Case Mod - In Progress Project: 'Monster' Gaming Rig by CustomPCMAX

well that tends to be the case when people pay other people to build their system that they care more about bragging then whats actually in there nor will they know how to use it lol but I figured that was a board more used for LN2 type environments and was curious about its value in terms of air and watercooling but ya I agree it look like there was better price ratio wise boards as I have been contemplating building a i7 rig.

It does beg to question, why spend that much on the base line hardware on top of the expense of that totally kick ass custom job case and then skimp on the cooling and go with Air? It would be nice to know, I mean ya the guy could totally have a good reason for it and well it would be nice to know, if his answer is hes not OCing then why get that board. Sorry I guess its my curiosity and logical side of me ^^;;

 

Yeah I agree with you HBD, if the customer has the cash for the awesome tech and the $1500 INSANE paint job you would think they would be able to scrounge $400-$500 for a top notch water loop. Then again, the extra modifications to the case would have made the build time longer plus raise the costs.

Either way it is a very awesome mod with an awesome paint job and awesome tech.

 

maybe the extra 400-500 went into the paint job??
I dunno, people just do things... It would be interesting to know why he chose that, but then again, who cares really. That paint job lights my day everytime i log on here!

 

no u misread what he said, the price of the paint job was already stated and then he said you think he would have been able to make up a bit more money and get some decent cooling in there to justify the hardware that he went with is all. Kinda a shame that the hardware in there will never reach its true potential, kinda like those guys who buy expensive race cars just for it to be garaged. But ehh to each their own and if the customer has the money to waste why not I guess.

 

Considering initial testing, I don't think we will have any problems getting a good OC on this CPU with the current cooling. The motherboard is a bit extreme, but it is going to help lend to a totally rock stable overclock.

I understand the arguments, "You could have gone with a i7 920 and a cheaper mobo and gotten a 4.0 ghz OC". That is true. But, it would never be as for sure stable as this is going to be. And the other thing to remember... 4.0 ghz is the goal. But, I am pretty sure we are going to get even higher with very little effort.

I do appreciate all the feedback, though. Stay tuned for OCing updates.

 

We got access to the Art Gallery in warehouse last night for some nice photos

 

Nice!!! I did read properly.. I mean that maybe that the 400-500 he might have had extra was used up by the painting budget being more than expected...(i dunno if im making sense right now...oh well). But man, when i see those pics, i really couldn't care less for the OCing result! Damn thats some great work there!

 

Nice build, awesome painting, like everytime !

Bye.
Montspy.

 

Water cooling is still scary to some, and tends to be not as maintenance free as Air.
(Tin open, worms everywhere..lol)

The customer may not have wanted the perceived a$$ on with it.

Its similar to people who buy Porsche 911's, they just want what they want regardless of whether its 2 or 4 wheel drive, Tip-tronic or manual or turbo...just get one!!


The case looks awesome and will grace any desk, I just hope He/She keeps it at eye level and not under some veneered chipboard table..

Nice work Guys.

 

Thanks for the comments guys!

 

wow great mod as always and more of super Brads painting, which is so good it is almost too good

 

Final shoot looks great .

 

Ok, after a few hours of installing software and testing, here are some of the results I have acheived.

On stock speeds:
CPU - 3.33 Ghz
3DMark Vantage - Performance Score


Not a bad score at all.

I was able to tweak the CPU up to 4.0 Ghz, very easily. I upped the multiplier to 30x, left the FSB at 133. After a few tests and short term stress tests, everything appears stable. More testing to do to ensure it, but initial results are good. At this speed, the idle temps are around 35C and under a full stress load (Prime95) the highest it has gone is 67C. These temps are definitely in normal operating ranges, even for stock speeds.



With the OC applied, the 3DMark Vantage score does increase a little. You can see the CPU score increases a lot.


So far so good. The next step is going to be maximizing the ram speeds and testing that. Once everything is set in place, I will be running some long term (8+ hours) of stress testing to ensure we are 100% stable.

 

Nice OC, push it further .

 

Ok, I have to admit a little blunder. The scores I posted before weren't accurate. Somehow in the nVidia control panel, Vsync was defaulted to Force On, so it negatively affected the GPU portion of the 3DMark Vantage score.

So, here is the real score with the CPU at 4.0 Ghz


Much better and up where I thought it would be (high 20k's).

I am going to be working a little more to see if I can get a little more out of the CPU, but we are stable here at 4.0 Ghz. Anything extra is an added bonus.

 

That looks better. I was thinking, hmmm, an 1,100point increase looked a little weird lol.

 

Here is a little video work up that Bill put together on this PC.

Here is the link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-nplEHOLKg

 

I got it for you

 

Thanks!! I am not sure what I was doing wrong.

 

Nate, you've got to take just the end piece of the Youtube code, so the bit after the '=' sign, and then wrap the [/YOUTUBE] tags around it