Mid-to-High-End Gaming Rig

[Dragonwell]

So I transferred all my old hardware from the mid case into the HAF 932 for the sake of practice, more or less. I had a bit of trouble getting the mobo out of the old case and was for a minute afraid I'd literally snap the thing in half (I wasn't using excessive force, but more than I felt comfortable with). Apparently hardware is more durable than I give it credit for.

The back plate on the 9800GTX wasn't allowing it to fit, so I had to take that off but now it's not secured to the rear wall of the case, so all that supports it is the PCIe slot itself. Sagging a bit, I don't like it.

Loving the look of the case, definitely worth some interior lighting in the future. Nice organizational features like the slide-out HDD / SDD trays are pretty sweet as are the cable management features.

My first power-up after the switchover saw my CPU spiking a few degrees past the critical temperature for a Core 2. It seems as though one of the screws holding the CPU heatsink in place wasn't fully locked down (loosening those was done in an effort to help get the mobo out of the old case; didn't help), and also the metal plate that covers the back of the mobo where its exterior connections was not installed, it never having dawned on me to place that where it belonged. With both of those fixes, the CPU was back into normal operating ranges under load. Win!

With my case I also got my copy of Win 7 64-bit. I had planned on reformatting my current HDD with Win 7 as soon as it arrived, seeing as I'll do it anyway when I build the new system. What's stopping me is knowing whether or not my hardware is all 64-bit compatible. The Core 2 Duo and the 9800GTX are from what I've read, but is it then safe to assume that the mobo and memory are 64-bit compatible as well, or am I wholly misunderstanding the nuances of 64-bit compatibility?

 

[Gigantopithecus]

You'll want to make sure that there are 64-bit Win 7 drivers available for your motherboard (check the manufacturer's website); otherwise, yep, just make sure you have a 64-bit CPU and you'll be fine (all C2Ds are 64-bit).

 

[fffblackmage]

Don't worry. 99.99% sure you have 64-bit-compatible components.

 

[mfenn]

Yeah, Win 7 comes with default 64-bit drivers for 99% of devices, so you should be covered there unless you have something really arcane.

I would worry about the bracket on your 9800GTX not fitting though. Hanging by the PCIe slot is NOT ideal to say the least. I'll bet that you can figure out why it wasn't working if you take a fresh look at it.

 

[Dragonwell]

Short on time, so I'm making it quick atm. The deal with the Gigabye board is no longer available. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130571 How about this one? It has only one PCIe slot but given that I shouldn't even be spending the amount that I am as it is on this computer, I'm not too worried about Crossfire.

 

[betasub]

n/m

 

[mfenn]

Short on time, so I'm making it quick atm. The deal with the Gigabye board is no longer available. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130571 How about this one? It has only one PCIe slot but given that I shouldn't even be spending the amount that I am as it is on this computer, I'm not too worried about Crossfire.

It's fine, but this i5 2500K + Biostar TZ68A+ combo is better.

 

[Dragonwell]

It's fine, but this i5 2500K + Biostar TZ68A+ combo is better.

Bah! Somehow I tripped out when I posted earlier and forgot that I'd ordered the mobo and CPU last night. Could have saved $30 right there. I'm curious, though, other than price, is there any particular reason you recommend that combo? I noticed several cheap(er) Biostar mobos on NewEgg but I'd never heard of Biostar and they generally didn't seem to get glowing reviews. Granted, most negative reviews for mobos are for DOAs and bad customer service. Every lineup has a lemon or ten.

I went out and bought a 3.5oz syringe of Arctic Silver 5, which brings us to the impending (I'm expecting CPU, mobo, and memory by the Wednesday or Thursday) assembly of my shiny new rig. I noticed an assembly guide in one of the stickies and I'm going to be giving that a read here in a bit. Besides whatever may be mentioned there, in your experience (whoever has experience here), is there anything in particular I need to be very careful / aware of going into this?

Thanks for all the help, guys.

Edit: Forgot to mention. Win 7 installation went without a hitch and everything is running smoothly. TF2 chugs in DX11 mode but I'm not surprised there. Yesterday on total impulse I bought a 120GB Intel 320 series SSD and, quite frankly, was underwhelmed with the performance. Of course, it wasn't until after I did a bit more digging that I realized it has very low read / write speeds for an SSD. So much so in fact that I barely noticed a difference in anything but startup. Could also have been my memory / CPU bottlenecking the SSD but if I ever opt for an SSD I'm staying away from Intel's (current) offerings. I did successfully return that SSD to BestBuy for a full refund so no loss was had.

 

[mfenn]

Bah! Somehow I tripped out when I posted earlier and forgot that I'd ordered the mobo and CPU last night. Could have saved $30 right there. I'm curious, though, other than price, is there any particular reason you recommend that combo? I noticed several cheap(er) Biostar mobos on NewEgg but I'd never heard of Biostar and they generally didn't seem to get glowing reviews. Granted, most negative reviews for mobos are for DOAs and bad customer service. Every lineup has a lemon or ten.

I used to think that Biostar was crap too, but I've changed my position over the last few months. They're not anything flashy, but they get the job done on a budget. Basically, they are the ASRock of 2 years ago.

I went out and bought a 3.5oz syringe of Arctic Silver 5, which brings us to the impending (I'm expecting CPU, mobo, and memory by the Wednesday or Thursday) assembly of my shiny new rig. I noticed an assembly guide in one of the stickies and I'm going to be giving that a read here in a bit. Besides whatever may be mentioned there, in your experience (whoever has experience here), is there anything in particular I need to be very careful / aware of going into this?

Thanks for all the help, guys.

Be careful, take you time, don't be afraid to read the manual. That's about it. When you get to the BIOS, remember to turn on AHCI before you install Windows.

Edit: Forgot to mention. Win 7 installation went without a hitch and everything is running smoothly. TF2 chugs in DX11 mode but I'm not surprised there. Yesterday on total impulse I bought a 120GB Intel 320 series SSD and, quite frankly, was underwhelmed with the performance. Of course, it wasn't until after I did a bit more digging that I realized it has very low read / write speeds for an SSD. So much so in fact that I barely noticed a difference in anything but startup. Could also have been my memory / CPU bottlenecking the SSD but if I ever opt for an SSD I'm staying away from Intel's (current) offerings. I did successfully return that SSD to BestBuy for a full refund so no loss was had.

I'm a little confused here. I thought you hadn't gotten the computer yet? What did you install Windows and the SSD on? The Intel 320 series is quite good, so any performance problems that you were seeing were likely due to a misconfiguration or bottleneck somewhere else.

 

[Dragonwell]

I used to think that Biostar was crap too, but I've changed my position over the last few months. They're not anything flashy, but they get the job done on a budget. Basically, they are the ASRock of 2 years ago.

Be careful, take you time, don't be afraid to read the manual. That's about it. When you get to the BIOS, remember to turn on AHCI before you install Windows.

I'm a little confused here. I thought you hadn't gotten the computer yet? What did you install Windows and the SSD on? The Intel 320 series is quite good, so any performance problems that you were seeing were likely due to a misconfiguration or bottleneck somewhere else.

Huh. Well, will keep an eye out for Biostar in the future.

Taking my time is definitely on the agenda here, so far as the actual building goes.

I don't have the PC yet, no. I installed Win 7 on my current harddrive installed in the old PC. When I build the new PC I will use my current harddrive as-is. And yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if my SSD performance was being bottlenecked by this hardware. That SSD was also installed in this older rig that I'm replacing with the new build.

 

[Dragonwell]

So I put my new rig together (sans the new GPU) and it went off without a hitch. Performance is great so far, but my one concern is the GPU temps. They idle at the mid to high 40s, but under load (in this case simply playing AoE3, the only thing I've tested it with so far) I get temps at about 50C. Is this something to be concerned about, or is 50C under "load" acceptable for an i5 2500K?

 

[betasub]

^ So which drive is the new rig booting from? And did you do a fresh install for the new build?

And 50C load is really good, especially seeing as it is such a small delta from idle.

 

[mfenn]

^ So which drive is the new rig booting from? And did you do a fresh install for the new build?

And 50C load is really good, especially seeing as it is such a small delta from idle.

:thumbsup: +10C is damn good IMHO. I wouldn't worry until it was in the 70s or so.

And if you think that's hot, don't dare look at GPU temps! 85C is perfectly normal.

 

[Dragonwell]

^ So which drive is the new rig booting from? And did you do a fresh install for the new build?

And 50C load is really good, especially seeing as it is such a small delta from idle.

Booting from my one and only 1TB Western Digital. According to Windows' system rating thingy this harddrive's read/write is my biggest bottleneck right now. And yes, fresh install.

I know it's extreme, but when I run Prime95 under either of its CPU-intensive settings, that temp will spike to a good 55 to 60C and then steadily climb to about 70C before I freak and turn it off. Prime95 is meant to present computational problems to the CPU that it's never really going to face in typical usage, but that temp spiking (especially when I hear of people running this thing for 24 hours straight as a stability test) has me a bit concerned.

 

[Dragonwell]

Just played some TF2 while running RealTemp. The cores seem to randomly spike to high 50s or about 60 - 61C at the highest, but primarily hover in the mid 50s. I used Arctic Silver 5, which I know has a curing time to reach optimum cooling capabilities, but having used the vertical line method and this being my first build, might it be possible that I incorrectly applied the thermal paste or is random spiking to 60 or so normal? Indeed that spiking seemed to happen the most on one core in particular but all of them spiked at some point or another.

I will say that when the stock cooler came in I made the mistake of scraping its thermal "wax" off with a credit card and then applying isopropyl alcohol (91%, purest I could find), which seemed to make one or two small scratches on the copper surface. I put a bit of AS5 on there in an effort to get those scratches filled in with AS5 before then applying the AS5 to the CPU itself, and then mounting the heatsink.

 

[Athadeus]

Neither AoE3 nor TF2 are a real load on your CPU. Get Intel Burn Test 2.51, run a few passes of that and let us know what your load temps are. Your idle temps are good for the stock cooler, probably because you used AS5 instead of the thermal pad.

 

[Dragonwell]

Been running the burn test one or two tests at a time. By the end of the second test my temps will be spiking to about 71C, bouncing between that and about 68C. During the first test the temps top out at about 65C. The results are consistent (which as per the program's readme suggests system stability) but it seems to be running hot.

 

[mfenn]

71C while burning is fine. Just let the test run. The worst that will happen is that you start throttling, a modern Intel CPU will not let itself burn up.

 

[Dragonwell]

System's testing as stable. One core hit 78C, but apparently nothing fried.

 

[mfenn]

System's testing as stable. One core hit 78C, but apparently nothing fried.

:thumbsup: on stability.

If one core is consistently significantly higher than the others (>15% or so), then there is probably a small problem with your heatsink's thermal interface. The likely causes of that would be either there is too little (or too much) TIM above that core, the heatsink isn't mounted with the same pressure at all 4 corners, or the bottom of the heatsink isn't quite flat.

 

[Dragonwell]

:thumbsup: on stability.

If one core is consistently significantly higher than the others (>15% or so), then there is probably a small problem with your heatsink's thermal interface. The likely causes of that would be either there is too little (or too much) TIM above that core, the heatsink isn't mounted with the same pressure at all 4 corners, or the bottom of the heatsink isn't quite flat.

Having run the test again, three of the cores hover around 78C at their hottest. The fourth core runs a comparatively icy 8 to 10C cooler than the other three.

I'm leery of going in and doing something like re-applying the AS5 just out of fear of making it worse more than better.

 

[mfenn]

If you're happy with the way it's working (i.e. not crashing), you might as well leave it alone IMHO.

 

[Dragonwell]

So I was playing BC2 and out of nowhere I start getting some ridiculous screen flicker. I pop open RealTemp and my CPU was running at 60 to 65C on all but one core. Looks like I may have to re-apply that thermal paste.

 

[VirtualLarry]

So I transferred all my old hardware from the mid case into the HAF 932 for the sake of practice,

The back plate on the 9800GTX wasn't allowing it to fit, so I had to take that off but now it's not secured to the rear wall of the case, so all that supports it is the PCIe slot itself. Sagging a bit, I don't like it.

That's not good. There should be NO reason to remove the backplate. Possibly, you might have to bend the edges that stick out that go down into the case, when you plug it in. I've had issues with those tines and cases before.

 

[mfenn]

So I was playing BC2 and out of nowhere I start getting some ridiculous screen flicker. I pop open RealTemp and my CPU was running at 60 to 65C on all but one core. Looks like I may have to re-apply that thermal paste.

65C is not very hot at all, definitely not hot enough to cause screen flicker. I'm with Larry, in that I'm more concerned about your janky GPU mounting.