I finally gave in to i7

[ro55o]

I knew it would eventually happen, my greed for more power got the best of me

My favourite part about it

Opening the boxes to reveal the lovely, new shiny components

So a list of what I've bought;

intel core i7 920 d0 stepping (slbej) 2.66ghz (nehalem) (socket lga1366) - retail + far cry 2 game

gigabyte ga-ex58-extreme intel x58 (socket 1366) pci-express ddr3 motherboard

ocz vertex series 30gb 2.5" sata-ii solid state hard drive

ocz blade series 6gb (3x2gb) ddr3 pc3-16000 triple channel

silverstone fortress ft01b-w tower case with window - black (no psu)

Thermalright Ultra-120-1366RT eXtreme

To go with the new parts, I'm taking the following from my other PC;

Gainward GTX280
ThermalTake Toughpower 750Watt PSU
WD 320gb Hard Drive
74gb Raptor
Pioneer DVD-RW Drive

So on with the build!

I spent ages choosing which motherboard to go with, going through countless reviews. I wanted to make sure I got the right one and I thought with making the change to i7 I'd spend a decent amount on the motherboard. So I had my final 2 chosen, so it was either between the Asus P6T deluxe V2 or the Gigabyte GA-EX58 Extreme.

If you didn't get it from the above pic I went with the Gigabyte.

I decided to go with it as it had everything I wanted, great overclocking potential, excellent cooling and isn't too bad on the eye either

First was to install the CPU and the thermalright Ultra cooler. Next the OCZ blade ram. The cooler was so easy to mount and I'm looking forward to see what kind of cooling it's going to offer. Hopefully along with this and the 2000Mhz ram I can push the i7 pretty far.

You can see in the pic the extra passive cooling the extreme comes with, it's a nice little feature and always a bonus to have.

I completely forgot to buy a hard drive adaptor for the solid state drive, so it's currently wedged in with some cardboard until I get the adaptor tomorrow

I really like the hard drive bays in the Fortress, unclip them, pull them out, insert the hard drive, tighten a few screws and fire it back in. The best thing is that the hard drives face towards the side of the case, so all the cables are hidden, also makes getting to them a lot easier.

I managed to get the build finished at around 2am this morning I'll take some more photo's of the inside of the case, once I've sorted the cable management a bit more, but at the moment looking pretty tidy. I think I'll change the sata cables for black ones though (orange at the moment). Also ordered a cable tidy kit, so hopefully by tomorrow it should be a very tidy build.

I fired up the PC and everything seems to be working perfectly. It's actually the first one I've built which has turned on without any problems first time, so I was pleased I always expect the worst, was a nice suprise.

So more pics to come tonight and the start of the overclocking

 

[ro55o]

No its fine how it is and its in the optimal position as its pushing the hot air out the back on of the case.

Give that man a gold star

It is pretty close to the ram, but shouldn't cause any problems, I will watch it though.

I R jealous ¬_______¬

And damn you for getting hold of a fortress

They get 3 instock when i cant afford em

I had to get the Fortress eslewhere, I kept waiting for OCUK to get them back in, but got fed up waiting. Then what happens, they get it in the very next day

It is such a nice case, really glad I decided to go for it.

I'm thinking of nearly the same set up but with the Fenrir cooler. Out of interest (I'm guessing you done some research) what's the main plus to the extreme over the GA-EX58-UD4P? is it just the extra cooling?

The Fenrir cooler does look good, especially the price and I did originally have it in my basket but then came across the thermalright. I'm hoping it's worth the extra cash.

The extreme is the UD5 with extra cooling, I think the UD4P is the one below that, but for some reason is more expensive than the UD5. But looking at the specs there isn't a lot between them.

Been looking for something like this on a smaller case, but I might be forced into a tower again since I reached the hard drive limit on my Eclipse!

You'll soon need a case for the hard drives alone I'm okay just now, only the 3 hard drives and possibly get another solid state (want to see the performance of these in raid ) but they are tiny in comparison to standard hard drives.

Thanks for the comments guys, I'll make sure I get more photos tonight, finish up the cable management tomorrow when I get the cable tidy kit, but will do some benchmarks and overclocking tonight Will report back.

 

[ro55o]

Looking good! What did you upgrade from?

I went from an overclocked E8400, GTX280 (Didn't see the point in upgrading that), 4gb 1066 ram. So not exactly a slow machine, but I was bitten by the bug, have been looking at i7 for a while now and finally decided I couldn't wait anymore

I also had an itch to build another PC, not the best reason to spend money on new parts, but it was one of them. I was originally only going to get the Fortress and solid state drive but went a few steps further

 

[ro55o]

I'll let you know how I get on mate. I haven't had a chance to try it out yet, just install the OS, I had to get to my bed at some point

I'll get benchmarks for stock and overclocked, 3d mark 06, vantage etc. I'll install a few games awswell and see how it performs compared to my E8400.

 

[ro55o]

Nice one rosso. Looks great, now get some more pics up!

I'm surprised you didn't go down the AMD 955 route, since you're an AMD spec-me fanboy.

haha trust me I was tempted, but I thought the extra cost for the i7 would be worth it. I'll definitely get more pics up soon, almost finished at work, although been on here for most of it

 

[ro55o]

It was £56, which I thought with the fan included was pretty decent. I'll find out later if it was worth the extra money

I think they only started supplying the fan recently and seems to only be with the i7 socket. I had to source it elsewhere aswell.

 

[ro55o]

A few more pics as promised

I didn't get as much done last night as I wanted, the OS I first installed didn't want to work, had to re-install that, so spend most of the time doing that, installing updates, drivers etc.

I did manage to get temps for the CPU at stock, at both idle and under 100% load, just using 5 minutes of Prime.

I was pretty pleased with the temps, so I'll get on with the overclocking tonight, finally see how far I can get the 920. I also should get the last little bits n pieces today aswell, so get the cables sorted.

 

[ro55o]

I probably could use the 6 DIMMS, it would be pretty tight. I would have to remove the fan from the cooler first though. At the moment I'm not too bothered as 6gb will be more than enough for me I would say that the heatsink on the ram is quite tall, so ram with slightly smaller heatsinks would fit a lot better.

 

[ro55o]

Why did you choose the Giga over Asus?

Also you need to get some Xigmatek fans for your case *drools*.

It was mainly to do with the extra cooling and gigabyte offer a few more overclocking options over Asus. I was very tempted by the P6T Deluxe, it got great reviews and is slightly more user friendly than the gigabyte, so it was a tough decision.

Definitely interested in some Xigmatek fans, would look awesome in the fortress, It might have to happen in the next few weeks . I'll keep you posted though mate.

 

[ro55o]

That's great AWPC, thanks for that mate

I did notice the gigabyte built-in qflash utility, should make flashing the new bios a lot easier.

 

[ro55o]

Thanks for the temp pics looks a very good cooling case, did that window side panel come with the case or is it modded by you? building myself an i7 spec pc next month or so, probably end up getting it.

I was really impressed with the temps I was getting. The thermalright cooler is awesome and can't wait to see what it can do with an overclocked i7

I'll start overclocking later in the week, I want to try it out with some games and benchmarks before I start it.

I would highly recommend the case, it looks good, decent cable management, cooling is excellent, though will be changing the fans for Xigmatek ones later down the line, which should finish the case off nicely

The window came with the case, so no modding required