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My Living Room Baby

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 4:08 pm
by Cod
I finally got around to taking pictures of my newest PC when I was measuring some dimensions. The PC is a few weeks old and hooked up in my living room to a 40" LCD at full HD resolution (1080p). I had to open my case to check some measurements for my next addition, a new cooler, so figured I'd get some quick pictures. Here are some specs so everyone has an idea of what they're looking at:

Case: Silverstone GD05
PSU: Seasonic M12II 620W Bronze Certified Modular PSU
CPU / Cooler: Intel i5-3570K w/ stock cooler
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-M Pro
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB)
GPU: MSI R7850 Twin Frozr III 2GD5/OC Radeon HD 7850 2GB
SSD: Crucial M4 256GB
DVD: Sony 24X DVDRW/CDRW OEM

Most of the parts installed and getting ready to add the HDD tray and optical tray.
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Trays installed and ready to go.
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Everyday looks.
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Overall, I'm very pleased with this PC. The cable management is tough in the case, so any suggestions are greatly appreciated. After reseating the cooler a few days ago, my temps are very good: 27 idle / 55 under "gaming" load / 76 under full load (IBT). The system is very quiet and cannot be heard further than a meter away. My wife even noticed how much quieter it is than our DVR and consoles. I can play most, if not all games, on ultra settings with 4xMSAA at 1080p while maintaining excellent frame rates.

Like I stated earlier, I'm in the market for a new cooler and new case fans as one stock fan starts clicking after about an hour of use (no drops in temps, just annoying). The case fans are also 3-pin, which just annoys me :). I'm trying to decide between the Noctua NH-L12 (single 92mm fan) or Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B for the cooler. As for fans, I'm thinking 1200rpm Slipstreams (PWM), but I'm not sure yet.

Any suggestions / critiques are greatly appreciated.

Re: My Living Room Baby

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 5:37 pm
by CA_Steve
Congrats on your build. How do you like the MSI R7850? What kind of temps are you seeing at idle/gaming load?

CPU cooler: With your apps, will you see more of a load on the CPU than while gaming? (Intel burn-in test is a worst case scenario). If not, and if you don't hear the stock cooler fan, I'd leave it be. 55C is fine.

Re: My Living Room Baby

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 7:18 pm
by Cod
CA_Steve wrote:Congrats on your build. How do you like the MSI R7850? What kind of temps are you seeing at idle/gaming load?
Thanks for the congrats! I'm definitely having fun with it. MSI cards have always treated me well and this one is probably one of my favorites. MSI Afterburner is great software to compliment the card. The card is very quiet, even when I ramped up the fan speeds to 85% the first few days I had it to ensure it was ready to go. You can't really hear the fans until they get to around 60% percent...even then, you have to be within 1.5m Temps are awesome as well. Idle is around 28 degrees and under gaming load is about 64-degrees. I just played Dirt Showdown for an hour and got the following:

GPU Temps: 59 - 61 degrees
Fan Speeds: 35% - 55%
FPS: 102 (average)

Overall, I'm very pleased with the cards performance and Afterburner's auto fan tuning does a fantastic job. When I manually control the fans via Afterburner, I'm able to keep temps in the low 50s by running the fans between 60% - 70%. I've only crank up the fans when running gaming benchmarks (FFXIV, Metro 2033, etc.). Like I said earlier, even at 70%, you have to be within 1m and on the floor to really hear them.
CA_Steve wrote:CPU cooler: With your apps, will you see more of a load on the CPU than while gaming? (Intel burn-in test is a worst case scenario). If not, and if you don't hear the stock cooler fan, I'd leave it be. 55C is fine.
I'm just in the market right now because I plan to OC in the future and don't want any of the good low-profile coolers to be deactivated. Ideally, I'd like to stick with the Intel cooler as long as my CPU doesn't bottleneck at stock speeds. Being a 3570K, I should get a few years of solid performance w/o any need to OC.

Re: My Living Room Baby

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 8:25 pm
by CA_Steve
Thanks for the GPU info. The MSI card is on my short list for when I eventually upgrade.

You could probably get away with a light OC with the stock cooler, as long as you don't overvolt. Past that, either of the two coolers listed would work well. One's $35, the other's $70. :)

Re: My Living Room Baby

Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2012 4:42 am
by Cod
CA_Steve wrote:Thanks for the GPU info. The MSI card is on my short list for when I eventually upgrade.

You could probably get away with a light OC with the stock cooler, as long as you don't overvolt. Past that, either of the two coolers listed would work well. One's $35, the other's $70. :)
What other 7850s are you looking into? I've had some experience with the HIS 7850 2GB and recommend staying away from it. The graphics are great and its less expensive than other 7850s, but its very flimsy and the single fan sounds like a jet engine during some games.

Re: My Living Room Baby

Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2012 6:14 am
by CA_Steve
Your MSI, the MSI Power edition with Twin Frozr IV, XFX Double D, possibly Asus. I've been holding off waiting for Nvidia to release the GTX 660 series, both to see how they perform and for the competition to drop the 7850 prices. :)

Re: My Living Room Baby

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2012 1:31 am
by Olaf van der Spek
No Sapphire? 3 more weeks until 660 is rumored to be released.

Re: My Living Room Baby

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2012 1:51 am
by CA_Steve
Olaf van der Spek wrote:No Sapphire?
Yeah, them, too. :D

Re: My Living Room Baby

Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 1:45 am
by Das_Saunamies
Thanks for the info on the MSI card. It seems supplies of 7850s have totally run out in Finland around the 660s release, but this info was good enough to go on to order the R7850 Twin Frozr 2GD5/OC. And late congrats on a neat build!

Re: My Living Room Baby

Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2012 3:40 pm
by Cod
Das_Saunamies wrote:Thanks for the info on the MSI card. It seems supplies of 7850s have totally run out in Finland around the 660s release, but this info was good enough to go on to order the R7850 Twin Frozr 2GD5/OC. And late congrats on a neat build!
You will not be disappointed with the MSI R7850. I was shocked at how cool / quiet the card ran (even at 80% load).