Grimmy
02-14-2007, 06:28 PM
Just thought I'd give my first impressions on my new rig I just built and let you all know what I think so far.
Here is the break down of what I got, with my costs:
Thermaltake Armor Jr case-$128.99
EVGA NF68-AR mobo-$249.99
ATI x1959XTX 512Mb vid card-$389.99
Thermaltake 700W PS (W0106RU)-$169.99
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600-$316.00
2G Corsair Dominator Twin2x2048-6400D ram-$248
74F WD Raptor 10,000rpm HD-$159.99
Sony Dvd burner-$29.99
Thermaltake CPU cooler(CL-P0370)-$33.99
Windows XP Pro OS-$139.99
Zippy luminescent keyboard-$34.99
Total-$1937.91
shipping-$38.55
Grand Total-$1976.46
(that Zippy keyboard of for my kvm switch that I have, cheap, small, just what I wanted)
Anyways, I will start with the first part in my list, the case. I'd rate this about a 6/10. I wanted a mid tower, to save room. From all the pics I seen online, I thought I would like it, but after opening the box, and picking it up, it didn't feel as sturdy as I thought it would be. The metal is thin, and where I think there should be metal parts, there is plastic. The 2 doors on the front are somewhat annoying when putting a CD in, but I didn't want to have to open a door to get to the power switch. I do like the east of opening the case, for quick access. The cooling for the case seems to be pretty good. About the only think that it moves out, is the heat from the processor, for my vid card exhausts out the back. Over all, I liked the construction of my Xaser III full size case better. This one will not survive the same beating my old case would.
Next, the motherboard. Setup and performance I will give a 8/10. For some reason I couldn't get the onboard sound to work. I am currently working with tech support (email only :( ) on this issue. I ended up having to take my Audigy 2 card from my old rig and installed it on my new one, and everything worked as it was suppose to. It was enabled in the bios and I had the drivers for it, but no sound. The other problem I had was yesterday, for some reason when I turned the unit on, it wouldn't see any of the hard drives or cd roms. After doing some research, I ended up clearing the CMOS, booting up, and reflashing. My CMOS battery reads 3V in the bios, so I am not sure what happened there, I emailed tech support, and awaiting a responce.
Other then that, I love this board. It has some auto tuning features that I really like, to get the most out of your system, and for me, I haven't OCed before, and this will do it for you and keep your system stable. The construction of the board I though was pretty good. Only complaints, there are 2 sata connectors that you will need a different cable for or you should be able to get to them if you use a full size case. The other was the 8 pin power connector was a little difficult to plug in, when I had the mobo in the case and the heatsink installed.
Another of the features I like that I can tweak my bios right from windows, and the changes will take effect on the next boot up. I like being able to flash from windows, as well as set the speed of my fans depending on temps. I think the bios is really smart and give the user a ton of options, if your a tweaker, but isn't too difficult if your not a tweaker, they have auto for about everything.
Overall, the setup gave this a score of 7, but the performance and all the goodies, outweighed it, so I gave it a 8, but should probably be higher due to the performance. I just spent a lot of time trying to get the onboard sound to work, and just got really fustrated.
For the vid card, I'd have to give 10/10. The performace of this card is exactly what I was looking for. I have tested the card to the mas yet, just finally fired it up in my game last night, and everything was nice and crisp. Temps so far stay nice and low. Only thing I need to watch, is this card is pretty thik. It's close to another slot on my mobo. I do like the fact the card exhausts out the back of the case.
The processor rates 9/10. Yes my system boots fast, but I was hoping faster. It's only running at 2.4GHz, but for the cost, and your pretty much running 2 procs in one, the multitasking I do, this thing just cranks it out, and quickly!!
The ram I'd give 10/10. I love ram that has it's own heatsinks and everything. I hate having to put heatsinks and then hoping it will fit and everything. Again, for the multitasking and as many windows as I have open at one time, this performs just awesome!
The raptor drive I will give a 9/10. This thing is smoking fast! I have transfered and installed many files, and it's almost too fast. Screens pop up and are gone before I have a chance to read anything. The only thing that I find more annoying, it grunts a lot when your doing a lot of stuff on it. But I can only hear it if I don't have my speakers on (playing winamp), so the noise I don't really hear.
The Sony burner, well it's a burner. Nothing fancy, and it's cheap. I'd have to give it a 10. I don't do hardly any burning of anything. It's a plain n simple solution for me.
The thermaltake cpu cooler, I'd have to rate 9/10. I like well designed heatsinks and coolers. About the only thing I would have done different is how it mounts. I am not a fan of plastic, but it did make the install of this way easy. I would have like to have seen some screws or something instead. This thing is pretty good size as well, which between that and how it attaches, lost a point for that. Because of it's size, made one connection for my difficult to make, since I already had it in my case. Other then that, my temps have been staying nice and cool.
Overall, I'd give this system a 8.5/10, just for the troubles I had with the onboard audio, and that one time so far I had a problem on boot up, as well with the case I thought could have been designed a little better. The performance of the unit as a whole exceeds most of my expectations, and I have very pleased with it. After one night of gaming with it, I might have to make it my main gaming rig for my game.
I will make another review once I have the system for a while, and I get more gaming time with it.
Just thought I would let you guys know how things been going for me with my new rig. :thumbs: I have a few more things to get, to make it look "pretty" and then will try to get some pics of everything. :D
Here is the break down of what I got, with my costs:
Thermaltake Armor Jr case-$128.99
EVGA NF68-AR mobo-$249.99
ATI x1959XTX 512Mb vid card-$389.99
Thermaltake 700W PS (W0106RU)-$169.99
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600-$316.00
2G Corsair Dominator Twin2x2048-6400D ram-$248
74F WD Raptor 10,000rpm HD-$159.99
Sony Dvd burner-$29.99
Thermaltake CPU cooler(CL-P0370)-$33.99
Windows XP Pro OS-$139.99
Zippy luminescent keyboard-$34.99
Total-$1937.91
shipping-$38.55
Grand Total-$1976.46
(that Zippy keyboard of for my kvm switch that I have, cheap, small, just what I wanted)
Anyways, I will start with the first part in my list, the case. I'd rate this about a 6/10. I wanted a mid tower, to save room. From all the pics I seen online, I thought I would like it, but after opening the box, and picking it up, it didn't feel as sturdy as I thought it would be. The metal is thin, and where I think there should be metal parts, there is plastic. The 2 doors on the front are somewhat annoying when putting a CD in, but I didn't want to have to open a door to get to the power switch. I do like the east of opening the case, for quick access. The cooling for the case seems to be pretty good. About the only think that it moves out, is the heat from the processor, for my vid card exhausts out the back. Over all, I liked the construction of my Xaser III full size case better. This one will not survive the same beating my old case would.
Next, the motherboard. Setup and performance I will give a 8/10. For some reason I couldn't get the onboard sound to work. I am currently working with tech support (email only :( ) on this issue. I ended up having to take my Audigy 2 card from my old rig and installed it on my new one, and everything worked as it was suppose to. It was enabled in the bios and I had the drivers for it, but no sound. The other problem I had was yesterday, for some reason when I turned the unit on, it wouldn't see any of the hard drives or cd roms. After doing some research, I ended up clearing the CMOS, booting up, and reflashing. My CMOS battery reads 3V in the bios, so I am not sure what happened there, I emailed tech support, and awaiting a responce.
Other then that, I love this board. It has some auto tuning features that I really like, to get the most out of your system, and for me, I haven't OCed before, and this will do it for you and keep your system stable. The construction of the board I though was pretty good. Only complaints, there are 2 sata connectors that you will need a different cable for or you should be able to get to them if you use a full size case. The other was the 8 pin power connector was a little difficult to plug in, when I had the mobo in the case and the heatsink installed.
Another of the features I like that I can tweak my bios right from windows, and the changes will take effect on the next boot up. I like being able to flash from windows, as well as set the speed of my fans depending on temps. I think the bios is really smart and give the user a ton of options, if your a tweaker, but isn't too difficult if your not a tweaker, they have auto for about everything.
Overall, the setup gave this a score of 7, but the performance and all the goodies, outweighed it, so I gave it a 8, but should probably be higher due to the performance. I just spent a lot of time trying to get the onboard sound to work, and just got really fustrated.
For the vid card, I'd have to give 10/10. The performace of this card is exactly what I was looking for. I have tested the card to the mas yet, just finally fired it up in my game last night, and everything was nice and crisp. Temps so far stay nice and low. Only thing I need to watch, is this card is pretty thik. It's close to another slot on my mobo. I do like the fact the card exhausts out the back of the case.
The processor rates 9/10. Yes my system boots fast, but I was hoping faster. It's only running at 2.4GHz, but for the cost, and your pretty much running 2 procs in one, the multitasking I do, this thing just cranks it out, and quickly!!
The ram I'd give 10/10. I love ram that has it's own heatsinks and everything. I hate having to put heatsinks and then hoping it will fit and everything. Again, for the multitasking and as many windows as I have open at one time, this performs just awesome!
The raptor drive I will give a 9/10. This thing is smoking fast! I have transfered and installed many files, and it's almost too fast. Screens pop up and are gone before I have a chance to read anything. The only thing that I find more annoying, it grunts a lot when your doing a lot of stuff on it. But I can only hear it if I don't have my speakers on (playing winamp), so the noise I don't really hear.
The Sony burner, well it's a burner. Nothing fancy, and it's cheap. I'd have to give it a 10. I don't do hardly any burning of anything. It's a plain n simple solution for me.
The thermaltake cpu cooler, I'd have to rate 9/10. I like well designed heatsinks and coolers. About the only thing I would have done different is how it mounts. I am not a fan of plastic, but it did make the install of this way easy. I would have like to have seen some screws or something instead. This thing is pretty good size as well, which between that and how it attaches, lost a point for that. Because of it's size, made one connection for my difficult to make, since I already had it in my case. Other then that, my temps have been staying nice and cool.
Overall, I'd give this system a 8.5/10, just for the troubles I had with the onboard audio, and that one time so far I had a problem on boot up, as well with the case I thought could have been designed a little better. The performance of the unit as a whole exceeds most of my expectations, and I have very pleased with it. After one night of gaming with it, I might have to make it my main gaming rig for my game.
I will make another review once I have the system for a while, and I get more gaming time with it.
Just thought I would let you guys know how things been going for me with my new rig. :thumbs: I have a few more things to get, to make it look "pretty" and then will try to get some pics of everything. :D