The All New, All New Spec and Bench Thread!!!

Beeeph · Post by **Beeeph** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 4:48 pm

2 X 24" UltraSharp 2407WFP Dell Widescreen LCD
Intel Core2 Q6700 Quad-Core (8MB L2 cache,2.8GHz OCable to 3.6GHz, 1066FSB)
4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz (OCable to 1066) - 4 DIMMs
2 X ASUS GeForce 8800GTX 768MB
2 X 160GB Western Digital Raptor 10,000RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache RAIDed
Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic Sound Card

Code: Select all

3D MARK 2006 Final Score&#58; 12872 &#40;3DMs&#41;

Code: Select all

3D MARK 2006 Final Score &#40;overclocked&#41;&#58; 13874 &#40;3DMs&#41;

so I got a dell 720 at work which came with some great specs. it arrived factory overclocked and blue screened right out of the box...but i fixed it, then i got the clock up 3.6Ghz before crashing. BF2 has never looked better

alllright, giggiddy!

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 9:10 am

Nice system. The only thing I'd change (which isn't even quite possible yet,) is switching from SLI GTXes, to a single card from the next generation coming out soon. Oh, and I'd want Seagate drives.

I want a 24" screen...

Beeeph · Post by **Beeeph** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 10:04 am

While we're on the subject of change, i have questions for teh hardwarez mastar.

I currently have a bedroom PC with....
Intel Pentium D 830 Dual Core 3.0Ghz 2x1MB L2 Cache
Dell 0GC068 Mainboard w/ i955X Rev. 00 chipset w/ ICH7 Southbridge
3072 DDR2 Dual Channel PC-5300 667Mhz RAM running at 333Mhz and 5-5-5-15 timing (i have http://www.mushkin.com/doc/products/mem ... asp?id=276 and some other unknown patriot memory junk.....)
EVGA Nvidia GeForce 8800GTS 320MB (588Mhz Core, DX10, 1840MHz Memory)
Vista Business w/ SP1 Beta1

I am wondering if upgrading to an Intel Pentium D 945 Dual Core 3.4Ghz 2x2MB L2 Cache will make much difference (15-25% gain in performance?)

I am also wondering if upgrading to 4x1GB via Ballistix 240-pin DIMM, DDR2 PC2-5300 would lower latency?(latency is quoted as 3-3-3-12)
Do you think my motherboard will even allow timings at that level? the Dell mobo is a bitch to overclock and does not support voltage tweaking via BIOS.

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 10:32 am

I don't actually have much experience with the Pentium D. I've used one of these chips in one computer that wasn't for me. I've been AMD64 and then Core 2 through it's lifespan. I also don't play with my memory timings that much. I'm an overclocker, but not an XXXTreme overclocker. I like to bump my CPU speed up as far as it will go within a quarter volt difference usually. I like faster than spec, but cool running and relaxed components.

My approaches to this situation would be to:

Cheap
...buy an AM2 X2, cheap nvidia-based board, and keep everything else. Then trickle the old processor and motherboard down to someone else, or into the $500 Arcade system.

Slightly Less Cheap
...buy a Core 2 Duo (any model,) lower cost 650i or 680i based board, keep everything else, and trickle the old processor and board.

The second option will feed that video card a wee bit better.

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 11:52 am

So, my PC is officially a steaming pile of turds. Nothing 3D is working, i think my video card is dead. So much for bioshock / TF2.

Post by **enderzero** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 12:14 pm

RMA and get on it!

You try a fresh XP install on a dif HDD?

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 6:02 pm

So there is actually a registry value to diable TDR in vista, i dissabled it, and both HL2, and Bioshock are fully playable now.

TRDLevel = 0

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 10:23 pm

Bloody marvelous!

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 8:40 am

Life has never been so good, with TDR off. Granted my pc does lock up every now and then, and i have to hit the reset button. I can totally live with that. Before I could only play 3d games for 3 minutes maybe, before things stared to get corrupted. Now I can play anywhere from 2-6 hours at a time before it hard locks. I can definitely live with that, till the G92.

Post by **enderzero** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 11:20 am

My PC crashes maybe 1 out of every 10 games. Usually memory. Still haven;'t really found a setitng that works. Right now it is extra slow - with basically zero performance change.

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 7:26 pm

None of mine crash at all. (though I get the odd fatal exception sort of crash to desktop every once in a while) What are your clocks like? Stock?

Post by **enderzero** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 9:20 am

El Stocko. Not too bad really - maybe less than that even - and I have only been playing the ever-buggy Bioshock and Beta TF2.

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 10:02 am

I've gotten one CTD in Bioshock, but it was when I was tweaking the INI file heavily. Otherwise I haven't really had any problems there. Haven't had any trouble with TF2 on my main computer yet, though I did get one hang on the living room PC.

The only difference between the two PCs is that my main one uses an 8800GTS and the living room PC uses two 8600 GTSes in SLI. I'm thinking it was the SLI bit that did it, as it was when I was changing video modes.

Actually one other difference is that I'm running Vista X64 on the main PC and XP X64 on the living room PC. I'd like to switch it over to Vista though. I may pick up a Home edition or something for that one.

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 1:53 pm

I'm actually over clocked now that things are more stable, I'm running at 2.45Ghz.

The crashes happen at stock too so its not the fault of the o'clock. The screen will freeze (only happens in 3D) and the mouse pointer will sometimes be visible. Can't bring up task manager, and sometimes there is a looping chunk of sound. Happens in wow,bioshock, and HL2. Doesn't happen enough to bother me that much, its a huge improvement over not being able to paly anything at all!

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 11:42 am

So you are all probably tired of hearing about my PC, but I thought I'd post a video for you to see it in action.

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/edrEXuy8lRc"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/edrEXuy8lRc" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

Post by **enderzero** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 2:42 pm

Cmon - you did that in After Effects.

They fuckin superimposed me and shit.

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 12:45 am

Strange. How long have you let it sit in that state? I wonder if the drive activity is a very large dump file. Probably not, but you never know. Or maybe you do know.

Anyway... Nosir... I don't like it...

I've got one Quad Laser running Vista X64 with one 8800GTS640, and another Quad Laser running Vista X86 with two 8600GTSes. Neither have a single problem. However, I wonder if you'd get these issues in X86. My X86 PC is only running it because I will probably never put 4GB in it, but it seems to work well, (at least no noticeable differences to me.) Perhaps you might like to try it out. As mentioned previously, I have a spare HD sitting around if you want to try it without wiping your current setup.

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 10:26 am

enderzero wrote:RMA and get on it!

So I took Enders advice, and RMA'ed my video card. I sent them a 7900GT w/ 256MB, and they are sending me back a 7950GT KO Superclocked 512MB.

Nice!
http://www.evga.com/products/moreinfo.a ... &family=18

Post by **enderzero** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 10:27 am

suhweeeet! Evga teh r0l<z0rz!1

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 4:40 pm

Yes indeed, EVGA is quite the roxorz! Upgraded card asside, the whole RMA process was a breeze!

Before I switched to evga, I was a big supporter of BFG, until I had to RMA one. I sent my card to them, days passed, no email, nothing. I would call them and they would pass me around, and nobody could give me an update, let alone a tracking number. I had to pay to ship it there, and to ship it back. Finally I called their corperate office to make a formal complaint to the PR dept. Within an hour I had a tracking number, and HALF of my shipping returned. (I paid for overnight shipping, but they accidentally shipped it ground.) At this point I swore to never buy BFG again.

Now for my experience at EVGA: Step one upload jpg of receipt. Step two, ask for RMA by simply clicking a button, and entering a BRIEF description of the problem. I recieved the authorization within a few hours of submitting. Step three, mail the card back. You do pay for this shipment, but this really didnt bother me since EVGA mails the new card back at no charge. Step four, check the site for updates. The site was updated within a couple hours of them receiving my card, and my new card was shipped out, in a few more! Tracking number was emailed at the same time, and my card should arrive monday / tuesday. I never even had to talk to a single person, it was almost too easy!

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 9:38 pm

Very nice indeed. I've never had to deal with BFG support, so I've never had the problem. I was on the phone with your during some of your transactions though. Ridiculous it was.

I hope it fixes the problem. (and makes the phone calls go away)

Now, about that Phantom Hourglass!

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 11:11 am

So I said I would never buy a BFG, but I never mentioned anything about trading!

Interestingly enough I actually received a 7950 GX2 (SLI on one card) from evga, and a good friend of mine was gracious to trade it for a BFG 8800GTS! The performance of the 2 cards is roughly the same, but the DX10 features are a must!

So it does appear that the video card was the issue, as my system is running smooth as silk!

Woo hoo!

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 9:10 am

There goes my motherboard theory.

(glad it went though)

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 9:12 am

I'm enjoying the pair-o-G92s as well.

I'll try to get a 3DMark score up for them.

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 12:06 pm

Well the plus side is I don't have dither patterns anymore on my gaming system (2007FPW are 24 bit)

2007WFP S-IPS/S-PVA (true 8-bit)
Serial Number ending with "L" = S-IPS panel. Serial Number ending with "S" = S-PVA panel.

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Sat Dec 01, 2007 12:25 am

J3RK wrote:I'm enjoying the pair-o-G92s as well. I'll try to get a 3DMark score up for them.

It took a little while, but here are my results (standard unregistered 06 latest version and all that...)

13021

Edit: YeeHaw!

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 1:28 pm

Umm, I'm seeing an issue here. It would seem that most people with similar setups are getting 13-14k with a single card. I don't think SLI is working in 3DMark06. Unless it's either disabled by default in the profile (haven't checked this yet,) or is not available unless you register 3DM.

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 2:39 pm

I didn't want to post the specs until I got it tuned to my liking. Well it's runnig at 3.2GHz, so I'd say were looking pretty good.

So here it is what I'm running these days:

Case: Cooler Master Centurion 5 (Black)
Mainboard: Asus P5N32-E SLI PLUS
Chipset: NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI SPP
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 @ 3200 MHz
Memory: G.SKILL - DDR2 1000 (2 x 2048 DDR2@5-5-5-15-2T 2.1V)
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS – 640MB (Driver ver. 169.25)
Hard Disk: Seagate 7200.9 ST330063 (300 GB)
Hard Disk: Seagate 7200.10 ST332062 (320 GB)
Hard Disk: Seagate 7200.10 ST332062 (320 GB)
DVD-Rom Drive: LITE-ON DVD SOHD-16P9S ATA Device
DVD-Rom Drive: Optiarc DVD RW AD-7170A ATA Device
Monitor Type: DELL 2005FPW - 20 inch (1680x1050)
Network Card: Linksys WMP54G
Power Supply: Antec Smartpower 2.0 - 500w
Sound Card: Sound Blaster X-Fi
Operating System: Windows (TM) Vista Ultimate Professional 64-Bit (6.00.6000)
DirectX: Version 10.00
Vista Score: Windows Performance Index 5.7

*sigh of relief* It even dowloads the files off of my memory card properly now...

McNevin · Post by **McNevin** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 3:22 pm

McNevin wrote:It is haunted with the ghost of the SX 40! Never have I had this much trouble since that damn PC!

The curse ends now!

McNevin wrote:Wed Jan 05, 2005 11:48 pm
9x250 and rock solid!

Wow, it has been 3 years since I had a completely working PC! The athlon 64 3000+ that ender warned me not to sell. (Maybe I should have listened) 2 Dead Motherboards, and 3 broken videocards later it seems all is well again finally.

R3C · Post by **R3C** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 9:03 am

Bloody Marvelous TM Admiral! I see the chanting and chicken blood did the trick.

I suppose I shall post my new specs, as they have changed significantly. I shall do this below, now good day. I said good day!!

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The All New, All New Spec and Bench Thread!!!