Oh I forgot to specify. I’m quite broke lately. I put this thing together mostly though hand me downs from a friend. He had a 9800gx2 and I was able to get a second one for 50$ so I could sli them.
Hence the dual core processor too instead of something better.
ok since this IS the PC thread… Here is the progression my own has gone through over the years…
I originally ordered it 5 years ago from DigitalStorm (a VERY good custom PC company). It was the first computer I ever bought “pre built” as I had been building my own since 1996. Only reason I did that was because it would have cost $8000 if I had bought the parts myself and I got it from them for $7000
Original specs:
Silverstone TJ-10 Case, custom painted
1000W thermaltake toughpower PSU
EVGA 680i Mobo
intel QX6850 Extreme CPU, liquid cooled, and overclocked to 3.67
2 Gigs of Corsair 12000 MHz Dominator (fastest at the time… was 800 just for the ram lol)
2 300gb Raptor HDD’s in Raid 0
750 Gb seagate hdd
2 DVDRWs
2 8800 Ultra GPUS… liquid cooled
X-Fi xtremegamer sound card
Liquid cooled with a single loop… it cooled both the CPU and the GPUS
The digitalstorm folks even took a picture of it before it shipped and posted it on their forums… 
It really held its own for 3 years… but I wanted to add more ram and also use DDR3 so I replaced the mobo, and while I was at it, I split the cooling loop so that the cpu had its own radiator and the GPU’s had their own as well. I had a spare large radiator and mounted it on the back… I threw in some 1800 DDR3 (patriot Viper), an XFX 790i ultra Mobo, a bay reservoir and the rest of the water cooling goodies… It was not the prettiest thing to look at but it did the job well.
After a year, I was noticing that the newer games couldn’t be ran on the highest settings anymore… lol that’s not acceptable! So I finally took out my trusty 8800 ultras and put in a GTX 570… It made a HUGE difference and all things are back on highest with great framerates…
I am starting to get the itch to rebuild but until I see a performance hit, I will hold off… this CPU/RAM/GPU combo is still doing really well… perhaps in a year or two.
Looks clean! I’m currently working on new build that we will offer. Wanting to put two 570s in it.
Nice build Ed. That makes anyone feel envious even though your ready for a rebuild
That tubing is weird lookin. Where did you get it?
Just finished mine last night.
i7-2600k Sandy Bridge @3.4ghz
16gb DDR3 Ram
Windows 7 x64
GTX 560ti
Antec 900 case
intel 80gb SSD (Boot Drive)
WD Caviar Blue 500gb HDD
This thing is a monster compared to what I had.
Its normal tygon tubing from danger den with anti kink coil… It is a pain in the rear to put on lol
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
[https://twitter.com/#!/ClockworkItOut/status/166999818542129152/photo/1
Final version of our Blue model. Mailing it out to Coheed and Cambria drummer, Josh Eppard tomorrow.](‘https://twitter.com/#!/ClockworkItOut/status/166999818542129152/photo/1’)
My build is done! thanks for the help
MOBO: ASrock 970 extreme3 …i chose this over the 870 because it needed a bios update to work with am3+.
CPU: AMD FX6100
GPU: ATI 6870
RAM: 8gb ddr3
HD: 250gb ._.
PSU: ocz zs 750w 80+ bronze
case: thermaltake v3
runs nicely. is the CPU when playing crysis supposed to go up to 55c when playing crysis though? its about 45c on idle and it gets a little warm when playing.
in the future when i upgrade my graphics should i add another 6870 (will the psu support two of these?) or something from the 6900 series?
Looks good man. I say just put another card in crossfire instead of going up to a whole new card. Also, that cpu temp seems normal. Crysis isn’t the most optimized engine in the world.
my i7 gets to about 50c-55c when gaming. Seems normal to me.
Hey SRK, I have a question.
I was given a PC with this motherboard:
Gigabyte GA-H67M-D2-B3
I already have a GTX 560 on the top slot. I do not intend to use the Crossfire feature. However I may need the 2nd x16 slot for a x4/x1 device (not a graphics card). Will this setup work?
Should be fine.
Can’t say this enough, for anyone looking to build a new PC or upgrade their current one GET AN SSD…
Infact I’m going to have to the large bold font for this its so necessary…
GET AN SSD!
Getting a 60gb good quality SSD to use as a boot drive is both a cheap and effective way to drastically icrease your visible performance. While it won’t have too much of an affect on how games run you will notice a HUGE increase in general use speed.
I suggest the OCZ Vertex 3, I got mine for £110 and its the cheapest yet most impressive thing I’ve added, ever… end of.
Surprised to see a thread like this over here at SRK, but since we’re listing PC specs … here’s my two PCs:
PC #1:
Corsair 600T Special Edition (it’s white with a window)
Sapphire Pure Black 990FX Motherboard (got this for free thx to my wife winning it at a hardware expo we attended for another website I frequent)
AMD FX-8150 w/Corsair H80 (yes, I bought a Bulldozer processor, and it works well for me)
16gb Corsair Vengeance RAM (1600mhz)
Corsair Force GT 128gb SSD
7TB worth of Seagate and Western Digital Hard Drives
Zotac GeForce GTX580 w/ 3gb of VRAM
Asus Xonar DX sound card (got this for placing third in a overclocking challenge at the aforementioned hardware event)
Asus Blu-ray writer
Antec True Power Quattro 1200w Power Supply
PC #2 (waiting to buy new video card for this machine):
Cooler Master HAF 922M
Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD4
Intel Core i7 870 w/custom modified Corsair H70
16gb Patriot memory (1333mhz)
2TB Western Digital Green HD
I have a 23" LCD monitor that I use for PC and my consoles. It works great with no input lag (2ms refresh). Keyboards, mice, and headsets are Steelseries, since I absolutely refuse to buy Razer products.
Does steel series make a good lowpro keyboard yet?
Not really, I’m using their 7G keyboard which apparently has been discontinued. Corsair has some nice keyboards, and I think those are more low-profile than my 7G.
The only reason I have a Razer keyboard is because its so damn small and the keys are like a laptop keyboard. I want a legit chicklet keyboard though.
Get a proper mechanical keyboard, there are tons of mechanical options for american layouts (not so many for english).
Anything with Cherry reds ot cherry blacks is best
With a triple monitor setup, any advice for speakers? I just don’t have the room for the larger, vertical ones I know have since the three monitors will be taking most of the room on the desk (unless I later decide to wall mount all 3). I’m not much of a stickler for audio quality either. I’ve had the same $20 logitech speakers for going on 6 years now.