My latest system tweaks:)

stulid · 3 Jun 2011 at 11:52

Well had have been running a AMD PhenomII X4 955BE CPU and a MSI 790GX-G65 motherboard for nearly 1.5 years and decided to change to something newer/faster, I initially was going to wait till Bulldozer made an appearance but after all the stories of delays and poor performance I thought sod "get Sandybridge, besides at 4.5GHZ or higher I dont think AMD can compete".

So after finding a suitable Z68 motherboard for £135 inc delivery and a i5 2500K at £149 inc delivery I couldnt go wrong

So the parts came today.

Inside the box.

The board itself.

The CPU goes in.

My Titan Fenrir goes on.

Unless you rotate the heatsink so the fan is at the back blowing forwards, you cant use tall RAM sticks in slot1

The tray slides back into its home.

Some wiring.

GPU and sound card go in.

And bingo!!! first time boot as always

New fan was also added to give some illumination.

Now all I have to do is await my new sidepanel with window from Coolermaster.

stulid · 3 Jun 2011 at 11:56

Cookeh said:
Any reasons you chose that board? I'm struggling to find any reviews or comparison sites between the Z68 boards!

Price

quality, performance.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/asroc...v-pro-gigabyte-z68x-ud3h-b3,review-32188.html

stulid · 3 Jun 2011 at 12:07

shadow_boxer said:
Nice little upgrade for excellent prices too! Was the phenom ii struggling with anything? Or just an upgrade itch?

Nice to see the people still using the Titan Fenrir, excellent cooler! Don't you find the stock cooler is a bit noisy though?

The main reason to sell the PhenomII was to get a good price for it while I still could, A chap from the Members market took both items from me for cash in hand with no hassle and no need to post.

The Titan fan is a little noisy, but nothing like what the stock AMD copper heatpipe cooler was like, thats was just ridiculous during summer days.

stulid · 3 Jun 2011 at 12:26

Still waiting for my sidepanel

Bunch of robbing gits wanted more money, new I should have bought a black case.

stulid · 3 Jun 2011 at 12:31

Cookeh said:
Haven't got round to fitting my new cooler yet(

What did you get in the end, I remember you had a wanted thread for a cooler a while back.

stulid · 3 Jun 2011 at 12:36

chippy08 said:
What clock you going to use for 24/7 ?

4.5GHZ should do it.

stulid · 3 Jun 2011 at 12:41

numatic.nathan said:
Is the PCB on that board brown or black? I'm looking for a new Z68 board atm

Dark Grey/Black.

stulid · 3 Jun 2011 at 13:42

Cookeh said:
5 pints to you alcoholics out there

Or a bag of that stuff from that country i like

stulid · 3 Jun 2011 at 17:56

Thought I would suck the GPU's hot air out with my hot box.

stulid · 3 Jun 2011 at 20:03

Well overclocking is child's play with this, theres even a pick your own desired speed menu

stulid · 3 Jun 2011 at 20:35

BriT said:
Ever thought of going watercooled with that case?

The Corsair H60/70/80/Antec Kuhler thing has crossed my mind a few times and is still lurking in the back of my mind, but a full custom watercooling kit isnt something that interests me despite the case being huge.

stulid · 3 Jun 2011 at 20:43

Cookeh said:
Just a shame that speed menu applies only to Turbo as opposed to normal

No, thats the speed its at, turbo is disabled

What is the hotbox, how much does it cost, etc etc

Part of the case,

stulid · 4 Jun 2011 at 14:08

panyan said:
what is that wierd molex connector above the pci 1x?

For Tri-fire/SLI, just additional power, not needed for two cards.

stulid · 4 Jun 2011 at 19:35

chippy08 said:
Whats the temps like ?

Current CPU temp at idle is 34 C

stulid · 4 Jun 2011 at 19:54

And a quick session of Prime95 saw the cores hitting 50-52 C

stulid · 4 Jun 2011 at 20:16

RJC said:
Is this with the cpu @ 4.2ghz?
(

that was at 3.3GHZ.

At 4.6GHZ I get,

The temp was going up and down by around 1 C or so, so leaving prime running longer wouldnt change much.

stulid · 5 Jun 2011 at 00:05

Well its definitely faster, thats without question, playing games is like fitting a better GPU, the faster CPU has unleashed the full potential of the SLI setup.

unfortunately I didnt take any notes of the Phenoms performance, it was running at stock all its life anyways, so I dont have anything to directly compare and show you the difference.

stulid · 5 Jun 2011 at 11:23

It works, the motherboard is behaving perfectly.

stulid · 6 Jun 2011 at 12:41

As Jamie Oliver would say, its pukka.

stulid · 6 Jun 2011 at 19:02

chippy08 said:
Ordered my board now.

Good, I have also ordered some bits today.