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Username?BlackAce

Age/Occupation/Location?
16, most of my time is spend on my computer (that also includes helping other people out for money) but I got school as well. Location is Amsterdam, Holland

How long have you been a member of Guru3D forums?
Since December 2003

What did you first come here for?
A friend showed me some of his clock speeds and told me all about overclocking. I was sort of interested in getting more than I paid for, so I went to Google and went searching for forums that have information about overclocking. I kept searching until I found some very useful topics on this forum called Guru3D. I thought, oh why not register, maybe for future problems or questions I can come here. After a while I found out that it was a very big and nice community.

What do you mainly use the system for?
Its pretty much a gaming and multimedia machine. I've tweaked Windows to my style for best performance and hardware is overclocked.

How much did you spend on the rig?
About $2000

How often do you update/buy a new rig?
Update it every 6-12 months and a complete new rig about every 3 years.

What components are used? (including any overclocks.)

• Chieftech Dragon Silver Case with Sidewindow
• Iiyama Vision Master Pro450 19 CRT
• LG DVD-R
• AOpen CD-RW
• Pentium 4C 3.2Ghz @ 3.67 (Cooled by standard boxed cooler. It works even better then my Thermaltake Polo735, which I removed.)
• ASUS P4P800
• ATi Radeon 9800 Pro @ 430core/730mem (Cooled by a Zalman HP-10, passive cooling, less noise)
• (2x512MB, DC) 1GB Corsair XMS LL @ 2-3-2-5 (8cm fan blowing on it)
• WesternDigital 7200Rpm 8MB Cache, 120GB ATA133
• Audigy 2ZS Platinum Pro w/ Logitech Z-5300 Speakers
• ToPower PSU 450Watts

Why ATI or NVIDIA, why Intel/AMD?
For the generation card I got, ATi just had better DirectX9 support, so its more future proof (Thats what I thought when choosing a card when the recent generation cards (e.g. 6800) werent available yet.) Before that I had an Nvidia FX5600 which now is in my P3 700Mhz PC.
I chose Intel cause Ive always been with Intel and it never failed on me. My P3 700Mhz is still running strong for 6 years and can play games with a FX5600 pretty well (Low settings of course)
Im not really a fan boy of a particular brand, its just that I take which card performs better.

Does the system work as expected?
At the beginning no, I had a problem with my 9800 Pro and Aquamark. It was scoring about ~20k so I went to Guru3D, posted my problem, and got a response quite fast. In private messages, I recieved a message explaining things. This was very useful. Ever since I did some things that were written in the message, I've no problems and am getting a nice ~54k

What's the best part of your rig?
ATi 9800 Pro, nuff said! It has a 9800XT Core, and overclocks to 430 core on air.
Why not my CPU? Well its not a great overclocker.

What sucks and should not have been bought?
CPU! Yes 3.2Ghz is fast but they dont overclock as well due to high multiplier. I should of gone with a 2.8C, they tend to overclock pretty nicely.

Modified cases/video cards/other? Did you do it yourself? Walk us through it.
I just bought a Chieftec Dragon in silver colour and a side panel with window. I never get to modding, probably just too lazy and lack skill! I bought some wire sleeving, UV light, blue and green cold cathodes, fan guard, lighted case fans and voila: a good looking PC without having any risks.
My videocard has a Zalman Heatpipe cooler on it! Yeah all this is done by me, just buying the stuff and mounting it, lol.

3DMark scores?

Future upgrades?
Im thinking of stepping over to water-cooling, (Asetek Waterchill) that has been reviewed on the main Guru3D page,
and also a 6800GT AGP. My next system in about a year, maybe 2, will be top of the line as it was a year ago when I bought the parts for this PC.