Jumper118 Main rig log. 2XGTX970's and 4K

[Jumper118]

Where do you get all these epic air coolers? From a fellow member of the air cooling master race.

i get them from http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=595&catid=678 mostly because they are really cheap and have big discounts, you can get nh d14's for £35 sometimes (usually ~£65) and k2 mount doom for £30 (usually £50). even if there is a single tower cooler for £25-30 that is normally £35-45 its worth it because they are better than a 212 evo in build quality and looks, as well as performance. the only thing that puts people off is the grade b or clearance bit,but with coolers the worse that can happen is a bent fin or slightly damaged packaging, so i think its fine. you can also look at 2nd hand coolers on ebay because you can find a bargain there sometimes as well, you just have to be patient and wait for one at the right price.

[Jumper118]

confused?

2 9800GTX+'s are faster than a gtx670? WTF  :blink:

perfect score A* 

 

can do over 100fps average on hwbot heaven?

 

the big question is: CAN IT PLAY CRYSIS? 2? with mods?

you have got 20 hours to answer...............   

[Jumper118]

[Jumper118]

Update! this rig will go through some more changes and get even faster in the next year!

I have bought a delidded  3770K, Asus maximus Gene V, Raijintek Pallas and some 1600mhz Kingston hyper X as a bundle. I will be using the 3770K as my main cpu,  will probably sell the Gene as i don't really need a matx z77 board and i will be using the cooler for my HTPC!

Lets start with some pictures of the unboxing of the motherboard.......... 

first thing is a open the package and find this box. i was quite shocked

 

it looks like some has sent me a gtx980 instead, what a shame

 

ok they were just trolling me  still its funny how an matx board fit in a reference gtx980 box! i'll remember that trick.

So now i've done that strange unboxing it is time to have a closer look at this matx ROG masterpiece and my new cpu and ram!

it has 2 PCIE slots so it can run 2 way CF and SLI

It has a nice chipset heatsink, but this doesn't light up like on some of the newer ROG boards

Its just got a single 8 pin power connector for the cpu like my z7 mpower

the rear I/O is very good with optical audio out which would make this board great for a HTPC and is something my HTPC is lacking. there are also 2 buttons on the back, but idk what they do, because i haven't looked at the manual

The vrm heatsinks are nice in matt black with a flat heatpipe connecting them. this board has 4 true power phases for the cpu which have doublers to give it 8 phases

The ram is silver kingston hyper X 1600mhz CL9 with a green PCB, it is low profile which i like because it has better heatsink compatibility, i will probably sell my corsair vengeance and keep this if it overclocks better because the vengeance doesn't fit under any of my heatsinks

as you can see the top of the cpu has no writing left on it as the previous owner has used Coollaboratory Liquid Pro which tends to eat the heat spreader, this has also been used as the tim for the delid and is the most efficient thermal paste

Now for the cooler installation and startup!

dat GT610 for ultimate benching scores. I am using my Alpenfohn Matterhorn on the Maximus Gene V as at this point i didn't want to take the thermalright silver arrow off my pentium.

 

it lives. now for a few pictures while i was benching!

as you can see i have a corsair 140mm stock case fan for a bit of extra air flow and i've got my room down to a decent temperature

The results of this benching!

 

 

After using the Gene for a couple of days i want to get the 3770K into my mpower and see what i could do with the thermalright silver arrow. I aslo decided to reinstall my gtx670 as recent driver updates have made it faster than my dying 7970.

as you can see the silver arrow only just fits in my shinobi

 

The finished Product!

[FranktheDinosaur]

How well did that Macho 140 cooler preform while you still had it??

[Jumper118]

How well did that Macho 140 cooler preform while you still had it??

i still have it now. its cooling a unlock sempron. it is a very good cooler. its in between a 212 evo and a dual tower cooler in terms of performance, maybe even nearer to the dual towers coolers than the 212 evo.

[MattBoxer]

Very Very Nice

[DildorTheDecent]

Only one 8 pin power connector? 

 

http://technewspedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Z77-UP7-2.jpg

 

(Not like it has much benefit)

[Jumper118]

Got a pair of GTX970's the other day, they were in stock and on sale so i went for this upgrade a bit earlier than i planned.

 

Reasons for going 4K over 1440p:

I did fancy an ips 1440p monitor, but with 4k monitors coming down so much in price, i thought this would be the longer lasting option. it will still be a while before 4k becomes mainstream and i also think it will be a while before a higher resolution will come out so i thought if i buy it at a slightly more expensive 4k monitor now then it should last for the next few years where if i had gone 1440p i would still have gone to a 4k monitor in a couple of years once the prices had come down. Another reason is that on my 4k monitor i can set the game to run at 1440p if i cant get high enough fps whereas i couldn't set a 1440p monitor to 4k if i'm playing a game that isn't stressing the gpu's to much to get more detail. The final reason that i decided to get the 4k monitor was that, as you might have seen, i do a lot of largish spreadsheets so i need all the screen real estate i can get. i did read some people thought the text was too small and that 1440 was better, but i think they must have bad eyes or they are quite far away.

 

Reasons for Getting SLI 970's over other options:

There was a few gpu configurations i could have gone with to run 4K, the options were;

1) a single GTX980 classifed or G1 gaming and get another one later, this option would have been more expensive overall, it would have given me great performance, but the price to performance just wasn't anywhere near as good as the other options, so i ditched this idea first 

2) a single R9 295X2. This option was extremely tempting, the black friday price of £480-500 on these was incredible this would have been the highest price to performance if it wasn't for the fact that i would have needed a new psu. the R9 295x2 would have been my amd choice over 2x 290x's as it is a bit different with the water cooling and i think it would hold its value quite well.

3) two GTX970's G1 gaming or EVGA FTW. i wanted an egva card for there legendary support and usually there ftw cards overclock extremely well, but with them not included in the black friday deals i had to go with the gigabtye G1's as they are a binned chip, so they should overclock well and they have a very nice back plate which the evga cards were lacking. This option is the one i ended up going with because i knew i could run them on my current psu, with them having very low power draw and the price and performance was excellent for 4K.  

Pictures:

970 unboxing and single card

both together

Monitor

[Woody]

Nice build but why go with Z77? Why not just upgrade?...

[Jumper118]

Nice build but why go with Z77? Why not just upgrade?...

i have z97 with a pentium in it

[Raudi_]

Unfff this makes me want to make a log when I have my new hardware in on X-Mas.

[Jumper118]

Unfff this makes me want to make a log when I have my new hardware in on X-Mas.

do it! 

[Jumper118]

i have decided to sell the 3770K! it was felling slow compared with my i5 so i am ditching it. i'll probably get another i7 but the next one will be sandy or 1150. I took the opportunity to clean the filters. the front needed doing badly. i don't really notice, because my pc faces away for me.

 

Pics before:

 

 

ultimate way to dry your dust filters after washing with water:

 

After:

[Jumper118]

now that i've ditched the 3770k. i went and got a proper i7

[arnavvr]

@Jumper118 Where is thy update?