My new system

[MaxBurn]

No.
Temps are good OK-ish. I'm guessing it's memory that's the issue, but the DS3 links RAM and FSB speeds so I can't do much more about that.
However, it's been stable @ 3.8 so I don't really have any reason to complain.

Cool, I didn't know that there was an F10 out for that. That would have been an amazing OC to reach. Does intel even bin these things or do they just slap different stamps on the chips to call them diffent speeds lol.

On the memory speeds have you tried just using a different memory divisor? You know about the Ctrl+F1 trick to get the advanced features right?

Oh hey, is your board a rev 3.3?

 

[Sol]

I'm hitting an FSB wall at just under 320Mhz with my DS4 and e4300. I'm guessing it's the northbridge overheating since it doesn't seem to matter if I underclock the CPU and RAM. I think I'll have to remount the northbridge sink and try out a Gemini II, I can get one from some German place for about £20 but I'll probably wait and order it when I get mt HD2900XT, hopefully this week.

 

[CougTek]

Has anyone here thought of OC'ing the cheapest quad-core CPU around?

Good luck to find a motherboard with a LGA771 and overclocking options. You would have better luck with the Q6600, although it's close to 600U$ (but will drop to ~260$-280$ in a few months).

 

[Mercutio]

On the memory speeds have you tried just using a different memory divisor? You know about the Ctrl+F1 trick to get the advanced features right?

Oh hey, is your board a rev 3.3?

I'm already using the lowest memory divisor I can. The board is a rev. 3.3 and yes I know how Gigabyte hides the overclocking options. I wish I could make that the default display.
The F10 BIOS for the DS3 has been out since January, apparently.

 

[ddrueding]

Good luck to find a motherboard with a LGA771 and overclocking options.

I forgot about that....

 

[Mercutio]

Couple sites have early reviews of the R600 up tonight, but they're being Slashdotted, Dugg, Reddit'd and Farked off the Internet.

Long story short: Fastest x2900 might be competition for the big 8800GTS.

 

[Mercutio]

http://www.vr-zone.com/print.php?i=4946

 

[ddrueding]

...only hotter and more power hungry...

 

[Mercutio]

I am highly disappointed, myself.

 

[ddrueding]

Highly disappointed that you already own the fastest card available? What a crazy world...

 

[Mercutio]

Yes, but it's an nVidia card and I don't like it or how hot it gets... which is apparently less hot than the x2900.

 

[ddrueding]

Yes, but it's an nVidia card and I don't like it or how hot it gets... which is apparently less hot than the x2900.

They are both rated for 100C, and apparently it didn't exceed 80C in open air...so you have some room

 

[MaxBurn]

Hmm, I thought you might get some extra divisors with the v3.3 board seeing it supports the C2D 1333FSB, guess not.

Yeah, I am not to impressed with the x2900 either, except for what it is doing for the price on the x1950xtx's and other high end cards. It is a bit ridiculous how hot the video cards go, I did a little creative ducting to keep the temp around the 70° mark and the fan mostly inaudible during games.

As a side note the GA-965P-DQ6 is the first board I have owned that the BIOS and flash utility didn't fit on a boot floppy. Messed around with USB boot and didn't get anywhere with that, just took the easy way out and put a 10MB FAT partition on the end of my second drive.

 

[Sol]

The HD2900XT doesn't look as good as I'd hoped but with the new drivers that aren't quite out yet it seems to be poking arround 8800GTX speeds at 8800GTS prices, and adding a second one makes massively more difference than does a second Nvidia card (Not that I'm all that likely to do that).

Given that my choice was going to be an 8800GTS or a HD 2900XT I'll take the bet that for the money the 2900 will end up noticably faster for the extra £20 it'll cost me... Plus the heaters over here are rubbish (radiators hooked into the hot water service) so it'll probably come in handy in the winter.

 

[ddrueding]

About the 2900XT staying under 80C in open air? Nevermind.

I'm sure they were looking for the hottest point on the card, which by the looks of it is on the backside memory modules. So it's not just the core that is cooking, it's practically the entire card. I'll likely need a separate fan in the chassis to keep the air circulating all around the card.

 

[Mercutio]

Based on my brief experiences with an 8800GTX in a P180, I can say that the area of the side panel next to the card gets warm enough that I don't want to touch the case with my leg. It's not out and out hot, but it's uncomfortably warm.

I am thinking we need to get AWAY from that kind of heat.

 

[ddrueding]

My 7950 is passively cooled with airflow provided by a 120mm chassis fan that @800RPM is also able to cool the chipset, RAM, PCI cards (audio and TV tuner), and a good portion of the CPU (assisted by another 120mm chassis fan @800RPM). I just wrapped up a 2hr CNC3 gaming session, popped the 5.25" bay covers off and felt around in there. Nothing is hot to the touch. I can rest my hand on anything, including the NB and GPU. Perhaps I have a good thing going?

 

[Mercutio]

Hey, take a wild guess which component in my gaming system died today?

I'll give you a hint: It wasn't the motherboard, CPU, RAM, any of the disk drives or the PSU.

 

[ddrueding]

Did you have the 8800GTX or the 1950XTX in at the time?

 

[Mercutio]

The way too fucking hot one.

 

[P5-133XL]

I've now read enough reviews to state, that I'm rather disapointed in the 2900xt. It just plain uses too much power. I was hoping to add one to a P4 machine, for gaming and folding purposes but it just plain uses so much power that I would have to upgrade my PS to beyond 500W and that just annoys me to no end.

now that the NDA's have expired, The Standford folding GPU developer mhouston has reported on its folding capabilities:

HD 2900XT FAH Summary:

The shipping client requires an update to run. The core is currently running, but having issues with the full client. Performance-wise, the 2900XT is 2.2X faster than R580 for the force calculation, but the surrounding kernels and the interaction with the CPU currently limit the speed up to 45% faster for the full client. We are working to improve speed and get more cores supported for the next release. Power wise, it depends on board temp, but we see 160-180W when folding, roughly double R580. I haven't tested on the 2600/2400 yet, but it sh, and should work. The 2600 is *very* power efficient, and the 2400 in some configs doesn't even have a fan (!).

We are currently making lots of updates to the GPU client, including support for more cores and WUs (although debugging is taking longer than expected). When we get through this next push, we will release a new client which will add official support the newer chips.

I guess I'll have to wait and see how the 2600/2400's are going to do. Then's theres the potential for the die-shrink from 80nm to 65nm and that may help with the 2900's power/heat issues.

 

[LiamC]

My understanding was that back in Feb, the launch was pushed to May so that all the 2x cards would be 65nm—to combat heat & power usage. That the smaller cards have now been pushed back to July, and the fact that reviewers are still using 80nm cards indicates to me that rumours of a silicon respin are true.

<speculation>I believe that the 65nm silicon they got back was too buggy. Initial reports of 2600 said that they either worked or didn't, requiring a respin. I think 2900 suffered the same fate, but at least they had the 80nm fall back. After all the delays, another one wasn't an option. I expect 2900/2950 @ 65nm will be a great product, a la X1950 Pro. Another three to six months of driver tweaking won't hurt either, VLIW coding is tough to get your head around.

 

[ddrueding]

Amazingly my soft-RAID-0 array survived yet another motherboard swap, this one to an XFX 780i SLI board. (Semi)unfortunatly, Vista didn't like it as much. Even after re-booting into safe mode twice for the addition/removal of drivers (which completed succesfully), a BSOD was all I got. I didn't put too much effort into saving my old build, It's a great excuse to go back to XP.

Current specs:

Intel Q6600
3GB PC2-8000
8800GT
7950GT
3Ware 9650SE-16ML
2x 74GB Raptors
10x 750GB 7200.10/11
Auzentech X-Plosion Soundcard
Seagate 850W PS
Antec Nine Hundred

There are going to be some neat surprises in the next month or so, I'm really excited about it.

 

[Clocker]

Now all you need to do is get a REAL monitor for that system

LINK

 

[ddrueding]

Meh. That is only 2,592,000 total pixels.

My monitors are:

2,073,600 (1920x1080 - 42")
1,920,000 (1600x1200 - 22")
786,432 (1024x768 - 132")

I think I'm alright

 

[ddrueding]

Apparently my new motherboard doesn't like my RAM. I didn't even bother to check it, since the same 4 1GB sticks ran in my old system flawlessly for about a year. Sure enough, trying to track down some instabilities has me running memtest where even single-sticks in certain slots is failing...WTF?

Ram: Geil 1GB PC2-8000 (DDR2-1000) GX22GB8000DC
M/B: XFX nForce 780i SLI v1.2 (MB-N780-ISH9)

 

[Stereodude]

And, if it fails memtest, then it's really bad. Goldmemory is much more comprehensive at detecting bad memory.

 

[sdbardwick]

That RAM needs a slight overvoltage - 1.9V. Geil says operating voltages are 1.9V - 2.3V.

IIRC, running at 800Mhz with 4-4-4-12 or 3-3-3-10 will provide equivalent or higher performance than 1000Mhz @ 5-5-5-15 (the rated speed of those modules).

 

[ddrueding]

Stereodude,

I know Memtest is less fussy than others, but all I'm looking for is basic stability at the moment.

sdbardwick,

I knew about the overvoltage; it defaults to 1.9v and 800Mhz. That is where I am running into the stability issues. When I up the voltage to 2.3V, the system crashes before I can get to the BIOS.

 

[ddrueding]

I decided to go Server 2003 Standard, still getting drivers for all this crap installed. Unfortunately, the G15 keyboard drivers and NOD32 won't install. Isn't there a way to trick them into going?

 

[timwhit]

I decided to go Server 2003 Standard, still getting drivers for all this crap installed. Unfortunately, the G15 keyboard drivers and NOD32 won't install. Isn't there a way to trick them into going?

You can try MS Application Verifier. I used it to get Adobe CS3 products to install on Server 2003.

 

[Santilli]

I decided to go Server 2003 Standard, still getting drivers for all this crap installed. Unfortunately, the G15 keyboard drivers and NOD32 won't install. Isn't there a way to trick them into going?

Hi David

I've got an installer for Nod 32 that worked for 2003 Server, web edition. If you contact tech support, they will email it to you, or, I can do that for you. Need your email address.
Mine is santill28@gmail.com

 

[ddrueding]

I got it, thanks Greg.

 

[ddrueding]

It has been a while since I keyed one in here, but I'm stoked about the new rig:

Intel i7 940 (still at stock 2.93Ghz)
Thermalright TRUE Black 120 HSF (with Noctua NF-S12 fan)
Gigabyte EX58-UD5 (yes, the expensive one. Some of the features are insane*)
6x OCZ 2GB 1600MHz DDR3 (two 3-packs)
nVidia 9800GT (1GB)
Intel X25-E (32GB)
Intel X25-M (80GB)
2x Velociraptor 300GB (RAID-0)
Auzentec X-Plosion 7.1 (w/upgraded op-amps)
Seasonic SS-500GM (500W)
Antec P180


*LEDs on the board to show OC level and temps for CPU and NB, Clear CMOS button on the back panel, POST code display, 12 USB, 10 SATA, 3 PCI-E x16, etc.

 

[Handruin]

That's a nice setup. I was considering something like that very soon. Is it setup yet? What do you plan to use the SSD's for?

 

[CougTek]

Gigabyte EX58-UD5 (yes, the expensive one. Some of the features are insane*)

*LEDs on the board to show OC level and temps for CPU and NB, Clear CMOS button on the back panel, POST code display, 12 USB, 10 SATA, 3 PCI-E x16, etc.

The Asus P6T, not Deluxe, doesn't have those extra features, but it cost 100$ less and it overclocks as well, if not better. Also, someone with a lesser income than you should opt for the i920. It yields only 200MHz to the i940, but it costs 200$ less and it can reach the same frequency thru overclocking.

6x OCZ 2GB 1600MHz DDR3 (two 3-packs)

I too have a six pack (3x 2-packs), but it isn't inside my computer... Back to the RAM, low latency 1333MHz modules equal the performance of higher latency 1600MHz modules and they are cheaper.

 

[Handruin]

The Asus P6T, not Deluxe, doesn't have those extra features, but it cost 100$ less and it overclocks as well, if not better. Also, someone with a lesser income than you should opt for the i920. It yields only 200MHz to the i940, but it costs 200$ less and it can reach the same frequency thru overclocking.


I too have a six pack (3x 2-packs), but it isn't inside my computer... Back to the RAM, low latency 1333MHz modules equal the performance of higher latency 1600MHz modules and they are cheaper.

Impressive, but do they overclock as well as David's RAM?

I was likely to go the route of the i920 and OC it like you mentioned. I've seen some good examples of over clocking it even with the stock HSF. I haven't figured out which board since they're all rather expensive right now. I've been waiting for that market to settle a little bit and possible rev 2 boards to come out.

 

[LunarMist]

I too have a six pack (3x 2-packs), but it isn't inside my computer...

Beer is packaged differently up there?

 

[Handruin]

They don't want it to freeze since it's earth's largest refrigerator up there.

 

[LunarMist]

I assume you have never been to Antarctica .