Zoot's Rigs

[Zoot]

I figured I'd post up my systems, since I've chopped and changed them quite a bit since I posted them last. There are plenty of people with far better looking systems than me, plus I guess my cable management could be better, but these do the job very nicely for me.

First up is my Main Gaming Rig. It's used for maybe 80-90% gaming and 10-20% music production. I used to have a Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer PCI soundcard in it, but due to driver issues I ripped it out and reverted back to the onboard, which is surprisingly good, and definitely sufficient for my needs.

I also really love the Define R4 and how quiet it is with the fans volted down.

Specs:

CPU: AMD FX-8350
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
Memory: 16GB Corsair DDR3-1333MHz
Graphics: Asus GTX 780 DirectCU II
SSD: Samsung 840 250GB
HDD's: Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB (x2)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper Evo 212
PSU: Corsair AX760
Case: Fractal Design Define R4
OS's: Windows 7 & Debian Linux 7.3

Next up is my Secondary Rig. I built this over 4 years ago, I had to swap the GPU from my old Radeon 4870 which died, and I used to have old Crucial Memory in it which died also.

This mainly gets used for light gaming when I'm home. Since I've only Linux on it I don't really play many AAA blockbusters on it, but it's still a reasonably capable gaming rig despite its age.

Specs:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P
Memory: 8GB Corsair DDR3-1333MHz
Graphics: MSi GTX 560 Twin Frozr II
HDD 1: Western Digital Caviar Black 750GB
HDD 2: Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB
CPU Cooler: Akasa Evo 98
Case: Cooler Master Centurion 590
PSU: Corsair HX620
OS: Debian Linux 7.3

Finally here's my HTPC. I had a little bit of an accident with my old setup on this, so I ended up re-building it over the Christmas. I also used to have old 3.5' HDDs in it which were so loud they were vibrating the whole case lol.

Next up with this is to get a proper HTPC case for it and stick it in where that crappy Sky Box is in the picture below. ^_^

Depending on how SteamOS does and how AMD's Linux drivers look later in the year, I might upgrade the APU to an A10-7850k or A8-7600 and use it as a SteamBox to experiment on.

Specs:

APU: AMD A6-6400k
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-F2A88XN-WIFI
Memory: 4GB G-Skill DDR3-1333MHz
Case: Cooler Master Elite 344
PSU: Corsair VS350
HDD: Western Digital Scorpio Blue 1TB
OS: Windows 7
Keyboard/Touchpad: Logitech K400r

One could accuse me of being a fanboy of many things, but if you said AMD CPU fanboy, you'd be dead on the money. ^_^

 

[RadeonHDx]

Nice set of rigs you've got here . And every CPU has its place, and thats why the 3 gaming rigs and rig for my dad have all had AMD CPU's in :lol:.

 

[Dicehunter]

One could accuse me of being a fanboy of many things, but if you said AMD CPU fanboy, you'd be dead on the money. ^_^

There's very little difference for gaming between AMD and Intel CPU's now, Benchmarks and the like sure Intel dominates but for gaming I have seen more than a few games run the same when compared to Intel's offerings.

 

[RadeonHDx]

I'd probably say that I'm more partial to an AMD CPU mainly because of the price/performance of the things but when it comes to a GPU its anyone's game in my mind.

 

[Zoot]

There's very little difference for gaming between AMD and Intel CPU's now, Benchmarks and the like sure Intel dominates but for gaming I have seen more than a few games run the same when compared to Intel's offerings.

I've always thought you just won't notice the difference between the two in actual games. I have a friend with an overclocked i7-3770k with a 7950 and games (at least the ones we've tried) on his rig (to my eye) run pretty much the same as my rig.

I'd probably say that I'm more partial to an AMD CPU mainly because of the price/performance of the things but when it comes to a GPU its anyone's game in my mind.

Well I've a little bit of a vendetta against Intel, hence why I try and avoid their CPUs. ^_^

On the GPU side, I don't mind which side I go. Although down through the years given that I'm a Linux user, I've had more Geforces than Radeons.

I only hope the FX-8350 gets a successor. While it doesn't look good now, I'm willing to tough it out until 2015 on my main rig at the earliest. If not, I'll swallow my dislike of Intel, splurge and get a Haswell-E setup, maybe the i7-5820k or whatever it gets called.

 

[barnsley]

I'm sure AMD will open the FX series again after this generation of APUs. If not there will always be the athlon FM2+ cpus. Not that they'd make sense in a high end rig. Very brave of you to hold onto 2015 . I'm already speccing up a new machine for summer ^_^

 

[RadeonHDx]

I'm sure AMD will open the FX series again after this generation of APUs. If not there will always be the athlon FM2+ cpus. Not that they'd make sense in a high end rig. Very brave of you to hold onto 2015 . I'm already speccing up a new machine for summer ^_^

I remember hearing somewhere that in the coming generations of APU's that there will be an 8 core APU (God help our coolers with the TDP it'll have!) which could be viable if our glorious 8 cores ever happen to become obsolete which I see being very unlikely as more and more games are supporting more cores and more threads.

 

[barnsley]

I remember hearing somewhere that in the coming generations of APU's that there will be an 8 core APU (God help our coolers with the TDP it'll have!) which could be viable if our glorious 8 cores ever happen to become obsolete which I see being very unlikely as more and more games are supporting more cores and more threads.

The 8 core apu is a myth/people getting mixed up by AMD's marketing. They claim the top of the line APU is an 8 core because they count the gpu cores as well. It won't be as bad as the 9590 for heat if it does become true. Although they'd have to remove the gpu bit.

 

[Zoot]

Very brave of you to hold onto 2015

Well my GTX 780 is good for at least another year, if not even two. I don't really see my FX-8350 being a bottleneck for the near future either. Plus I'm planning on upgrading my car this year, dropping yet another large amount of cash on PC hardware isn't going to help that.

Aside from gaming, my music production needs aren't exactly processor intensive really, I used to manage plenty recording and production on my old AMD Sempron 2600+. ^_^

 

[Wraith]

Nice little family of rigs you have Zoot

Although my OCD went mental at the first picture :banghead: switched on empty plug sockets, probably the only thing in the world that grates my brain and I really don't know why.

 

[RadeonHDx]

The 8 core apu is a myth/people getting mixed up by AMD's marketing. They claim the top of the line APU is an 8 core because they count the gpu cores as well. It won't be as bad as the 9590 for heat if it does become true. Although they'd have to remove the gpu bit.

Thanks for telling me, mate. Would have looked like a bit of a fool if I said that somewhere else and then try to back it up but yea, I'm sure Zoot and I can wait for at last 2015 till we NEED a new CPU.

 

[Zoot]

Nice little family of rigs you have Zoot

Although my OCD went mental at the first picture :banghead: switched on empty plug sockets, probably the only thing in the world that grates my brain and I really don't know why.

That's a strange thing to have grate your brain. ^_^

I'm sure Zoot and I can wait for at last 2015 till we NEED a new CPU.

Yeah that's my thinking too.

I've had this FX-8350 and 990FX motherboard for about a year now, I reckon they've got plenty more life left in them yet, plus if we start to get more multithreaded games, then us FX owners should be set.

 

[barnsley]

I've had this FX-8350 and 990FX motherboard for about a year now, I reckon they've got plenty more life left in them yet, plus if we start to get more multithreaded games, then us FX owners should be set.

I'm hoping more games have multithreading this year. DayZ runs incredibly badly on my pc and I can't help but feel my gpu is being let down by my cpu. Rendering is much slower than I would like however I have lss time to work with UDK these days >>.

Hopefully mantle will do me well and I can figure out how to cool my motherboard sufficiently so I can OC more. If it turns out my motherboard is pants I'm very tempted to either switch to a 4930k or go full retard and get a 9590 ^_^ as they are both on par with eachother for streaming, which was what I designed my pc for originally. The streaming depends on my upload speed being fixed (which is should be)obvs.

 

[Zoot]

I'm hoping more games have multithreading this year. DayZ runs incredibly badly on my pc and I can't help but feel my gpu is being let down by my cpu. Rendering is much slower than I would like however I have lss time to work with UDK these days >>.

Hopefully mantle will do me well and I can figure out how to cool my motherboard sufficiently so I can OC more. If it turns out my motherboard is pants I'm very tempted to either switch to a 4930k or go full retard and get a 9590 ^_^ as they are both on par with eachother for streaming, which was what I designed my pc for originally. The streaming depends on my upload speed being fixed (which is should be)obvs.

DayZ is still in early alpha though. I'd be surprised if it doesn't have issues on Intel setups aswell.

I used to think my low GPU usage in Skyrim was down to my FX-8350 or something, but my friends on i7-3770k's and i7-2600k's have the same issue. It is a console port after all.

As for your upgrade, I say go full retard and get the FX-9590 just for fun. It'll be a lot more interesting to try and get that thing set up, stable and tame its rather large heat output. The i7-4930k will be boring in comparison, not to mention more expensive.

 

[dladdin]

much wow... wish i could move into muti computers

 

[yassarikhan786]

Nice collection of rigs Zoot!!!