Carlos A. Lara

Age/Occupation/Location?

I'm 25 years old, I’m System Engineer/CCNA. I live in the Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo.

How long have you been a member of Guru3D forums?

Well, I’ve been a visitor for more than 6 years, but recently I made the decision to become a member of your prestigious forums.

What did you first come here for?

A friend who’s a maniac making overclocks and performance enhancements to his computer.

What do you mainly use the system for?

Mainly for games, but for work too.

How much did you spend on the rig?

Beyond $2,000.

How often do you update/buy a new rig?

That all depends on the situation and what the market can offer. Before I make any decision I prefer to read all the reviews sites like anandtech, tomshardware, sharkyextreme and of course GURU3D. Normally I spend every 3-5 months.

What components are used?

My piece of cake is...
AMD 64 3500+ @ 2.8GHz (255X11) SOCKET 939 VENICE CORE
DFI LAN PARTY NFORCE 4 SLI-DR SOCKET 939
1GB (512X2) OCZ PC400 VX (VOLTAGE EXTREME) DUAL CHANNEL
2-36GB WD RAPTOR DRIVE 10,000RPM 8MB CACHE 5.5MS ON RAID 0 WITH SILICON IMAGE CONTROLLER.
2-NVIDIA 6800GT 256MB DDR3 PCIex 16X ON SLI 350/1100 @440/1200 OC
SOUND CARD CREATIVE AUDIGY 2 ZS
NEC DVD-DUAL LAYER 16X DRIVE
DIGI-DOC WITH BLUE SCREEN
WATER COOLER  FULL CUSTIMIZE 3/8 TUBES, ASETEK VIDEO CARD BLOCK, AND PUMP, THE BLOCK OF THE CPU IS KOOLANCE 3/8. ADITIONAL  RESERVED 3/8 ON 5/14 ON THE FRONT PANEL. WITH DUAL RADIATOR ON THE TOP AND 1 SINGLE RADIATOR ON THE BACK 120MM.
TEMPERATURE ON IDLE STATE ARE 32C ON FULL LOAD CONDITION 40C OF COURSE OC.
MONITOR DELL 20.1 WSXGA WIDE SCREEN 12MS LCD DVI/VGA
POWER ENERMAX EG701-AX 24P

Why ATI or NVIDIA, why Intel/AMD?

I was an Nvidia fan up to the Ti4600, then when ATI released the 9700 and 9800 I crossed to ATI brand. Then, after Nvidia released SLI with the Nforce4 I went with them again. Talking about CPU, why AMD and not Intel? For my personal use, there is no doubt that an AMD CPU is the superior processor on the market watts per watts, and mhz per mhz. Of course not even mentioning about the performance in games and the temperature is completely stable unlike the new p4 775 - 120-115 watts of dissipations is horrible.

Does the system work as expected?

OF COURSE!! Nice and smoothly.

What's the best part of your rig?

The watercooling, my video cards, and of course my case.

What sucks and should not have been bought?

Nothing!

3DMark scores?

3dmark05 = 11,050

Future upgrades?

Well, I’m planning to buy the new AMD x2 4400+ with Toledo core 1mb cache each one, and then 2x 7800GTX. It looks like the future for the gaming industry is obviously the dual core processor or multi core. What else. I expect no more than 1 year away we’ll see games supporting dual cores CPUs.