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Username?
MikeMK
Age/Occupation/Location?
21 London UK
How long have you been a member of Guru3D forums?
3 years now! Proud member and Guru3d Games Reviewer!
What did you first come here for?
Graphics card reviews for my 9700pro. (what a great card that was!)
What do you mainly use the system for?
Games, Benchmarking, Overclocking, generally tinkering around, oh and writing my Guru3d reviews!
How much did you spend on the rig?
Well... dare I admit to it? Those of you in the 'know' can tell from the specs it comes to £1000's!
How often do you update/buy a new rig?
My rig is in a constant state of progression... always looking for something new to add to it or change. Im in it for the hardware more than the games.
What components are used?
Well, since my last 'readers rigs' alot has changed. The core of the system is the same, A Lanparty SLI-DR, AMD 64 FX-55, Audigy 2 ZS and 2x Western Digital Raptors. However, the CPU has been switched from a Clawhammer to a San Diego core CABCE 0516 stepping for those of you interested. This has allowed me to get alot higher overclocks than the old hammer. Its running 24/7 at 3ghz and will do 3.12ghz perfectly happily. 3.2ghz is my current 'work in progress'! Else where I have switched to 2GB of Crucial Ballistix Tracer, cos games like Battlefield 2 and FEAR are starting to need it, and no doubt more will in the future. I have just upgraded to 2x 7800GTX 512's from my 2 Ultras and they are absolute stunners. My case has also changed to a Coolermaster Stacker to allow me space for watercooling. Oh, and I also have a Viewsonic VP201b 20.1" LCD monitor which is a fantastic monitor. Capable of 1600x1200 which I thought was a necessity for an extreme SLI rig!
Why ATI or NVIDIA, why Intel/AMD?
Well, for me Nvidia and AMD are the fastest combination right now. If that changes, I'll switch back to ATI and/or Intel.
Does the system work as expected?
It works better than expected!!! It absolutely flies!
What's the best part of your rig?
Thats a tough one. I guess it would have to be the 2 GTX 512's which are just insanely powerful and really have no sweat at running high res gaming. FEAR runs at 1600x1200 4xAA 8XAF perfectly, as do other recent games like COD II. On another note, my Matrix Orbital MX6 PLED display has been a great addition. It does way to many things to mention here, but its a great little gadget that is really configurable.I have it monitoring everything from all my voltages to clockspeeds, CPU usage, memory usage, and even running RSS feeds.
What sucks and should not have been bought?
I would look ungrateful if I said anything here! So no, nothing!
Modified cases/video cards/other? Did you do it yourself? Walk us through it.
I guess I should put the watercooling in here. This was pretty insane for a first watercooling project, seeing as there would be a large amount of cash lost if I messed it up. However I took my time and did alot of reading into it and had some great guidance with getting the right parts and setting it up, so thanks to Phrozin and John here at Guru3d, and especially Paul, aka Coolmeister over at coolercases.co.uk for their help! It worked out well in the end, and im running on a custom Danger Den kit. My 2 GPU's are running on DD Maze 4 Low Profile blocks and my FX-55 on a A64 TDX block. My rad is a Black IceExtreme 2.
3DMark scores?
Obviously this rig is fast! So far I have the following:
3dmark 05 - 14,342
3dmark 03 - 34,830
Aquamark 3 - 105,691
But my cards are extremely bottlnecked in all benchmarks, even with my CPU at 3.1ghz.
Future upgrades?
I have a thermochill PA160 radiator sat here that I want to use for a second loop. The idea being to have one loop for the GPU's and one for the CPU. Space is my current problem, Still working out where to fit it! Everything else im very happy with, and wouldnt change, although if AMD came out with a Dual Core chip that was capable of faster speeds than my FX-55 I might be tempted to alleiviate some of that CPU bottleneck.
