Mando

Age/Occupation/Location?

I am 32 and work for a local company as an IT Support Engineer/network engineer. I also build custom rigs to order for private customers from time to time using the sweetest bits of kit available. Anyone needing a standard PC I send them to Dell.

How long have you been a member of Guru3D forums?

I’ve been a member of the forums for about 3 months I think, although I have visited the website for longer reading articles & reviews.

What did you first come here for?

RivaTuner, I think or a review of hardware most probably. I liked the site in general & looked into the forums and I was hooked.

What do you mainly use the system for?

My PC is used for a number of uses but mainly gaming (sp & mp). Other roles include DVD authoring, Internet surfing & terminal services to work. It is also a part of my fiancés render farm for Ultra Fractal (when I’m not here!). Her PC is a 3.2 prescott and is identical to mine apart from the gfx card (hers is a 9200se 128mb shes not a gamer) and her choice of case (Apple ripoff).

How much did you spend on the rig?

When I built it originally it came to £1300 (minus monitor) approximately 18months ago (with 9800pro ~All in wonder). Last purchase for it was the 4x 80mm Zalman fans and my Gainward golden Sample 2400.

How often do you update/buy a new rig?

Every 12/18months if the CPU has increased to double what I have, if not I don’t bother, unless some “upgrades” fall by my wayside ;);)

What components are used?

Lian Li PC-65 (with Lian Li Alu Drive covers)
Enermax 465W PSU
Abit IC7-g (Intel 875p, PAT)
Corsair Value Select PC3200 ram (2x512mb Dual Channel mode) (stock)
Intel P4 3ghz Northwood (stock)
Maxtor D9 SATA HDD 160gb
Audigy 2ZS / Zalman 5.1 Headphones
Gainward 6800GT Golden Sample 256mb DDR3 (420/1120) Stock cooling (AGPx8)
Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 920 19” CRT monitor
Icy Box 123gb usb2/firewire enclosure
MS Media pro Keyboard/intellimouse optical
Everglide Giganta gaming surface/ mouse bungie
Asus 16X DVDROM
Nec 16x DL DVD-+RW

Why ATI or NVIDIA, why Intel/AMD?

Ive been at this caper for a while now and my first pride and joy was dual 12mb Voodoo II`s Sli`d up with my g200/p2 333 S1. I’ve been a NV fan boy since my trusty tnt1 16mb until the range of fx5x series came out. Due to the disappointing performance etc at the time I decided to take the plunge and buy ATI (Sapphire). I bought my first 9800aiw and it was page tearing. RMA support from Sapphire was how could you say lacking! After 3 replacements (from supplier) and 1yr later it packed in again so I decided enough was enough and went back to NVidia.
I’m glad I did as I have had a series of customers rigs come back with faulty ram chips on the sapphires (9800pro/9600Xt, 9800XT). My beef is with Sapphire not ATI I must add. But all in all it put me off ATI after blowing nearly £300 on the AIW when it was released. It turned out it was faulty RAM chips yet again on all 3 cards.
I use Intel because profession is involved in 100% Intel hardware and it makes sense to for me (Dell PowerEdge servers & Dimension clients).

Does the system work as expected?

Yer but that’s down to the builder :-D

What's the best part of your rig?

The golden sample has to be my best part ATM (last upgrade). I didn’t think it would be a MAJOR boost but holy potatoes I was wrong!

What sucks and should not have been bought?

I started with a Vantec Aeroflow HS/Fan with TMD. It worked well enough but kept sucking in the rising hot air from my 9800AIW and pushing temps over 65C in games after 30 mins or so. I hate having to open the side of the case to play games.

Modified cases/video cards/other? Did you do it yourself? Walk us through it.

The only modding I had done was stealthing the cabling as much as I could manage. I used to have cold cathodes etc and led fans but in all honesty I felt like a boy racer in PCs. I use my rig as an example to potential customers, and not many like LED glows and colour oozing out of their rigs.
I replaced all the Lian Li fans with Zalman 80mm silent fans also.
I have the card clocked up to 420/1120 and it works fine without a hiccup.

3DMark scores?

3D Mark 05 6000 ish (haven’t benched it for a while I find that real in game performance counts more than benchies)
3D Mark 03 is 13276

Future upgrades?

Im considering replacing my PSU with a Zalman silent psu and replacing the gainwards noisy fans/hs with a Zalman apart from that I have forced myself to stick with what I have until BTX etc and 1066mhz dual core CPUs arrive.