Project speeder: $4000: FX60, 7800GTX, SG01B

Wait! Why didn't you go for the Dual 940 Socket SFF Barebone. It has two PCI-E slots and two 940 sockets for up to 4 cores.
 
iSkylla said:
Wait! Why didn't you go for the Dual 940 Socket SFF Barebone. It has two PCI-E slots and two 940 sockets for up to 4 cores.
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because i'd rather spend the extra money on something else - i don't need that much power as it is. i'd rather spend more money on my car (or girlfriend) and less on my computer.
 
perhaps i should expand.

Primary design parameters: money is not the object (within reason, that is :) ), smallest size possible, absolute or near silence, less bling - more speed, expandable. The offerings from Shuttle were considered and ruled out. Multiple Micro ATX cases were also considered, but ruled out for lack of room, bad internal design, poor looks, etc.

Initially, I was using Asus A8N-VM motherboard, Plextor SATA PX-716SA DVD writer, and Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi sound card. However, the motherboard turned out to be unstable, its BIOS sucked, and there was a weird buzzing noise as soon as I opened a connection to the Matrix Orbital VFD. The SATA DVD writer and X-Fi sound card turned out to be both incompatible (!!!) with the nForce4 chipset... So, I ended up selling them all... You will see these items in some of the pictures.

The build took about a year of planning, and about a month of building. The case is left pretty much stock, besides some mods done to the internals to fit the VFD, as well as 3rd hard drive. This is not to say that I will leave it that way, but for now, that's how it is. Future plans may or may not include a sheet of lighted acrylic under the case, windows, lights, and whatever else. Everything will be done in such a way as to make the case appear stock when not lit.

P.S. Sorry for the over-exposed photos.
 
Steeeeve said:
I was about to say...it money wasn't an issue than you wouldn't spend $4000
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oh, yeah, i know. i could have spent, 6, 8, or even 10k.

but i have just spend $10k on my car, and about to spend $5k more. so, screw it. the PC runs the games i play (NFSMW, HL2, UT2K4) perfectly - at 1280x1024, with all settings cranked pretty much all the way up. so, goal achieved.
 
Heya. I'm building an SG01 myself. Perhaps you could enlighten me a bit as to..

1. The way you silenced the FX121, in detail?
2. You switched to Panaflos, correct? The Ultra Low Noise ones? These don't support RPM modulation- has this been a problem for you?
3. Are you using the MO bay as a fan controller? If not, do you have any fan controlling devices? I was thinking of getting another bay device that served as a fan controller, because I don't want the MO display to be limited by software and OS.
 
codeflux said:
because i'd rather spend the extra money on something else - i don't need that much power as it is. i'd rather spend more money on my car (or girlfriend) and less on my computer.
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Heh, but you spent over $4K and blew money on an FX-60? Whatever dude. Should have called it "Project spender"

If you were going for bragging rights, check out this guy's total bill:
http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1029293917&postcount=22

4 physical processors and he could still, almost throw in another 7800GT and pay nearly a grand less.
 
Xaeos said:
1. The way you silenced the FX121, in detail?
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there is a throud over the motor part of the FX121. i just put a layer of dynamat over that - to muffle the sound. i could use some aluminium tape, but that wouldn't look as good, and probably wouldn't work as good either. your task is just to muffle the sound that the motor makes, that's all.
Xaeos said:
2. You switched to Panaflos, correct? The Ultra Low Noise ones? These don't support RPM modulation- has this been a problem for you?
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not the ultra-low-speed ones - i got the low-speed ones. and no problems with RPM modulation, since i'm running them at 12V. of course, i could do the 7V mod, but they are very quiet as it is.
Xaeos said:
3. Are you using the MO bay as a fan controller? If not, do you have any fan controlling devices? I was thinking of getting another bay device that served as a fan controller, because I don't want the MO display to be limited by software and OS.
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no, i'm not using MO as fan controller. all case fans run at 12V, and they are practically silent. good idea, though, but not necessary. besides, i haven't even had time to configure the MO yet. :)
 
sleepeeg3 said:
Heh, but you spent over $4K and blew money on an FX-60? Whatever dude. Should have called it "Project spender"
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let's see... what do i think about this IWILL case?... hm... fugly? yep, quite fugly. and who needs all those CPUs, if 99% of games are single-cpu?... and FX60 is dual-core as it is. so, whatever.
 
The FX-60 gives you bragging rights. I still would take a FX-60 with SLI in a SFF over 4 cores.
 
benamaster said:
The FX-60 gives you bragging rights. I still would take a FX-60 with SLI in a SFF over 4 cores.
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thank you for being reasonable. :D

does anyone know the length of the 7900 GX2 card? or is it cards, since it's SLI?... if it's over 1/2 inch longer than 7800 GTX, then it won't fit in this case.
 
gratz on the new system. Looks like it will be fun to play with ;)

But

but i have just spend $10k on my car, and about to spend $5k more. so, screw it. the PC runs the games i play (NFSMW, HL2, UT2K4) perfectly - at 1280x1024, with all settings cranked pretty much all the way up. so, goal achieved.

$4K u spend and ud expect that those games will run 1280x1024 :rolleyes:
My machine in the sig does that hehe and it was like a grand if that :)

Get a bigger Monitor so u can push that little puppy ;)
 
I think somebody's trying to show us their new build but because the prices were posted for the system, this has the intonation of a thread bragging about brand name expensive parts that make up the computer. And for 4K, I could build 3 computers, each with a dual core cpu > 2.6GHz and 7900gtx.

If you spent 15K on your car, it'd better be a new one.

btw: I spent comfortably under a grand and can play those games at 1600x1200 with good settings. :p
 
k well the four cores thing is crap. someone has to stick the 7900gx2 on a single pcb so we can get half decent airflow, at minimum so we dont have to clock it slower then the 7900gtx.

and the quad core drivers need some time to mature, and come down in price.

yea i might cheap out a little on the dual core fx 60, i mean yea its nice for sure but its also excessive, in my experiance, cpu power has little to do with game performance. (ex a $200 atholon 64 can handle a 7900gtx just fine).

so yea id go with something like a atholon X2 4400+ with two 7900gtx's in sli, and maybe a little liquid cooling :D .

my two cents.
 
i am going to ignore any unconstructive criticism in this thread. after all, opinions are like a$$hole, everyone has one, and they all stink. that includes any comments with "my $200 athlon..." or "you could have got ... cheaper".
 
If you look at the Falcon Northwest website it says something about no floppy drive with Quad SLI so I am guessing they put the Hard Drive in a CD Bay and then take out the cage to fit the cards. But I still think that 2 7900GTX Superclocks will do very well against the Quad SLI especially if the 7900GTX's are Superclocks because remember that Quad SLI is underclocked. Either way its a lot of power in a SFF.
 
Nice build there Codeflux. Looks like you will have a pretty sweet box. I too am swapping from a full ATX rig down to the Silverstone SG01 case. The new board just arrived from Monarch yesterday and I will probably start working on the swap this week.

Let us know how everything goes together, and F@#$ all the haters. :D

-E
 
there was a little thing with my FX60 CPU you guys might have missed.

when i got the CPU box... it looks all intact, but rattles a bit... i open it to find that the heatsink came loose, and SMASHED everything inside. think "bull in a china store" situation here.

the CPU is out of its little plastic box, sitting loose. some of the pins are bent. the heatsink fan has pieces of green padding stuck in it. it is a complete mess.

i straightened up the pins, and tried fitting the CPU into the socket - it fits fine. further testing showed that it indeed works just fine, although getting the CPU cooler cleaned from all this green stuff would be time-consuming - good thing i am not using the stock cooler.

the CPU has been working trouble-free for over a month now. but memory of seeing it covered in green dust that used to be protecting it still giving me nervous giggles.
 
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Oh my god! Poor CPU. I feel sorry for you :( But you will get a new one, or I will bomb the company that did that to that wonderful thing. Many "that"'s there.
 
DEATH TO THE RETAILLER :mad:

I would be so pissed if I got a proc like that.

You said you would ignore destructive criticism, so here is some constructive criticizm :D Next time, get a 7900gt and a lower proc -- You have redefined overkill. But is that a bad thing? No. I think some people here are acutally jealous... :rolleyes: I know I am.

On another note, what car did you get? Must be sexeh for that price... Especially if it was used...

Where are you going to put the LCD? I want to see more!!!
 
benamaster said:
If you look at the Falcon Northwest website it says something about no floppy drive with Quad SLI so I am guessing they put the Hard Drive in a CD Bay and then take out the cage to fit the cards. But I still think that 2 7900GTX Superclocks will do very well against the Quad SLI especially if the 7900GTX's are Superclocks because remember that Quad SLI is underclocked. Either way its a lot of power in a SFF.
Click to expand...

yea, but not that underclocked (GX2 = 500/600)... it still has a significant more horespower then any two 7900gtx's (GTX = 650/800), and like i said it really needs to be stuck on a single pcb, and why can no one from the design teams at ati and nvidia say "Copper fins"?

but yea thats an uber powerful machine, but i woulda gone with one of those killer msi dimonds or a8n32-deluxe (which has passive cooling but has a heat pipe from south bridge to north bridge and to the side of the cpu catching cpu air runoff), or my personal favorite dfi lanparty UT expert.

lol, get two monitors, then run doom3 and hl2 at the same time, cpu could handle it, gfx card might not want to but it could be forced.

but yea man! do something cool, you have the single most powerful cpu in the world, go make some records!
 
Why do you plan on snipping off the headers your not using? Its not like they take up extra space that you just have to have. And it kills the resale of the unit (if you ever did) or ruins the chance of you ever using those headers.
 
the retailer that did that to the CPU is... drumroll... NEWEGG. but - the box came in undamaged, and the CPU box was undamaged as well. i guess they dropped it at some point, and the insides of the CPU box shook itself loose in transport. w/e it works just fine. although it did give me a big scare.

the reason i am snapping off the VFD headers i'm not using - to give myself more room. there is about 5mm clearance between the hard drive caddy and the VFD - if i left the headers in place, the clearance would have been ~1mm. too close for comfort. besides, i need that space to run some wires. who cares about resale value - that'll be at least a year down the road, and it's just worth it. imagine random lock up errors if some heads start shorting out on the hard drive caddy from it shifting around if i move the case. try troubleshooting that one.
 
VoBoy said:
That's disgusting all that power and you need a floppy? :p
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yep. oftentimes i find myself needing to make a floppy either to fix my friend's PC or my laptop, etc. i don't want to think about it. floppy-less universe is a great idea, if there was better support for booting from USB devices.
 
they really need to totally phase out floppies and start using usb drives more..

back on topic..

you had issues with the asus board and the xfi you had didnt you?.. did you try the xfi with the foxconn board at all?.. know any mobo's that will work fine with the xfi's?

would the silverstone 600w modular psu fit in the sg01?
what about the seasonic 600w? they have them at www.performance-pcs.com with a modular cable option...

just wondering because im putting some money aside to start building a SFF to be my main gaming rig.. my current setup will become my server box..
 
R3d said:
you had issues with the asus board and the xfi you had didnt you?.. did you try the xfi with the foxconn board at all?.. know any mobo's that will work fine with the xfi's?
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yes, i had problems with both Plextor SATA DVD-writer, and the X-Fi. sold both on ebay. did not try it with Foxconn.
would the silverstone 600w modular psu fit in the sg01?
what about the seasonic 600w? they have them at www.performance-pcs.com with a modular cable option...
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no idea. should fit fine though - there is about a 1.5 inch space between the PSU and the DVD drive. if you use a fairly short DVD drive like i did, you shouldn't have any problems. the 1KW PSU won't fit for sure.
 
codeflux said:
the retailer that did that to the CPU is... drumroll... NEWEGG. but - the box came in undamaged, and the CPU box was undamaged as well. i guess they dropped it at some point, and the insides of the CPU box shook itself loose in transport. w/e it works just fine. although it did give me a big scare.
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Assuming you used the default shipping, blaim UPS, Newegg for offering them and yourself for using them. They might be cheaper but they suck. Lost packages, retarded regulations, and standard slow shipping. Boycott brown! :mad:
 
sleepeeg3 said:
Assuming you used the default shipping, blaim UPS, Newegg for offering them and yourself for using them. They might be cheaper but they suck. Lost packages, retarded regulations, and standard slow shipping. Boycott brown! :mad:
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I have had it with UPS. The last two shipments for the Egg were misdelivered . I paid extra ($36) for 2nd day air so I would have it by the weekend and it took them 6 days. Then on Monday, another order from the Egg was dropped off somewhere other than my house. The driver claimed to have dropped it off on my porch :rolleyes: then inside the gate :rolleyes:

The driver comes by and tells me this to my face then pulls out a piece of paper with a similar addy and claims the egg misaddressed the packages. I told him he was incorrect on all counts since I had been home painting my house all day, the gate was open and no UPS truck had driven up my street. I also then advised him that someone had dropped off my packages at 9 pm and the boxes were addressed correctly.

Pure incompetence. I worked at UPS during college and they were a good organization. Now it is FedEx for me. :mad:
 
The Value of Newegg has gone down since they have started this brown crap. Everyone i know hates brown.
 
I have to say, as a budget minded gamer, this thread makes my skin crawl. I just can't help but think about the myriad of ways that extra $2000 could have been spent. :confused:
 
sleepeeg3 said:
Assuming you used the default shipping, blaim UPS...
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i used FedEx. i doubt it was the shipper's fault - i think the green padding was damaged by AMD in packing or manufacture process.

i did find out the hard way that NEWEGG no longer gives RMAs in some products they sell - including all the parts i needed to return: Asus mobo, X-Fi card, SATA DVD writer - and, well, i would also return the CPU for replacement. on their RMA page they listed "this item is warrantied through the manufacturer and newegg does not give you RMA and go away" or something along those lines.
 
thats pathetic of newegg.. you buy a 1000$ cpu and they just laugh at you basically.. not right for a company to do that.. they're going to start losing business that way..

im in canada and the main supplier i use is www.ncix.com and they ship to the states as well.. but anything that i've ordered and had to rma.. no hassles at all..
 
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