Review of my new system

[DonNagual]

Just put it all together last night

EVGA 680i
E6600
Asus 7950GT 512Mb
2x1Gb Corsair XMS2
Antec 900 Case
Antec Neo HE 550W

The Case
Antec Nine Hundred
I love this case. It is one good looking case. Not too "gaudy" but still has nice blue lighting. The "grill" look on it is a great touch, but the cooling is absolutely incredible. I can feel a breeze of wind coming from it as I sit beside it. Two 8" fans in the front, one 8" in the back and a huge 12" on the top.

It was not the most user friendly case I have worked with. Recently most cases are moving towards "tool-less" installations but not this one. Small complaint but for example, installing the hard drives into the drive cage took a little effort as the screw holes are placed back behind a gaurd.

The power supply at the bottom of the case makes for some tricky cable management. I still am not happy with my cables. The ATX12v is just long enough to reach the connector, and there is no way to hide it.

Another small complaint, they didn't give me enough standoff pins for my motherboard, I was one short.

EVGA 680i Motherboard
With all the people having troubles on this board, especially the SATA bug, I was hesitant to go with this board, but decided to go for it anyways. So far, I am glad I did. I updated my bios right away, and got it up and running on my first try.

The standard drivers wouldn't let me install sound. After installing the drivers there was no sound hardware found and I had an unidentified PCI device in my device manager. I had to manually install the drivers, but it eventually worked for me.

The first thing I did was update the bios, as there are many known issues with this motherboard and the bios update cleans most of them up. Other than the small sound device glitch, I have had no problems at all. In fact, it was a very easy setup. I have yet to dive into this boards overclocking features, but that is the next step. The options in the bios are a little overwhelming at this point!

Asus 7950GT 512Mb
This card had a great price here in Japan, and I decided to grab one and wait a bit before going to a DX10 card. I think this one will hold me over for a while. I am getting about 50fps average running at 1920x1200 on high settings for Company of Heros. My only complaint about this card so far is the noise. It is quiet when idle, but once the fan kicks in, it is the loudest part of my system.

E6600 Core 2 Duo
Previously I had been running an overclocked (2.75Ghz) Athlon 3700+. The jump to this cpu is huge. The difference is immediately noticable in bootup times, and especially in multitasking. I am running a virus scan now, and it is not even noticable. The stock cooling on it is surprisingly quiet and effective.

Dell 24" Widescreen
I remember the first time I went from a 17" to a 19". I swore I would never go back. I am in the same position again. 24" is a must for gamers. It'll change your gaming world, and the dell 24" is beautiful. Very high quality, and a great price.

 

[mailpup]

24" widescreen. Wow. I was thinking of getting a 22" widescreen. I wonder if I even have the room for a 24".

Great rig!

 

[KingCody]

that case looks awesome

how loud are the fans?

 

[DonNagual]

Each of the case fans have speed switches. It is winter here and I haven't overclocked yet so the fans are all on low so far. Nice and quiet. If I put them all on high the noise level increases, but my graphics card fan is still the loudest part.

And mailpup, yes! The 24" is great!

 

[tifc8lraz]

That's really nice DonNagual! Makes my computer look shameful .

 

[DonNagual]

Are you kidding!?

Your system is not bad at all! I bet you are getting some great framerates with it.

 

[tifc8lraz]

Are you kidding!?

Your system is not bad at all! I bet you are getting some great framerates with it.

I get about 30-40 on Oblivion - High @ 1280X1024 in the Great Forest w/o HDR (I hate no AA which I have set all the way up) , so I am pleased, but what about you?

 

[DonNagual]

Still installing everything so I haven't done many tests. Company of Heros is the only game I have installed so far, but I'll load up Oblivion, Fear, HL2 etc to see the difference. I am also running at a much higher screen resolution now, so my frame rates might be the same as yours actually.

 

[tifc8lraz]

Still installing everything so I haven't done many tests. Company of Heros is the only game I have installed so far, but I'll load up Oblivion, Fear, HL2 etc to see the difference. I am also running at a much higher screen resolution now, so my frame rates might be the same as yours actually.

What's the res?

BTW, I went from a GeForce 6150 to a 7900GS, and I was very surprised at the performance I recieved. I can just imagine having double the memory and a card that can beat mine in any test by about 20FPS !

 

[DonNagual]

I am running at 1920x1200 now. In company of heros I get about 50fps on high settings at that resolution, and it is a pretty demanding game. I am installing Steam (for HL2) and Installing FEAR as we speak.

 

[tifc8lraz]

Post some screenshots of FEAR! I don't think I've seen it in a high res. like that before !

 

[sghiznaneck]

You go DonNagual!!

 

[F1N3ST]

Whats your screen resolutiion, 1680x1050, I have that on my 20"! Widescreen monitor, does it look streched on that, or is it 1900x1200 or w/e it is.

 

[MetalX]

DonNagual, you said you noticed a difference going from 17" to 19" and you swore you'd "never go back." Does it really make that much of a difference? I've been thinking of upgrading to a 19" LCD... Also, I have the same problem with the GPU fan (I have a 7950GT too), could you tell me if you ever happen to find a good cooling product for it as the only one I can find is a Zalman (I forget the exact model) which apparently supports only up to 7800GTX.

I get about 30-40 on Oblivion - High @ 1280X1024 in the Great Forest w/o HDR (I hate no AA which I have set all the way up) , so I am pleased, but what about you?

Do you have every single setting maxed out? Because I have a better videocard than you, and I get 25-30 in Great Forest with al max settings, HDR, and 8xAF...

 

[tifc8lraz]

DonNagual, you said you noticed a difference going from 17" to 19" and you swore you'd "never go back." Does it really make that much of a difference? I've been thinking of upgrading to a 19" LCD... Also, I have the same problem with the GPU fan (I have a 7950GT too), could you tell me if you ever happen to find a good cooling product for it as the only one I can find is a Zalman (I forget the exact model) which apparently supports only up to 7800GTX.

Do you have every single setting maxed out? Because I have a better videocard than you, and I get 25-30 in Great Forest with al max settings, HDR, and 8xAF...

I have no HDR on because I hate jagged lines, so I disable that and set my AA for 4X. I'm not sure about anisotropic settings though. It runs of high, not ultra.

 

[F1N3ST]

DonNagual, you said you noticed a difference going from 17" to 19" and you swore you'd "never go back." Does it really make that much of a difference? I've been thinking of upgrading to a 19" LCD... Also, I have the same problem with the GPU fan (I have a 7950GT too), could you tell me if you ever happen to find a good cooling product for it as the only one I can find is a Zalman (I forget the exact model) which apparently supports only up to 7800GTX.

Do you have every single setting maxed out? Because I have a better videocard than you, and I get 25-30 in Great Forest with al max settings, HDR, and 8xAF...

He does have a better processor, and faster RAM though.

 

[MetalX]

Yea, but that shouldn't make that much of a difference especially since my CPU is running at 3800+ speeds, making it faster than his. Also, when socket AM2 was released, there was no performance difference at all between Socket 939 with dual channel DDR400 and socket AM2 with dual channel DDR2 800. And you say High not ultra? What does that mean? Oblivion does not have settings like high and ultra does it? Mine doesn't, you have to configure each thing seperately... Although I do have the version from back when it was rated T, not M... maybe some changes were made since then.

 

[tifc8lraz]

Yea, but that shouldn't make that much of a difference especially since my CPU is running at 3800+ speeds, making it faster than his. Also, when socket AM2 was released, there was no performance difference at all between Socket 939 with dual channel DDR400 and socket AM2 with dual channel DDR2 800. And you say High not ultra? What does that mean? Oblivion does not have settings like high and ultra does it? Mine doesn't, you have to configure each thing seperately... Although I do have the version from back when it was rated T, not M... maybe some changes were made since then.

I just bought Oblivion and it has "settings" for quality, which are completely customizable. It generates what seems best for your computer and then you can go in and change or tweak. My version also came on 1 DVD Disk too. Note this is not on my computer.

 

[F1N3ST]

You use Internet Explorer eew. Jk, get firefox now!

 

[tifc8lraz]

You use Internet Explorer eew. Jk, get firefox now!

I'm too lazy to download it. This isn't my computer, it's my parents'. I do all the work on their computer though . I tried Firefox but I didn't like the layout. I'll give it a try sometime.

 

[F1N3ST]

Lol, my desk is so crowded, from left to right, big ATX PC, speaker, 20" Widescreen Monitor, speaker, Xbox, LCD screen on Xbox, and on top of the LCD/Xbox, is my xbox 360. My desk is about 4 feet long, it is cramped lol.