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david wrote:

evilkinggumby wrote:THE ULTIMATE GHOST OF A TALE COMPUTER

Yeah, agreed! I'm also thinking of buying or building something that will run GOAT effortlessly.

I finally got the last parts yesterday so likely later today/tonight I'll migrate the few parts from the old pc into the new rig and put it together. I'll try and take pics just for fun. Hopefully it all works.

evilkinggumby wrote:I'll try and take pics just for fun.

excellent idea, I'm looking forward to seeing your build!

david wrote:

evilkinggumby wrote:I'll try and take pics just for fun.

excellent idea, I'm looking forward to seeing your build!

Well it's mostly together. Physically I am just waiting on a second memory chip for it (stupid newegg shipped one UPS direct but the other through DHL so it went to a different state before shifting to US postal and then coming to me) so I haven't closed it up and done major work on the software. I at least got the back panel attached again, windows 7 installed (though I have the proper copy to activate incoming in the mail, my friend's copy was out of licenses) and tested it briefly on my old 24" asus 1200p monitor (can slightly see it on the left in the pic behind the case) with Skyrim running at high quality (with a bunch of mods going, though not a lot of super HD ones). And it worked out great as far as I could tell. I still need to mess with overclocking it but the base temp the cpu holds at (even while on and being somewhat used) is about 23C so I will take that as the liquid cooling working.



Quick snapshot of the case at an angle. Sorry for the glare. You can see the corsair liquid coling over the cpu and the radiator attached to the rear case fan. 2 hard disks plus a bluray dvd drive is all it gets for now, but eventually I'll likely get my hands on a decent SSD when I find the right deal.

And of course a big ol 850 watt Power supply. in time if I wanted to get a second evga brand gtx 760 to drop in the case could easily accommodate it at 16x when SLI'd. But I have done the SLI dance before and the fact not all games properly take advantage of the architecture makes me leery of trying it anytime soon. For now the new card should be ok, it has 4gb DDR5 on it and running Skyrim was silky smooth (didn't have fraps going so not sure of framerate) even with weather effects and multiple NPC's and light sources going. I was in Windhelm so I headed to the water and even there it ran fine will all the reflecting and detail. so.. WOO. I think i'll be ok for GoaT lol

(more pics later when it is actually done)

@EvilKing... nice x-ray view... lots of lovely horsepower. I think you'll be ok for GOAT.

Man... I love technology (when it all works)

Ok couple other pics. Front and Back. The side panel is nuttin to look at just black metal with some grille holes, so I won't bother posting that.





Messed with it this weekend playing Elder Scrolls Online a bit and it handled that just fine. Also used the smart overclock stuff that came with the motherboard to tweak it slightly for now (tweaked it from 4ghz to 4.35 or something) which is decent, but the chip already has a "range" of 4-4.2 clockspeed anyhow so that's not a huge boost. heheheh...

I still have a lot of software to set up but at least got some of the protective stuff in place. Also went and flagged a mess of games on steam to try that I was holding on.

Now.. when do we get to see David pull the trigger and get himself a proper monitor/projector?

@EvilKing... being a technology lover, I'm drooling a bit as I look at your shiny new system

evilkinggumby wrote:when do we get to see David pull the trigger and get himself a proper monitor/projector?

Aha! I have a new solution for this: I'll post a photo soon!

It is running like a champ so far. I also re-purposed the stock heatsink/fan from the new cpu onto my old cpu (as that one's fan was dying) so now the old computer runs quieter and cooler than before. woo.

I've tested it with a number of games and so far the only issue I have seen is screen tearing (even with vsync on) in pre-rendered cinematic cut scenes. In researching, it seems to be a common issue with high end cards, and it doesn't seem to do it during gameplay (turned on triple buffering in tomb raider to help with it) so I'm not too worried. I'm using the system on a 120hz tv so it really SHOULD be able to handle it but I may need to tweak the tv settings (as I may have it configured wrong).

Otherwise, it runs like a champ. I also snagged a cheap but solid 120gb single layer SSD drive for more hardcore gaming and pluggin that into a dock/port on the top of the case. Since it's only a 2.5" drive it fits in there nicely and being in open air, stays nice and cool.

@EvilKing... It doesn't compare at all with your water-cooled behemoth, but here's my current setup: I use a wireless keyboard and mouse with the Sony Bravia (comes with my rented room in Bangkok) as my monitor... it functions well enough for work and light gaming. These days, I'm playing my recent Steam-sale purchases: Assassin's Creed 3 and Ace Combat: Assault Horizon (both fun so far!)



However my laptop is totally underpowered to run GOAT, so I really do need to upgrade

ha thats a pretty solid set up. I like it. I have done that in hotels too, and really.. it doesn't require buying much of anything (maybe the HDMI?) so kudos to you. Now you can save and use the set aside money later to get what you really want.

Currently my rig is working out ok. I changed it up a bit and stopped using a VGA wire to my tv and instead have it direct connected with a decent HDMI. It end sup having a lot better clarity, brighter, richer colors, and better overall performance. I never expected a VGA wire would lose so much over a fairly short distance.. but there ya go.

I think my friend is still using the Korean monitors he got, though I don't think he ever invested in a different graphics card that can run both at the same time. So he is using one with his old 24" monitor and keep the extra for emergencies or something? not sure. But it has held up nice.

evilkinggumby wrote:Now you can save and use the set aside money later to get what you really want.

Exactly!

Yeah, I'm getting good results from HDMI, and I've made a mental note of your experience with VGA for when I upgrade... and though I like using the TV at the moment, when I upgrade I'll absolutely also be considering those Korean monitors and budget projectors