Andre's Z77 Personal Rig
- Thread starter andrevautour
- Start date
andrevautour
New member
Hey!
the 6950 isn't bad card at all... I wonder if there are any second hand deals on those. Would be curious to see.
the 6950 is okay for most games in 1080p/ultra settings but it can't handle 2560x1440 at all. it doesn't have enough memory on it for one thing it was only a 1gb model, but it's also just now powerful enough. it also can't handle stuff like bf3 and metro 2033 at ultra even at 1080p it was getting like 20 fps average in metro and as low as 10 in some cases and that was just 1080p
with crysis 2 it would dip to as low as 10-12 fps in action scenes at 1080 even with anti aliasing off
a game like far cry 3 (which isn't even that good looking but its just a hog) uses nearly 2.7gb of video memory when it's running at 2560x1440 ultra settings and antialiasing on-- so that gives you an idea how demanding that is.
im looking forward to crysis 3 i really hope they push it massively and make it look really great but i'm not holding my breath.
i haven't seen any available in a while and if anywhere does have them they are usually just full price as when they were current so the only way would be to find someone who is selling one if you want to get one really cheap. the gtx 570 is probably a better bet for something to get really cheap to be honest though.
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I took a peek at ebay and they are not cheap.. some close to 300USD.
Anyway, it 1080p is the standard now, it means that .. man I am far far behind! and it's 100% true. I look here and there and most people use high-end components for their rigs... I am not sure I really belong here to be honest ( I do love it here tho )
, because I don't think I have alot in common with you guys but my passion ... and that's pretty much it... I think about it and it makes me laugh to be honest with you. Sharing old hardware must be boring everyone to death. If Tom Logan would see me, I'd be banned in a sec! ( drama ).
BACK TO TOPIC - I do think a 6950 would be a bit better than a 3870X2
)
EDIT - TAKE A LOOK AT THIS
Anyway, it 1080p is the standard now, it means that .. man I am far far behind! and it's 100% true. I look here and there and most people use high-end components for their rigs... I am not sure I really belong here to be honest ( I do love it here tho )
, because I don't think I have alot in common with you guys but my passion ... and that's pretty much it... I think about it and it makes me laugh to be honest with you. Sharing old hardware must be boring everyone to death. If Tom Logan would see me, I'd be banned in a sec! ( drama ).BACK TO TOPIC - I do think a 6950 would be a bit better than a 3870X2
)EDIT - TAKE A LOOK AT THIS
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andrevautour
New member
maybe it's different if you have your operating system on a mechanical drive and the game in on the same drive as that. unfortunately i can't really say for sure what it is. bf3 is one of the most demanding games still, so i wouldn't be surprised if some older hardware did have trouble running it. even my last setup which was the i7 920 and the 6950, it was pretty decent but it had trouble with stuff like battlefield 3 crysis 2 metro 2033 etc and i had 16gb of memory in there and an SSD and it still had trouble with graphics power. same with the dual 4890s they scored pretty high in 3dmark but they just could not run modern games well. it just seems like there is something about older graphics cards and some modern games that doesn't seem to work well together in my experience
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andrevautour
New member
I took a peek at ebay and they are not cheap.. some close to 300USD.
$300 is a ridiculousness price, you can get a 7950 for that price now. that's what i was talking about stores that do carry old cards often don't adjust the prices so they just sit at the price they were when they were current generation.
Anyway, it 1080p is the standard now, it means that .. man I am far far behind! and it's 100% true. I look here and there and most people use high-end components for their rigs... I am not sure I really belong here to be honest ( I do love it here tho )
BACK TO TOPIC - I do think a 6950 would be a bit better than a 3870X2
EDIT - TAKE A LOOK AT THIS
yes 1080p is still fairly standard with a lot of people, but 2560x1440 looks much sharper and more detailed to me, it's a better gaming experience in my opinion. i do see some a bit more people getting 2560x1440 recently.
no no old hardware is actually more interesting in some ways because the new stuff is so common and so many people are using it , but the older stuff is more rare and it's more interesting to see in my opinion. a variety of old and new hardware makes it more interesting.
Tom is a good guy and i think he looks at most of the stuff on here.
in reality hardware doesn't matter that much--it comes and goes very quickly--so a lot of the computers on here are very fast and it's fun to talk about hardware, but really it is the passion that matters the most because without that none of us would be talking about computers or building them we would all just be using whatever prebuild systems are pumped out. Also, someone can have a top of the line system but if they don't have a passion for hardware then they may not appreciate it and use it to it's full potential either.
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andrevautour
New member
the white looks even better
hope my white led strips will arrive soon!
thanks, i agree! i hope the ones your ordered work out for you! the white bitfenix ones i tried were unusable for me because they are just way way too bright and it looks awful.
andrevautour
New member
the blue is actually much darker in real life it's impressively dark for led's and so rich, but it doesn't show the true aesthetics of the hardware properly because it makes everything look blue. it doesn't hurt your eyes in real life though, it's quite pleasant. it's hard so film it accurately because the camera doesn't record it the way it looks in real life.
andrevautour
New member
Nice build! But i the noctua fan looks so uhm...... I don't like their colorscheme
thanks man. i still need to do some cable management around back but i'll get to that soon.
there are plenty of fans that i don't like the look of--the corsair ones for example--but i have always loved earthy colors and i love the look of the noctua's
andrevautour
New member
thank you man! for some reason multi quote is not working on pages older than the most recent one, so that's why i'm replying to each comment separately.
I agree, old hardware is very interesting and it becomes more interesting as you find older and older stuff. Seeing how stuff used to be and how they are today... it's fascinating seeing where it all started and how it evolved.
By the way, i have tried to build my own RPM reduction resistence, and I have made it. It works, it's still in testing, but it might need more work.
Here's a pic:
Nothing to see just a bunch of resistors ( in series ) and a wire, but I done this to learn and experiment with different speeds and fans and different values of resistors. My first goal was to make my 2 exhaust fans spin a bit quicker than they are now ( running at 5V ) cause sometimes it can get rather warm inside ( no temps above limits anyway ) so I thought it is nice to have the fans spinning a bit faster and hoping they are not too noisy. Modest goal as usual, but after I made it and tested it on my exhaust fans one of them ( I got this one from an old PSU, and it's very powerful also noisy... 80mm fan, what ca you expect? ) made this motor noise lol just as loud as it made it on 12 V but it was less noticable because of all the air noise it was doing, so I figured that I won't be adding it unless I get propper fans.
You'd be surprised to see how silent my "rig" is when idle. it gets just a bit loud when I am gaming, but it's well within limits.
andrevautour
New member
I agree, old hardware is very interesting and it becomes more interesting as you find older and older stuff. Seeing how stuff used to be and how they are today... it's fascinating seeing where it all started and how it evolved.
By the way, i have tried to build my own RPM reduction resistence, and I have made it. It works, it's still in testing, but it might need more work.
Here's a pic:
Nothing to see just a bunch of resistors ( in series ) and a wire, but I done this to learn and experiment with different speeds and fans and different values of resistors. My first goal was to make my 2 exhaust fans spin a bit quicker than they are now ( running at 5V ) cause sometimes it can get rather warm inside ( no temps above limits anyway ) so I thought it is nice to have the fans spinning a bit faster and hoping they are not too noisy. Modest goal as usual, but after I made it and tested it on my exhaust fans one of them ( I got this one from an old PSU, and it's very powerful also noisy... 80mm fan, what ca you expect? ) made this motor noise lol just as loud as it made it on 12 V but it was less noticable because of all the air noise it was doing, so I figured that I won't be adding it unless I get propper fans.
You'd be surprised to see how silent my "rig" is when idle. it gets just a bit loud when I am gaming, but it's well within limits.
hey man, that looks like another good little experimental
the noctua fans come with a little low noise apater cable which i believe is 7v and the noctua cpu coolers come with one low noise and one ultra low noise which is 5v. the ones that come with the coolers look like this
and the ones that come with the fans are sleeved and look like this
i believe you can get those,at lease the unsleeved variety, for a couple bucks at some computer places.
back in my "louder is good cuz good performance" days, which was around the same time as the acrylic case era i actually had a vantec tornado in the front of that. i cringe even thinking back at how loud that was-i think it was.
It moved 84.1 CFM which is great for a 80mm, but it was 55 dBA and spun at 5700 RPM. it was also 38mm thick which looked cool for sure and it has those fixed set of blades along with the moving ones.
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999612
believe me you dont want to get your fingers stick in these either, they even came with a steel grille for it. the sunbeam acrylic case i had didn't have any fan gilles and i had like an alien laser cut thing which was mostly open. i did get my finger in it once and it hurt a lot.
because it was so thick it looks kind of neat one those old tiny cpu heatsinks that were around at the time
i know some of the stock coolers for the 3000/4000 cards were really loud and the cards fan really hot. the 4890s were really loud for sure, but the newer cards and coolers do spin up a bit when they are in game too they are not totally silent with 100% load on them either.
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hey man, that looks like another good little experimental
and the ones that come with the fans are sleeved and look like this
i believe you can get those,at lease the unsleeved variety, for a couple bucks at some computer places.
back in my "louder is good cuz good performance" days, which was around the same time as the acrylic case era i actually had a vantec tornado in the front of that. i cringe even thinking back at how loud that was-i think it was.
It moved 84.1 CFM which is great for a 80mm, but it was 55 dBA and spun at 5700 RPM. it was also 38mm thick which looked cool for sure and it has those fixed set of blades along with the moving ones.
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999612
believe me you dont want to get your fingers stick in these either, they even came with a steel grille for it. the sunbeam acrylic case i had didn't have any fan gilles and i had like an alien laser cut thing which was mostly open. i did get my finger in it once and it hurt a lot.
because it was so thick it looks kind of neat one those old tiny cpu heatsinks that were around at the time
i know some of the stock coolers for the 3000/4000 cards were really loud and the cards fan really hot. the 4890s were really loud for sure, but the newer cards and coolers do spin up a bit when they are in game too they are not totally silent with 100% load on them either.
Heh, no wonder they are so loud... 5700 RPM's not slow at all and th CFM is outstanding for 80MM fans but you gain noise... that's the only disadvantage.
Speaking of AHigh temp fans, the first time I pushed my cards fan up to 100% I was worried cause it was so loud lol ( haven't looked at the RPM's ). And it wasn't a surprise, because the heatsinks are not special, they don't have heatpipes or stuff like that, and they are quite small. So air needs to go trough that whole space really quickly, that's why the fan is so loud and poweful.
My CPU cooler is also on the fast, loud and poweful side. I don't know if you belive me or not, but once during a Prime95 test, I managed to bring it up to 7000RPM by holding my hand close to it...
It looks exactly like this one ( I am positive you seen thsi before )
That is quite crazy! But also cool looking, I wouldn't mind having crazy stuff on my computer, I swear. Plus that heatsink looks like it's completely made out of copper, looks high performance, and with that crazy thick fan... I bet it makes so much noise, :lol:
I wonder if the blades on the exhaust side of the fan are made to help direct the air flow into one direction instead of blowing all over the place!?
specgaming
New member
@dragoonk: CPU cooler on your picture is the same as AMD Phenom II's Box coolers.
andrevautour
New member
Heh, no wonder they are so loud... 5700 RPM's not slow at all and th CFM is outstanding for 80MM fans but you gain noise... that's the only disadvantage.
Speaking of AHigh temp fans, the first time I pushed my cards fan up to 100% I was worried cause it was so loud lol ( haven't looked at the RPM's ). And it wasn't a surprise, because the heatsinks are not special, they don't have heatpipes or stuff like that, and they are quite small. So air needs to go trough that whole space really quickly, that's why the fan is so loud and poweful.
My CPU cooler is also on the fast, loud and poweful side. I don't know if you belive me or not, but once during a Prime95 test, I managed to bring it up to 7000RPM by holding my hand close to it...
It looks exactly like this one ( I am positive you seen thsi before )
The thing was absolutely unusable by today's standards (for me anyway) it sounded more like an air compressor or strong vacuum level of noise rather than a fan.
With the current generation of Noctua fans like an NF-F12 you get 93 CFM of airflow and you can barley hear it at all.
your cooler is the same as the stock cooler for the 965, there is a couple of heatpipes but its just so small with so little surface area there is no way it can perform well.
these are pictures of the phenom 965 cooler when i was selling it
:lol: Thank you for making me aware of that...
I already knew that. Even some Intel fanboys admited that this type of coolr is pretty cool for a stock cooler. this type of cooler usually came with all the versions of 125W AMD CPU's and continues with the Bulldozers and Piledrivers , also the 125W versions if I am not mistaken.
andrevautour
New member
That is quite crazy! But also cool looking, I wouldn't mind having crazy stuff on my computer, I swear. Plus that heatsink looks like it's completely made out of copper, looks high performance, and with that crazy thick fan... I bet it makes so much noise, :lol:
I wonder if the blades on the exhaust side of the fan are made to help direct the air flow into one direction instead of blowing all over the place!?
it may be made of copper but it's still so small so i doubt it would perform very well
yes i believe they are airflow focusing blades similar to the noctua nf - 12 focus flow or the silverstone ap122 style fan.
andrevautour
New member
it's probably better than that horrible round thing that still comes with intel coolers to this day--i have one in my 3770k box and one in the i7 920 box and its hilarious looking.
intel does have an single had style water cooler thing you can get which is similar to an h60 i imagine and they did have a tiny tower cooler that came with the x58 extreme edition chips
we actually tested the i7 920 with the stock cooler for about 1 day and it was hitting 87'C running prime 95 at completely stock settings.
the amd coolers are small but at least they have a couple of heat pipes in them. i dont know what the performance of the intel stock cooler is like vs the amd one though.
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andrevautour
New member
i have a video i took the other day of me running prime 95 on my system with the nh-d14 fans off-- i will upload it and post it here shortly.
The thing was absolutely unusable by today's standards (for me anyway) it sounded more like an air compressor or strong vacuum level of noise rather than a fan.
With the current generation of Noctua fans like an NF-F12 you get 93 CFM of airflow and you can barley hear it at all.
your cooler is the same as the stock cooler for the 965, there is a couple of heatpipes but its just so small with so little surface area there is no way it can perform well.
these are pictures of the phenom 965 cooler when i was selling it
Lol it sounds like you had a bad experience with it... I actually think it performs pretty well. As you already noticed my cpu is OC'ed at a prrretty high voltage if you ask me and it still manages to keep my CPU cool... It performs pretty well... it's just not very quiet because it's a combination between a small heatsink and a small fan.. and to perform well in this situation the fan needs to be very fast.. and eventually loud, but I know how to keep it quiet even when gaming and I am using the thermal compound I got it with... Sometimes I get these spikes and it goes up to 4000RPm all of a sudden but I think my Bios is to blame there. it doesn't happen very often and it's a lot better than what I had before. I initially wanted to get a cheap Cooler Master but things didn't work out and I found one of these on a romanian site similar to ebay and I bought it for about 10 USD I belive.. or less.
