So i finally decided to spend my hard earned cash on a new computer. Specs are following:
CPU: Core i7 980x 3,33Ghz
MOBO: Gigabyte X58A UD7
RAM: 12GB Kingston HyperX 1333 CL7
HDD: 2TB WD Caviar Green WD20EARS
SSD: Intel X25-M 80GB
Heatsink: Zalman CNPS10x Performa
PSU: Seasonic S12-D 750W
Case: Fractal Design Define R2 Titanium Grey (recommended, perhaps only good looking case aside of LianLi products, but cheaper
I keep my Radeon 4870 until Nvidia comes with something better than this GTX400 line-up...and i wait for the boom of CUDA/OpenCL renderers for 3DS max...
Anyway, i have a few questions for anyone here with i7 rig: i bought 2 6GB RAM kits instead of single matched 12GB one...do you think, it will be a problem to run them on their XMP profile without further tweaking? Apparently the XMP profile (1333 CL7) is meant to work only for one single 3x2 GB kit...i wonder what will happen if i populate all the RAM slots and enable it...
Second question, what is optimal airflow inside the case, or where should i place the fans respectively? The case has shitloads of positions in the front, back, up and down and on the side panel. I have 3 120mm fans on my disposal... I plan to put 2 into the front and one to the back of the case right behind the CPU cooler... is it OK this way?
Thanks for your answers
In answer to your questions:
1. Yes it will be a problem. The XMP profile is for only 3 slots populated. The latency will increase for 6 sticks and if i recall correctly the speed will decrease as well. You will most likely have to manually overclock it to achieve optimal ram bandwidth. You may have to goose the voltage a bit. Please note that while 1.65 volts is considered the limit you can go over it slightly. Just be sure to know what you are doing and research everything before bumping it. Check kingston, hardocp and other forums to see what other users are doing as well.
2. nice case BTW...This case has the PSU on the bottom so i would think it wouldn't be the standard airflow that i would recommend which is One Front (in), One Top(out), One Rear(out).
For your case i would experiment with One Top (in), 1 rear (out), 1 front (in) and check your temps. Then i would move the top fan to the side panel (in) and check your temps to see which one works best. A lot will have to do with the type of CPU cooler that you are using. I wouldnt bother putting 2 in the front since you aren't loading it up with a stack of HDD's.
If it was my system i would get a 4th fan and arrange them: front (in) top (out) side (in) rear (out). For another $15 you can just do that arrangement and not mess with testing.
Nice system and good luck!
j
Wow, thanks for your advice...
i am not really pleased with the RAM thing, i really wanted to avoid overclocking them other way than via those XMP profiles...to be fair since the memory controller is built inside CPU, i am scared to "play" with the voltages...i would like to overclock to CPU itself, but only without the bumping of Vcore...according to TomsHardware, it should be possible to do it to circa 3,7 - 3,8 GHz by upping the multiplier from 25 to 28... so i will probably give it a try....
but really hoped to keep the QPI/VTT voltage intact...well, tomorrow maybe i will put it together, so we´ll see
good old Core2Duo, it was so easier to overclock...now you have gazillion different voltages,multipliers...etc...it is complicated as f**k, back in the day you just put FSB up, set the memory multiplier and voila +600 MHz...
regarding the fans, i will probably order the fourth fan you speak of....
thanks again
Good luck bro, let me know how it works out.
You definitely have a handle on overclocking so you wont have any problems. There's definitely more settings these days lol. Heck i just use the auto-oc feature for my mobo, it's easier and im lazy about it lol.
8
Just curious what OS are you planning to run. I know I built my Rig with 8 gigs of ram total. But thanks to the Vista OS and 32 bit system I came to a very nasty realization that I had much more ram than my OS could ever manage to utilize.
It is a mistake I have learned from and will not ever repeat again. But as to date I have found no work around to the problem.
the work around is to go to a 64 bit OS...
I just got the CoolerMaster HAF 922 (fantastic case - also bottom mounted PSU which is nice) and the stock cooling is front 200mm intake, top 200mm exhaust, rear 120mm exhaust. I don't really see why you would have to change it just because the PSU is on the bottom.
Sounds like a good plan. I could do the same with mine, actually thought about mounting my other 120mm in the bottom but I don't really think I need it (instead of on the door blocking the view of inside).
Just gotta post pics with it all assembled.
You know that does bring up a question on my part about my rig....
I am running an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+ 3.00ghz
When I was confronted with the choice of a 32 bit or 64 bit OS I was a bit stumped. So I asked the sales clerk if my processor was 32 or 64 bit. He said it was a 32 bit dual and not a true 64 and by extension I was stuck with a 32 bit OS.
But I cannot help but shake the feeling he didn't know what he was talking about. Of course with a copies of a windows OS going for 200 new I couldn't afford to err on hope and went with the 32 bit.
But if someone in the know knows.. do I really have a 32 bit processor and am stuck with a 32 bit OS or do I have the ability to upgrade to a 64 bit OS?
Because if that is the case it might be time to upgrade to Win 7 and go 64 bit,
Never listen to a sales clerk, if they knew anything they wouldn't be working as a sales clerk... (no offence to people working in sales)
I would highly recommend you go Win7 64bit, you'll find it a massive upgrade from Vista and you'll feel the benefit of all that RAM.
Agreed with Fuzzy. I'm running 7 x64 on an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+, works great.
about the ram question.....i guarantee you if you call kingston, they'll tell you to set it to xmp and let 'er rip. you may have to manually set the voltage to 1.65, tho. i bought 2 kits of corsair dominator and set them to xmp and had no issues. i did rma them to corsair because they wouldn't sell me a set of blue heatsink fins, tho. they wouldn't sell me the blue fins but they'd replace my 2 kits with a single kit of the same amount of ram with the blue fins. the single kit cost 80 bucks more than my two kits of dominator so i was happy to do it. same memory but blue fins instead of black.
Well Found out I can run 64 it, so yesterday went out and pick up Win 7 64 and formatted and installed last night
Yeah!!! for the re-install everything game.
Why would you get a caviar green? They are slower than the Caviar black and for a game system, you want a large cache and high speed. You're not trying to minimize power consumption.
Edit: Oh, nevermind. Too late. At least you're being nice to the environment. I hate the way they market those drives, right alongside the much faster caviar black.
Hot air rises...so top fans should exhaust.
Simple physics.
Nothing else but Win7 64bit.
All others are a waste of time.
I thought the exact same, mybe he can send them back for some Black's?
No, i am not going to send it back... instead i ordered another X-25m 80GB SSD I will used the first one for OS and shit, second one for games... maybe i put them into RAID-0, but i am not decided about this yet, cause i fear increased risk of failure....
does anyone here experience with RAIDed disks, even standard HDDs? Is it worth to do it?
By the way, the Green disk i bought does have 64MB cache, but of course it is nowhere near as fast as Black or Raptors... but now i am going to use it for data storage exclusively, so it should be just fine...
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