Project log: Liquid Monster

Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2012 6:54 pm

Its been a long time since i've been around, how's everyone going?

I haven't come back empty handed either, between moving house and trying to find a decent hardware deal in this country i've been slowly chipping away at this build.

And I'm real sorry about the horrible quality (best not to hover over the pictures they're shocking) but i only have a camera on my phone....

what my current setup looks like Very Happy

200N of pressure check, chrome plating check, evil plan for world domination is go!

all ready for leak testing

leak testing failed....

Never give up, Never surrender!!!!

HAHA! I win round two, time to match the bastard bleed.

So that's it, i bought a second 6850 to play around with the NF200 chipset configurations but they'll be replaced with full water cards soonish, i'd like to get a second radiatior and stick in the front and shift the HDD's somewhere else. I'm also thinking about replacing the bay reservoir with a tube one, bleeding the damn thing took me hours but that turned out to be mostly my fault (i'll explain later if people are interested) the main problem is draining, i have to turn the whole thing basically upside down and it ain't a featherweight case. Will definately be rethinking my approach for next time and including a drain value.

if anyone has questions about anything please feel free to ask, I'm very excited about the whole project and could bore you all day if I was allowed to.

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2012 5:57 am

Thats looks sweeeeeet! Can you post the full rig specs?

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2012 4:51 pm

sure

hardware
CPU: i7-2600K @ 4.545ghz (using offset mode overclocking)
RAM: Patriot Viper Extreme Div 2 16GB 1866
GPU: 2x powecolour 6850 @ 850, 1060 (core, memory) - still working on clocking those
SSD: OCZ agility 60GB SATA3
HDD: WD Black 1TB
MotherBoard: ASUS Maximus IV Extreme z
PSU: Corsair AX1200
plus bog standard DVD writer
Cooling
chrome plated heatkiller 3.0 with 1155 back plate for CPU
swiftech MCP655 - (rebranded D5 pump)
XSPC dual bay reservoir
3x thermalright 140mm fans
420 black ice SR1 radiator

Posted: Sat Apr 28, 2012 6:19 pm

Great mate Very Happy

Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 5:43 pm

Devilz_108 wrote:

Great mate Very Happy

not really, all that power and i still only get between 3-5 FPS in Skyrim and that's only at a piddly 1920x1080 resolution. I haven't had a chance to try out much else yet.

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2013 11:53 pm

Did not want to post a separate thread but as the poll is crossfire /SLI i felt it a good place to dump a little info.

I have been blown away by the graphics on the last gen...GTX 680 and as a tech nut wanted it till I had to consider the costs.
I have the GTX 560ti, not a bad card by any means but no where near the 680 performance.
However I now have a second 560ti in SLI and my performance is now pretty much equal almost across the board on frames and graphic capabilities.
Things to mention.
latest and greatest comes at a premium price point but if you can get a good price selling your present card go for it.
My simple math is as follows.
500 bucks to be in the top tier.
200 bucks to go SLI and reach pretty much the same level
If your lucky to get a good price selling your card then upgrading is a good option.

Only downside is power consumption.
However I did a quick little calculation and running two 560ti's or a single 680 the difference whilst high the costs were minor over a 12 month period. It is a simple procedure...simply enable or disable crossfire or SLI and let the card idle when not gaming.
This methodology also applies to the AMD cards.

Using dual cards is a definite improvement and cost effective way to keep up....in fact so good that often we can use this function to bridge 2 and often 3 generations of GPU development. The game developers do not improve their software as rapidly so we can benefit from this.
Exceptions of course are when going above 1920 resolutions or going wide across 3 screens......you just need a lot more juice.

As most of us are using single screen and almost 90% of us use the HD format 1920 1080 resolutions last generation cards go for often half the original price when new gen hit the markets.
This makes it the most cost effective way to get the best out of your games.

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2013 12:43 am

Moved for a bit til I work out it, avast is picking up a link here somewhere