Reader's Rigs - Pupp3tmast3r

Readers Rigs 52 Page 1 of 1 Published 2005-04-24 07:00 by Dave Crewe

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Pupp3tmast3r's Rig

Welcome back. Today we're taking a look at Pupp3tmast3r's pre-modded system.

The man is 17 years of age, and as such is still a student. He has been a member of the Guru3D Forums for just over a year now, and you can often find him in the games section. That is in fact why he first came to Guru, to check out a Quake3 mod.

He uses his 2000 system for gaming and surfing the internet. Let's take a look:

A nice arrangement. Looks to be very tidy. Maybe he tidied it especially before he took the pictures? Who knows. :-P

That LCD looks smart, but Pupp3tmast3r doesn't think much of it. When he bought it, it was top of the range, but as you all know, technology progresses so fast these days that this monitor is now rather slow. He is confined to using a flat-screen rather than a CRT due to space restrictions, so a new LCD is looking to be the next upgrade.

He bought the system about a year ago, and has been upgrading anything he doesn't like ever since. At first he had a Ti4200, but then found newer games didn't run so well, so purchased a new card, and that card is this one: A 5900XT

Here's the full interior view:

'Im currently using an Intel Pentium IV 2.6 Ghz, running at 3.0 Ghz. Theres 512 MB of Kingston Ram in there. As said before, I started out with a TI 4200, and now Im using an Nvidia 5900 XT. The graphics card is not overclocked at the moment. The second upgrade I did was a new motherboard. I had a really poor one before this one, so I bought a better one. Im now using an Asus P4P800-VM. I also used the Onboard sound feature of my old motherboard, but I decided to buy a Creative Audigy 2 instead. With the 6.1 (Creative 6700) speaker set, its just a mind blowing sound experience. I also bought a new case with an 480 watts Thermaltake PSU. The only thing I upgraded after that where: a 160 GB HD, a DVD Burner + Player and a new mouse (MX-510). As you can see in the pics, Ive got a special looking cooler in the back. I think its called a turbine cooler, its very effective. Ive got a fan controller in the front. When I set the turbine cooler at full speed, the system sounds like a vacuum cleaner. Thats why I always keep it on half of the speed. I also have a normal 80x80mm fan in the side, that emits a bright blue light. In the front there is a big 120x120mm cooler. My temperatures are always low, even after I had overclocked the CPU. Theres just a standard cooler on the CPU.'

The system runs a treat now, but it hasn't always been that way. His old motherboard wouldn't recognise his CPU properly, and that's the main reason he bought a new one. When he purchased the 5900, his old 300w PSU couldn't cope, and so he bought the TT PSU with its fancy lights. Looks pretty cool, and more importantly, can run that new video card perfectly.

I asked Pupp3tmast3r why he went with the combination of Intel and Nvidia (I'm always curious to know people reasons behind this) and he replied that this was just the way it turned out, and it works really well. He was quick to add that he wasn't a fanboy, (someone who very much favours one brand over another) but was much more concerned with the performance. That, my Gurus, is the way it should be. :-)

What's a system like this scoring in benchmarks?

- Aquamark: 36,612
- 3DMark'01SE: 13,551
- 3DMark'03: 6006
- 3DMark'05: 1000

What's in store next for the system? Well Pupp3tmast3r is looking at a new 17" LCD, as previously mentioned, and is also keen on the idea of watercooling. But also, like most of us, he just wants his games to run well, so when they don't, well guess what? It's upgrade time again! :-)

Thanks to Pupp3tmast3r for taking the time to answer some questions and take some snaps.

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