Upgrade time

[taowulf]

Well, it has been a year since my last upgrade to the system in my sig, and the thing was startign to suffer a bit. Most of those parts will become my new Ubuntu system as the other one i was using had a major vid card problem. The 6800 GT on that system finally gave up the ghost.

 

It is a decent time to upgrade, so here are the parts that arrived today. (Damn UPS, 6:30PM delivery!!!)

 

OCZ Dual Channel EL Platinum XTC 2048MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz Memory (2 x 1024MB) PN:OCZ2P8002GK

 

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Processor HH80557PJ0804MGS - 3.0GHz, 4MB Cache, 1333MHz FSB, Conroe, Dual-Core, OEM, Socket 775

 

OCZ / GameXStream / 700-Watt / ATX / 120mm Fan / SATA Ready / SLI Ready / EPS / Active PFC / Power Supply

 

EVGA nForce 680i SE SLI (TR Version) Motherboard - NVIDIA, Socket 775, ATX, Audio, SLI Ready, PCI Express, Dual Gigabit LAN

 

I am carrying over the Audigy ZS, all of the HDD's, and case, but the vid cards have been replaced with a eVGA 8800 GT Superclocked (only to 650, not 675...yet). Watercooling will be added (thanks to those that made suggestions in my Cooling section post!), but probably not for a week or two as I need to make some modifications to my Stacker STC-T01 to fit the 3x120 radiator and so on. I also have some new switches and other various flim flammery i am waiting on. I have never been a fan of the front IO panel on the Stacker case, it is nice that is is movable, but otherwise it looks like a pile of horse crap in a flowerbed.

[Guest SuppA-SnipA]

nice upgrade, my next motherboard will either be xfx, evga, or dfi, MAYBE asus, still have to read more on their new boards

[taowulf]

nice upgrade, my next motherboard will either be xfx, evga, or dfi, MAYBE asus, still have to read more on their new boards

 

I've been playing around, seeing where i can get this on air. 3.6Ghz now, but I haven't run Orthos for the customary 8hours yet...after 30 minutes of Orthos the CPU's finally hit 50C and I don't really want to push it until I have things watercooled.

 

The board itself is pretty nifty. Still not a fan of the MCP cooling, so I am going to order a waterblock for that tomorrow. And an evercool for the southbridge.

 

Other goodies for this build.

 

fans. 7 ordered, 3 yate loon low speed and a pack of 4 coolermaster fans that run decently quiet.

 

A Zalman fanbus - controls 6 fans.

 

2 prewired Bulgin Vandal style switches (white illumination)

 

I also had ordered the windowed side panel for my case from SVC, but they canceled the order due to it being out of stock...i will probably get one from elsewhere instead.

[taowulf]

My hands are killing me. I cut the holes for the 3x120 radiator, of course the way the Stacker is, only one full hole was drillable, the rest were around the large rectangular hole in the bottom of the case...which meant it was nibbler time.

 

Ow.

 

My hands...they hurt.

 

Anyway, the rad holes are done, the fillport hole is done (with a little damage to the finish of the case as the pilot bit for the hole say decided to BEND midhole. It is ok, next spring the whole thing is getting painted anyway. holes in the mobo tray are drilled for routing cables to the board, and i am test mounting all of the drives, the new fan bus and so on. I have a special plan to replace the 5 1/4 bay covers, it should look pretty hot when done...that stuff arrives this coming week.

 

I have been wiping down everything, vacuumed the case, but I am terrified that I missed some sliver of metal that is going to short out my board and fry it all.

 

I need to borrow the roomies camera so I can take some pics.

[momoceio]

I wanna see the pics of where your rad is going to be mounted. I just bought a stacker 810 and triple rad, I think i'm going to mount mine on top but I haven't seen the case yet so I'm not sure.

[taowulf]

I wanna see the pics of where your rad is going to be mounted. I just bought a stacker 810 and triple rad, I think i'm going to mount mine on top but I haven't seen the case yet so I'm not sure.

 

I am going to post pics in the Stacker thread in the cases forum.

 

Oh, and I have the STC-T01, not the smaller 830...so I don't know how much of a help I can be.

 

Give me a few minutes and I will have the pics up.

[momoceio]

I've got the 810...not the 830. Only difference is that yours has dual PSU spots and mine has 2 x 120s in the back.

[taowulf]

I've got the 810...not the 830. Only difference is that yours has dual PSU spots and mine has 2 x 120s in the back.

 

My brain hurts. I can't even seem to read correctly.

 

If I had that case, the rad would have been mounted in the top, but since I have the PSU cage up there, the rad is bottom mounted.

 

Pics are in the Cases section, in the stickied Stacker thread.