Geeks Corner - Brag about your RIG!

Here's your chance to show off what you've got 'under the hood'.

After spending the last month getting my new video card up and running (without crashes, even at the highest resolutions/settings), which involved a new motherboard, new memory, new PSU, new CPU fan, and countless re-installs of Windows 2K, I am now officially ready to call my computer DONE. I'm happy now.

Finally!

ChillEB's Rig:
Win 2K Server (SP3) * AMD Athlon XP2000+ at 2100+ via 140fsb * Asus A7N8X(v2.0)Deluxe with v.1005 BIOS * ATI Radeon 9500 Pro 128MB(Catalyst 3.5, DirectX 9.0, 8xAGP, Using unlocked BIOS and Radlinker, the card is OC'd to 340(core)/300(mem)) * 2 x 512MB Kingston HyperX PC3500 Memory (Slots 2 & 3 - 140 Mhz Dual Channel Mode 2-2-2-6) * Adaptec 1200A PCI RAID(0) Controller w/2 20G ATA66 Seagate HDs * Adaptec AIC-7892 PCI SCSI Controller with 18G Quantum Atlas SCSI Drive * Ricoh MP9120 DVD/CD-RW * Antec 430W TruePower PSU * Vantec Aeroflow TMD Fan w/Arctic Silver * Case Temp 29C, CPU Temp 40C * 3dMark2001SE = 12790 * 3dMark03 = 4282 * Passmark = 349

Who else out there is a full-on GEEK like ChillE?

Still running on my 800 Mhz machine from about 4 years ago, but the biggest thing I've got going for me is about a quarter terrabite of hard drive space... 20G and 60G seagates and a 160G Western Digital, all ATA66. Works out great with my ATI all-in-wonder 7500, all the space I want for video capture...

It's not a bad card, esp. for what they go for nowadays. But it really just doesn't do it for todays games. My 3dMark03 score went from 198 to 4200 when I upgraded to the 9500 Pro.

Glad you are happy, though :)

which is pretty much most of the gaming I do anyway, so it suits my purposes well...

Win2K, AMD Athlon 700, MX440se video card, SB Live with breakout box, Soundscape Mixtreme (16 channel digital i/o, connects to my digital mixer), Pinnacle DV500 IEEE 1394 realtime DV i/o card, Generic IEEE 1394 card, Adaptec SCSI card, 2-10gig SCSI drives, 4 big ass (>20gig), fast IDE drives, Plexwriter SCSI CD Burner, Ultraplex SCSI CD Drive, 1 gig ram

The beauty of my machine is that all the wacky peripherals function in zen like harmony, I haven't had a bluescreen in years. For having such a slow processor, it runs just dreamy.. and I run some serious apps on it, like 3D Studio Max and SoftImage.

I often ponder upgrading the CPU, but for the time being I'd rather save the watt-hours.

You should grab a RAID card and run a 4 drive RAID (0) array! Best thing I ever did with my 'puter.

My next motherboard will have a built in raid controller. :)

Awesome board!

I have it on my video capture box, which is a bit of an old model. I have a separate machine for video and audio processing which is completely identical to my Linux machine, apart from the mobo which is an Asus A7V333-X.

Actually, you'd get a big performance increase if you went from a 700 to a XP2100+, especially if you o/c'ed it. The 2100+ with its Thoroughbred core has quite a few enhancements which makes the 700 rather pale by comparison.

If you do 3D work, definitely upgrade the CPU. Geting a mobo with DDR SDRAM (PC2700, 333mhz) would be a big plus as well. Especially one with the nforce2 chipset as it uses dual DDR for performance enhancement; you'll need 2 identical RAM modules for the best results though, but RAM is dirt cheap. I'd spent $470 for a mobo/CPU/RAM upgrade recently and it's worth every penny.

* Abit NF7 mobo with Nvidia Nforce2 chipset; best for use with 2 RAM modules for its 'dual DDR' feature. 3D Games fly on this puppy.
* AMD Athlon 2100+ CPU running @ 2700+ speed, 1.7V to ensure stability though I could run at 1.65V. :9 using Arctic Silver 3 and a Thermaltake Volcano 11. (my other rig has a Thermalright SLK-900 with a 92mm Volcano fan and it makes the CPU several degrees C cooler! :9 But that rig is for video and audio processing whereas the rig I'm explaining is my day-to-day machine running Linux... About 39C when idle, 43C at full load for the Thermaltake. The thermalright gets the CPU down to 38 C on full load, 34 or lower idle.)
* BFG Geforce 4 4600 video with 128mb RAM (who needs the 5900FX when Linux doesn't need the extra horsepower in order to run games at the same speed as Windows does need?! Though I will stick with NVidia for all eternity because of their top-notch Linux support; ATi has also had a history of making pretty bad drivers - dunno about recent models but for the longest time ATi used modified Rage128 drivers for the Radeons!!! :spank: )
* Sound Blaster Audigy sound
* 1 GB of Crucial/Micron brand RAM (2x512MB, DDR PC2700 - 333MHz) (CAS 2.5 o/c'ed to run at CAS 2: 2-2-2-6; PC3200 RAM running at 400MHz had shown no appreciable performance increase so I kept to PC 2700...)
* Buslink DVD+R/RW writable drive, 2.4x
* Antec truepower 430watt power supply
* 200GB ATA133 Maxtor HD (which I'll move to the video processing box in time)

I ditched SCSI long ago, though Apple ditched SCSI a lot longer ago yet the prices for their machines didn't drop! IDE has caught up in MOST situations, though for servers with a heavy load SCSI is still, by far, the ideal choice.

The Nforce2 chipset rocks. Does your BIOS show "Dual Channel Mode" when POSTing? The old BIOS for this board did not, but I flashed the newest one, et voila! There it was. Nice to know the feature is actually working, ya know!

The Truepower 430 is an excellent PSU, as well. Do you know if one can buy the "TrueControl" controller piece separate, and add it to the Truepower series (it certainly has the jack on the back, and is I believe the same physical PSU as the TrueControl series)?

I tried a Thermaltake Volcano, but it was SO much louder (and constantly changing speeds, which sounded good on paper, but eventually became bothersome) than the Aeroflow TMD that I ended up switching back. After trying some others, I've decided, without question, this is THE BEST "cooling/noise ratio" cooler I've ever seen, by far.

If you ever need another, I HIGHLY recommend it :)

The ATI was definitely a lot of trial and error (and $$$ in upgrades to various components - its a voltage hog, thats for sure) to get running right, I must admit. But now that I've got it dialed in, it's an absolutely SMOKING card, esp. at high resolutions with AA/AiF cranked up. It was worth the effort ...

Has a 1.6GHZ P4 under the hood with over 1gig of SDRAM, a 40gig primary drive and a 80gig slave drive. Two 64mb Nvidia graphics cards,one is AGP and one is PCI, and two 18 inch flat panel monitors. CD-RW and an external DVD writer, DVD-ROM. I also have a TV in card so that I can watch TV and surf DU at the same time. A Firewire card to plug in my Mini DV camera for editing my movies with Premier and after effects and a few other progs.

Labtec speakers and subwoofer and an Intellimouse.

Edit: Running Windows XP home edition on a cable connection.

Running the onboard Nvidia Soundstorm Dolby Digital 5.1 chip. First time I EVER used onboard sound, but this thing is too nice to waste by adding a PCI sound card. Plus, your slots are always at a premium these days, no?

I wish I had this mobo when I bought my speakers, else I'd gone with a 5.1 sound setup. Right now, I'm running the Monsoon Planar Media 9 (stereo) speaker system. Which, for <$100, is one hell of a good buy if all you want is stereo.

A very accurate user review of this speaker set:
http://www.epinions.com/content_105992523396

Yes, PCI space is at a premium.