New Rig for PS2

[Eyeklops]

Well, I finally bit the bullet and ordered an upgrade to my pc.

Seasonic M12D 850W power supply (already own, keeping)
Thermaltake Mozart TX (already own, keeping)
Zalman ZM-MFC2 (already own, Keeping)
Magicool Slim 240 Radiator (already own, keeping in case, but won't use)
D-tek Pump (already own, keeping in case, but won't use)
D-tek Waterblock (going for scrap)
Asus Maximus Forumla SE (on water) -->> Asus Maximus Gene V
Intel E8400 @ 4Ghz (on D-tek waterblock) -->> Intel 3570K (on Water 2.0 Extreme)
Gskill 8 gig DDR2-1000 -->> Gskill 8 gig DDR3-2400
Powercolor 5870 LCS (on water) -->> EVGA GTX690 (no water...yet)
4 Seagate 750GB in mixed RAID (1+0 & 0) -->> Mushkin Chronos Deluxe 240GB SSD
Samsung 20" 60hz LCD -->> Asus 27" 120hz LED-LCD
Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme

I think the total was just shy of $2600 for all the stuff in bold including another copy of Win7 Pro & a blu-ray drive. Not a "full" upgrade, but there is no reason to get rid of that massive case and fairly recent power supply. Keyboard, mouse, headset, & Obutto gaming desk are all that is left to order.

Having conflict over the GTX 690 only getting 4GB of ram, would much rather see it have a full 4GB per GPU (8 total). If the 8GB version comes out this one will be on ebay for sure. The 690 will stay on air so long as the temps and noise level don't get noteworthy, but I can already feel that 240 radiator calling out to be used.

It will be interesting to see how well the pre-built water cooling unit can hold down the temps on the 3570K once I start pushing up the clockrate. Intel really fucked the overclocking crowd with Ivy Bridge (no soldered IHS this go round). Even if the overclock is pushed down by the junk thermal interface Intel used on the IHS, going from an E8400 to a 3570K will feel like a massive jump.

The last thing I can't wait to see in action is the 120Hz monitor. I get the feeling that it will be everything it's cracked up to be.

The un-fun part of this whole adventure is going to be dismantling the current hardware and water loop. Cleaning the case is going to be a bitch too. Last I looked in there, I didn't have just a few dust bunnies, I had the GOTR sized outfit of dust bunnies. And I am pretty sure they were zerging around my generator (power supply) and CC (motherboard).
/wall of text off

So...the question is...do you think I will really notice a difference?

[Mutant]

Nice build.

the 2x2 GB of RAM wont be an issue on 1080p, maybe for some games using a lot of vram for textures ect.. you would need to tone down the AA a tad (in the future anyway).

Any sensible game designer will ensure their game fits in 2GB at 1080p until mid range cards come with 3-4GB as standard.


2GB does not hold back fps in BF3 until you are talking about triple screens and quad SLI/xfire.
http://i1161.photobucket.com/albums/q508/swolern/BF3vram.gif
http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/2641/7/nvidia-geforce-gtx-680-quad-sli-review-english-version-battlefield-3

[Eyeklops]

Figured I would update on how this build performs so far.

Power usage: It uses less power at idle (88W vs 165W), but I have seen BF3 peak at 430W.

BF3 (max settings), seems to average about 110 FPS on the small maps, and as high as 160. The lowest FPS noticed was 60. At 120Hz, the smoothness of the motion was incredible. When the texture quality was on max there were a few rare stutters here and there, but on high this problem went away.

3D glasses were meh, would rather have the 120hz smooth motion.

Going from the liquid cooled 5870, the noise of the 690's fan is annoying. Looks like the old cooling loop will be rebuild just for the vid card. Didn't get a good look at the load temps for CPU or GPU, but they did seem pretty damn low at idle. I set the XMP memory profile in the overclocking menu, and it pumped the ram to 2400 and the CPU to 4.6Ghz. It auto-set the voltage a shade above 1.3 which is slightly too high IMO. When I get time I will start OCCT stress testing and do some real overclocking. Hopefully I can get the Vcore down to 1.2.

Overall I give the initial experience an A+ with some hurt to the wallet

[Goku]

I missed this thread totally. Very nice rig. The 690 actually has a very very good stock HS for a dual GPU. A lot of people raved about as well. Can't say I'm not shocked you don't like it that much given you had WC of course.

[Eyeklops]

I missed this thread totally. Very nice rig. The 690 actually has a very very good stock HS for a dual GPU. A lot of people raved about as well. Can't say I'm not shocked you don't like it that much given you had WC of course.

I plan on adding my old monitor as a second display. Do you think I am better off to use the Intel i5 IGP or one of the extra outputs on the 690? I am concerned that mixing the 120hz monitor and the 60hz will produce weird results in games. Any suggestions Goku?

[Rbstr]

This seems like a good "Why not just try both" thing.

It seems like you've got to have lucid virtu working to get the IPG to go when you have a dedicated card in.

[Spiah]

I am concerned that mixing the 120hz monitor and the 60hz will produce weird results in games.
AFAIK and correct me if i'm wrong, Nvidia control panel supports dual setups with different resolutions, refresh rates etc. It seems like you should have no problems in just normal browsing and general use. As for games? Frankly, I doubt you'd want to do dual screen gaming. A 20" next to a 27" is a big size difference, and not to mention the resolution would be off pretty bad on one screen or the other. Usually you can only choose one refresh rate ingame, so, at least in my opinion, I wouldn't try dual screening PS2 for example. On the flipside, I doubt you'd have problems having PS2 open on the 27" and PSU on the 20" :)

However, gaming on a 27" is not bad at all. Hell, I'd be happy just having that one monitor :p

Awesome setup, by the way.

[Eyeklops]

This seems like a good "Why not just try both" thing.

It seems like you've got to have lucid virtu working to get the IPG to go when you have a dedicated card in.

The iGP outputs HDMI & DP, but my second monitor is DVI & Dsub, so it appears my hardware-on-hand dictated that the second monitor reside on the GTX690. Interesting fact: For the first time EVER on any video card I have owned, it REALLY matters what DVI ports the monitors are plugged into .


Update to overclocking stuff (READ if your using an ASUS Z77 ROG motherboard):

ROG: CPU Core Voltage Offset Mode Overclocking (http://rog.asus.com/51092012/overclocking/overclocking-using-offset-mode-for-cpu-core-voltage/)
I did some research, and setting the CPU Vcore should be done using "offset" mode. Manual will work, but is inefficient as it doesn't down-volt the CPU during idle periods. On default settings, an Intel "core i" CPU automatically increases Vcore somewhat proportional to clock frequency. Because of good headroom, the default settings work well with small overclocks (4.0~4.2Ghz). However, the amount of voltage required at moderately high overclocks (4.4~5.0Ghz) becomes non-linear with respect to frequency and the stock settings rarely provide enough voltage to remain stable under load. Adding an "offset" to compensate for the non-linearity fixes this.

When running in "offset mode" the three main controllers of Vcore under load are frequency, Load-line Calibration (LLC), & +/- Offset. Load-line calibration is a very coarse adjustment for the ASUS Z77 boards currently, and that is why offset is required. Note that changes to the offset value effect ALL states of CPU load, even idle. So if you set offset to +.020, your idle voltage will increase by that amount as well.

Another thing, 1.8V for Vpll is overkill for Ivy Bridge. Once the Vcore is dialed in for the desired OC and considered stable, back the Vpll down to 1.5V and re-run stability testing. Last night my [email protected] (turbo) passed a 5hr OCCT "small" CPU stress test using these settings:

Vcore (offsetmode) +.040V
Vpll 1.550V
Load-line Calibration: 75% (UltraHigh)

The 9 hour test is still running as of this post. I expect it to fail & want slightly more offset/more Vpll.