Asus Rampage III Gene, GTX470 with an H50 cooled i7-950 running at 4Ghz

[Skouperd]

Rampage III Gene, i7-950@4Ghz and a GTX470 build
2010-09-15
By Skouperd

The following is a build done with the requirement that the PC should be capable to last for, and play games for at least 3 to 4 years. The system should be stable, and the end user doesn’t want to do any tweaking / overclocking / hardware upgrading or anything else “nerd” related himself. He basically just wants to buy any game in 3 years’ time, without having to read the minimum requirements, install it, and have a rig capable of playing it. Given the rapid development in technology, there are only a few computers built 4 years ago that you could throw the latest games at today. As if the requirement to have a gaming capable rig in 4 years’ time was not yet tricky enough, I also had a budget to contend with. The budget amounted to R20,000 which needed to include an Operating System (but exclude screen, keyboard and speakers). With the above requirements in mind, this is the end result.

So, for my selection of components, I opted for the following:

CPU: i7-950
MOBO: ASUS Rampage III Gene
GPU: Asus ENGTX470/2DI/1280MD5
SSD: Kingston SNV425-S2/128GB
HDD: Western Digital caviar Green WD15EARS 1500gb/1.5Tb, Sata3G
PSU: Corsair AX750
CASE: Coolermaster RC-690-KKN1
RAM: 3 x 2GB kit - ddr3-1600 (PC3-12800), CL8
H2O: Corsair H50
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64Bit
DVD: Samsung SH-S243D

This amounted to R20,700, in other words, R700 over budget. I gave the client an option to remove the Corsair H50 water cooler which would have dropped the price to exactly R20k, but by keeping the water cooler, and paying a fraction more, I would overclock and guarantee the components for him. As you will see later on, having a water cooler attached, enabling one to safely overclock, was well worth that extra money spend. The client left the H50 on the quote and agreed to me overclocking the system for him. Later on, the client also asked for a gaming mouse, not included in the top quote.


http://downloads.skoups.com/Photos/CustomBuilds/Rampage3Gene/SD_i7-950%20470GTX.JPG


First impressions:
The CPU, well not much one can say about it, it is a CPU… ounce for ounce it is higher priced than gold, yet this piece of silicon is useless unless it goes into a motherboard. One thing that I can comment on, I bought two of these CPU’s and the one that I placed into the client’s PC was by far the better cpu. I reached a stable OC of 4GHz (stable as in running Prime 95 for 24 hours without any workers failing) at a voltage of only 1.275. The other CPU (although identical) needs about 1.325 to achieve that same speed.


http://downloads.skoups.com/Photos/CustomBuilds/Rampage3Gene/SD_I7-950.JPG


As boring as the CPU was, as exciting was the motherboard. Some gamers will never buy the Rampage Gene range of boards because they are all Micro ATX motherboards thus providing only a limited number of expanding slots. The physical size on this board did not concern me since the odds that the client will plug in additional cards are slim. The board sports enough SATA and USB ports to build a small server on it. It comes standard with USB3 and SATA3. The goodies that came with the board are just the average ROG stuff, some of which will never be used.


http://downloads.skoups.com/Photos/CustomBuilds/Rampage3Gene/SD_Rampage%203%20PCI-slots.JPG


http://downloads.skoups.com/Photos/CustomBuilds/Rampage3Gene/SD_Rampage%203%20Gene%20Backpanel.JPG


It obviously has six memory slots that support more memory than the size of the biggest hard drive a couple of years ago.


http://downloads.skoups.com/Photos/CustomBuilds/Rampage3Gene/SD_Rampge%203%20Gene%20Memory.JPG


Ideally, if I had designed this board, I would have liked it if the colours where reversed on the two memory banks. I.e. have red closest to the CPU, and then the black banks but that might be considered nit-picking. The reason though, if you only use a single pair of triple channel memory (as I would expect most people do), you will plug it into the red slots which effectively removes some colour in that area. Having a nice red would have broken the black a little bit more and would have been slightly more visually pleasing as could be observed from the below picture in the final build.


http://downloads.skoups.com/Photos/CustomBuilds/Rampage3Gene/SD_Ramage%203%20with%20memory.JPG


Another angle of the same problem


http://downloads.skoups.com/Photos/CustomBuilds/Rampage3Gene/SD_Rampage%203%20with%20populated%20memory%20v1.JP G


The H50 water cooler is an interesting concept, a closed circuit unit, with a single 120mm fan. It comes standard with brackets that allows you to mount this on AMD, Socket 775, 1156, or 1366. A nicely integrated unit and well worth considering.


http://downloads.skoups.com/Photos/CustomBuilds/Rampage3Gene/SD_H50%20Water%20Cooler%20not%20installed.JPG


However, the unit is not all sunshine and roses. My two biggest criticisms with the water cooler were the thermal paste it came out with just looked dodgy. Not 100% sure exactly what paste was used but it looked similar to those found on stock CPU fans. I would recommend wiping the stock paste off and apply some good quality stuff on there. My second gripe with it is that it messed up the airflow in the case. The manual recommend that you mount the fan so that it sucks air from the outside and blows through the radiator into the case, now I would imagine most users will mount the fan on the back, like I did. Typically when mounting the fan on the back, you would want that fan there to be sucking the warm air out of the case and dispense with it out of the back. I figured the manual was written by the lowest denominator, and I followed traditional wisdom instead. I mounted the fan so that it was sucking air from the inside of the case and dispensing the hot air out at the back. I was a bit unsatisfied with the CPU-Temps and decided to just give the manual writer a chance. Miracles seem to happen every now and again, and this time round, the manual did actually know better and proved conventional wisdom false. Following the manual, mounting it so that cold air is suck from the outside and blown into the case dropped my CPU temps with almost 8 degrees. This obviously increased the temps on the motherboard. So in order to counteract that, I had to install another fan on the top of the case, sucking air out and dispersing it out the top. Not all cases have this capability, so make sure your case can get rid of hot air before going with the H50 cooler. The end result, despite an increase in temps on the motherboard, the system still ran stable. Obviously Corsair did their research when writing the manual, so follow it if you ever opt for the H50.

Another option (and ideally, I would have liked to do this) would have been to mount the radiator in the front of the case, sucking air in from the front, and blowing it out at the back. The problem with that approach is that the loops are not long enough on the water cooler to reach the front, and the case did not allow a nice mounting spot in the front. The only other option was to top mount the radiator, but that was not doable in this specific case since the clearance between the motherboard and the top of the case was too small for both a radiator and a fan (potential buyers of H70 be warned since that is an even thicker radiator). The case allows for just a fan, but definitely not both. In summary, will I buy this water cooler again? Yes, on condition that I have a case that allows for a separate place to vent the hot air out at. Blowing back hot air into the case, right above the graphics card, just cannot be a good idea. Finally, another good lesson I’ve learned from this water cooler is not to only “RTFM” but to follow it from time to time as well.


http://downloads.skoups.com/Photos/CustomBuilds/Rampage3Gene/SD_H50%20Water%20Cooler%20installed.JPG


It was the first time that I built a pc into a Coolermaster 690 case. Overall, it is a nice case with the entire range of goodies one expects at this price range. However, this isn’t a Lian-Li or a Corsair case by any means, but still a good quality case with space to fit most builds. The bottom placed power design is a good idea but there were no extension cables provided with the case which made it a tricky build to keep the cables neat. Even a very high end power supply, like the AX750 cables were battling to be neatly tied down. The airflow in the case was good thanks to fully perforated front and top panels. I am just hesitant that in time those holes will get clogged up by dust, and somebody spilling a drink over the case could be dangerous (you never know what can happen at a LAN party).


http://downloads.skoups.com/Photos/CustomBuilds/Rampage3Gene/SD_CM690%20Case.JPG


In my mind, the main difference between a custom build and a factory build is the amount of time that goes into making it look good. This build took me the better part of three hours to assemble, simply because I am anal about certain details and the way that it is done. For instance, I hate it if my cable ties don’t all face the same direction, or if my screw heads don’t all align perfectly (the notch should be 90 degrees from the front and the back of the case). The cable management in this case was horrendous; unfortunately, the bottom placed power supply (even though it was a modular one) just did not help the cause at all.


http://downloads.skoups.com/Photos/CustomBuilds/Rampage3Gene/SD_i7-950%20Final.JPG


In my opinion the perfect case would have all the cables running via the back. This case definitely does not allow for that since it only allows a small number of cables (due to thickness) to be run via the back as per the below picture. If I had to categorise this case, I would say that this is a top class budget case, it is definitely not a high-end case at a bargain price. Just out of curiosity, because the case was overwhelming black, I’ve decided to break the colour a bit and used red cable ties everywhere I could. (Yes, I do alternate the colour of the cable ties I use based on the system I build.)


http://downloads.skoups.com/Photos/CustomBuilds/Rampage3Gene/SD_CM690_Back.JPG


The SSD is a Kingston V Series. Any SSD is an improvement over a spinning drive, and this drive was a pleasure to work with. Not all SSD’s are created equal, and time will tell how this one turns out, fresh from the factory, I can confirm that it was quick reaching 220MB’s read times in HDTach and the overall user experience was ridiculously quick.


http://downloads.skoups.com/Photos/CustomBuilds/Rampage3Gene/SD_Kingston%20SSD.JPG



Benchmarks

The following is a summary of the benchmarks that I’ve run over the years on systems like these. I apologise that it is not looking as good, nor as complete as that of TomsHardware, or Anandtech, but I like them, and since I am writing this article, I am including them.


http://downloads.skoups.com/Photos/CustomBuilds/Rampage3Gene/SD_3dMark06_1280_1024.jpg


The interesting point on the above graph is the difference between a stock system and an overclocked CPU. Note that the CPU was overclocked from 3.06GHz scoring only 20,739, to a very stable 4.0GHz suddenly scoring 25,157 score. That is an improvement of 20% made possible by spending R700 on the water cooler. Surprisingly, note how close the GTX470 is to the ATI5970 irrespective of the CPU speed. BTW, I am currently in the process of building a ATI5970 rig using the second i7-950 CPU, so watch this space for a review on that and me trying to understand why there is so little difference between the two cards in the above charts.


http://downloads.skoups.com/Photos/CustomBuilds/Rampage3Gene/SD_3dMark06_1680_1050.jpg


And entering the realms of real monitors - when increasing the resolution to 1680x1050, note how good the i7-930 with the ATI5850 scores in comparison. Running a 5870 at 4GHz would have made a worthwhile alternative to the GTX470. Anybody feel like commissioning a 5870 system?


http://downloads.skoups.com/Photos/CustomBuilds/Rampage3Gene/SD_3dMark06_1920_1080.jpg
http://downloads.skoups.com/Photos/CustomBuilds/Rampage3Gene/SD_3dMark06_1920_1200.jpg


As of now, the i7-950 running at 4GHz, with a GTX470 is the fastest beast I’ve ever had the pleasure to build. That is until next week when the i7-950 4.2GHz paired with a 5970 and a Asus Rampage III Extreme comes out to play.


Final Words
The motherboard overclocked like a charm, and I had very little problems to get this CPU to 4GHz, running stable there for a 24 hour Prime 95 torture test. I only had a single “no post” and that was when I was trying to reach 4GHz using a 24 multiplier. When I dropped the multiplier to 23 it just worked. My target was 4GHz and once I reached that, I stopped. The fact that the CPU was still on very low voltages (1.275) tells me one should be able to push it quite a bit harder without too much a problem provided you could keep your temps under control. When running Prime95 the temps peaked at 75 degrees which is in my opinion really on the limits when wanting to guarantee all components. However, under any normal load, the temps rarely exceed 60 degrees which is well within the safety margins. In hindsight, if you want to exceed the 4GHz threshold, I would suggest considering the H70 Corsair water cooler or perhaps something with a little bit more oomph than the H50.

Overall, this is a very nice system, well balanced in all aspects and should hopefully be able to play games for the next couple of years without having too much of an issue.


Since I am still new at writing these kinds of “post mortems” on PC builds, please comment if anybody would like to have seen anything else, or think that I might have missed something. I’ll try to incorporate it in my next write up. Comments could be sent to Skouperd@skoups.com

Adios
Skouperd

Ps. all photos were taken by me, so if there are any serious photographers here, let me know how I could improve future shots, since most of them still look a bit amateurish to me.

PPS, due to some forum restrictions I was unable to load the HD pictures, for those, please download them here:
http://downloads.skoups.com/Photos/CustomBuilds/Rampage3Gene/

[Megageth]

Nice Skoups!
The photos look as good as other reviews in my eyes but maybe Jono will be able to give you tips wrt lighting etc.

The H50 is an interesting piece of hardware. Any idea on how many degrees it reduced temps from the stock cooler?

[Skouperd]

No sorry Mega, I only mounted the H50 never bothered with the stock fan and did not really feel like placing something on there which I knew I will have to remove in any event. But I can confirm that will definately make a massive improvement over stock air, of that I am positive. Temps, under no load, running stock speeds was something like 30 odd degrees, which is marginally hotter than the rest of the room, so it definately worked well.

[Paul]

Holy crap dude that is one hell of a write up!

I also have an ASUS rampage MOBO, I forget it's name. Jarrod recommended it to me. I must say that I am extremely pleased with it. I used to think one MOBO was exactly the same as the next i.e. a R1000 mobo did just as good a job as a R2000. This mobo has changed my mind, I suppose it is like building a house, you need a good foundation.

[Phatso]

Can't wait to read this Skoups, as soon as I got a minute.. I have that case though, and its REAL pretty like.

[Skouperd]

Holy crap dude that is one hell of a write up!

I also have an ASUS rampage MOBO, I forget it's name. Jarrod recommended it to me. I must say that I am extremely pleased with it. I used to think one MOBO was exactly the same as the next i.e. a R1000 mobo did just as good a job as a R2000. This mobo has changed my mind, I suppose it is like building a house, you need a good foundation.


Thanks Paul

BTW, I doubt you have an ASUS Rampage motherboard... don't you run AMD?

[J_Th4ng]

@Paul, you don't have a Rampage board, you have a Crosshair 3 Formula IIRC.

It's still a RoG board (Republic of Gamers), but the one created for AMD CPU's

Nice writeup Denis, a good build log. I'll try and remember to run benchmarks on my system for you, so that you can add them into your database.

[Skouperd]

Thanks Jarrod, anybody else that have benchmarks I can add to my database forward them on. The easiest will be to take a screenshot that have CPU-z, GPU-z, 3dMark06, Vantage, or 3dMark03 with the scores on please. I've just listed the summary in these graphs, the actual database sitting in the background contains a lot more information.


Something else that I am looking for, and haven't found it yet, is to have some idea on what the highest record was in say 2006 in 3dMark06, or in 3dMark06 in 2007 etc. That way, scoring 26k today is on par with the worlds fastest pc x months ago. Anybody know of something like that, let me know please.

[Paul]

Ok Ok I meant I also have the hardcore ASUS mobo, the Box looks practically the same.

All I am saying is get a good Mobo, you won't regret it

[Megageth]

Anyone got a 64bit version of Vantage? The benchmarking software that came with my card is lost.

[Phatso]

Geth, I think I have a Vantage CD that came with my GFx card. Will look around and see if i still haz it and bring it to rAge.

AWESOME write up Skoups. I am sorry to all other technically gifted GRRRbians, but you seem to have a serious amount of knowledge when it comes to this stuff. Jarrod, you have stiff competition dude. You know also have a hella knack for OC'ing which is a part of PC's I have stayed miles away from.. simply because voltage this voltage that confuzzels the shit out of me.

Regarding the case, I will show you a perfect example of how difficult cable management is. My case is an mess inside, which really annoys me as I look through the window on the side and see it all the time. And I have OCD to a degree. An extreme perfectionist etc etc). It just seems so difficult to get everything tidy without pushing the electronics beyond their physical threshhold (that is until the thing snaps or something).

This all being said, I would love to have the master(s) do a bit of damage control on my machine come rAge if we have a chance. I am sure I can get more out of it, and with the right knowledge, my baby can look as gorgeous as this one does. Possibly even squeeze a chunk of performance with a bit of a clock...

(i am not hijacking this thread, just saying that I would love to have you take a looksie at my rig ITO cable-management and OClocking. Would really appreciate it).

[pmurgs]

The H50 is an interesting piece of hardware. Any idea on how many degrees it reduced temps from the stock cooler?


Good air will beat bad water. Many of the "full h2o kit" solutions are not as good as the top air coolers. Most serious h2o users buy all the different parts for their kit seperately. So either get a good h2o kit, otherwise just get a serious aftermarket heatsink with 120mm fans.



I also have the hardcore ASUS mobo


Hardcore for overclocking is Gigabyte UDP3 for 775's or UD5/7/9 for i7's. Asus cannot claim that crown. Gigabyte hold all the significant 775 and i7 overclocking records. Asus make really good motherboards... but the Gigabyte ones are better for overclocking.

[Skouperd]

(i am not hijacking this thread, just saying that I would love to have you take a looksie at my rig ITO cable-management and OClocking. Would really appreciate it).


Phatso, a couple of questions.
1. I have your hard drive here with me, do you want me to fill it up for you? Since I will most likely NOT be taking massive amount of hard drives with me to Rage.
2. Please take a picture of your current case's insides, I would like to know what is needed from my side.
3. I will in anyevent bring through my normal "lan" toolkit, which can do repairs on most systems, but just want to make sure I've got it all.

The best timing from my perspective will be if we can do it the Thursday evening before Rage since we will in anyevent all be together and the PC's unpluged and what not. Now I've never been to the place where we are staying so if anybody could just confirm the lighting conditions there please? I need a lot of light and even light at that. If the lighting is bad, I can arange that we can use my aunts garage which have the correct lighting in.

[Phatso]

Thanks for the reply Skoups. Its not that urgent a deal that we need to go to a separate locasie to do some fixing ;) , but I will be @ Fern Glen in the evening, hopefully around 15:00-16:00...

But to answer your questions :
1. Massive thank you for this. Please PM your banking details so that I can EFT the funds to you (total amount too please, in case the price changed).
2. Will take a photo later today and post it here or PM it to you.
3. I don't think it needs repairs as such, but I am sure it would love some little bit of tidying up.

I don't think the lighting is too big a deal though, if we can sort it out Thurs evening, thats cool. If there is not enough light, we don't need to fix it that day, maybe @ a later stage.

(sho we hijacked this thread gooood)

[Skouperd]

Good air will beat bad water. Many of the "full h2o kit" solutions are not as good as the top air coolers. Most serious h2o users buy all the different parts for their kit seperately. So either get a good h2o kit, otherwise just get a serious aftermarket heatsink with 120mm fans.


Murgs, in your view, what is the best watercooler on the market right now?

[pmurgs]

Murgs, in your view, what is the best watercooler on the market right now?


I actually can't answer that since I've never owned a H2O kit but always dreamed of having one. The cost and lack of local availability of most of the best blocks and radiators has always turned me away in the end so I've gone with air. It's been at least a couple years since I last spent time investigating what was currently considered the best products on the market. For H2O your kit can last you a long time, with perhaps just having to change the block each time you get a new cpu socket type, so it seems to me, you might as well buy a very good kit since it should be able to last you for a long time.

I wouldn't want to buy a single H2O "kit", but rather would spend time on the watercooling forums, reading up about all the different blocks, radiators, pumps and size tubing that are the best to work together, that I would be able to find international suppliers who will ship to South Africa. I think it's not to hard if you just want a simple cpu H2O solution, but if you want to add your gfx card(s) to the package, then it gets quite a bit more complicated. Having the right case to fit all the parts in also used to be a problem (shipping a case to SA will cost a lot), although it seems now there are good cases available locally that are designed to support H2O setups.

[J_Th4ng]

The H50 is an interesting piece of hardware. Any idea on how many degrees it reduced temps from the stock cooler?


Here's a review from 3D Guru (http://www.guru3d.com/article/corsair-h70-review/) for the H70. As you can see in that review, it's up there with the very best of air coolers (most of which you'd struggle to get in this country), at a not unreasonable price considering it's performance. The H70 unit costs about R1000. I reckon it would do as good a job as my Aquagate MAX, if not better, and costs half the price. It also takes up a lot less space, and probably weighs a lot less too.

Sure, a purpose built enthusiast wc setup will beat this, and by quite some margin (as well as catering for loops to cool your GPU's too). But for a unit that can easily be installed on the CPU that doesn't cost the earth, I reckon it's pretty decent.

I'd be interested to swap my uint out for this.

[pmurgs]

That doesn't seem to be a bad kit for the price, but its still a bit more expensive than air and only performs a tiny bit better.

Near the bottom of this page in the review http://www.guru3d.com/article/corsair-h70-review/11 they compare it to a proper custom watercooling kit. Huge difference in temps. Thats why I'd like a custom kit.

[Skouperd]

Ok, I can confirm that I've got the H70 water cooler as the first prize for the Supreme Commander comp.

But I am thinking, after reading that review Jarrod linked to, that one should just take some fine grain sanding paper, some rubbing compound and just polishing that base till it is perfectly flat and shiney. It is actually quite easy to achieve a mirror finish that is perfectly flat, so wonder why 3d Guru did not do that and compare a before-and-after benchmark as well.

If I win the prize, I'll do that for us and see how big an improvement it actually resulted in.

[pmurgs]

I've recently read a couple more reviews on the H70... and after seeing it for sale at less than R1100 on local websites... I'm actually quite impressed at the performance for the price.

Is the supreme commander comp limited to Rage attendants only? heh heh

[Megageth]

Yes.

[FlatspinZA]

That's an awesome computer, Skouperd. Nice work ;)

I always used to buy budget boards in the mistaken belief that the CPU, GPU, RAM, and drives were still doing the same job. I had some spare cash in 2007 & decided to buy myself an Asus P5n32-E SLI motherboard. It cost R2.5K at wholesale. It changed my whole perspective on motherboards.

Since I bought it I have upgraded my CPU to a Q9300 (I wanted the Q9450 but couldn't get any stock at the time the impulse gripped me) & GPU to a GTX285. My computer loads games plenty quick (beating most newer systems into any game), still has a good solid two years in it, and I'll never under-estimate the value of a solid platform again. My board has 3 x PCI-Express X16 slots, though realistically I couldn't get three GTX285's in there - wouldn't even try since I am so close to an upgrade.

I've never been big on looks, or overclocking - I've done the over-clocking thing, but my system still gives me more than enough to meet my needs, and play any game on the market, so I don't feel the need. I can still pump an extra 20% out of my system - I gained an extra 10% FPS with just a random OC on my GPU a few weeks back. I dropped it back to stock even though the temperature increase was only a few degrees. It's still running cool, even under load.

I can't stress the importance of a good platform - you can have the strongest arms in the world, but without the back muscles to carry the load, you're wasting your time. A PC is only as good as its weakest component.

I'm looking forward to Intel's new range :)

[pmurgs]

Flatspin... with a 46% cpu overclock and 31% gpu overclock... my minimium fps in BC2 at 1920x1200 with everything on, went from about 30 to 55. Average fps also took a serious jump. The smoothness difference is very noticable in game from my previous setup. Best part is I didn't have to spend a small fortune on the best of the best hardware to achieve similar performance levels. With a mild overclock its hard to notice the difference... but with a serious one you can easily see it.

[FlatspinZA]

Yo, Murgs - that's quite an inpressive jump. If I feel like I am suffering at all I'll probably get myself some decent coolers & do just that, give my system a little longer life. Or, just flog my system & buy the new LGA1155, or LGA2011, platform - not sure which direction I'm headed until I see the options.

I'm not generally a fan of OC'ing, even though my board has all the OC'ing settings in the BIOS - I just really CBA to do anything about it unless I was having performance issues & had no money to replace my system at that time.

[pmurgs]

You need the right motherboard to be able to overclock. I specifically had to get mine shipped over from the states as I could not find it here. But my pc is stable as anything now since I got rid of my previous board which couldn't get anywhere near my current board in terms of overclocking potential.

I'm not looking forward to Sandy Bridge... fsb locked to everything is going to kill fsb overclocking. Intel are going to make us pay more for unlocked cpu's now.

[FlatspinZA]

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Articles/Sources/A/Asus%20P5N32-E%20SLI/Images/1459_l.jpg

That's my board.

"Having read other users reports, this board can definitely go up to 500+FSB (with the proper voltage tweaks and the selected CPU/RAM combination)."

They also reckon my Q9300 will comfortably OC to 3.5Ghz from its current 2.5Ghz, thereafter will be subject to mainboard limitations. You can read about my board here: http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Specific.aspx?ArticleId=19557&PageId=0

The biggest problem I have is that my GTX 285 pushes insane amounts of heat out at 100% fan speed & I guess I'd need extra cooling for my GPU & CPU fans if I was to try push my system to the limits. I'd rather just put that money towards a new system.


Yeah, I believe Intel is going to be rather schnoop with their multiplier locks. It's probably to stop the trend of OC'ing cheaper chips beyond the stock speeds of more expensive chips & getting more performance for less, effectively hurting their bottom line.

Something else that is quite worrying is Intel's new software hardware upgrade. You pay them to unlock features already on your chip: https://retailupgrades.intel.com/Page.aspx?Name=Upgrade That's just a load of horsecrap if you ask me. Opinion here: http://blog.laptopmag.com/intel-testing-retail-upgrade-program-for-cpus-charging-50-to-improve-performance

If AMD can come up with something that will perform the same as a similarly priced Intel chip by the time I'm ready to upgrade, without the multiplier locks, I'll have no qualms about switching back to them. Someone needs to support the underdogs.

[Skouperd]

Hi Flatspin, only returned yesterday and catching up on my emails. I use to run that exact same motherboard as my main gaming rig until about a year or so ago. I however paired it up with an extreme edition cpu, the QX6700, and two 8800GTX cards as that was the best that was available when I've bought it. It was a wonderfull system and would have still been up there had my one GPU not explode. That board served me very well for many years and I actually sold it a couple of weeks ago to a friend of mine. He paired it with a Q8300 and a 9600GSO, but the board now at least allow him a reasonable upgrade path for the next 2 years. Most likely, he will get himself the GTX460 in a couple of months time, and then perhaps get a better cpu as well. The Socket 775 cpu's are getting ridiculously cheap and there is not much wrong with them at all.

Anyevent, I always find it fascinating the views on OC'ing. I remember my very first overclock was done on an Pentium 1, 100MHz cpu and I've overclocked it to 120MHz, that was a bliss!

[pmurgs]

I took an amd 486 133mhz (33fsb) to 150mhz (50fsb). The machine ran non stop for almost year without ever being switched off before I sold it.

[Megageth]

If they go with the paid upgrade path it will open the door for AMD. I hope they do, I'd like the market to even out some more.

[SlipperyDuck]

I *cough* hardware OC'd my XT yes - pre 286 machine by changing the Crystal Oscillator from 8Mhz to 10Mhz - it made a BIG difference in those days, like doubled the speed. Pity the monochorome display didnt have a FPS display so that I could see how much faster SOPWITH (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopwith_%28computer_game%29) ran.
remember SIMCGA.com - CGA Emulation on a Monochrome display?

http://www.sorgonet.com/8086/CGA_emulation/cgacard.jpg

[Skouperd]

Lee, I don't know what is sadder, the fact that I actually remember that game (and played it to death) or the fact that I actually understood exactly what you said... ;-)

[Megageth]

I just wandered into a nerd support group.

[pmurgs]

Sopwith, man, I'd forgot about that game. Sheesh, boy how things have changed when you think of sopwith in light of bc2. It's scary that even cellphones have far better games than sopwith.

My old 10Mb hard drive used to be so huge I couldn't fill it up at one point...

[Paul]

Yip I remember upgrading a PC, it had an 80mb harddrive and my brother said we should get a new 500mb harddrive. I thought he was nuts, I said it will be a waste because we would never use it all.

I know have 500GB and it is not enough