I decide to make something new and go step by step by my road to Sandy Bridge.
Today 5th of March: Got my first real steps for Sandy Bridge system: I sold my E8400 Wolfendale and bought necessary components:
New components:
MSI: P67A-C45 B3 motherboard: Pretty much as vanilla board as they come. No sli, nor crossfire (I don't need those) Has USB 3.0 and seems to be quite good overclocker for the price.
Intel: Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge. Currently best Balue Sandy Bridge in price/performance, based on the price and how it has fared in tests. the 2600K is 30% more expensive.
Corsair: CMX8GX3M2A1333C9 2x4GB kit supporting i5 and i7.
I'll be re-using old components:
- Modded Antech 300 case with 140mm Yate-Loon on top @7v, 2x Nexcus RealSilent 120mm front @ 7v and Scythe Gentle Typhoon 1145rpm 120mm fan @ motherboard control (if new board can use that like old one)
- WD 640 Gb Black HDD soft mounted.
- Corsair HX-620W psu.
- eVga GF 460 GTX 768MB SuperClocked.
- 140mm Fan (800rpm sharkoon, 1000 rpm Y-L or 900 RPM NoiseBlocker will do fine I think. I got all three of them on my shelf
Still Missing:
- Cooler: Prolimatech Armageddon is on mail.
- Extension cable for 8-pin power connector is on mail.
Concerns:
My old Xigmatek cooler was 159mm tall. Prolimatech is 160,3mm tall. That 13mm extra height and I got 2 layers is bitumen and 1 layer of foam on sides. I may need to cut some side isolation to fit Prolimatech.
I'll be updating this thread hopefully tomorrow as I should get my cooler. Stay tuned for more pictures
Edit: for spelling and correct measurements.
Edit:
Quick Update on 6th day. Machine is up, XP didn't liked it. I had to mess with Windows boot loader to get XP finally work. I lost 320 Hrs worth of Oblivion's save games and 12 games installed. Nothing major though. Oblivion is bit sad. Windows 7 was untouched. by upgade. I got bunch of pictures which I will download tomorrow.
Edit of March 7th:
Alrighty, here are some pictures (images are thumbs, click 'em to get bigger ones). Below are some of my comments regarding about installation, components and such.
My case has been cleaned and rerady for installation. Antec Yjree Hundred is so wonderful case when you little bit mod it.
Besginning of my puzzle called Prolimatech.
CPU installed. Man the installation of CPU was terrifying. I mean when you locked the lever, motherboard kept really nasty sound what PCB can do when you bend it. I was like: "omg I am going to breake this motherboard" but I just locked it on place with the creeping sounds emmiting from the board. No harm done but was bit freakish (also I think 2500K is my most expensive CPU to the date!!
Prolimatech backplate installed and base stands installed. This point everything were looking just fine after heart throbing cpu installation.
Man, the installation of Prolimatech went really smoothly and installation seems so secure. Its best installation I've seen to the date, sharing with Noctua's secure-firm attachments. Prolimatech's are just bit more robust feeling i.e. overbuilt and overdesigned but fits for their reputation and coolers advertisement: 100% brawn!
NoiseBlocker BlackSIlent 140mm 800rpm fan attached to the Armageddon with Arma-clips. I couldn't get clips working with 120mm fan so I went with 140mm way, for what cooler was designed for. Man that is BIG! I think this combination is biggest Heatsink-fan combination I have had to the date. This or Thermaltake sonic Toweer + 120mm fan combo on my Socket-A 3000+ Barton years ago.
System inside for test fitting. No cables attached yet.
Everything fitted and installed. Cables attached, soundcard and VGA-card on their places and ready for test boot up.
Notices:
Alright, I mentioned the sound Motherboard gave when locking CPU on its place. Despite being heart throbbi8ng sound everything worked well. No problems. About MSI P67A-C45 B3 motherboard in silencers perspective:
- Passive cooling. surrounding socket has quite alot space so bigger coolers will fit quite nicely.
- 5 fan plugs: 1 4pin PWM for cpu and 4x 3-pin for system fans. Only CPU and system fans 1-2 could be adjusted from BIOS. 3-4 are just dumb without regulation. Fan speed on adjusted headers can be selected from 0% to 97% with around 12-15% increacements (I don't remember exactly the values but there's quite few values between last and first)
Motherboard has 4 superbright blue leds indicating power phases status. I hate blue leds but luckily you can turn off the four bright blue leds from the bios. Excellent job MSI doing this!
Here's my initial impressions. I haven't done torture tests nor furmakr and such yet. I've been fighting to get XP working properly. P67 installation required XP's to have repair installation but it didn't give me change for that so I had to re-install XP. Windows 7 was unaffected and now dual boot is working as it shuld (though it took 3 hours of work to get NTLDR work way I wanted with boot loader)
Prolimatech fitted even inside my padded Antec Three Hundred without needing to cut the foam. This was really positive thing to find out!