Upgrade Time

[RAID]

i built my first system almost two years ago. since then, i changed my home theater system and got into digital photography. but with all this excellent new hardware on the market, it is definitely time to upgrade. i will update this thread as i go. any advice/suggestions are welcome. here's what i'm moving up to:













i'm keeping my case, cd/dvd drive, and keyboard/mouse combo. as much as i'd like to start swapping out hardware tonight, i'm tired and a little drunk.

[simple_inhibition]

welcome to the forums! thats gonna be a bad system there! what are the specs on your previous system?

[Zambini]

HOLY CRAP how much did that cost?!?


ps:

Welcome to HardwareLogic :) We are always glad to have another guy up +)

[Beetle Bailey]

Ubber Nice for an upgrade!!! Welcome to best forum on the net. Can't wait to see how that thing performs. Keep us posted, Bailey.

[RAID]

installation of new components went very smooth. vista loaded up with no problems and i'm in the process of hunting down a few more drivers i need. i'll bench the rig tonight and see how well it runs

[stinger608]

Freaking awesome man!!!! Quad core, and 4gb of ram

[gvblake22]

Oh WOW man, that is a killer system! I'd hate to see my bank account after an upgrade like that, but congrats on pulling it off for yourself. What case do you have? What did you get for storage? With a username like RAID and a setup like that, I'm guessing maybe you have a couple 150GB Raptors maybe?
With that amazing 8800GTX, I assume you're gonna be gamin'? What size monitor do you have? What games do you play?
Oh, great pics by the way

[screwballl]

EXCELLENT!!!

great system!

I was originally going to say with 4GB of memory, I hope you're running XP-64 or Vista but the later post verified this

[RAID]

thanks for the comments! so far, i really love this system. everything came out to around $2700. i just bought a wireless keboard/mouse today because my old one malfunctioned. vista loaded up fine but it is buggy at times. i'm still playing with it but the dreamscene desktop background is pretty impressive. i also like the gadgets on the side.

i didn't have sound at first. i downloaded the driver from the mobo's cd but after i went to the asus website and downloaded the latest driver i'm back in business.

this rig is very quiet. compared to my old power supply and heatsink fan, this thing is in stealth mode. the silencer 750 quad and zalman 9700NT perform as advertised. i never even heard my hard drives until now. although when i shut down, there is this odd sound that comes from the 9700. its almost like a beep. i can't really describe it but it happens right before the fan stops spinning.

i've got the rig hooked up to my tv. i use my samsung dlp 71" as my monitor. i enjoy sitting on my couch while i surf, video edit or play supreme commander. i haven't loaded the game on this rig yet but i'll do that later tonight.

i'm waiting on the 8900 to come out before i get another video card. i'll either step up to the 8900 if it happens within the next 3 months or i'll just grab another 8800. btw, this card is a beast

when i get some time, i'll do some cable management and post some pics. i think i'm going to change my livingroom around too.

i ran 3dmark06 a couple times and got around 12000 both times. what programs are you guys using to monitor your cpu and gpu temps?

[gvblake22]

Motherboard Monitor (MBM), and SpeedFan are both pretty popular. Everest Ultimate Edition is also nice for temperature monitoring as well as benchmarking separate subsystems of the computer. GPU temps are usually monitored through the driver control panel, although I believe RivaTuner will display/record GPU temperatures on nVidia cards.