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Big Red

26K views 284 replies 18 participants last post by  neurotix 
#1 ·
Build Log - Big Red



Boot logo

20161208_211851.jpg

It's about time I made a build log for my system, aptly named Big Red. I've been putting this off for some time, though I've wanted to do it, because this build goes all the way back to 2010 and I've upgraded it more times than I can remember.

This has always been an AMD based system because that's all I could afford.

This will be a visual chronicle of the various upgrades I've done to my system, using photos from my sig rig, as well as some on my Facebook that I never uploaded to OCN.

So, the original components of this system were as follows. This machine was first built in 2010. I sold my Playstation 3 and used the money to finance this rig. Previously, I was using a pre-built Acer Aspire E360 with an Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2ghz and 2GB RAM. I was using emulators a lot for Wii, Gamecube, PS2, Saturn and Nintendo DS and they were quite slow on the Athlon 64 since it lacked SSE2 instructions. So I aimed to build a modern, budget gamer system that could run modern emulators well, as well as do some light PC gaming. If only I knew then how big and expensive my hobby would eventually become...

I did a lot of research before building this system and decided to go with a Phenom II x2 and a certain ASUS motherboard because I found out I could purchase a dual core and have a high chance of unlocking it to a quad using Advanced Clock Calibration (AMD ACC).

Original Components

AMD Phenom II x2 550 BE (unlocked to quad)
ASUS M4A785TD-V Evo motherboard
4GB G.skill 1333mhz 9-9-9-24 DDR3 DRAM
OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W Power Supply
WD Caviar Blue 320GB Hard Drive
Lite-on 20x DVD-RW
Cooler Master Elite 310 case
Cooler Master red LED fans
Stock AMD heatsink
Sapphire Radeon HD 4670 (I had this already, I bought it with Christmas money from my aunt, and it was in the Acer Aspire for a while)








Eventually, I got a Scythe Samurai ZZ V2 CPU cooler. Originally, when building the system, I had bought a Cooler Master 212 Plus cooler but I tried numerous times to mount it and couldn't. No matter what I did the heatsink standoffs would not align properly with the holes on my motherboard. I was using the correct brackets but they simply wouldn't align with the holes. I could put three of the standoffs through the holes but there was no way to get the fourth in. So I just decided I would get a different cooler.



Next, I believe sometime in 2011, I upgraded my case to an Azza Solano 1000R. I chose this because it looked like a high quality case, with the inside painted, holes for cable management, and so on. The Cooler Master Elite 310 was a $29.99 case and it had horrible airflow and poor build quality. So yeah, that had to go.

Horrible electrical tape cable management
wink.gif


The two cases next to each other.








At some point, I believe December 2011 I got a Sapphire 6870 and an ASUS VH236H 23" 1080p monitor. I was starting to get serious about PC gaming. My lovely girlfriend, Bridgypoo, who actually has a decent job, bought me this gear. =P At this point, I started to get more serious about my build and cable management, so it looks MUCH cleaner. This started my obsession with machines having clean cable management.




I ended up getting a used Phenom II X6 1090T from awesome OCN member and my personal friend, damric (Luke). We still talk regularly and became friends through me meeting him this way. He builds nice systems too and you can see his most recent build log here: http://www.overclock.net/t/1446151/damrics-new-toys

Since I got a better processor I needed better cooling, of course to overclock it. I got a Thermaltake Frio cooler, which while old is an amazing CPU cooler. It was well worth the $60 it cost. I also got some Rosewill 120MM 74CFM red LED fans to go on the heatsink, because I thought it would look cool.







Still rocking the 6870. At this point I had started folding 24/7 on my 6870 and I joined the team competition for the folding team, Brass Bottom Boys. Eventually I managed to get a hold of an ASUS Crosshair V Formula AM3+ motherboard. I chose this motherboard because it was AM3+, whereas my M4A785TD-V Evo was only AM3 with no upgrade path. Also, the board is black and red (stupid how little things like color choice influence your buying decisions). Anyway, I learned the ins and outs of this motherboard pretty fast and learned how to overclock using things like Digi+ VRM and so on. My older board had none of that stuff. Along with the 1090T I got some G.skill Snipers 1866mhz 9-10-9-28 RAM!





I ran the 1090T for about a year, for all of 2012, before I decided to upgrade to an FX-8350 which I bought new from Newegg for about $200. Since I got a new processor, I needed a new CPU cooler, so I got a Corsair H100i. It was REALLY nice not to have to mount my side panel fan on the outside, and to have more room to work in my case without a huge tower heatsink. Along with the FX-8350 I got some Samsung "Miracle RAM"- 8GB DDR3 1600mhz 11-11-11 that was insanely overclockable. I run it at 2400mhz 11-11-11-30 2T and it's fast and flawless.





Next, I decided I really wanted a 7970. The one I had my eye on, of course, was the Sapphire 7970 Vapor-X. I'm a huge Sapphire fan and love their cards, they overclock great and usually have good coolers. So, I saved money from Jan 2013 until April 2013, and sold a bunch of stuff including all of my hard copy Wii, PS2 and Xbox games. Eventually I had the $450 I needed for the card and I got it. With the FX-8350 and 7970 my rig was upgraded to Big Red V6.




My lovely girlfriend Bridgypoo got me a keyboard, mouse and mousepad for Valentine's Day 2013.


After only a month my 7970 Vapor-X started overheating. I couldn't figure out why but at the same overclock (1200/1600mhz) the card was going up to 70C in Crysis 3 and crashing, as opposed to staying around 60C. Anyway, I noticed when running my machine on it's side with the side panel off that one of the fans wasn't spinning. I checked and the fan was dead. So on my girlfriend's suggestion I got an Arctic Accelero 7970 Xtreme cooler. This would be in September 2013. No more pretty "Sapphire" LED...





I decided my cooling wasn't good enough and I wanted to upgrade my system a bit so around November 2013 I ordered some Corsair SP120 high performance fans, as well as some Bitfenix Alchemy red sleeved extension cables (PCI-E and 24 pin) from Frozencpu.com.





I upgraded and bought two more monitors- both ASUS VH238H, since I couldn't get the older VH236H anymore to match my existing monitor. So now I run my 236 in the middle and my 238s on the side. Now I had an Eyefinity setup. I actually had to go and buy a small, cheap bookcase for my tower to sit on since there was no room on my desk anymore. I think it worked out well, because my machine sits a little bit higher than the desk and looks really cool. I love having Eyefinity, but the only problem is that working on my machine is now a serious PITA since I have to unplug and move at least two of my monitors out of the way, to have room to work on my desk. =/





Two things happened. First, the R9 290X and 290 came out in October 2013. I had my eye on them from the beginning because they are awesomely powerful cards. However, I was smart and wasn't going to buy one at an inflated price, and I wasn't going to buy one without an aftermarket cooler. No way I was using a reference cooler, and I'm not doing a water build because I can't afford to do it right... I'd need like $400 in water cooling parts. Not happening. I'd rather just run my cards on air.

My 7970 died when I was changing the thermal paste. I changed the TIM, like I had done many times, trying to get lower temps. Anyway, I put the card back in and it would just show a black windows login screen. It seemed dead. So, I took the Accelero cooler off of it and put the Vapor-X cooler back on and RMA'ed it to Sapphire. For all of December I used a new R9 270X Vapor-X that my brother bought me. Remember the old 6870 I folded on? It was in my sister's rig (budget gamer). My brother went to play games and didn't change the fan profile. The 6870 is dead, and also just shows a black windows login screen. I still have it in it's original box in my basement. At least I have a replacement though, my brother saved up for a month and got me my 270X, which is actually a golden card. So, I ran that for a month until I got a Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X.
 
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#2 ·
Recent Upgrades

I upgraded recently to an R9 290 Tri-X, which I absolutely love, it's an amazing card. Additionally, I upgraded to a Cooler Master V1000 1000W power supply unit. I was having issues with my machine shutting off using an OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W PSU. Basically, if I clocked my system to 5ghz and ran IntelBurnTest I would trigger over current protection on the OCZ psu and my machine would shut off. Apparently, it has dual 12V rails and my FX-8350 was overloading one of them at that high of voltage and clock. With the V1000, that problem doesn't happen, though I still can't pass IBT or Prime95 at 5ghz.

Also, I'm saving for another R9 290 Tri-X for Crossfire, and to double my money mining. My girlfriend got me into mining. We eventually got the 7970 back from RMA, we had to send it to them twice because the first replacement they sent us was missing a capacitor and would lose video completely shortly after booting into Windows. So now, I run the Tri-X in my machine and the 7970 Vapor-X is in my girlfriend's rig (Azza Blue).











Future Upgrades and current status

My Corsair H100i had a problem and I had to send it off to Corsair RMA. Basically, I went to change the thermal paste and when I put the water block back on and went to hook up the Corsair Link cable, the cable was just going into empty space in the water block. I looked at it and the connector on the pump unit wasn't there. I could literally see the solder points on the PCB where the little plastic connector was supposed to be. So, for now I'm stuck at 4ghz on stock voltage with the stock FX heatsink that came with my processor.



I ordered a Logisys meteor light kit from Frozencpu in red. It should be here sometime this week. I'll have to tear my system down and remove the current red cold cathode tube to install the dual meteor lights. They look really cool, I hope it was worth it.

So, I'll be installing the meteor light and my H100i again when I get it back from RMA. They shipped it today. I'm excited to see whether they send me back my old unit or a new replacement.

Within a month or two I should have my second Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X, I'll post pictures of the install when I get it.

It's a small thing, but I got some cool case badges for cheap from Frozencpu recently. I was a little disappointed though, I thought they would be bigger.




Still, I think they look pretty good.
 
#3 ·
#6 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by LarsL View Post

Nice looking rig neurotix.
thumb.gif
I also like the Sapphire cards. I just picked up a R9 280x Toxic for 390 on ebay. Still a little high for a used card but can't afford a new card just to Fold and Boinc on.
Thanks good sir.

The 280X Toxic is pretty much what the Tri-X should've been. It has the light up yellow Sapphire logo and a backplate (I think). I don't know why the Tri-X 290 and 290X don't have these features too.
 
#8 ·
Yes, big red has come a long way since 2010. I can't believe it's almost 4 years old!

From folding, gaming, and mining, this rig has done a lot. I think what's on neurotix's agenda now is that 290 that should hopefully stay lower than $600 (over 150 MSRP). Then he'll tweak a bit on the cosmetic side as he said with the meteor lights.

I used to use the motherboard on my Azza Blue computer. For some reason it died on us a month or two ago. Just haven't gotten around to getting a newer MB, but should hopefully after this month's mining.

Rep+ to Neuro.
heart.gif
 
#9 ·
Thanks guys.

Yeah, the ASUS M4A785TD-V Evo died while it was in Bridgypoo's rig. Not sure what killed it. It just wouldn't boot up 9/10 times, no POST. We swapped in a different mobo, problem fixed. It's too bad because it really was a good ATX board.
 
#10 ·
Update: my Logisys meteor light kit came in.

Additionally, I moved my front panel red LED fans from behind the front panel, to the rear of the drive cages.


Here you can see the fans in their new positions.



Here you can see the fans blowing directly on my Tri-X.



Moving the fans up lowered temps dramatically.
Mining at 1100/1500mhz +50mv, my temps before were 69C core, 77C VRM1, 960 khash/s. With the fans blowing directly across the Tri-X cooler, my mining temps are now 65C core, 72C VRM1. That means my VRM1 is 5 degrees cooler.

Temps while gaming have also decreased dramatically. For gaming I use a profile of 1200/1500mhz with +200mv (about 1.275v under load, using the Tri-X 290X bios). I've tried Skyrim in Eyefinity so far with quite a few mods, and the temps are on average 5C less. Runs about 60C most of the time.

I really like this meteor light kit, the LEDs are cool and light up my case more than the old cold cathode tube. It's fun to play with all the different options to make them flash by hitting the switch. I made a video of it.



Soon, my H100i will be back from RMA, I'll take some pictures of the inside of the case after I put it in.
 
#11 ·
Cool stuff!
thumb.gif


I've always been an AMD fan, using primarily ATI/AMD GPUs and had an ASUS CHV with a 1090T and Corsair H70 for a short while (which I sold to my brother).

How much did you find your Sapphire 290 for, if you don't mind me asking? I've been eyeing a 290/290X for sometime, but I won't have the funds for it for a while, even if mining wasn't inflating all the prices.
rolleyes.gif


And Sapphire is good stuff; I once had an ASUS 4850 + Sapphire 4850 together in Crossfire. The Sapphire was a reference model, while the ASUS was the fancy TOP factory overclocked model and the Sapphire out-clocked it.
smile.gif


Also, go for watercooling! Your price estimate is about right, I think I spent around $400 for all the parts (and then another $400 for a second 6970 with attached WB, which I sold recently for $200 lol). A lot of money, but it was well worth it. The 6970 stock fan is so loud....

But now one of the fans behind one my rads is going bad, it whirs and whines and grinds, and of its course its in a position that's very hard to get to.
rolleyes.gif
I'd have to take almost everything out of my case to get at it... Eh, I'll replace it when I finally get around to upgrading out of my 775 system.
tongue.gif
 
#13 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by jetpak12 View Post

Cool stuff!
thumb.gif


I've always been an AMD fan, using primarily ATI/AMD GPUs and had an ASUS CHV with a 1090T and Corsair H70 for a short while (which I sold to my brother).

How much did you find your Sapphire 290 for, if you don't mind me asking? I've been eyeing a 290/290X for sometime, but I won't have the funds for it for a while, even if mining wasn't inflating all the prices.
rolleyes.gif


And Sapphire is good stuff; I once had an ASUS 4850 + Sapphire 4850 together in Crossfire. The Sapphire was a reference model, while the ASUS was the fancy TOP factory overclocked model and the Sapphire out-clocked it.
smile.gif


Also, go for watercooling! Your price estimate is about right, I think I spent around $400 for all the parts (and then another $400 for a second 6970 with attached WB, which I sold recently for $200 lol). A lot of money, but it was well worth it. The 6970 stock fan is so loud....

But now one of the fans behind one my rads is going bad, it whirs and whines and grinds, and of its course its in a position that's very hard to get to.
rolleyes.gif
I'd have to take almost everything out of my case to get at it... Eh, I'll replace it when I finally get around to upgrading out of my 775 system.
tongue.gif
I had a 1090T for a year and loved it but once I saw the clocks people were getting on Bulldozer, I knew I had to have one. I stayed away from Bulldozer though because of the low IPC. There's a lot of debate about it, I see a new thread here once a week about Vishera vs Phenom II single thread. However, in my benching experience and general usage experience, as well as gaming, Vishera easily matches or beats Phenom II IPC. A Phenom II will only do 4ghz if you're lucky, whereas Vishera does 5ghz or more on water. Once you clock Vishera to about 4.4ghz it easily beats Phenom II IPC, and gets more fps in games too. Look at any major review site where they log FPS in games and make a bar graph. Among all the Intel and AMD CPUs tested, you'll usually see Phenom IIs at the bottom. They're nice but they're old now.

I love Sapphire cards, they have great build quality and design, they overclock well and they run cool.

I paid $579 for my Tri-X on Newegg. A week later it was $599. Two weeks later it was $649. A week later it was $699, and a week after that it was $749. For a $450 card. I'm happy with the price I paid and the performance I'm getting and I'm saving to get another.

Not going to go water cooling for many reasons, the biggest one being that my case is very cramped as it is with all the fans and accessories. It's a fairly tall case but it's not as wide as a HAF X or whatever. I wouldn't have room for more than one radiator and a reservoir. I can only fit a 240mm rad in the top of my case, and that's not enough to cool an FX-8350 and 2 R9 290s. I really like my case, mostly for aesthetic reasons, and have no intention to change to another one. It looks unique, nobody uses this case. Additionally, I don't want to deal with the maintenance of draining and refilling a loop.

Besides, with the Tri-X cooler my temps are usually around 60C at 1200mhz with 1.275v and 100% fans. They don't throttle til 95C and I usually don't see them artifact due to heat, unlike my 7970. Hawaii can take MUCH higher temps than Tahiti and run safe. I imagine if you ran a 7970 at 95C it would catch on fire. And I'm coming nowhere close to that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Devildog83 View Post

Those a funky my friend, I like. Can you change colors with them?
The lights don't change colors, no. It's this kit: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/22077/lit-380/Logysis_Dual_12_Red_Meteor_Light_Stick_LDKMTRD2.html?tl=g6#blank

They have it in red, blue, green and UV.

Not being able to change the lights isn't that big of a deal because the lights have like 20 different patterns they flash through when you hit the button on the back. I think it said on the box there's 8 different patterns and multiple speeds for each pattern, but it seems like each time you press the button it does something different. The video doesn't do it justice, you'd have to press the button and see for yourself and play with it. Well worth the $14 I spent.
 
#14 ·
Thanks for the info on the 290, I'm glad you were able to get it before the prices went through the roof. My next upgrade is going to be Haswell, but a 290/290X is definitely in the pipeline for me. Hopefully once I get a nice Haswell setup, and give it a couple months, used 290s will be flooding the market with outrageously low prices (one can dream, right?
tongue.gif
)

Glad to hear that the Toxic is working out though on the cooling front for you. The 6970 is just an outrageously hot card. I actually originally got an Accelero cooler for mine, but the one Newegg sent me was damaged and wouldn't fit, so I returned it and just went with full watercooling instead.

And I'm just hassling you about the water cooling.
wink.gif
I understand the space/money requirements, but for me, the H70 was such an amazing cooler that its what really made me want to go for a full custom loop. And plus I had the space in my full tower case. I call the Corsair H-series gateway drugs to watercooling.
biggrin.gif


My brother (the one with the CHV and 1090T) is looking to upgrade his GPU right now, and I'll probably suggest a 8350 to him if he wants to go for an upgrade on the CPU front too. From what I've seen, the 8350 definitely appears to be an upgrade from the PII series. Only thing is that he doesn't really overclock or do hardcore gaming. He's most likely going to replace his current GTX460 with a 750Ti (which performs almost as well as a 6970, lol!), so he probably won't need any kind of CPU upgrade for a while.
 
#16 ·
An update: my H100i came in and I put it in. System is operational.

I was pleasantly surprised because instead of repairing my unit and sending it to me, Corsair sent me a brand new H100i in retail packaging. Only ever had to RMA a graphics card and they never sent me a brand new card, but a factory refurbished one.
Beautiful retail box.




The fan inside the top of my case, radiator is underneath.



Lapped chip





Unit installed. You can also see the cables for my new meteor light kit and how I dealt with them.






Case.



LED works again.


 
#19 ·
I think Black would have looked cooler.
smile.gif
 
#20 ·
So, I got my 2nd R9 290 Tri-X. It was $549.99 with a 10% off promo code, so we got it for $494 before shipping from Newegg. My first one cost $579, so this one was only $50 over MSRP. We used mining money from the last few months to get it.

When I first got it I decided to just put the card in the top slot, replacing my first Tri-X, just to test and make sure the card wasn't dead. It wasn't, I messed with it for a few hours and overclocked it. It has an ASIC of 82.1%. However, it doesn't seem to like to do 1200mhz in Valley, I get artifacts. My first card has an ASIC of 80.4% but will do 1200mhz stably (albeit with a ton of voltage). Anyway, after finding this out I noticed the new card has lower voltage under load with the same offset. So, I decided to try and flash the BIOS. This didn't go well. On my first card, I've been using a 290X Tri-X bios since it will allow me to lower voltage for mining. I tried flashing this bios to the new card and it didn't work, when I rebooted my card was in low-res mode. I tried reinstalling the drivers, but it still ran in low res mode in Windows. I was curious, so I decided to flash the bios backup of my first card to the new card (015.042.000.000.000000). This didn't work either, low res Windows. So finally, I gave up and flashed the original bios it shipped with back to the new card. (015.043.000.001.000000). This may be a bad point to the newer Tri-X cards, it seems like you are extremely limited to what bios you can use, if not outright locked down to the one it shipped with. My older Tri-X (Bought beginning of January) doesn't have this problem.

I ordered more Bitfenix Alchemy Red PCI-E extension cables. I was thinking they were going to come today but they actually came yesterday. However, there was a problem, my girlfriend ordered an EPS 12V extension instead of an 8-pin PCI Express cable. I have no idea what an EPS 12V extension even is, and even less idea why the two cables LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME. So, I ripped open the bags, took Big Red apart and then hooked another power supply PCI cable. I go to put the extensions on and the 6-pin works, but even with the 8-pin the right way, it won't go on. The physical plugs are shaped differently. Then I look at the packaging and see it's an EPS 12V cable. We go online to look for a Bitfenix Alchemy red 8-pin extension cable and they are literally sold out everywhere. Frozencpu doesn't have them, Performancepcs doesn't have them, Aztekcomputers doesn't have them, hell even Amazon doesn't have them. Most of these sites have none in stock and none on order. So, we ordered one on Amazon and they expect it to ship in 2 to 4 weeks. This means my machine won't look pretty enough to take pictures of for a while.

I've done some light benching so far and something seems to be borked with my system. I have both cards in it now. CrossfireX is enabled. Cards overclock fine. However, I'm only getting 90 fps in Valley with tess off. I saw people getting like 120 fps with R9 290s in the Valley thread. Granted, they had Intel chips, but would having Intel really make 30 fps difference? I don't think so. I'm not sure what the issue is. I'm getting about 17k in 3dmark11, graphics score is almost 30k, so that seems okay. Game performance is great, even in Eyefinity. It just seems to be Valley that's messed up.
 
#21 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by neurotix View Post

So, I got my 2nd R9 290 Tri-X. It was $549.99 with a 10% off promo code, so we got it for $494 before shipping from Newegg. My first one cost $579, so this one was only $50 over MSRP. We used mining money from the last few months to get it.

When I first got it I decided to just put the card in the top slot, replacing my first Tri-X, just to test and make sure the card wasn't dead. It wasn't, I messed with it for a few hours and overclocked it. It has an ASIC of 82.1%. However, it doesn't seem to like to do 1200mhz in Valley, I get artifacts. My first card has an ASIC of 80.4% but will do 1200mhz stably (albeit with a ton of voltage). Anyway, after finding this out I noticed the new card has lower voltage under load with the same offset. So, I decided to try and flash the BIOS. This didn't go well. On my first card, I've been using a 290X Tri-X bios since it will allow me to lower voltage for mining. I tried flashing this bios to the new card and it didn't work, when I rebooted my card was in low-res mode. I tried reinstalling the drivers, but it still ran in low res mode in Windows. I was curious, so I decided to flash the bios backup of my first card to the new card (015.042.000.000.000000). This didn't work either, low res Windows. So finally, I gave up and flashed the original bios it shipped with back to the new card. (015.043.000.001.000000). This may be a bad point to the newer Tri-X cards, it seems like you are extremely limited to what bios you can use, if not outright locked down to the one it shipped with. My older Tri-X (Bought beginning of January) doesn't have this problem.

I ordered more Bitfenix Alchemy Red PCI-E extension cables. I was thinking they were going to come today but they actually came yesterday. However, there was a problem, my girlfriend ordered an EPS 12V extension instead of an 8-pin PCI Express cable. I have no idea what an EPS 12V extension even is, and even less idea why the two cables LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME. So, I ripped open the bags, took Big Red apart and then hooked another power supply PCI cable. I go to put the extensions on and the 6-pin works, but even with the 8-pin the right way, it won't go on. The physical plugs are shaped differently. Then I look at the packaging and see it's an EPS 12V cable. We go online to look for a Bitfenix Alchemy red 8-pin extension cable and they are literally sold out everywhere. Frozencpu doesn't have them, Performancepcs doesn't have them, Aztekcomputers doesn't have them, hell even Amazon doesn't have them. Most of these sites have none in stock and none on order. So, we ordered one on Amazon and they expect it to ship in 2 to 4 weeks. This means my machine won't look pretty enough to take pictures of for a while.

I've done some light benching so far and something seems to be borked with my system. I have both cards in it now. CrossfireX is enabled. Cards overclock fine. However, I'm only getting 90 fps in Valley with tess off. I saw people getting like 120 fps with R9 290s in the Valley thread. Granted, they had Intel chips, but would having Intel really make 30 fps difference? I don't think so. I'm not sure what the issue is. I'm getting about 17k in 3dmark11, graphics score is almost 30k, so that seems okay. Game performance is great, even in Eyefinity. It just seems to be Valley that's messed up.
The EPS 12v is for the 8-pin CPU power. They are pinned differently I am sure.
 
#22 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Devildog83 View Post

The EPS 12v is for the 8-pin CPU power. They are pinned differently I am sure.
Ah, that thing. I just run the power supply cable for 8-pin and 4-pin behind my motherboard anyway, you can barely see them both plugged in at the top because my radiator covers them. Not sure why you'd need a sleeved extension for it.

Thanks for telling me, I didn't realize what it was.
 
#23 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by neurotix View Post

Ah, that thing. I just run the power supply cable for 8-pin and 4-pin behind my motherboard anyway, you can barely see them both plugged in at the top because my radiator covers them. Not sure why you'd need a sleeved extension for it.

Thanks for telling me, I didn't realize what it was.
I have my extension just because it allows me to route it nicely across the bottom and up the back side tucked away so I don't have to cross the mother board diagonally. If I could see it I would replace it with a full cable like my PCI-E and 24 pin.

 
#24 ·
So, Big Red is going Intel.

As much as I like my FX-8350, I am absolutely tired of getting very low benchmark scores in old 3dmark benchmarks.

Additionally, I see people with Crossfire 290s in the Valley thread getting 120 fps on Extreme HD whereas the best I've done with my system is 92 fps. I guess having PCI-E 3.0 and vastly higher IPC on Intel really makes that much of a difference, 30 fps is huge. The weird thing is that with one 290 I can do 70 fps in Valley at 1200mhz, but with two cards I only get 90 fps. In Eyefinity at 5760x1080 it's a different story.

1200mhz single


1100mhz CrossFireX


It's weird that I would get close to double the performance at 5760x1080p but way less than double on ExtremeHD. I've heard that higher resolutions is where Hawaii shines and this seems to prove it.

So anyway, I'm getting an i7 4770k and an ASUS ROG Maximus VI Hero. They should be here sometime this week. I promise I will take plenty of pictures of the teardown and rebuild.

I love AMD and I will continue to buy their GPUs, APUs in laptops and so on. The price/performance can't be beat. However, with 2 290s and 3 monitors it really does seem that Vishera is too slow and outdated to maximize performance.
 
#25 ·
Alright, I promised I wouldn't do this, but these things are too cool.













Still waiting on 1 red PCI-E 8-pin extension, who knows when I'll get it.
 
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