Page 1

Kyaner's Rig (Update.)

We first checked out Kyaner's rig way back on August 8th 2003, you can find that article here: http://www.guru3d.com/article/readersrig/64/  Today we're doing an update.

First things first as always. Kyaner's 27, lives in Greece, and does... absolutely nothing all day haha. But on a serious note, he's just completed his mandatory 1-year stint in the army, so he's having a break from it all for a while, which is fair enough. :-) He's a long time member of the forums, having been around since 2002. He first came to Guru for tech help with his 9700Pro - it had corrupted memory.

All images were taken with a camera-phone.

Instead of a guard-dog, Kyaner has a Furby. :-D

The system is mainly used for entertainment and programming, and has cost roughly 1500 euros since it was built. Kyaner builds a new rig every three years from scratch, unless there is something that he is forced to change in his current configuration.

Components used...

• P4 2.4C @ 3.17 w/ Zalman 7000CU
• Abit IC7-G
• Enermax 430W "Whisper Series"
• 2x512MB TwinMOS Speed Premium PC3200
• CM Stacker
• 80GB Maxtor S-ATA
• LG DVDROM
• LG DVDRW 4120B
• Plextor 40x20x40 CDRW
• MSI NX6800
• Pinnacle PC-TV Pro TV Tuner
• SB Audigy 2 Platinum
• Cambridge Soundworks DTT2500 5.1 surround w/ onboard Dolby Digital Decoder
• iiyama vision master pro 454 19"
• HP P1000 PhotoSmart printer
• MGE Nova 1100 AVR UPS hooked up to rig and monitor

Overall, Kyaner thinks his system to be kick ass, and he's soon to hit the 3.2 mark on his good old Zalman 7000CU with stock core voltage. Idle temp 38C, full load at 46C, ambient idle temp 29C with full load at 32C. 
He had to change his midi tower as soon as he came back to Greece, because with that case his idle ambient temp was 38C and that was way too much for him. So he got his CM Stacker tower and is extremely pleased with it. Good temps, lots of space to mess around with and dead silent.

He says his memory is holding him back, he had to change his Corsair because it burnt out on him, so he got the Twinmos which is dirt cheap and runs it at a 5:4 ratio at CAS 2.

Soon to be added is a 74GB Raptor which will be split into partitions - 15GB for his OS, 10GB for the page file and the rest for games. As well as swapping out all his fans for blue LED versions.

Kyaner also had to swap the 9700Pro because he got tired of playing games below the 50fps mark, which is the bare minimum for him. Even though he was very pleased with his ATI card, and wanted to buy another ATI card again, he just couldnt afford the X800 series, plus the fact that he did not want to spend that much money for something that is going to be used for another year or so (until his next full upgrade.) So he got an MSI 6800 which he's been able to fully unlock @ 16/6 without any problems and OCd with the stock cooler to 400/860. He would like to get the memory a bit higher but gets artifacts after the 875Mhz mark. He thinks they might need more voltage, but thats something he's against (volt modding.) 

He really enjoys playing games at 1280x1024 @ 120Hz with a brand new iiyama 19 monitor which he bought for 180 euro (second hand with the purchase receipt 11 months old and barely used!)

So far so good, but is there anything he does not like at all? Well he is a bit biased on the mobo, he had a few misfortunes such as the NB HSF falling off while he was using the PC. It actually ripped off the hooks that were (poorly) attached to the PCB. And the fact that it can't provide over 2.8vdimm to his voltage hungry ram. On the other hand, it's rock solid on a 5:4 overclock.

In terms of benchmark scores, well..

'Honestly I dont really care for 3d mark scores, when I swapped my card I just loaded FarCry and it was running almost at double the fps it was before (from 50-60 it went up to 100fps), that was enough for me.'

;-)

Thanks Kyaner.