SillyDog701

[Don_HH2K]

Someone can buy all that kit and still use an 80GB PATA HDD and a CRT monitor? I would have dropped the video card down to a GTS and the motherboard down to a 650i SLI (or Intel P35) motherboard and used the resulting cash to buy a nice LCD.

The guy that bought it mentioned that he'll most likely buy more parts as money becomes available; SLIing a second 8800GTX and adding watercooling are top on the list.

What case is being used? For all that gear it better be something awesome like the Antec NineHundred.

All I know for sure is that it's a full-size CoolerMaster case, I'll have to ask on the details later.

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[Mandrake]

Nice gear. Water cooling is really over-rated IMO though. People on XtremeSystems have been hitting 3.6Ghz with the Q6600 with high-end air cooling. I'd be really nervous about the whole thing leaking as well, damaging the high end components. To sidetrack a bit, my E6300 hit a wall at 2.5Ghz, though I think that's because of my 667mhz memory. With 800mhz memory I could probably overclock to a 1600mhz FSB (2.8Ghz clockspeed). But that's pretty irrelevant for now. I run my E6300 at 2.33Ghz 24/7 and it's more than fast enough for my needs.

What might be a nice upgrade though is the new quad core CPUs code-name 'Yorkfield' that are supposed to be released November 12th. Thanks to the new SSE4 instructions in some applications that are optimized for SSE4 like DivX video encoding are up-to twice as fast as the current quad core CPUs. (Across the board it looks like there's a 5 -> 10% boost in performance at the same frequency for non SSE4 optimized applications.) That's just crazy. The other cool thing is that they're socket compatible with the current motherboards so they should work with just a BIOS update.

8800 GTX SLI is probably going to be really overkill for his needs unless he plans on getting a 30" LCD. My GTS runs all the games I play maxed out including the new games like BioShock. You don't really realise how much performance a Geforce 8800 offers until you've used one.

In addition to that, his power supply is in likelihood inadequate for an SLI setup of 8800 GTXs along with a power hungry quad core CPU. You might want to pass a few links on to your friend. This is an excellent PSU guide that helped me invaluably when I was looking for a new power supply when I upgraded to an 8800 GTS. There is also Nvidia's list of certified power supplies for SLI. The minimum unit on the GTX list is a 750W.

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[Antony]

Someone can buy all that kit and still use an 80GB PATA HDD and a CRT monitor?

Good question, I was about the ask the same. The video explains the reason.

In that comparison, my 11 months old Intel iMac is sort of slow in comparison.

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[Don_HH2K]

I'd heard about the guys over at NordicHardware that got a Core 2 Quad running with the stock air cooling at 4.14GHz. Not bad for something that's got to output a good amount of heat.

Whatever montior he's got can supposedly sync all the way up to 2048x1536. I know it's a Sony, but I don't have a model number, and I'm not even sure if that's true or not. He runs it at 1600x1200 now on a Radeon X1300. But it does seem like overkill to run at something like 2048x1536 on a 19" monitor.

I'll make sure to pass on those PSU links.

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[Mandrake]

I'd heard about the guys over at NordicHardware that got a Core 2 Quad running with the stock air cooling at 4.14GHz. Not bad for something that's got to output a good amount of heat.

That's the new 45nm 'Yorkfield' CPU. There's no way the current 65nm (nano-meter) quad core CPUs could hit 4.14Ghz on the stock Intel cooling.

Whatever montior he's got can supposedly sync all the way up to 2048x1536. I know it's a Sony, but I don't have a model number, and I'm not even sure if that's true or not. He runs it at 1600x1200 now on a Radeon X1300. But it does seem like overkill to run at something like 2048x1536 on a 19" monitor.

2048x1536 on a 19" monitor can't be too good for the eyes. Before I got my LCD I had a 19" Viewsonic CRT that looked horrendous on anything above 1600x1200.

Speaking of LCDs...

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[Antony]

Speaking of LCDs...

nice LCDs.

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[Antony]

Can anyone spot the difference?

Before


After

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[Jesseorama]

Hey guys, I thought I would make my first post my computers that I have. I have been building PC's since around 1999, and have been into macs since whenever the Beige G3 Towers came out.

I understand that the admin is into macs as well, good for him.

Here is my G5, and my 2.16 Ghz Macbook, 2GB DDR2, dual booting Xp and Tiger.



I have also got an Imac g3 400mhz with Puma, not that it does anything.

My main gaming comp, Athlon 64 3GhzX2, 4GB DDR2 800, Asus M2nSLI Deluxe, 1 320Gb Maxtor Sata Hd, 8800Gts. Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS.



Not pictured: My old Athlon 64 2.0Ghz, 6600 with 256MB and 1 GB DDR 400

I have a boss who is one of those guys who has to have the newest thing, so he gives me some of his old stuff, I can't complain.

My Garrysmod Server:
2.0Ghz Athlon 64, 2GB DDR, Dual 7600Gt's, and a 120GB Maxtor Hd. Running 2k

My Intel Box: Celeron 1.1Ghz, running 2k.

My Sempron, 2.0Ghz Sempron, 1GB DDR a 6600 with 256, and a 80GB Hd. Running Ubuntu Linux

Forgive my Pictures, I am a horrible photographer.

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[Antony]

Here is my G5, and my 2.16 Ghz Macbook, 2GB DDR2, dual booting Xp and Tiger.

Hello Jesseorama, welcome to SillyDog701.

Just a small question, what do you think about the speakers? (Looks like Logitech Z-4 to me.) I am thinking about getting a pair of those.

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[Jesseorama]

Thanks, they are the Z-4s, they have pretty decent sound for their price, and the bass is good too, they were worth the price.

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[Antony]

Thanks, they are the Z-4s, they have pretty decent sound for their price, and the bass is good too, they were worth the price.

Thanks. I will get the Z-4i (the white ones) for my iMac.

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[Antony]

My updated setup:


The new addition: Logitech Z-4i.

Jesseorama,
The Logitech Z-4i (the white ones) really sound good.

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[Don_HH2K]

My laptop stopped booting up, so I sent it back to HP (under the three-year warranty) for repairs. In the meantime, I'm using a combination of one of my P3 towers and this thing:



"This thing" being a Packard Bell 386 Portable Personal Computer. It's an IBM PS/2-compatible with a 25MHz 386SX CPU and eight megs of RAM. The 80MB hard drive doesn't work anymore (after being stashed in the basement for ten years, I can't blame it), so I have an entire DOS 6.22 system booted off a floppy. The screen can do 4-bit greyscale, though I found it's much easier on the eyes to switch the display to true (1-bit) black-and-white, and then invert the color scheme for black-on-white instead of white-on-black.

I have a GVC Pocket Parallel Ethernet card to go with it, except it needed a separate 5v wall adapter. So I rigged this up with three D batteries, some duct tape and electrical tape, an antenna cable, and a Molex cable:



So this lets me connect while running the laptop off the battery, although I still need to plug into an Ethernet source. Since the machine's pitifully slow and can barely run Bobcat, I'm only running EDIT locally; Lynx, Pine, and BSFlite are all on a telnet server.

Sorry for the bad photo quality; I resized them in Photo Editor 97.

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[Don_HH2K]

Slight update to the above design prompted by a bunch of problems with the three D batteries:



I ended up going inside and connecting the antenna leads to the battery terminals, so that I don't need the three D batteries anymore. It works while on batteries and while the battery is charging, but seems to have problems while the battery is fully charged and running off the AC adapter (I managed to blow a fuse on the card like this at first). I'm assuming that has something to do with the fact that the charger constantly attempts to charge when it sees the drain created by the card.

If anybody has any suggestions as to how I could remedy this, I'd appreciate them. I'm assuming it involves looking for a suitable +5vDC hookup, which I haven't managed to find yet.

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[JohnDEgenhofer]

Compaq Presario SR5030NX
Ram:1015 MB
OS: Windows Vista Home Basic 32-Bit Edition
200.00 GB Hard Drive
10.00 GB Back-Up
8-USB Ports In Back
2 Full Function Sound Cards
2- USB in the Front
1 DVD-RW/CD-RW Drive
Samsung 21in. Flat Screen monitor.

(Brand New)

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