Upgrade Complete

[BigJock2005]

I posted here about a month ago asking advice about Mobo and system upgrades. My upgrade is now complete, with the following parts:

1. Asus A8N SLI Deluxe
2. Ath64 3500+ Win
3. Leadtek PX6600GT-TDH
4. 1GB (2x512MB) Corsair V-Plus RAM
5. EZ-Cool Alu Tower Case

Just a quick mail to say I have built the system and low-and-behold everything appears to have worked first time. The WinXP reinstall was flawless, and I have partitioned a separate 2GB drive for the page file.

I am pretty impressed with all the components. The mobo was very sturdy, and it holds a whopping great Ath64 cooler sideways no problem. I bought a few 120mm case fans (special offer - £4.99 each) and the Cool-n-Quiet even seems to work - when I kick it in, the fans drop right down to idle.

The only trouble setting the system up was with Norton Internet Security (which came free with the Mobo). It completely locked out my net access and caused me a total headache for 2 nights. I binned it, and I'm running with the nVidia firewall and a basic Norton AV2004 package.

My first Aquamark has come out at 54,372. I haven't optimised anything yet, that's stock card drivers and unchanged BIOS, so I think I should be able to get that up a bit. Painkiller is running full speed at max detail, and I get motion sickness if I go on a mashing frenzy with the spinning blade thing. I have 3 temp sensors, one on the CPU (which is reading 38 degrees with Painkiller at full blast), a mobo sensor (internal to mobo) reading 38 degrees also and a case temp reading 33 degrees.

Only other thing is that the case came with a ATX1.0 PSU, so I have to splash another £45 on a Jeantech 550W gold ATX2.0 case.

All in all I am over the moon with the system. Everything seems super-fast on the desktop, no waiting on the disks, no frozen windows. IE has locked up twice, so need to keep my eye on that.

Cheers,
Jock

 

[Me__2001]

sounds like you've got yourself one hell of system

 

[G~MAN]

is the leadtek any good ? as i am thinking of getting a 6600gt but i was looking at the XFX

and your system sound swish ( WICKED )

 

[BigJock2005]

Leadtek

Well it was recommended by crazylegs on here, and I went back and checked out www.tomshardware.com and right enough it seems to be pretty much the fastest 6600. The price has really come down, so I went for it. Seems pretty fast judging by my first Aquamarks.

*BE CAREFULL* there are loads of Winfast PX6600's - make sure you get the TDH! You can tell from the memory specs, it must have DDR3 and should be clocked at 500MHz or even better 550MHz. Mine was just under £130. Good bundle as well, Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia.

 

[crazylegs]

Glad its built and every things running fine and dandy....Glad your happy with the Leadtek.... I know i certainly am with mine.....Flys don't it....

 

[BaseLine9]

My System is fairly similar, good fun aren’t they

I play far cry on ultra high and it looks the dog's swinger’s man

Shame about the Norton messing up, mine went ok - you only get 90 days free though, but am prepared to pay £30 per yr to protect my system from those idiots with far too much time on there hands!

Check this out also, much like Gigabyte's 3D1; Asus are planning duel gpu's on one board

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20050512150331.html

Aint technology great!

 

[G~MAN]

BigJock do you think you can give me a link to your leadtek 6600gt as i there is plenty! and not sure which one you have

cheers dude

 

[BigJock2005]

No worries, got mine from http://overclock.co.uk, here's the link:
http://overclock.co.uk/customer/product.php?productid=18073

And the official Leadtek link:
http://www.leadtek.nl/nts/uk/products/gc/index.php?page=gc.php&pronameid=147&tab=_2&sid=81

The TDH is a straight 500MHz core, the "Extreme" version is 550MHz, but I don't know the price on that one.

Jock

 

[BigJock2005]

Heh heh - a dual 6800?? The mind boggles. Then I guess you could put 2 dual 6800s in SLI mode? That would be FOUR 6800 chips. I can't believe you could use all that GFX power - but of course, that's no reason not to ship it in!!!

 

[BaseLine9]

I'll try a find it but there was an article about dual gpu cards in SLI, theres an issue with the BUS speed when using 4 GPU's, but some guy worked out it could be possible with a few tweaks! Watch this space

 

[BaseLine9]

http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20050526_155843.html

Mmmm could not find the article (typical after searching Google once!)

Here’s a Mobo an half though!