Upgrade Spec Me Please :) £700

ok so started to get a few bits today, i opened the case box as it had a huge hole in the side of the box so wanted to make sure i wasnt in for an RMA lol, but it all seems well until i see that there was only 1 motherboard mount screw "the gold type ones"

I havent done a new build for a long time and so im kinda confused as to how the motherboard fits in to the case. Do i need motherboard raisers or does it just go straight in on the raised black domes and lines up with the 1 gold pin in the middle?

Any help would be great :)
 
actually, hes a good Q as i thinking of using both of these sets of ram instead of just 1 "as id bought the larger sticks in a bundle and have been advised about them hitting the cpu cooler.

these 2-

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-307-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-299-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517

If i could fit the higher ram sticks in the board and the lower ones would it matter which slots there in for the fastest speeds or would i hit issues? Id guess they are the same ram just a dif heat spreader?
 
I'd stick with the low profile stuff and sell the other to make a bit of money back :)

However, if its fits with the cooler there shouldn't be any problems
 
Sooooo :D

All built, few cables to still clear up

after these pics i added the other 8gb ram in the other slots as there was room for it :)

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Temps r crazy cpu @ 26 idle and gfx at 22 idle

very big thanks to all who helped!
 
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i bet it was itchy bum time when putting that cooler on with the ram. even low profile stuff it still looks a close fit.
 
Looks awesome. Could tidy the cables up a bit more ;)

Sounds really good though - got the same case myself and I'm very happy with it. That 140mm fan blowing straight to the CPU/GPU really helps I think :)
 
Only played d3 and stwor so far. What game or program would be best to test it? Also would overclocking be pointless or worth doing? I think i read somewhere that in amd ccc to put all sliders on full or something lol. Is msi afterburner good or bad?
 
orangeman2003 said:
Only played d3 and stwor so far. What game or program would be best to test it? Also would overclocking be pointless or worth doing? I think i read somewhere that in amd ccc to put all sliders on full or something lol. Is msi afterburner good or bad?
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GPU : Yeah MSI tools are very good. Afterburner is great for monitoring your GPUs whilst gaming (temps, load, vram usage, fan speed, core speed, vram speed, ...), and also video recording. Much better and lower resource than fraps. BTW, I would just leave the card at stock for a while. It should be plenty powerful as is. It's best not to start moving sliders about if you are unsure.

I wouldn't bother with Kombustor (which is basically Furmark), do a couple of Unigine pass instead. Check your results with similar systems just to check if you are not getting any weird performance issues.

RAM : check on RAM profiles in the BIOS. It most likely runs are stock speed (1333MHz). Load up the XMP profile (should be an option fro that in the bios), or set the RAM manually to 9-9-9-24-2T. And if the VRAM defaults to 1.65V, try lower it to 1.6V, and then 1.55V. Run memtest86 overnight for fault check. If you start having errors when lowering the voltage (or if the RAM defaults to 1.5V), bump it up a little bit again. But the RAM should theoretically work at 1.5V, 9-9-9-24-2T.

CPU : If you overclock, run Prime95. OCCT / IntelBurnTest are a bit like Furmark for CPUs. They are OK to run for extreme conditions, but you would never get into those situations in real term anyway.

CPU-Z, HWMonitor are tools you can use to monitor system health and status (clock speed, RAM settings, temperatures, fan speeds).

If you use manually overclock, go for 4.4GHz, which would be the sweet spot in terms of performance, temps and voltage. Should be achievable on that cooler, and not too stressful, while giving you a 30% overclock.

Then check the Vcore value when at 4.4GHz. I would try lower it under 1.3V, but certainly under 1.35V. Depending on the chip, can be stable as low as 1.25V, to 1.325V. The lower the better for temps and CPU stress.

OC Genie should put you at 4.2GHz(?), with safe volts. TBH, that should be enough.
 
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cheeck for the help

oc genie gave me 4.2ghz which is a nice little boost for pressing 1 button lol

now playing with the graphics card in asus gpu tweak.

gonna then sort out all the ssd tweaks and go for a bentchmark test but might take few days as i dont get to much time to play with it :)
 
orangeman2003 said:
cheeck for the help

oc genie gave me 4.2ghz which is a nice little boost for pressing 1 button lol
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Yeah, but they tend to put more volts than needed (bit conservative for more stability across the board). The benefit is, you should be able to push to 4.4GHz without touching any of the voltages, just bump the CPU multiplier.

Or just leave it at that :) There is no real need to go faster anyway.
 
olivier renault said:
Yeah, but they tend to put more volts than needed (bit conservative for more stability across the board). The benefit is, you should be able to push to 4.4GHz without touching any of the voltages, just bump the CPU multiplier.

Or just leave it at that :) There is no real need to go faster anyway.
Click to expand...

Ok mate thanks will give that a go
 
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