Upper-Mid-range Gaming Rig Guide

[crimson117]

Build update... the Freezer 7 Pro is a bit too wide to have the fan blowing towards the back of the case; the most common config. The only way I can see it fitting is to have the fan blowing down from the CPU across the northbridge and towards the graphics card. I sure hope it mounts okay that way. I have to wait until tomorrow for the processor to arrive to actually try it.

Otherwise, things look good so far.

New lesson to learn: google your heatsink/mobo combination before purchasing: http://www.tomshardware.com/fo...ctic-freezer-abit-ip35

If you rotate the northbridge heatsink 90 degrees, the Freezer 7 Pro fits. The problem is you either have to drill new holes in the aluminum heatink or you have to attach it via thermal adhesive. I'm deciding between:
1. installing it at an odd rotation
2. getting thermal adhesive
3. getting a different heatsink

 

[crimson117]

Edit: Here's the ACTUAL video of the freezer 7 pro not fitting on the IP35-E.

Yes, that was my sister's dog opening a gift a few xmas's ago

 

[Roguestar]

Funny, that actually looks rather like a video of a dog. Being YouTube, and all, I'm not too surprised but I had somehow convinced myself I was expecting a video of the freezer 7 pro not fitting on the IP35-E for some reason.

 

[crimson117]

Originally posted by: Roguestar
Funny, that actually looks rather like a video of a dog. Being YouTube, and all, I'm not too surprised but I had somehow convinced myself I was expecting a video of the freezer 7 pro not fitting on the IP35-E for some reason.

Link corrected... stupid cut and paste... *grumbles*

 

[Roguestar]

Hahaha, that's more like it.

 

[crimson117]

Update: build completed (took a bunch of photos), vista 64-bit ultimate installed, OC'd to 9x400 = 3.6ghz, so far 7 hours Orthos stable, temps constant at ~62 for core 0 and ~60 for core 1. In the Orthos test, Core 0 is lagging a test or two behind Core 1, but that's probably because Windows ran an anti-virus scan or update or something overnight and took CPU time from Core 0.

On Sunday I'll raid Hyjal Summit in WoW with this new rig, and can at least provide subjective differences. There's a ton of AOE-spellcasting going on in that fight and dozens and dozens of NPCs, so it really pushed my old rig to the limit at 1920x1200.

I mayyyyyy try a higher overclock, but the current high-ish temps aren't too promising. Perhaps after a few days the temps will drop once the thermal grease settles.

I did end up mounting the freezer 7 pro to blow downward (blow towards the NB heatsink), and boy was it a pain to push down the pin nearest the power supply. Normally, if the fan-side of the heatsink was facing the RAM slots, you'd have a lot of clearance to work with, but with the fan-side facing the power supply, it gets very tight, and I could barely get my finger on the pin to press it down. I did get it eventually, but wow... I'm not sure I could unmount it now without removing the power supply.

What I should have done was been more patient and ordered some thermal adhesive so I could rotate and remount the northbridge heatsink like this. I highly recommend anyone ordering new to include thermal adhesive and plan to rotate the NB heatsink.