I would like to thank ASUS, Intel, Razer, Nvidia, Gskill, Antec for providing all of the awesome hardware! This is seriously an incredible contest!

WARNING LOTS OF PHOTOS! I DID A STEP BY STEP GUIDE/REVIEW/WORKLOG. BE PREPARED


So first of all my end goal is to build a home arcade system to play Streetfighter 4 in 3D along with other games! So here it goes!

Here are the goodies!



Antec 850 quattro! this is sexy


it came with tons of modular accessories!


and this heavy duty PSU!


Next up is the ASUS GTX260 from Nvidia!


This unit is different from traditional reference design boards that competitors usually offer. it has a 5.8OZ copper heatsink. ASUS does always does an awesome job engineering their own cards to take a reference card to the next level. although its not better than the top, its still better than referance.


Its great to see all the goodies it came with but i wont need any of it.


same


and here it is!


These spring screws make it easy for watercooling upgrades. im assuming this is why ASUS sent us this card vs referance. its better and easier to modify!


i took it apart to apply higher quality thermal paste but i may go water soon...


eww


thanks for the ROG shirt!


the SSD from Samsung came on a 3.5inch bracket but i wont need it


128GB SSD from samsung! BLING BLING

Gskill memory running at 2133 is HOT


Intel Core i7 1156 socket. I wish they had this contest for the X58 but the P55 will do just fine. all i gotta say is INTEL FTW



Sorry intel but that HSF is too small.


Razer Lycosa and Death Adder Mouse!! ive been wanting to get my hands on one of these for a long time. thank you!









more to come!

Gskill memory running at 2133 is HOT


Intel Core i7 1156 socket. I wish they had this contest for the X58 but the P55 will do just fine. all i gotta say is INTEL FTW



Sorry intel but that HSF is too small.


Razer Lycosa and Death Adder Mouse!! ive been wanting to get my hands on one of these for a long time. thank you!









more to come!

32 phase




Mem OK - probably wont use this assuming Gskill will be OK! but its a nice feature to have if i had different memory not supported on the QVL list.


QdIMM makes it easier to take in and our memory


These LED are supposed to light up during boot to make sure everything works.






i picked up antec performance series case


the insides.





ok coming up next is the build woo there are a lot of pictures...

so here goes the build. board in!, Memory IN!


ill use this for now, but ill upgrade to a better HSF


Cooler IN! VGA IN!


Turbo V remote is looped through the water cooling port.


Q connector helps out a lot!


PSU IN! Memory cooler in!


HARDWARE BUILD DONE! now for the software!


win7 check!


Razer Keyboard and mouse light up blue


chipset and memory cooler light up blue. syncs up well.


installlll was really fast



coming up next, benchmarks and drivers.

i have update the bios to the latest 1002 and updated all drivers. sata is set to ahci for max performance i set the memory to XMP-this is what the memory has been tested for.



Expressgate disabled because its annoying to me. but the user interface is actually quite nice compared to the first generation


set the tuner limit value to turbo profile:


i have tested and disabled sata 6 because the performance is currently lower than the normal sata3 ports. im assuming its due to drivers.

with a stock cooler and updated drivers im using turbo v evo and getting amazing results


i was able to achieve a 3.66GHZ overclock from the stock 2.8GHZ!


once you use turbo v evo, XMP will convert to manual and set the memory speed to the following:


i bumped it to 1920MHZ



i really need a better HSF

will post benchmarks. so far so good!

I MUST SAY turbo v evo autotuning is pretty awesome. compared to all the crap software ive used in the past. this one really works.


comparison for ssd speed sata 3 controller and sata6 controller
sata 6


sata 3


sata6


sata 3


sata 3


CPUZ


i must say so far this RIG is FAST!!

Gonna put in my old 9800GT to run dedicated PHYSX!


took off the front cover so it matches the GTX260's HFS


SWEET!




i also stacked up my old harddrives.

gonna need more ports for more harddrives.


just replaced the intel cooler with a corsair H50 that i bought from FRYS this thing is awesome!

running autotune again to see what speeds i can gain. i turned the overvoltage dipswitches for any potential voltage increase.

here we go!
autotuning is quite impressive. there is a fast tune that will instantly overclock your cpu. and there is the extreme mode that will do a real time stress test.


it adjusts the cpu, dram bus and imc voltage


bumps up bclk as well


went all the way to 4.1 and crashed. the computer restarted and finalized the overclock at 3.98GHZ




pretty impressive for a 10-15 min auto overclock with stress test. ran everest for an hour running fully stable. temps were pretty safe. love the corsair cooler, best investment ever.



i also bumped up my mem freq to 2110, right under the rated 2133 mark. i also decided to bump up the BCLK to 211 to hit a 4.01GHZ mark.

testing out EPU6.
this is supposed to be the Green mode for ASUS. after calibration there are different modes that will adjust your speed accordingly.


in auto mode/turbo it will actually overclock a bit. but at 4.1 GHZ i got a BOSD so i can either downclock a bit to have auto mode OC to 4.0 or just leave it at high speed = normal mode. but it can downclock from 3.98 all the way down to 1.8ghz. while saving CO2 emissions.




plays videos just fine

Wow, Asus is now calling power saving reduced carbon dioxide emissions.

Now certainly a lot of fancy components, but the main question is:
Will it blend?... eeehh... Will it be quiet?

Wake me up when the competition is over, there are now five topics with the same component shots and so far not much actual modding going on.

Soz if that turned out hostile, but the deja vu is pretty immense.

this is pretty crazy. i never knew how much physx off would look like. this is a screensaver demo with physx on and off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mruGJQoKod8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qXtYlEXG5Q

how good is the corsair water cooler?

i havent looked at any components for a few months now so this is new to me, i might build a new i7 system soon is this cooler worth it?

also, can the tubes be detached/re-attached to allow the radiator to be mounted outside?

if not then would it be a good idea to mount it on the top or not?
i have a p182 with air coming in from front, so i would have to have air blowing out from the radiator as it wouldnt make any sense to have air blowing in across the radiator.

'scuze a similar attitude as Jipa, but how is a "Speedstep-like" downclock saving carbon emissions?

it's a computer, the fact that it's on means energy usage, and the fact that it's not a Fit PC means it is not as efficient as possible.* with all the people in this Asus challenge basically using the exact same stuff, how is anyone making some "new gamers computer"?

the day I see an i7 running on a PICO 90W is the day I'll sell my rig and get i7. but I don't want it running extremely downclocked, I want full speed.

*i'm half joking here, the fit PC has about the same power as a netbook