Project: Virgin Enthusiast Build

Everything powered up and no panic beeps from the motherboard. Troubles booting into windows though. It's doing a startup repair but taking ages about it!!! All that hard work getting the hardware and thwarted to the finish line by win-bloody-doze 7!!
 
No joy. Seem to spend more time getting windows running reliably on pcs than anything else! Bit sick of windows tonight. Tomorrow will be a brighter day I am sure :)
 
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 :D

more reporting bacjk in the next few days....
 
clocked at 4.2GHz currently. 1.35v vcore and 1.34v qpi. all other voltages upped ever so slightly, as was basing it on a template. tempted to set them back to default and see what happens.

However, for those that wondered what having Hyper Threading turned on does to your temps, check it out.


HT ON
CPU_4200_135v_HT_ON.png


HT OFF
CPU_4200_135v_HT_OFF.png


So switching off hyper threading reduces core temps by 10 degrees C!!!

Given the little benefit of HT when you have 4 cores running at 4.2GHz, I will take the 10 degrees saving please!

will run the cpu at this for a while now and see how it fares.

overclocking the SLI 480's next...

oh, pump settings all at 2. I upped it from 1 as far as i could until i heard the annoying noise kick in, which was only at 2 unfortunately.

however, the "BeQuiet" PSU is far from bloody quiet. its loud as fk!!! even when idling. not sure whats going on there, maybe i need to split the power down onto separate cables a bit more. yet. more. reading. up. of. forums. needed!!!

oh, still not managed to get the sata3 port working on my mobo again. keeps crashing out before windows boots, at random times. sometimes it just plain refuses to even try booting into windows. so off to fire into gigabyte next...
 
CPU seems rock solid through all this. still worried about the racket my psu is making mind. am wondering whether it is because it is getting all the hot air from the rads blowing into the intake. maybe build a temporary shroud to see if that works...

just opened case, temps are pretty hot in there. lots of heat coming off the gigabyte silent pipe sink. maybe a full cover block for the mobo is in order :s

tweak tweak tweak :D

might leave gfx clocking till i get my case and psu temps sorted...
 
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company of heroes with cpu at 4.2GHz and 480s at stock and all settings in game maxed out:

min = 30 fps
avg = 200 fps
max = 376 fps
 
That is seriously foohking sexeh. Now its time to reap the fruits: OVERCLOCK OVERCLOCK OVERCLOCK!

If its true about hl3 / source 2 comming out, you couldnt have timed it better! :D

Please. None of that for my sweet ears. will burn
 
Am getting really annoyed now....

Have shrouded the PSU so the intake fan is getting cooled air from a nice breeze giong via two openable windows. still runs noisy as hell. fan seems to be spinning up to much even at idle. a harsh throaty tonal component exists also. and a strangle electrical sparkle noise when i put my ear close. i sense a dodgy PSU...

and this damned motherboard is getting to me aswell!!! if the sata3 port problems werent enough, it just completely forgot my OC settings and put me back to defaul saying voltages had changed and what not. even though its been running prime95, games and benchmarks rock solid.

and bootup seems to randomly take forever with it. will often power up a couple of times before actually deciding to boot into windoze....

ach well. its always the difficult stuff that ends up quite easy and vice versa i guess ;)
 
Some gfx card overclocking now. Both pumps now set at speed 1 out of 5 (so running at their slowest)

CPU_4200_135v_HT_OFF_GFX_850_2250.png


temp on the one card hit 100 so thats probably my limit with current setup. dont really want to increase pumps anymore as they are just silly noisy. im intrigued to know whether having the parallel block insteads of the serial block on the gfx cards will even the temps out and bring their average down. that makes sense to me, but many say the temps wont be much different with parallel being marginally better. hmmmm
 
Same settings as above.

CPU_4200_135v_HT_OFF_GFX_850_2250_HEAVEN.png


not sure whats going on with the min and why its lower than my run previously!!! never saw it drop below 90, so must have been a load glitch
 
Thanks man. Am pretty happy with the performance generally and the noise of all the other components are as I was expecting. Going to send the psu back I think, got to wait till next week mind as an too busy :)
 
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