monthos

Did a little more tweaking of cpu, and slightly touched the gpu. 3dmark gave me a 15782 this go around. Im positive I can get past 16,000 with a stable clock combination now. I will probably tinker with it tomarrow.

Intel quad core, Q9450 2.66. Turns out these OC real nice. got mine clocked stable at 3.36 without messing with voltage. Nvidia 780i chipset, ram is around 1150mhz. My 3dmark 2006 score came up 15087. Thats 2000 more than when I was clocked around stock. I havnt even begun to look at OCing the gpu yet...

ahahahaha it does!! Yeah I may be a freak, but at least I am not alone on this!

OH! let me have it, rather than blowing it up it can get shot at by a large quantity of different guns! I wish we had video of us blowing that dryer up with the mortar though, never though a laundry applience could be so fun.

Sorry, was it in the same row we had? we kind of needed 5 seats in a row :/ Oh on second thought, tell you mom your going dude, at some point you need to start acting like a man so she knows your one Will she kick you out if you just go? Or do you need financial assistance from her?

speaking of poopdood, I think I need to get a separate hotel room away from him this time, last year's toilet flooding problem is still burned into my mind.

No I am not that wide, I just have a small army coming It will be.... Monthos(hey thats me!) poopdood(hopefully no das boot problems this year) gkdsha(used to play on scopeless with us awhile ago) gr1nn3r(used to play on scopeless, he was there last year as well) E Zly D1str4ct3d(formerly known as P3wpMaster)

+1 on asterisk. I have set it up a couple of times. Though I guess it can be intimidating if your new, I think there are config programs out there as well but I always attacked the config files by hand. Hardware requirements are very minimal as SJ pointed out unless you plan on having many lines with music on hold. I have a DID I pay 8$ a month for, my brother also set up a card for our landline.

Does it look like a giant mouth and tongue to anyone else? Kind of like god himself is licking the earth... Yeah it might be just me...

Alright, im up for beer pong as well. I still need to buy my seat though, waiting on one more from the .KH crew to give the go ahead before we buy our seats. we may be up to 5 this year

Oh and Preach, my CPU is idling around 40c, I could probably get better flow but I had to compromise with the way i am routing through the memory slots using multiple smaller sizes. It seem's to stabilize the temperatures though, as under load it doesn't go much higher either, maybe a couple degree's. The radiator is mounted on the outside of the case in the spot for the rear case fan. I am sure the protective mesh of the case is inhibiting air flow some, I may snip that out of there someday and see how that helps. *EDIT* Ive been using the nvidia system monitor program to check temps and I think it may be a little off. Its stating low 40's constantly but if I reboot straight to the bios I get low 30's every time. Was wondering what you guys use to get accurate readings?

My monitor is a 24" widescreen. I tried crysis and it runs well enouph, nothing to complain about.

Alright, the build is complete and everything is installed. I should be on the midwest CSS servers sometime this week Here is what I went with. All inside a Antec P160W case I had. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115042 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813141005 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820227299 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814130339 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822136012 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817256009 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16835128015 I went with the smaller fast drive instead of RAID, I will upgrade later for storage of coarse. But for now its quick and quiet and easy to set up, also less drives mean less heat inside the case. I spent a bunch of time organizing the cabling and tying it up, then when I installed the liquid cooling tubing it looks way too crowded again. I honestly cant imagine fitting all the water cooling stuff if I didnt take that extra time for the cabling. The ram can be liquid cooled or air cooled, I chose to route some hoses to it because, why not? I decided to go with the 9800GTX as well, I will be going SLI with another one at some point, the board supports 3x sli, but honestly there is no room for the gpu's air cooling if you go all three , so I would probably have to upgrade the cooling system at that point and get waterblocks for the GPU's, so doubt it will ever happen. The only issue I am having is the power switch lead for the pump, it piggies off the case power switch wiring so that it can turn the system off if it detects very low coolant or high temperatures. It's acting like its constantly pushing the button, when I switch the power supply on the system turns on for 4 seconds, then off and my front button does not work. I just dont have that plugged in at the time being, I will figure that one out later. All in all I am happy with it, I am not running it when I am not home yet to make sure I dont get any surprise leaks, but temps and the system are stable.

my 24" Samsung monitor has HDMI, I wasnt looking for a monitor with that but man am I glad I have it now. Currently my xbox 360 is hooked up to it and its so much easier than playing with both audio and video cables every time I move that system. I also have the 360 VGA cable but it hasnt been used since I got this monitor...

Yeah thats the thing, their is always something around the corner so you will never finalize the build cuz there is always something to wait for. After reading the replies I now have a much better understanding of price points and expected performance. It also appears the geforce 9800 is a rebranded 8800 that they played with the clocks a little. Also I always knew video memory was key in high resolution high texture games. So Im looking at going the 8800 route and buy one with 1gig of memory, which would actually be cheaper than that 9800 anyways. So basically my whole build has changed. Here is the GPU im thinking of http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814130352

Gotcha, I was wondering when I seen the CAS times being around 9 on average, but since its units of measurement were clock cycles, and I was looking at getting close to double current DDR2 speeds, cas latency though numerically was double, was about even. Though if they cant match up in the benchmarks I agree I do not see a reason to buy it. Thanks for the help, this free's up some cash, which is always nice.

Thanks Preach, I had never heard of Patriot brand memory before(or im having a huge brainfart) so I was a little hesitant to include them. Have you used their memory before? I was planning on going with the higher clock speeds DDR3 uses, is it not worth the cash at this point? The mobo had great reviews which is why I included it, but if DDR3 is not the way to go, then obviously I won't be needing it. And thanks for the input on the PSU, wasn't sure exactly how much I needed which is why I went bigger, would a 750 still be adequate if I go SLI later on? Thanks!

Even though I am talking to myself here , I am asking for a little more help. I think I have finally decided to go the nvidia route, despite the fact I love AMD/ATI. They just do not have what I am looking for out on the market at this time. I am building this rig with the thought of at some time adding another video card for SLI, as well as adding memory when/if I need it. I am buying two of those hard drive's and plan on doing RAID0. Newegg has a combo deal with the board and memory, so that will save me 40$. Anything you guys will do differently? Will the 850W power supply handle the load? Motherboard Memory Processor Video HDD Power Supply -Monthos

As was already said, check the cooling of your GPU. I had the exact artifacts when I used to OC my videocard core too much. This was on a radeon card, and the results are exactly what your pics showed. For the record those occurred with a core frequency too high, but texture corruption(halflife likes to make pixels of textures purple) occurs with too high video memory clock.

Primus, your points I agree with completely. I do not play on this server because my PC is down and out, so I play this game on xbox live. I went through this a long time ago with the CS:S scopeless server and ended up applying for admin myself. if you have the extra cash and the reputation why dont you give it a go? I plan on getting this game for the pc as well when my new build is complete.

I just picked the game up yesterday, played it as far as unlocking the taxi service. I ignored romans call when I went out for a date and didnt have the taxi service, she was mad at me for driving home drunk and right after he called me back, saying I could call for cabs. I felt like a tool... Good game though, but I wouldnt give it a 10 out of 10, more like a 9 or so.

I would also like to add that I could go with Intel as well for the processor. Though I would like to go with ATI video.

Well my Desktop died on me around christmas and I was just procrastinating building a new one. The time has come but I have no clue what the current generation of hardware is out there, and would like some guidance to make sure I build a strong/reliable rig. I tend to be a fan of AMD and ATI, and would like a quad core and support for crossfire, though I will only be purchasing one GPU at this time. What do you guys suggest? I will be ordering in the next

Sounds good, I look forward to it. IRC is a great way to talk to people outside the game as well as meet new people, everyone should stop by!

Yeah, I will idle there most of the time, would love others to join as well. the channel just got registered so we have a Chanserv in there. If anyone wants to come join me I would be honored. Sign up on the gamesurge site with a userid and password, and I will give any gc member op status as well. I really think it's a good idea to maintain a presence on a gaming network, might make a few new friends in the process.