SD37P2 - Are they any good?

Originally Posted by FrankJH
What brands are your XT-X's as all the ones on OCUK's pages are clearly double height (at least in the cooler but not always in the backplate.
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http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-133-SP

Here I confess to making a mistake, since I knew I was going to watercool the whole PC. I should have bought cheapo XTX's and taken the fan and casing off. I bought the Sapphire Toxic W/C ones thinking it would end up cheaper. They have slim water blocks which allows 2 to be mounted side by side, but separate huge coolers which take the other slot. In my defense I've only had internet and phone line over here for 4 weeks so I had to use cybercafes to research my needs.

The reality is the Toxics are fast, but the block only covers the GPU so when side by side the RAM has no ventilation. So I'm going to replace the GPU blocks with ones that cover the RAM as well, hence I've wasted a fair bit of dosh, but I am a novice so I'll live and learn.

Having said all that, although the 8800's eat the 1950's alive I do like my Toxics and they seem pretty nippy so I am happy. They seem to overclock OK too, but everything is at stock speeds at the moment as the poor old Shuttle gets a tad warm at the moment.
 
why dont you try and mount a fan at one end of the cards that blows a bit of air over the ram on them? it would svae you some money and it only needs to be a small bit of airflow soy ou can get a slow moving quiet fan
 
ok so as I am not planning on watercooling and all standard X1950's are dual slot I think I am going to stick with my single X1900 XT and wait for a dual tuner usb stick to come into stock.

My other option is to put a low spec silent 7600GS into the above rig along with the Terratec PCI-E dual tuner card, and move the 1900 over to my opty 170 based 25P.

decisions decisions
 
must have been the perspectve of the photos fooling my eyes - looked like all the fans where taller than the backplate (therefore would block 2nd slot)

Now its whether I will notice much performance loss between the 1900XT and the 1950Pro

Seeing as max res on my tv is 1366*768 I think I should be ok and I should be able to sell the X1900 for a little more than what a X1950 Pro costs (dont you reckon they are worth a little more)?
 
As to the value of your X1900XT I can't comment, I really have no idea how much second hand PC stuff is worth.

It sounds as if it's all coming together nicely though.
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Finally got my X1950Pro and its working well - even Vista Ultimate is a pleasure to use (not so on my main machine for some reason) even though I have no idea why Vista rates My conroe E4300 (at stock so far) at performance ref of 5.3 (everything else is 5.8 or so) will have to clock it and the ram to get a better rating.

Terratec dual tuner card working well also, was watching the rugby yesterday and couldnt tell it wasnt the actual TV tuner, it does occasionally jump or stutter but otherwise pretty good. Havent tried recording yet though.

Two things I have to sort out:

1) E4+1 is found on the tuner but not E4 (no biggie obviously but still a little annoying)

2) Cant get my x360 HD-DVD drive working - I tried powerdvd 7 but it refuses to read the disc (I believe windvd also works so will try that today)- Vista certainly recognised it automatically though and updated via the MS site straight away so thats good.

I would also like to say that anyone unsure about Powerline network plugs - dont be - they seriously just work, reasonable throughput also considering they are just 10/100 connections. My models are the XE104's and seem reasonable price to me.
 
from what ive read on home cinema forum on here, vista ultimate 64bit edition should auto install and play hd-dvds in WMP???

i know powerDVD 7 ultra works but dont think winDVD supports the actual drives yet, though it supports all the HD file formats
 
I found the PowerDVD download option (its a cd copy by default)

£65 for dvd software is pretty expensive (but still way cheaper than buying Vista 64-bit)
 
Frank my hearty fellow, just going to change an OcUK order to SATA DVDR/RW instead of IDE (the cables are smaller and I need the space!)Just checking you had no problems setting it all up before I change the order.

Originally posted by cokecan72
why dont you try and mount a fan at one end of the cards that blows a bit of air over the ram on them? it would svae you some money and it only needs to be a small bit of airflow soy ou can get a slow moving quiet fan
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm pondering airflow at the moment, I'd like the only fan running apart from the Rad's to be the PS fan. Contemplating making slender rails for the HD's etc so airflow is unobstructed and trying to route air through strategically.
 
I had no problems at all in regards to the sata dvd-rw drive ( I have only tried to install Windows and a few other things, not done any writing yet)

just so you get the full picture

Certainly seemed to install everything as quickly as expected
 
FrankJH I have just bought the SD37P2 today (not even out of the box yet) and was wondering whats the exact X1950Pro you are using as I am wanting to use the same combo dual tuner PCI-E + X1950pro, did you need to do any modifications to get them both in?
 
MortyFire said:
FrankJH I have just bought the SD37P2 today (not even out of the box yet) and was wondering whats the exact X1950Pro you are using as I am wanting to use the same combo dual tuner PCI-E + X1950pro, did you need to do any modifications to get them both in?
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Sorry for not replying until now - the below is the card that I put in:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-134-SP

No modifications at all required - I found it awkward to get both backplates alligned properly (being a shuttle you cant lock down one card before putting second in place as locking bracket is shared between both slots) but they do fit - it could just have been me having big fingers and hands and not that much space to manouver, but its worth persevering.

You may find that 512 mb cards or the silent vaiety fit but to me it looked like this card I linked too has a smaller cooler than most of the other X1950's on offer here.

Good luck with the install
 
I fitted the Connect3d X1950pro to my SD37P2, one thing I have found is that the fan speed on the card doesn't adjust upwards when it is being worked hard and it black screens. This is using Vista Home Premium 32bit, the cat 7.1's don't install properly. Well, the drivers do, but the control panel worked the first time but any time after it cannot find the exe file.
Decided to use riva tuner and this can be used to adjust the fan speed, once adjusted I suffer no more black screens. :D
 
Stephen B said:
as per original title

43003.jpg


Nuff Said :)

using new bios and set to 400 fsb, +0.15v in vdimm
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sorry cant work out your sig - what ram have you got in there thats phenomenal.

edit - I couldnt get past around 290fsb with mine (admittedly I didnt add any vdimm but I cant see it making THAT much difference)
 
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Mines topping out at 340FSB at the moment, but I guess that's the RAM, I've set it to 533 but at 350FSB Orthos fails. I had to notch the CPU voltage up a tad too.

I'm going to get some good quality DDR2 800 this week.
 
originally I was trying with the value select ddr2-667, but when I tried to select the 533 speed to allow 1:1, it kept crashing :(,

so the pics are with some borrowed corsair xms2-6400 4-4-4-12 EPP, it didn't recognise the 800 so had to set all ram timings manually

its been running fine all last night and this morning doing downloads, but is not orthos stable atm, but seems fine for superpi, aquamark and 3dmark testing

1.4v should see you to 320-330 fsb, you need 1.5v to get over 3.3gig
 
Trying to get mine to work correctly through an hdmi switching amp at the moment - being very awkward currently, once thats done I will try oc'ing more.
 
Good stuff there Stephen B.

Looking to get a shuttle very soon, just not sure what to get though cpu wise, a E4300 or E6300. Mite get a E4300 and do the pin mod to get it to default like a E6600 and clock from there :D
 
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