It's Been A Bad Week

[GT182]

Well, it happened. My 5-1/2 year old computer crashed on me last week. Just got a new one up and running yesterday. Built this one too. Still working on getting things reinstalled tho.

Mabe not the top of the line machine but it screams compared to my old computer. And I can't complain on the cost. Just under $700.00 to build it from scratch. :d Donations appreciated. LOL
Specs:
Cooler Master HAF 922 mid tower case. I love this case, it's so quiet..... 2 250mm fans and 1 120mm side fan
2.8GB i5 Quad Core
Asus P7P55D-E Deluxe motherboard.. upgradeable to an i7 This has 2 SATA6 slots on it.
4GB Corsair 1600 DDR3 Ram
H50 Liquid Cooler
Zotac 8800GT 1GB DDR3 GFX card
Ultra X3 600 watt PSU with 120mm fan and cable management
1TB Seagate SATA2.0 HDD
200GB SATA Maxtor HDD for storage of the most important stuff. With a second 200GB SATA HDD for extra storage.

Still running XP until I can gather up the money for Win7 Ultra.

[kilo delta]

Well, it happened. My 5-1/2 year old computer crashed on me last week. Just got a new one up and running yesterday. Built this one too. Still working on getting things reinstalled tho.

Mabe not the top of the line machine but it screams compared to my old computer. And I can't complain on the cost. Just under $700.00 to build it from scratch. :d Donations appreciated. LOL
Specs:
Cooler Master HAF 922 mid tower case. I love this case, it's so quiet..... 2 250mm fans and 1 120mm side fan
2.8GB i5 Quad Core
Asus P7P55D-E Deluxe motherboard.. upgradeable to an i7 This has 2 SATA6 slots on it.
4GB Corsair 1600 DDR3 Ram
H50 Liquid Cooler
Zotac 8800GT 1GB DDR3 GFX card
Ultra X3 600 watt PSU with 120mm fan and cable management
1TB Seagate SATA2.0 HDD
200GB SATA Maxtor HDD for storage of the most important stuff. With a second 200GB SATA HDD for extra storage.

Still running XP until I can gather up the money for Win7 Ultra.

Nice specs there,Gary:salute:
If you have a few bucks left in the kitty down the line I'd recommend picking up a mid range i7 chip (930-960) to really make your sim experience shine.

[Lionheart]

Quad core!!! nice.... I would get the i7 also. There is a performance i7 out now also.

1TB drive, lol... It is the future!!

[Trans_23]

Nice job!

[GT182]

Thanks Bill. The i7 is down the road tho.... money money money. I was told that this setup should run almost anything out there. But the best way to get my simming up to speed will be Windows7 with DX10 or higher. One good test should be MOH Airborne and X3TC. They are the only 2 laggy sims I have that need the better processor and memory. This Asus P7P55D-E Deluxe board can actually be overclocked. Up to 3.0 or 3.2 safely, tho it shouldn't really need it from what I was told.

And this H50 water cooler is great. The only noise I hear is from the top 250mm fan. And it is nice to have a mid tower case that takes up less room.

[luckydog]

Your new pooter looks a lot like my new one.
In the process of gettin' everything re-loaded, I made the mistake of trying out X3TC.......

WOW!! It's been about 3 weeks now and I've reloaded diddly-squat.

LD

[GT182]

Thanks Trans. The hardest part was figuring out what to get for parts, and then getting the XP keycode to finalise the reinstall. My original code was no good. But M$ was good about that... thank God. The lady I talked to stuck with me until I could boot up XP, and that was a blessing in it's self.

LD, it takes time to reload. But longer if your heart isn't in it. That I know as I've got tons of stuff to try and save and then reload, and my heart isn't into doing this. I regret not having the necessary stuff backed up. Hopefully I can get it off the other HDDs from the old machine. The worst loss is my IE links.

[txnetcop]

That is a nice rig for sure but the only i7 you can upgrade to are the i7 800 series. That is a socket 1156. The i7 900 series is a 1366 series socket, The 1366 socket requires an X58 motherboard. However the upgrade to an i7 860, 870, 875 is no slouch.
Ted

[hey_moe]

Gary, sounds like ya set up now....how do ya like the water part of it.

[kilo delta]

That is a nice rig for sure but the only i7 you can upgrade to are the i7 800 series. That is a socket 1156. The i7 900 series is a 1366 series socket, The 1366 socket requires an X58 motherboard. However the upgrade to an i7 860, 870, 875 is no slouch.
Ted

Hadn't checked the mobo specs...thought it was socket 1366.

[GT182]

Mike, I love the H50. It's quiet as all getout without the heastsink fan. Like I said, all I can hear is the top 250mm fan running. If CompUSA had had the H70 I probably would have gotten that instead. But so far the 50 is doing a great job of cooling. Darned thing even looks like the radiator out of my GTO. LOL

When I get my camera software installed later on I'll post some photos of the new Frankenputer.

Only one thing different with this case is loading your HDDs. Because of the latch to hold them in, you have to install them from the right side of the case, not the normal left side. The SATA wiring won't let you lock the drives in. So when putting it all together you have both side panels off.

Ted, at least the upgrade to an i7 1156 will be cheaper than to a 1366. :d

[txnetcop]

Mike, I love the H50. It's quiet as all getout without the heastsink fan. Like I said, all I can hear is the top 250mm fan running. If CompUSA had had the H70 I probably would have gotten that instead. But so far the 50 is doing a great job of cooling. Darned thing even looks like the radiator out of my GTO. LOL

When I get my camera software installed later on I'll post some photos of the new Frankenputer.

Only one thing different with this case is loading your HDDs. Because of the latch to hold them in, you have to install them from the right side of the case, not the normal left side. The SATA wiring won't let you lock the drives in. So when putting it all together you have both side panels off.

Ted, at least the upgrade to an i7 1156 will be cheaper than to a 1366. :d

The i7 875 is an unlocked Black Edition CPU and like I said...no slouch...you'll love it if you decide to move up to it one day. I just prefer the socket1366 because it allows the use of the six and eight core processors one of which is the 980X and uses Hyper-threading and triple channel memory.

The reason I pointed out the 1156 limitation was not to cast aspersions on your new build, but instead to let people who are thinking of buying that the sales folks in the computer stores very rarely know the difference in the 1156 and 1366 and what the upgrade possibilities really are. They think just because an ad says it runs i3, i5 and i7 Core that it will run the new hex and octa cores coming out.

My oldest son works for Best Buy as an installer for Geek Squad. He really shakes his head at the idiots Geek Squad hires. The techs are mostly parts replacers not technicians-it means more peripheral parts sales. By the way, the 1156 socket motherboard with i5 750, four gigabyte of fast dual channel memory, and the right video card runs FSX very well if just slightly overclocked. All the new retail unit ASUS and Gigabyte 1156 and 1366 socket motherboards are capable of easy overclocks nowadays. At some point add a 460GTX and you will really see that beast rock n roll!
Ted

[Trans_23]

Ted, this is probably a silly question but why do they constantly change the motherboard sockets with the new processors? I mean, why couldn't Intel make the i7 chip work in the 1156 board. I assume it has to do with the interaction between the processor and the board or is it all marketing and getting us to buy more hardware?

Regards

[txnetcop]

Amigo if I would have designed it I would have two slots one for 1156 and one for 1366 but the circuitry would have been just a little taste of hell. We would have to go back to BTX boards because of the socket arrangements on the CPU. You already have the ability to use dual Xeon and AMD Optrons on server boards. I guess it comes down to how the motherboard makers can make the most money on upgrades and change-outs.

[GT182]

Ted, cost is the the factor. I looked into buying an i7 1366, but the cost was more than my budget could take.... da Warden said so. Besides, I've got nothing to run that needs that kind of power. I can easily overclock this i5 quad core to 3.2 if the need arises. But down the road, I'd rather spend the money on a newer graphics card.

So in the long run it's apples to oranges on what's really needed.