Area 51 ALX

[alienware]

Wow been a while. How is every one?

I recently managed to procure a Area 51 ALX chassis so decided to deck it out before the move*

Currently I am running.

Intel Xeon E3 1220 V1 (Sandy)
4gb Mushkin Radioactive (finally got some )
GTX 670 Jetstream.

120gb SSD and 5 500gb Seagate Pipelines.
DVDRW.

Tonight I ordered this.

And another one of these

I already managed to bag the world record for my CPU compared to others running the same with the same GPU but I would imagine that's down to my GPU. At 1250mhz it put out a 3d score of 10900 which is epic for a locked CPU

Looking forward to upgrading it to SLI

I'll up some pics when the kit arrives. Currently got the case built but will need a mobo swap as I'm running a micro atm.

 

[Recon-UK]

Xeon with 4GB ram, and 670 SLi...



RTFM

 

[alienware]

Xeon with 4GB ram, and 670 SLi...



RTFM

4gb ram is enough for anything. I ran a quad sli rig with 2gb ram.

I've scored 10900 on a single GPU.

It's minimums I'm interested in.

 

[Liarma]

very interesting. i look forward to the finished result.

 

[alienware]

I could crush a grape.

Just need the board now. It's been shipped apparently but the cards look gorgeous together

 

[Recon-UK]

Nice cards those mate.

Hope everything goes well.

 

[alienware]

I've only got to swap the board out so it should be OK. Just tested the new card (bought on Amazon used for £260) and it works fine.

To answer your queries earlier on btw...

I've never been into overclocking on CPUs aside from the Athy XP days. Even with a Noctua NH-D14 my I7 950 @ 3.9ghz was hitting high 80s and guzzling over 150w. The Xeon performs the same as the overclocked 950 whilst consuming 70w.

I would have thought it to be a bottle neck even on one gpu but I can easily get my stock GPU overall score on 3dmark 11 from 8300 to over 9000 points and an increase of 2000 on the GPU score. The Jetstreams overclock very well..

I'm not in this to benchmark scores, just to get a gaming system put together that will achieve good min fps. The CPU certainly isn't a bottleneck in gaming as I have never seen my system drop below 40fps (testing with FC3 and SDs).

I could easily buy something with a k on the end but it's just not for me. If overclocking a CPU led to better min fps I would, but it rarely does given that most of the work is left up to the GPUs now..

I guess the proof will be in how much peformance I gain at the end of it. I'm pretty certain that the CPU may well hold them back, but certainly not at the low end where it's important. I would rather improve what I can see than what I can't..

 

[Recon-UK]

I've only got to swap the board out so it should be OK. Just tested the new card (bought on Amazon used for £260) and it works fine.

To answer your queries earlier on btw...

I've never been into overclocking on CPUs aside from the Athy XP days. Even with a Noctua NH-D14 my I7 950 @ 3.9ghz was hitting high 80s and guzzling over 150w. The Xeon performs the same as the overclocked 950 whilst consuming 70w.

I would have thought it to be a bottle neck even on one gpu but I can easily get my stock GPU overall score on 3dmark 11 from 8300 to over 9000 points and an increase of 2000 on the GPU score. The Jetstreams overclock very well..

I'm not in this to benchmark scores, just to get a gaming system put together that will achieve good min fps. The CPU certainly isn't a bottleneck in gaming as I have never seen my system drop below 40fps (testing with FC3 and SDs).

I could easily buy something with a k on the end but it's just not for me. If overclocking a CPU led to better min fps I would, but it rarely does given that most of the work is left up to the GPUs now..

I guess the proof will be in how much peformance I gain at the end of it. I'm pretty certain that the CPU may well hold them back, but certainly not at the low end where it's important. I would rather improve what I can see than what I can't..

I see what you are talking about in regards to minimum fps, but there are games out there that rely heavily on CPU power, and minimums are effected hugely by CPU performance.

In GPU/CPU titles, it can be a mixture of the 2...

GPU centric titles are games that have no problem running in the first place, there a few exceptions however.....Metro 2033.

 

[Josh Weston]

Those are some good looking cards.
I always find it annoying that the fan side of the card, the side in which most of the aesthetic design is done, is never really seen inside the computer. Such a waste

 

[alienware]

Those are some good looking cards.
I always find it annoying that the fan side of the card, the side in which most of the aesthetic design is done, is never really seen inside the computer. Such a waste

You can get cases where the mobo goes in upside down and then you get to see all the nice stuff

I had an old Temjin like that with a window but it had no cable management :S

It's even worse in the ALX as it has a GPU duct that shuts over all of it. Mind you, the cooling is exceptional given that it has a 120mm 24 volt Delta in the front of the duct which is controlled by the Alien command centre (think Afterburner for your case).

So yeah, once closed you don't get to see them any way haha.

 

[alienware]

In they go..

Haven't had much time to tinker as my fiancee games on it a lot, but did get the chance to run Metro...

The GPU does hold back 3DMark but then it would as that tests and benchmarks the Xeon (and hates it, unknown CPU 0nm 0w) but I get a good gpu score stock.

As I explained earlier though it's all about the mins and avg for me. Will most certainly prolong the life of my rig which was my goal

 

[berthez]

Alienware cases look so cool

 

[SeekaX]

that thing looks raped on the inside. is that your cable management?

 

[alienware]

that thing looks raped on the inside. is that your cable management?

That was a very untidy shot. Basically if you are asking if I take the side off of my PC and sit and stare at it for hours the answer would be no.

It doesn't have a window therefore there's little point in going mad and spending a fortune on posh cables.

Now if you're asking how the cooling and airflow is? top notch, thanks. It has a 24v 120mm Delta right in front of the GPUs that I control with AlienFX command center which is basically Afterburner for your case.

 

[andrevautour]

I could crush a grape.

Just need the board now. It's been shipped apparently but the cards look gorgeous together

The Palit Jetstream cards are probably my all time favorite looking GPUs--incredible looking cards! I wanted to get at least one of my for myself, but I was not able to find any near me.

 

[Feronix]

The Palit Jetstream cards are probably my all time favorite looking GPUs--incredible looking cards! I wanted to get at least one of my for myself, but I was not able to find any near me.

They would look good in your rig! The brown-ish tints would look pretty classy, especially with the Noctua fans in there are well :lol:

Where did you get this chassis mate? It'd be really interesting to build your own custom pc in an Alienware case. I don't know what it is about them, they're not the prettiest cases in the world and the cooling is certainly not the best, but it just has *something* that makes it epic.

Can imagine those cases aren't cheap though? And very hard to find. Might need to buy an entire old Alienware rig to even obtain a case. Would love to hear where you got it from

Nice build!

 

[SeekaX]

The Palit Jetstream cards are probably my all time favorite looking GPUs--incredible looking cards! I wanted to get at least one of my for myself, but I was not able to find any near me.

i looked into getting a 670 jetstream, they just look amazing, but i've read some reviews and it seems like the temperatures aren't top notch and it gets very loud. so, nah, 670 FTW Sig2.

 

[alienware]

i looked into getting a 670 jetstream, they just look amazing, but i've read some reviews and it seems like the temperatures aren't top notch and it gets very loud. so, nah, 670 FTW Sig2.

Surprising that tbh. I've gotten rid of any overclocking software now because the later versions really screwed up my cards (overclocking them to 1275 locked and making the PC crash, really odd !) but with the standard Nvidia profile my fans barely spin up in Crysis 3 and from where I sit (about 12ft from the PC) I certainly can't hear them over the TV (got my PC hooked to a 50" 1080p LCD TV).

When you do make it spin up (in testing I had a good play) it sounds the same as any MSI Twin Frozr - IE - that annoying whirring sound. But that's only when you deliberately set the fan speeds high to see how they are.

The only downfall with a Jetstream is that it uses a stock PCB. Mind you. given that voltage control is a complete no and they're not terribly power hungry overclocking comes down to keeping them cool rather than supplying them with clean power (like say a Lightning PCB).

My top card (the one I got in August last year) does 1250 all day long. I never pushed for higher as I couldn't be bothered (locked CPU and not really bothered about benchmarks) yet the bottom one is total crap for overclocking.