Undecided

[MrWizard]

The Build so far. Black and White theme

*Case Switch 810 (bought)

*PSU Corsiar HX850 (bought)Tested. Working.

*Cooling H100 (bought)Tested. Working.

*Gpu XFX HD-687X-CNFC Radeon HD 6870 2GB (bought)Tested. Working... newegg had a special for 169 lol

*Hdd Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 120GB SATA III (bought)Tested. Working.

*Ram 2x CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 low profile White (bought)Tested. Working.

*NZXT Sentry Mesh Fan Controller (bought)Tested but not sure if its working right. All the fans i have tested on this thing make a grinding sound between 50 and 80% speed

not sure if this is normal as i have never used a fan speed controller. I always just plug my fans into the MOBO headers.. I want quiet now lol i was thinking that a fan speed controller should work like a dimmer so i hooked up a led light strip to it and they blink like a strobe light on anything less then 100% speed. Is this normal for a controller to pulse like that of did i just get a bad unit?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...992007&RandomID=94433741791169720120224223743

*Mobo and cpu LGA 1155 I want a black mobo but ugh. I would love to have a Asus board but they dont make a all black board and i dont want red from the rog boards in the build i also dont want blue from the normal asus line. ASRock have nice looking boards with alot of the features i want but they use BROWN pcb's and im not sure if it would stand out to much against the white background of the switch 810 + Im not to sure about ASRock reliability although i have seen TTL use them in some builds. Last but not least Gigabyte. They have nice looking boards with black pcb's and all the little black bits but they dont have the features on the boards like Asus ans ASRock do such as debug led power/reset buttons and so on.. So the real question is.... What to do? Do i wait for Ivy and Mobo release or do it go with a 2500k and pick one of the above? AHHHHHHHHHHHH lol i just dont know.

I would hate to buy now and have evrything i wanted come out in the next cpl months or so and be like DOH!! i should have waited..

The most demanding gaming i do is like Dirt 3 and MMORPG's such as WoW and Diablo 3 Who knows with a better rig i may get into more FPS games but with my current rig its pointless... Any sugestions??

 

[SieB]

If you are buying new, and you don't mind waiting around 6 weeks, personally i'd wait for Ivy. If you don't want to wait though i'd go with a Gigabyte UD3 or UD4, they might not have the same features as some of the Asus boards but the thing is would you actually use those features?

For your fan controller question, the LED strips are designed to run at 12v, so if you connect them to a fan controller when you lower the dial it also lowers the voltage, which is why they will flicker or pulsate. Not sure about the grinding noise coming from the fans, doesn't sound normal to me though. I use the NZXT Sentry Mix and I don't get any grinding when I turn the fans down but I can only turn them down as far as 40%, not much need for any lower with the fans I use anyway they are all silent at around 50%.

 

[MrWizard]

Ok i just re tested the fan controller with evry case fan i have from 80mm-180mm with and w/o leds built into the fans and i think there is in fact somthing wrong with it.

Yes the controller i have also only goes down to 40% but from 50%-80% all the fans motors make noise and the led's blink. The noise is more like a fan blade hitting a lose wire sound but the sound is from the motor. I can hear the sound from 3'/1 meter away. I have EPU software on my current rig and it lowers the fan speed and dims the led's in the fans with no blinking or making the fan motor make any sound at all.. The fans just go silent. I have also tested it in 6 different psu's thinking it was a bad psu but the same result.

I also made up a led strip and pluged it into a 3 pin fan header on my current mobo and selected Max power saving option with EPU and all it did was dim the led strip no blinking.

 

[SieB]

There might be something wrong with your fan controller then, i'm using an LED BitFenix Specter fan on my fan controller and with the dial turned right down it dims the LED but it doesn't blink, I have read that some fans do though.

Some fans might react differently on a fan controller, i'm not really sure because I had have never used one myself until a week ago. Try googleing about the fans you are using to see if they are known to have problems with fan controllers.

If it's the stock NZXT ones that come with the switch, they work fine on my fan controller, I know there are a few other people on here that are running them on a fan controller as well with no problems. If you are having probs with them then i'd say it's definitely your fan controller.

 

[MrWizard]

Yeah the sound is there with all the fans i test no matter what make or size. Im doing some research on it now so we shall see what i find..

Also i was wondering. I have the XFX HD-687X-CNFC Radeon HD 6870 2GB ver.

Would i be able to crossfire it with XFX HD-687A-ZHFC Radeon HD 6870 1GB. I know you only get the frame buffer from the card wich would be the 2GB i would hope so i dont see the point in spending $80 more on a 2nd card thats not on special anymore if i can get away with using a 1GB card. I was resarching 6870 crossfire setups but i couldnt find 1 that had a 2GB and 1GB setup. The 1GB cards are $139.99 with MIR http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150561 I got my 2GB card for $169.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150563 and yes i plan on running a eyefinity setup.

 

[SieB]

You should be able to crossfire them no probs, but i'm not sure if you will get the 2gb of Vram, you might only get the 1gb because of the other card only being a 1gb card. Not 100% sure on that, someone else might know though.     

 

[MrWizard]

Thanks for the quick response and the advice.. Cant wait to see your rig when you are done

 

[TheOneHalf]

You should be able to crossfire them no probs, but i'm not sure if you will get the 2gb of Vram, you might only get the 1gb because of the other card only being a 1gb card. Not 100% sure on that, someone else might know though.     

I beleive the frame buffer might just be reduced to the 1GB card not sure... if he is running a single 1080p monitor it's not really a problem either way

 

[SieB]

Thanks for the quick response and the advice.. Cant wait to see your rig when you are done

No probs

My rig won't be that good at first, I still only have a m-atx motherboard because my other motherboard died so I had to get a cheap replacement. I have my watercooling stuff now though, just waiting on the reservoir, and then i'll add a new mobo and other bits in a few weeks.

I beleive the frame buffer might just be reduced to the 1GB card not sure... if he is running a single 1080p monitor it's not really a problem either way

Thats what I think as well but I don't really know to be honest.

 

[MrWizard]

Man that sucks. I was watching a linus vid and he had said that the only the first card in the crossfire setup was used for frame buffering and the 2 gpu's worked together but he wasnt using a 2GB and a 1 GB he had a matched set

As far as mobo and cpu im going to wait for Ivy. I was looking at the Gigabyte ces vids and it looks like the new boards will have evrything i want.

Maybe just maybe Asus will make another BE mobo like the ASUS Rampage III Black Edition but for 1155 this time but who knows.. I would realy prefer a Asus board as i have never had a asus board die on me. My first high end Asus board was a A8N32 Sli deluxe amd my kid is still using it today. 12 builds over the las 6 yeas for family and friends all on Asus boards and all still working perfect