NZXT build
 

With the recent fiasco of a ill fated laptop purchase I needed something else to occupy my mind. I'm going to start what I would call a semi-old school socket 775 game rig. All the cool guys had one of these back in the day...unfortunately I wasnt one of them lol.

Going to begin with a NZXT Phantom 410 mid-tower case. Looks kind of orange in the pic's, but it is a beautiful blood red color. No particular hurry or direction with this one. I have a q6600 and a Q9550 quad cpu as well as a Evga 790i SLI or an Intel DX48BT2 mb to choose from. Just going to wing it as I go...

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...75build001.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...75build002.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...75build003.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...75build004.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...75build005.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...75build006.jpg

Looks like fun Rick, going 775 old school on us .................. :thumbsup:

gotta think the 790 and the Q9550 would be epic

Yeah, but the q6600 would be more authentic for the period. Thinking maybe throw in those two beastly Zotac 8800 GT's for good measure...whadaya think? :)


http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...75build008.jpg

Yea with the orange lights FTW ........... Have two of them sitting here as well ..... :laughing:

I remember nuttin but problems with the 790i.

Has to be better than the Intel ................. :ohcrap:

Don't recall anything specific...while not the absolute best at the time they were/are pretty good clockers. Mine served me well with a e8400.

I may pair the Q9550 with the Intel board sometime down the road...it is more of a workhorse than a clocker for sure.

The really hip guys were into watercooling their uber-clocked gamers...not sure what I want to do on this front. While watercooled video cards had not made a debut yet, these GTX 280's would love another go at it. Feel free to throw some idea's out here folks. :)


http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...75build009.jpg

Looking good there bud!

ps. superman i think you may be thinking the old school stander 780i from evga, then the FTW fixed most of the probs and 790i is jsut the DDR3 ver of it...
i am not sure i could be wrong...

I have a 240 laying around some where if you need one

Just need to find it :ohcrap:

Ok, 790i and q6600 it is. Must do some research on OC settings for this chip...never messed with one before. :)


http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...75build011.jpg

That retro board is looking swank ... some neon green Maham FTW

Brings back memories akk the crap we had to go through to keep the NB from melting ......... :laughing:

Looky what I found, highest I could get stable on water ...... :blush:

P45 setting though ...... :ohcrap:

CPU Ratio = 9
FSB Frequency = 440
PCI-E Frequency = 100
FSB Strap to North Bridge = 333
DRAM Frequency = 1069
DRAM Timing Control = Manual - 5-5-5-15
DRAM Static Read Control = Auto
DRAM Read Training = Auto
Memory OC Charger = Disabled
AI Clock Twister = Lighter
AI Transaction Booster = Manual - Performance 12
CPU Voltage = 1.595
CPU GTL Voltage Reference = .65x
CPU PLL Voltage = 1.60
FSB Termination Voltage = 1.40
DRAM voltage = 2.2
Northbridge Voltage = 1.50
Southbridge voltage = 1.20
PCI-E SATA voltage = Auto
Load Line Calibration = Enabled
CPU Spread Spectrum = Auto
PCI-E Spread Spectrum = Auto
CPU Clock Skew = Auto
NB Clock Skew = Auto
CPU Margin Enhancement = Optimized Mode
C1E = Disabled
Max Cupid Value Limit = Disabled
Intel Virtualization Mode = Enabled
CPUTM Function = Disabled
Execute Disable Bit = Enabled

Thanks buddy - This one is the 790i Ultra SLI...got it up and running and will dive in to see what happens.

Ok, here is the first attempt. What should I be expecting out of this chip?

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...75/q6600-1.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...00-1WPrime.jpg

[COLOR="Silver"]Here we go with less voltage and still decent overclock...

[http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...00-2WPrime.jpg/COLOR]

Again with a little memory bump...

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...memorybump.jpg

Wow that was fast,

It is a Go stepping so that is a good thing
Heres the voltages I used for the clocks
the 3.6 voltage was Prime stable the 3.8 could bench everything and the 3.96 could do SPI1M, PI fast and Wprime 32M, AM and 01

1.475 =3.6
1.55 = 3.8
1.595 = 3.96

That is all the data I have :ohcrap:

Ok, I bumped the speed a little and left the volts alone. Any more will require more voltage which will in turn bring more heat. Let's see what it does on air in it's current tune. Back shortly...:)


http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...espeedbump.jpg

Nice temps and low volts, May have a sweet chip on your hands .......... :thumbsup:

Hold on...that's on the bench with the Boreas atm lol. Getting ready to try it with the Frio. ;)

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...75build012.jpg

:laughing:

Not bad...think it is worth upping voltage for a few more MHz?


http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...WPrimeFrio.jpg

Push till it's eyes start bleeding ........... :blink:

Found my old Mushkin ram I used to run in this board. It seems to be happiest here so I'm going to leave it be for the time being. Loading Steam and Far Cry 3 right now...we'll see what the little cards can do. Oh yeah, a fresh hdd and OS install as well. :good:


http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...0-4Mushkin.jpg

Well, the 8800 GT's would work for a game like Call of Duty, but in Far Cry 3 they just won't cut the mustard. The GTX 295's are another matter...very nice game play with high settings. :)

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...SLIclocked.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...1-32-09-25.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...1-31-36-10.jpg

Sorry, forgot the framerate overlay in the screenshots. Ran around 35/65fps.

damn it! witchy beat me to it! i was gonna give you the settings lol

oh btw ricks, i may have a water block for the NB not sure if you are going water or not i'll dig it out if you need it

Thanks kiki, but I'm going to avoid it if possible on this one. :)

Kool Stuff Rick, quad 295's doin the job .......... :thumbsup:

Cool, the 295's still got mustards. :thumbsup:

Vantage run required to crush the MSI lappy score ............ :thumbsup:

May have to rethink this...I suspect there is a problem with this chip. No amount of tweaking will allow it to exceed 3100MHz on the Evga mb using water or air. It hits a wall there and simply refuses to boot. I have tried it in the Intel mb and it does not like it at all straying from default settings. I believe it corrupted the OS so I reinstalled, but it makes no difference. :thumbdown:

That's a drag, must have pounded on it a bit to hard in the day. did you try dropping the 9550 in ........... ?

I suspect you are right...I just recently picked these two up. Was watching it a moment ago at default settings with only Realtemp and cpu-z windows open on desktop...at idle it was drawing nearly 26% load lol.

EDIT: I was letting it run and walked in to check on it...it's now drawing up to 60% load at idle haha. :taunt:

Q9550 is muy better... :good:


http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...9550-38GHz.jpg

heck yea, is that on the TEC ?

Yeah, still fiddling with it. Going to swap ram and see what it will do. :good:

Runs very smoothly, but doubt I will be able to run it further on air. This Boreas doesnt get as cold as it once did.


http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...Q9550-4GHz.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...9550-42GHz.jpg

70C ......... there prolly is another 1 or 2 hundred Mhz on the table if it does not take obsene voltage to get there .............. :thumbsup:

Same here, I was thinking X48 and 45nm CPU would be good. Throw the Q6600 on the nvidia chipset ;)


IIRC the 680 and the 780 were just rebadges...


EDIT: Holy Crap, its only been 5 years since the 780i came out???

EDIT EDIT: Missed the WHOLE thread. Going to read it all now :)



Very nice. 4GHz runnable?

(I just spent the last 15 minutes researching nForce chipsets, what a stroll down memory lane :) )

The q6600 is pretty much toast....nothing wrong with the 790I tho. Scaled the Q9550 back to 3200MHz and installing a Steam game atm. :good:

Nice, keep us posted.

Was the high idle CPU usage from the bum chip or is it just that the chips are so out of date?

(I assume you had indexing and all that kind of stuff turned off?)

While not as originally intended, this project turned out rather nice. It is stellar at most games and latest crop are doable. Just wish I had some other cards available...these GTX 295's just run too dang hot. I would trade them for a couple of GTX 460's or the like if the opportunity arose. ;)

I guess I would rate this one as a decent mid-level gamer and a all around general workhorse. Need to find a good home for this one.

NZXT Phantom 410 case
Evga 790i Ultra SLI mb
Q9550 cpu
Evga GTX 295 (x2)
Thermaltake Frio
8GB ram
WD 1TB hdd
LiteOn dvd burner
Corsair 850w psu
Win 7 64 Ultimate


http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q.../NZXTspecs.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...erformance.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...775/System.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...1-04-59-69.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...build001-1.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...build002-1.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...build003-1.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...build004-1.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...build005-1.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/q...build006-1.jpg