:02

Right. Changed my oritentation of the fans at the back of the case as I suspected airflow OVER the cooler wasn't the best. So now I have one case fan (Noctua) at front sucking in air blowing over the hard drives. The back case fan pulling in air and blowing it towards the CPU heatsink, Antec PSU pulling out air and GFX card fan pulling out air. My Core temps seem to remain the same around 73c full load my CPU temp reported by speedfan has dropped to 62c under full load.

shaz` · 23 May 2009 at 16:21

Lian Li V1100. Not the best airflow over the cpu/gpu, the rearranging of the fans definitely seems to help load temps, idle has remained pretty constant.

Might add another exhaust fan and see how I get on.

Currently running OCCT/Furmark and temps are peaking around 72ish C. No BSODs yet, so all looks good

. The reported 'CPU' temp is below 60c.

shaz` · 23 May 2009 at 16:40

Locke said:
That stock time of 14 seconds is eqivalent to my E6600 @ 3.6, but of course you just smashed that when you overlocked

Great setup.

Thanks bud

shaz` · 23 May 2009 at 18:16

New Vantage benchmark

Overall score didnt increase much as I havent overclocked the card, but cpu score jumped to 50k.

shaz` · 23 May 2009 at 18:50

Sycho said:
Nice pc, tried any games on it yet? how are they coping?

Yeah those temps seem ok too.

Yeah tried a couple, nothing major yet. Just CS 1.6 and CS:S and a couple other demos

Copes fine, no issues as yet

Saltank said:
What Video card do you have?

GTX 275

Just overclocked the card to 730mhz Core clock, 1590mhz Shader Clock and 1230mhz (2460 effective) Memory clock.

Stock clocks were 632mhz, 1404mhz, 1134mhz.

Got the below 3dmark score. Nearly 2k points increase.