Its been 3 years (1 year before the release and 2 years after the release) that ive been semi-patiently waiting..... well the waits OVER!
Just got done building my FX-57 rig last night (i spent 8 hours tearing the previous watercooling crap out, radiator, resevoir, and all drives, basically the only thing left in there was the PS). And then i cleaned out about 2 years worth of hidden and trapped dust.
Then i built up the K8N Neo4 Platinum with the newest water blocks from dangerden and installed the mobo, then proceeded to re-shuffle the tubing, on a side note the chipset cooler on the K8N is really, really close to the PCIe slot, so close in fact that after i had installed the water block on the chipset i then installed the X850 XT PE to see how that would line up. Well it fit, just barely, i mean i had to slightly force the card into place, the plastic housing on the card (near the back edge of card) was bowing in slightly because of the width difference, but hey no biggie as i managed to get it in there and working.
The only real installation problem i encountered was that on my old nforce2 board i had my audigy card placed high on the pci ladder, like right under my agp card slot, reason being is the water pump had to fit (underneath) the audigy card so the pump could sit at a 45 degree angle inside my case for the simple reason that the hose that comes out of the front of the pump wasnt going to be smashed (and pinched) up against the side of the door when i went to shut it. That being said, you guys know that the X850XT PE is a double wide fat boy of a card, so its taking up an extra pci slot. 'Eh i figure no big deal i think i have room to move it down 1 slot and still fit the pump in there underneath it'....... WRONG! Oh yes, it would have fit in the next slot if the new chipset block hadent been in the way. So i had to move it down even further (1 more slot), and in its place i slid the D-bracket in there so no space was wasted. Only thing is i had to, more or less, jam the pump in there, now at a 90 degree angle, and it just barely fit. The front tube comming out of the pump is just slightly bent to the side but not enough to restrict flow, which is a good thing.
So after a little leak test (about an hour's worth, i should of waited longer, they say do a 24 hour test but hey ive been waiting 3 years and im in a hurry here! ) I took the machine over to my table, hooked up all cables and crossed my fingers that all was well when i hit the power button (which shouldent of been a problem because when i bought my mobo from spatan technologies, and if you pay $10 more on your bill they will do a full battery of tests on it before they even ship it to you) so i exhaled and hit the button, POW, i was in business.
Everything was pretty straight forward, even though i hadent seen several of the new bios options, i installed the OS, then proceeded to install ALL of my apps. The funny thing here is on some of my smaller apps, when i hit the install button, and i mean right after hitting it, the load bar said 100%, just like that. I took a look at that and thought 'oh crap, something is wrong, i think i screwed up the os install somehow, the dam programs arent even loading correctly there just skipping the install and displaying 100% complete'. Well, obviously, im not used to this kind of speed so it took me a few mins, and a few more smaller programs being installed, to realize that everything was indeed fine, i had not screwed up anything during the installing of the os, they were just installing so dam fast i did not comprehend just how fast of a system i had here. Im still laughing about that one!
Anyway i still have a couple of apps to load. I havent even got around to trying any games yet (trust me i will ) so im looking forward to that. You guys are probably going to think im crazy but i still have only played 1/5th of doom and about 1/4 of HL2, just because i wanted to save them for this new system, i wanted to see them in there finest presentation, and that i will do very shortly.
P.S. For you techies, i managed to grab my part number right before i slathered it with ceramique its something like this:
CABCE 0516WPMW
Heres some pix.... :shocked:
My Computer!
My Workspace!
Edit: Had a few mins to try Doom with everything on full blast, and OMG it flowed flawlessly, absolutly AMAZING! Then i popped in call of duty united offensive and jacked those setting all the way up, while i was in game i took cover, grabbed a bazooka and fired on an enemy tank, all i can say is that the explosion that followed was the most detailed smoke and fire combination that i have ever laid eyes on no kidding i couldent believe my eyes! Cant wait to try some more games that i have... a.k.a HL2!
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