Sabz5150

Pretty case, but IMHO my Stacker owns all



23"x 9"x 21.2" = MASSIVE

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lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 2007-09-24 10:32 /dev/thisissparta -> /dev/null

reikoshea

MODTHEBOX.COM - Canada's Premier Case Modding Source - Reviews - Thermaltake Kandalf LCS

This is the case one of the guys at work has...its fuckin bayad...

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endlesszeal

you could probably fit a couple of chinese acrobats in those.

seriously, i probably wouldnt be able to lift any of those two if they were fully loaded with a water cooling system, hard drives and multiple gfx cards.

Sabz5150

The Stacker is 35 pounds EMPTY.

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endlesszeal

the cm690 is almost half that. the kandalf one is 50. holy cow.

Sabz5150

LAN party cases these are not. I'm glad this thing has casters just for maintenance purposes.

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GSRCRXsi

yea my case easily weighs like 75 lbs lol. but empty its VERY light, being that its all alluminum.

but ive gotten bitten by the game bug. never thought i would, but i have. i picked up my 6th HDD. another 320GB IDE drive. divided into a 100GB windows partition for games, and a 200GB partition for DVR storage. then i have my other drives, another 320 for the linux OS, and 4x500GB drives for DVD storage. but i think im going to consolidate those for 2x1TB drives, maybe 3x750's, depending on price. i definitely want more drive space in a smaller package. im already planning a new vid card. the 8800GT is great bang for the buck, but i need better performance in crysis, lol. ill probably go with the 260GTX core 216. the version with 216SPs. should be sweet.

ive also picked up a SWEET keyboard mouse solution for the frontend. before i would just take my wireless keyboard and mouse from the backend out to the living room, but the range sucks balls so i always had to sit real close. i do have a media center remote for the living room, but it doesnt help me when im at the desktop or at the terminal. plus moving my keyboard and mouse back and forth just got lame anyway. so i bought the keyboard/touchpad combo made by logitech for the PS3. its bluetooth. so i bought a tiny USB bluetooth adapter and it tucks behind the front panel nicely. all i had to do was download the bluetooth package and edit some config files and it worked perfectly. i was worried bacause its made for the PS3 and not a PC, but it works all the same. and having the touchpad all in one is really handy. its kind of like your setup sabz. its called the MediaBoard Pro. whole setup with the KB and BT adapter was like 60 bucks. not bad

heres it is Newegg.com - Logitech Cordless MediaBoard Pro for PS3

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endlesszeal

man, you guys are seriously so lucky. i hope to build one of those media centers soon and upgrade my rig to nehalem or shanghai, depending on price/performance.

yeah ive read that those gtx are now actually worth what nvidia is charging with every driver release. i love the new set that enable physx on the 8xxx series and up. you can definately tell on games that use that engine.

keep us posted.

GSRCRXsi

update lol

well recently i upgraded some hardware and figured it was time to upgrade and expand my loop a little. like many people i bought a RF case when they were cheap, only paid 50 bucks for it so i had no problems cutting it all up. and with a case as huge as the RF case, i wanted to have everything internal.

so i started out with a MCR320 up top like most people do and with an MCP350 pump w/ petras top it was cooling my CPU and 8800GT just fine. well i picked up a GTX 280 and figured i'd expand my loop a bit to account for the extra heat. so in came a Laing D5 pump and an MCR220 rad but there wasnt a good place for it stock. so i decided to cut out a hole for it in the bottom. i had to remove the 3.5" bays but oh well, i wasnt using them anyway. i also had to cut the floor out of the 5.25" bays as the rad was too tall with the tubing fittings. again its no big deal to lose 1 5.25" bay.

i spent a good deal of time thinking out placement and parts. the GTX 280 has the Dtek unisink and the GFX2 waterblock (recycled form the 8800GT). this is a great combo, and ive very happy with the looks and functionality. i also decided to use 38mm 2000 RPM Scithe fans on the 220 not only for better cooling, but also to help even out the airflow since i have 4 relatively low CFM fans pulling air out. case pressure is probably slightly negative. i also used 7/16" tubing and it was a PITA to install but i found using some hand soap as lube helped alot, especially on the plastic fittings. i probably didnt even need the zip ties with how tight everything was, but it made me feel better having them, im even missing a couple lol.

here's some pics. let me know what you think! (yes i know wires are messy but its the best i could do with this case and the amount of components installed, although it could be worse)

i get about P13000 3DMark vantage score (is that good?)





enjoy. and

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endlesszeal

Sweet Jesus that is awesome! You can try hiding the wires behind the mobo try. My CM690 has a cutout near the bottom of the PSU and i routed all my wires through there and electrial taped and zip-tided them all down. It still looks like crap though. Its an art. Otherwise looks solid man. Id probably get a kill-watt or something to see how much your stuff is actually drawing because you got a lot of high end stuff and fans. Im not sure that earthwatt can handle it, especially with the new gfx card.

Btw, interested in selling the 8800gt?

endlesszeal

ps the vantage scores about right for stock gtx280 and overclocked q6600.

GSRCRXsi

i dont know, the PSU is 650W and seems to be doing fine. we'll see, if i have issues i may upgrade the PSU.

but the 8800gt i sold to my brother.

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reckedracing

why do people overclock and water cool, as opposed to just getting a beefier machine to begin with?
honest question

YBLEGAL

What happens when you've bought the highest performing component out there and it's still not enough? The answer: overclock.

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TurboMirage

i bet you guys spend more time working on these machines than actually playing any game.

and unless you are playing 5 instances of these games at the same time i dont see the need for all of this.

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endlesszeal

the people who upgrade every cycle are benchmarkers; like dragging racing, but with LN2. some just like to have all the eye candy turned up on higher res than 1080p. or maybe just the next game that comes out is too taxing and need a significant bump like crysis. this is especially true for graphics card that have a usual life-span of 6-8 months before something new comes out and stomps on it.

and to answer overclocking, its to get more performance for less. example, the newest intel extreme processor i7 965 is (usually are) $1000 and clocked at 3.2ghz. however, you can get a $270 i7 920 chip 2.6ghz and overclock it to 4.0ghz with the two chips being especially the same except a few minor details. but for benchmarkers, they usually get the highest chips because they sometimes overclock even further for the bragging rights. lastly, if your stuff is critical say making a movie for a production company or server, overclocking IS NOT recommended because it can cause data corruptuion.

Calesta

Niiiiiiiiiiice

I don't think I'll bother to watercool any more video cards though... the cost to do so is more than just upgrading to the next higher model.

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GSRCRXsi

gtx 280 will future proof me for a while. the stock cooler is less effective and is louder. and decent air coolers take up too much space (slots i mean). which is why i chose to water cool this card. plus i can easily overclock it and not worry about temps. the card idles at 35C and barely touches 45 with load on stock clocks. and for a card that can work at 100C and still be ok (GPUs have higher thermal thresholds) it gives me plently of headroom.

as for the question of building a beefier machine vs. overclock. my quad is clocked at 3.6GHz. which isnt spectacular by any means but its pushing the limits of what this chip can do and still be stable. some of the 45nm chips (quads) can get over 4GHz, but i dont have the need to upgrade at this point. im happy with everything as it is for now. but still at 3.6 GHz, its already outperforming the stock extreme chips that are priced $1000+. so the couple hundred i spent on the water loop is worth it to me.

and above all. i just like tinkering with shit. its the same reason i built my track car even though i could just buy a faster car stock.

mike, the cost to water cool the vid card was cheaper that you think. i think the WB/unisink combo was only like 70 bucks. and on a card where the next best model is only the GTX 295. but thats ~500. i picked up this one used for 275.

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Calesta

True- I guess I was thinking about when I bought my 8800GTS early last year. The cost of G92 water blocks was right around $100. Selling the G92 and then spending another $100 on a better card would have yielded more performance than overclocking what I had. That's been my experience with most late model video cards. If you have one of the latest like you do, water cooling is definitely economical. For me, I'm just going to pick up another MSI 8800GTS. I still have more than enough airflow through my case to keep the video cards cool.

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anny

very nice ,I also want to upload some pics of mine !

endlesszeal

lol it used to be true but if nvidia continues to do what theyve been doing, you have nothing to worry about. the 8800gts 512mb that came out almost 2 years ago is still in product rotation and just being renamed like crazy from the 8800gts -> 9800gtx ->9800gtx+ ->gts250 and is STILL their middle range card. 2 years is ancient for video cards. so i think the gtx260/280 models will be up there for a while longer.

GSRCRXsi

hai guise

small upgrades


8GB ram now w/ ram cooler
1000w PSU (got a good deal not needed i know)
and tucked a bunch of wires.

i also got rid of the PVR-500 tuner card. ive ditched linux for now as i got frustrated with the nVidia drivers and rebooting to play games was a PITA. for what i am doing the built in MC in Win7 is working fine. i just cant stream live TV over the network (why they havent added that functionality is beyond me) without an extender, oh and you cant use another windows MC PC as an extender, lame.

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kriz

LOL @ the GeekSquad mouse pad =P

Hmm... Looks like I'm gonna have to post some pics of my setup...

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GSRCRXsi

well i DO work for GS lol.

but that setup is no longer accurate as i have moved.

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hondasaurus

you ain't got nothing on cardboard! lightweight