right, FINALLY got win7 reinstalled with all the WC bits on...
problem seems to have been with the SATA3 ports. which is odd, as I had successfully installed win7 using those ports before. this motherboard, the ssd and win7 all seem to be a pig to get working together, so no surprises i had hassles really.
I reckon i have wasted near on 20 hours thanks to these problems!!!
just running some benchmark utils and temp utils onto it and we'll see what we get....
quick run of furmark puts my CPU at 55 deg C under load (avg core temp of 35 deg C idle)
GPU1 runs at max 60 load and GPU2 runs max 80 load
these are all stock settings with pumps set at setting 2 out of 5 (5 being highest).
so initial results suggest I may have a fair bit of overclocking headroom even with the pumps set really low, awesome!
though that GPU2 temp is a bit odd. I thought GPU2 came first in the loop so GPU1 should be higher temps. wasnt quite expecting a temp difference of 20 deg between teh two GPUS either!!! more thought needed....
However, it is one of the hottest days to date and very humid in my living room today, so good worst case scenario
more reporting bacjk in the next few days....