New Multiboxing Build [Complete & Upgraded]

[MiRai]

Upgrades have been done:


http://youtu.be/7IzzNeX2hQc





Original build video:


http://youtu.be/WHO91mG41So



-----------------------------------------

I think she's going to be a beast.

http://i1.minus.com/iWboWamcOsDxB.png


I'll be moving my GPUs and PSU over from my old build for now, but the only thing I'm in need of is a case, which won't be here until the end of next week. =\

+internet points to anyone who sees anything odd in the picture ;)

[Multibocks]

The air vent open with Dexter blood stash sitting there?

[JohnGabriel]

The air vent open with Dexter blood stash sitting there?

I thought that was a roll of duct tape.

[Lyonheart]

you doing a ram drive? ( 64GB of ram )

[MiRai]

The air vent open with Dexter blood stash sitting there?
People keep telling me that Dexter is good and that I should watch it...

But no, that's not it.


I thought that was a roll of duct tape.
It''s the super sticky clear tape for packaging up boxes.


you doing a ram drive? ( 64GB of ram )
Hell. Yes.

Last time I tried to get a good picture of performance with a RAM drive I was limited by my 32GB and couldn't test with 10 characters. Since then, the WoW folder has slightly gotten larger, so now even trying to squish the WoW folder into RAM with 5x characters on super high video settings is cutting it e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y close.

[ebony]

that is all sexy stuff!!!!!


oh can not wait to see 10 boxing :D, the new flex raids sould be doable as a boxer there kinda like LFR but better!

[remanz]

awesome stuff. The RAM though, how much does RAM speed really come into play here. I know when I am trying to OC to higher clock. My RAM speed has to be high to get there. Aside from that, no other value right ? Meaning if my CPU is fixed at 4.5Ghz. 1600hz RAM vs 1300hz RAM has no performance impact ?

What cooling are you planning. I've been thinking about building my water loop. Gathering parts to try it on my old PC first.

[MiRai]

awesome stuff. The RAM though, how much does RAM speed really come into play here. I know when I am trying to OC to higher clock. My RAM speed has to be high to get there. Aside from that, no other value right ? Meaning if my CPU is fixed at 4.5Ghz. 1600hz RAM vs 1300hz RAM has no performance impact ?
I went with 1866MHz because that's what my CPU supports (http://i.imgur.com/R9rIGDf.jpg), but I normally wouldn't recommend RAM speeds that are too crazy because RAM has the least amount of affect on real world performance. You're usually paying a ridiculous premium for 2400+ kits and I personally feel that they can be hit or miss as to whether your motherboard/CPU want to handle them correctly; not to mention, they're pumped full of voltage which exceeds Intel's specification (http://www.intel.com/support/processors/sb/CS-029913.htm#4) (1.5V).

To back me up, here's an older article from Anandtech (http://www.anandtech.com/show/4503/sandy-bridge-memory-scaling-choosing-the-best-ddr3/3) that I've thrown around on this forum before. It shows that, on paper and in synthetic benchmarks, faster RAM speeds look great, but when it comes to real world performance -- encoding, video editing, gaming, etc -- it's pretty much all the same. You may be able to squeeze out a few extra FPS in some games, but I highly doubt it'd be noticeable.


What cooling are you planning. I've been thinking about building my water loop. Gathering parts to try it on my old PC first.
I'm just planning on a two fan push/pull air setup with this (http://www.xigmatek.com/product.php?productid=162) (it's in the picture behind the fans). It's not the best-most-awesome-cooler-your-mother-has-ever-seen-in-action and it won't give me the lowest temperatures, but from the reviews I saw it should do just fine; and because I'm slightly shallow and tend to purchase things for their looks, its black matte finish should work well with the red/black theme of the board as opposed to a cooler that's polished and shiny. ;) Either way, I'm not looking to pumpt 1.5V into the CPU to try and hit 5GHz or anything like that, I would be extremely happy if I could get all six cores stable and comfortably cool at something like 4.5/4.6GHz which would be ~33% increase in clock speed.

As for water, I would eventually like to do water one day. I'm not talking about something like an H100, I'm talking about a real water setup with pumps and loops and radiators. The only problem for me at the moment is that it would take up a lot of time while I figured it all out and probably cost me an extra $1000 because, like I said, I'm a sucker for aesthetics and I would need everything to look good. ;)

[Sam DeathWalker]

Mirai is correct about ram speed, I even downgrade my ram speed for stability. My main computer has 64G ram, and 39G is the wow ram folder/drive. I'm only running 3 instances but I can fraps and have all effects on and run at 1920X1200. I fraps to the 39G ram drive as I have 10G of empty space.

[MiRai]

The build is finished...


http://youtu.be/WHO91mG41So

[Oatboat]

*edited* content unrelated.

Looks like a good build. Have fun with it!

[rfarris]

To do SLI do the video cards have to be the same? I have a 670 w/4GB. Should I add another 670 and SLI them or should I buy a 770?

[MiRai]

To do SLI do the video cards have to be the same?
They have to be the same.

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/sli/faq#c16 (and the few entries below that as well)


I have a 670 w/4GB. Should I add another 670 and SLI them or should I buy a 770?
A GTX 770 ($500) isn't that much of a boost over a second GTX 670 ($350) for SLI; but with SLI, your mileage is going to vary from game to game.

[rfarris]

I only play WoW. But I'm thinking that the price difference isn't all that significant to me and it would leave my next upgrade open to going 770 SLI. I'm also worried about the power in my current rig with two 4GB 670s. Is this a good brand choice? http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-Classified-Dual-Link-Graphics-04G-P4-3777-KR/dp/B00DN43X22/

[MiRai]

Is this a good brand choice? http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-Classified-Dual-Link-Graphics-04G-P4-3777-KR/dp/B00DN43X22/
Yes. EVGA is pretty much the only GPU manufacturer I would consider buying from these days because of their great warranty and customer support.

[moosejaw]

Great video Mirai. I am still running a LGA 1366 hex core i7-980 but your LGA 2011 parts list is very nice. I think it is time for an upgrade.

[MiRai]

Great video Mirai. I am still running a LGA 1366 hex core i7-980 but your LGA 2011 parts list is very nice. I think it is time for an upgrade.
Thanks. If you were going to go with a higher-end motherboard, then I would not recommend this eVGA Dark at the moment. I took a chance with it and, while I didn't get burned (as of writing this post), I don't think the board is very friendly to those who are new to building their own systems (or at least willing to spend time troubleshooting things).

The BIOS is loaded with options, some of which don't even work at the moment :confused: but the documentation is heavily lacking and I feel like I'm bug testing this BIOS for eVGA because they rushed it. In eVGA's defense, they have released two BIOS updates in the past two weeks which have corrected a handful of problems, but, in my opinion, these "fixes" should have been in the BIOS that shipped with the board last month.

For the record, in the video I stated I had to use their beta BIOS in order to get the IVB-E chip to work, but the bugs I'm referring to are affecting SB-E users as well (and they're not using the "beta" BIOS).

[fleaplus]

How is the processor performance? I have a 4770k (at stock speeds) but I can still hit 100% utilization in busy areas, even with only five WoW clients running. I would like to also be able to run a sixth every now and then as well.

[MiRai]

How is the processor performance? I have a 4770k (at stock speeds) but I can still hit 100% utilization in busy areas, even with only five WoW clients running. I would like to also be able to run a sixth every now and then as well.
My 2600K @ 4.6GHz was my bottleneck before I upgraded, and now I can max out the GPUs before I can max out the CPU (and I still have yet to overclock it).


http://i2.minus.com/iXNL8KCBy5ydM.png


http://i2.minus.com/iQMyu4D4Ph6vi.png


I'm always trying to push the limits of quality while doing my best to maintain at least 30FPS on all clients at once. Settings on all clients are as follows:

Resolution: 1920x720
VSync: Off (capped 30/30 fore/background via Inner Space)
Multisampling (AA): 4x (w/ 4x SGSSAA for transparency)
------------
Texture Resolution: High
Texture Filtering (Anisotropic): 16x
Projected Textures: Enabled
View Distance: High (Ultra doesn't offer much more)
Environmental Detail: High (No reason to use Ultra here if my View Distance isn't Ultra)
Ground Clutter: Low (Don't like a bunch of crap on the ground -- Personal preference)
------------
Shadow Quality: Good (Ultra x5 is too much outside of instances (Limited on GPU power/memory) and 'High' doesn't work well with SLI)
Liquid Detail: Low (The load caused by the new fancy reflective water is unpredictable and I almost prefer the old water)
Sunshafts: High
Particle Density: Ultra
SSAO: High
------------
CPU Strategy: All Clients = All Cores
Graphics API: DX11


EDIT: Let me rephrase... Ultra Shadows x5 is definitely do-able depending on the zone that I'm in. A zone like Elwynn Forest tends to stutter a bit when I'm riding or flying through it, where as, Swamp of Sorrows is seems to handle the setting on every client incredibly well.

I plan on doing another Multiboxing Science thread soon™ which will cover more of this stuff.

[moosejaw]

Thanks. If you were going to go with a higher-end motherboard, then I would not recommend this eVGA Dark at the moment. I took a chance with it and, while I didn't get burned (as of writing this post), I don't think the board is very friendly to those who are new to building their own systems (or at least willing to spend time troubleshooting things).

The BIOS is loaded with options, some of which don't even work at the moment :confused: but the documentation is heavily lacking and I feel like I'm bug testing this BIOS for eVGA because they rushed it. In eVGA's defense, they have released two BIOS updates in the past two weeks which have corrected a handful of problems, but, in my opinion, these "fixes" should have been in the BIOS that shipped with the board last month.

For the record, in the video I stated I had to use their beta BIOS in order to get the IVB-E chip to work, but the bugs I'm referring to are affecting SB-E users as well (and they're not using the "beta" BIOS).

I read a lot of negative reviews on their other LGA 2011 boards on newegg. Most of those referenced actual component failures instead of bios/function problems. Yet, the Dark had glowing reviews. /boggle
Thanks for being a good beta tester!!

[fleaplus]

Yep, even flying through the Jade Forest I can hit 80% CPU utilization, even though my GPU doesn't usually get over 60% even in busy areas. I have my settings mostly the same as you do. Did you do any overclocking on the 4630k, or is that at stock speeds? I think if I were to get an IB-E mainboard it would probably be either the intel one or the asus one. Whichever is the most reliable.

Actually I have been experimenting with ISBoxer over the weekend too. Strangely it seems that my FPS is quite a bit lower vs. using Hotkeynet. I think it must have something to do with how it scales the windows down from the higher resolution to the smaller resolution.

[moosejaw]

Isboxer doesn't scale the windows at all, they stay at full resolution. That is how you get instant swap and the extra hit on the video. It is worth every bit of performance hit though.

[rfarris]

I just got my first team into Pandera last weekend and I was shocked to see my CPU utilization go up by 20%. Whoda thunk it? My bottleneck is still my GTX 670 so my next upgrade will be a 770, but the old i7 920 is gonna have to get an upgrade pretty soon, too. It's pretty obvious that the 4-core cpu is sweating on the core that is supporting two toons. The 4930k with 6 cores so that each toon can have their own core is gonna be the way to go.

MiRai, I've got liquid cooling in my current box, but I'd like to go back to air cooling in the new computer. What is the model of the cpu cooler you're running in your new rig? And I couldn't tell from the video how you've got the fans set up. It looks to me like the fans are either both facing in or both facing out. Is that true? If so, which way is it? Are they blowing in and up, or sucking down and out? Also, I know you mentioned the fan brand in the video, but would you mind mentioning it here? I can't watch videos at work and I'd like to start building a wishlist. :)

[MiRai]

What is the model of the cpu cooler you're running in your new rig?
Xigmatek Dark Knight (http://www.xigmatek.com/product.php?productid=16)


And I couldn't tell from the video how you've got the fans set up. It looks to me like the fans are either both facing in or both facing out. Is that true? If so, which way is it? Are they blowing in and up, or sucking down and out?
Neither. It's called a push/pull setup where one fan pushes the air off of the fins and the other pulls it -- This should obviously be moving in the same direction as the rest of the airflow in your case. The cooling difference between one fan and two fans is probably negligible, so if you can't fit two on there there (or don't want to) then I wouldn't worry too much about it.


Also, I know you mentioned the fan brand in the video, but would you mind mentioning it here? I can't watch videos at work and I'd like to start building a wishlist. :)
Silverstone AP-122 Air Penetrator (http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?scase=c_120&pid=338&area=en)

[rfarris]

> Silverstone AP-122 Air Penetrator

So, with two of those, would that be double penetration?

[moosejaw]

Thanks. If you were going to go with a higher-end motherboard, then I would not recommend this eVGA Dark at the moment. I took a chance with it and, while I didn't get burned (as of writing this post), I don't think the board is very friendly to those who are new to building their own systems (or at least willing to spend time troubleshooting things).

The BIOS is loaded with options, some of which don't even work at the moment :confused: but the documentation is heavily lacking and I feel like I'm bug testing this BIOS for eVGA because they rushed it. In eVGA's defense, they have released two BIOS updates in the past two weeks which have corrected a handful of problems, but, in my opinion, these "fixes" should have been in the BIOS that shipped with the board last month.

For the record, in the video I stated I had to use their beta BIOS in order to get the IVB-E chip to work, but the bugs I'm referring to are affecting SB-E users as well (and they're not using the "beta" BIOS).

Please give us update on the bios maturity. I have my wish list made up and will be purchasing over the holiday season when the huge OT paydays hit. Should EVGA still have problems I might go for another brand instead.

[rfarris]

I just read the X79 Dark Bios forum on the EVGA website and I'm really scared about the idea of buying one now.

MiRai, if you hadn't gotten the Dark, what MB would you have considered for your new 4930k 6-core CPU?

[MiRai]

I just read the X79 Dark Bios forum on the EVGA website and I'm really scared about the idea of buying one now.
Well, when you go to a support forum it's likely that you're going to see a lot of problems and, because EVGA has such a following of fanboys, everyone and their mother who has no idea what they're doing buys their products.

EVGA makes great GPUs, but I would probably not recommend their motherboards at this point in time.


MiRai, if you hadn't gotten the Dark, what MB would you have considered for your new 4930k 6-core CPU?
I would have probably looked at Asus (again) or MSI boards (I've been wanting to try out MSI boards since I keep hearing good things about them). Honestly, I don't see myself buying another EVGA board in the future, but I have no problem sticking with this one for now because of the awesome warranty I get on it and it's actually working for me for the most part; although, down the road I may change boards and try to get rid of this Dark for cheap. /shrug

The Asus RIVE Black (http://rog.asus.com/261852013/rampage-motherboards/rampage-iv-black-edition-the-ultimate-lga2011-motherboard/) looks unbelievably sexy, but it's not out yet and there's no release date that I know of (or MSRP). I think EVGA rushed out the Dark so they could be everyone else to the 'refresh' of the LGA2011 market with the release of IVB-E.

[rfarris]

So today I read all 24 pages of the EVGA Dark MB forum and to be honest, it doesn't sound that bad. I'm not looking at overclocking -- I want to run IVB-E and I like the new GUI on the bios. As long as the 4930k will run at 3.4ghz I'll be happy. I need one ethernet port and one 6GB sata port running and that's about it. Well, and two PCIe x16 ports for GTX cards. It'll take me about a month to save the money for all the pieces, so I'll wait until the end for the MB and revisit the EVGA forum and see what people are thinking then.

If not, the Asus RIVE seems pretty popular. It looks like it had problems too when it first came out but it's been around for a while now.

[MiRai]

Please give us update on the bios maturity. I have my wish list made up and will be purchasing over the holiday season when the huge OT paydays hit. Should EVGA still have problems I might go for another brand instead.

So today I read all 24 pages of the EVGA Dark MB forum and to be honest, it doesn't sound that bad.

It'll take me about a month to save the money for all the pieces, so I'll wait until the end for the MB and revisit the EVGA forum and see what people are thinking then.
Figured I would toss out an update to those interested in the motherboard.

With EVGA's recent BIOS updates they've introduced what seems to be a bug into their latest 2.04/2.05 revisions. When powering on the system (after being completely off) the voltage to the CPU can spike dangerously high and people are reporting anywhere between 1.5V - 1.7V (http://forums.evga.com/tm.aspx?m=2032825) at the moment. It's unclear whether the voltage spike is actually hitting the chip or not, but EVGA has responded that it's a VRM "optimization" that's been brought over from the Z87 chipset. -_-

At the moment, I'm still not sure if I would recommend this board or EVGA as a motherboard manufacturer. I'll still purchase their GPUs, but I don't see myself ever purchasing another motherboard from them. This board has been out on the market for far too long to still be in beta testing status.

When the Asus RIVE Black is released at the end of this month I'll be watching the ROG forums to see what issues people are having and, if all is well, then I know what to ask for for Christmas (or maybe a Titan Ultra or two). ;)

[rfarris]

I ordered a Corsair Professional Series AX 1200 Watt Digital ATX/EPS Modular 80 PLUS Platinum and an Intel i7-4930K LGA 2011 today ($900 ouch!) In two weeks (payday!) I'll order memory, a cooler and another GTX 670 (4GB). That only leaves the MB.

When you (MiRai) say "end of this month" do you mean the end of October? In that case, I'll wait until the end of October to order the Asus RIVE Black to build the new computer.

[MiRai]

When you (MiRai) say "end of this month" do you mean the end of October?
Yup (http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?37226-Rampage-IV-Black-Edition-release-date&p=308846&viewfull=1#post308846)

[rfarris]

Is there anywhere that I can pre-order an Asus RIVE Black? Anybody know?

[rfarris]

Is there anywhere that I can pre-order an Asus RIVE Black? Anybody know?

The newest information I can find is that it will be released on 29-Oct and that it can be preordered from www.ncix.com for $499.

[zenga]

I'm really disappointed with that bottle of Heineken beer on your shelf. We do our dishes with that crap here in Belgium. Really expected much more of you.

[rfarris]

I don't even drink beer -- I drink Tanqueray. Or occasionally single-barrel bourbon.

[zenga]

I don't even drink beer -- I drink Tanqueray. Or occasionally single-barrel bourbon.

Well my post was obviously aimed @ mirai, I have no idea about what's on your shelf.

[MiRai]

Is there anywhere that I can pre-order an Asus RIVE Black? Anybody know?


The newest information I can find is that it will be released on 29-Oct and that it can be preordered from www.ncix.com (http://www.ncix.com) for $499.
I've never heard of pre-ordering motherboards before. Just like you don't pre-order RAM, CPUs, or video cards. I also don't see the RIVE Black listed on NCIX.


I'm really disappointed with that bottle of Heineken beer on your shelf. We do our dishes with that crap here in Belgium. Really expected much more of you.
It's actually an unopened bottle that was brewed, bottled, and bought in Amsterdam. A buddy of mine got it for me as a souvenir (I guess) when he went on vacation in Europe.

[rfarris]

I've never heard of pre-ordering motherboards before. Just like you don't pre-order RAM, CPUs, or video cards. I also don't see the RIVE Black listed on NCIX.
I saw that info on overclockers.net. I looked for it at NCIX after I posted here and couldn't find it either. I emailed the support folks and they said that they weren't accepting pre-orders any more. I suspect that they got enough orders that they re-thought the pricing strategy.


It's actually an unopened bottle that was brewed, bottled, and bought in Amsterdam. A buddy of mine got it for me as a souvenir (I guess) when he went on vacation in Europe.
I've done the tour of the *old* Heineken brewery in Amsterdam. Pretty cool place. At one point you go inside a vat that used to be used to brew 1,000,000 bottles of beer.

[CDNProdigy]

I've never heard of pre-ordering motherboards before. Just like you don't pre-order RAM, CPUs, or video cards. I also don't see the RIVE Black listed on NCIX.

After watching your video MiRai, I am kind of curious if are going to sell your last kidney for this motherboard!? Or did you use it to upgrade your video cards? :)

[zenga]

I've done the tour of the *old* Heineken brewery in Amsterdam. Pretty cool place. At one point you go inside a vat that used to be used to brew 1,000,000 bottles of beer.

It's a misconception that Heineken is a beer.

Anyway Mirai, I absolutely loved that video and actually learned a lot from it!

[MiRai]

I saw that info on overclockers.net. I looked for it at NCIX after I posted here and couldn't find it either. I emailed the support folks and they said that they weren't accepting pre-orders any more. I suspect that they got enough orders that they re-thought the pricing strategy.
That's right I did see it on overclockers.co.uk (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-587-AS). I guess what I meant was that I've never seen any of that stuff for pre-order in the US, and even if I did, I think it would feel weird to pre-order hardware like that because you never really know if there's enough coming to that site/store.

I don't think places really do pre-orders on hardware for that main reason. Games, on the other hand, are easily pre-ordered because there are tens of thousands of them (physical copies) being sold on day one. I doubt that Asus motherboard will be shipping and selling tens of thousands on day one, especially since the X79 chipset is about to be two years old, but I guess at $500 you're almost guaranteed that the pre-order ships to you on time because I doubt they'll be flying off the shelves with that price tag.


After watching your video MiRai, I am kind of curious if are going to sell your last kidney for this motherboard!? Or did you use it to upgrade your video cards? :)
Unless the holiday season is incredibly good to me, I doubt I'll be buying that board or any video cards. Honestly, this EVGA was overkill, but for $400 I would've expected a better board than what I got. It's stable at 4GHz which is keeping me happy for the time being, but that's the thing, I don't want to spend my income on an extreme overclocking hobby, where, if I burn up my board or chip I can just dish out another $500 to buy a new one -- No thank you. ;)

$500 is a lot of money for a motherboard that I'm not going to use the features on. A board like that is built to push overclocking records, when in reality, I have a conservative overclock because I'm cooling with air and I'd rather not degrade my chip in less than a year.

If I have a healthy amount of cash saved up by this time next year, I will most likely be dropping it on an 8-core Haswell-E chip on the X99 chipset -- That should be sexy -- But we're talking a lot of money since I'd like to move my hardware to a rack rather than a case that sits on the floor.

[rfarris]

Woohoo! Rampage IV Black Edition is up on Newegg. Doesn't ship until 19-Nov.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132053

[pinotnoir]

Woohoo! Rampage IV Black Edition is up on Newegg. Doesn't ship until 19-Nov.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132053

My Rampage 2 has now become my bedroom home theater pc. That board looks sweet. I purchased a Corsair h80i watercooler and my i7 3770k is stable at 4.5 on my Asus P8z77-v pro board. I would highly recommend that cpu cooler. At load I may get 42C.

[rfarris]

Order Summary:
Sales Order Number: 73625xxx
Sales Order Date: 11/18/2013 11:07:05 AM


1 x ($499.99) MB ASUS|RAMPAGE IV BLACK EDITION R (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132053)

$499.99

[MiRai]

Order Summary:
Sales Order Number: 73625xxx
Sales Order Date: 11/18/2013 11:07:05 AM

1 x ($499.99) MB ASUS|RAMPAGE IV BLACK EDITION R (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132053)

$499.99
Nice. Do you plan to do some extreme overclocking with the machine?

[rfarris]

Do you plan to do some extreme overclocking with the machine?
No, not really. lol. But I wanted a modern MB that supported a 6-core processor and 4-way RAM interleaving. I was pretty impressed by the post on ROG where one of the engineers mentioned that they'd prototyped 5 different memory layouts before they got to this one. Oh yeah, I wanted to be able to run multi-way SLI.

And the difference in cost between the cheapest one I could find and $500 wasn't all that significant to me. If the price had been $1,000 I would have bought a different one. And I don't plan on buying another one for a couple of years.

[MiRai]

This X79 Dark is just giving me too many issues and the EVGA X79 sub-forum has turned from excitement to disappointment with nothing but unresolved issues after their latest launch. Other motherboards I'm looking at just don't cut it for my needs (minimum 3-way SLI and lots of SATA III ports). My choices were pretty much Asus Rampage IV Extreme for $400, or the sexy Rampage IV Black for $480, so I took the plunge...

http://i.imgur.com/xcC3O98.png

The thing won't be here until next month some time because it's on back order, but oh well. This cuts into my video card fund like a mf'er.

Anyone want to buy an EVGA X79 Dark for cheap? :) :) :)

[rfarris]

I figured they would go onto backorder - that's why I preordered mine. I still haven't got the memory. Probably in a couple of weeks.

[Hohoz]

@MiRai ... how did your Evga Dark fit your Silverstone being its a atx and the mb is a eatx? From the vid it looked like a perfect fit but I was wondering , I ordered the Asus Extreme VI mb and I currently have the Silverstone Ft02s-w my mb should be here Friday and I was gonna do a weekend build.But I don't wanna run into a oh crap case and mb don't work together then be sitting all weekend with parts(money) sitting in front of me.

[MiRai]

@MiRai ... how did your Evga Dark fit your Silverstone being its a atx and the mb is a eatx? From the vid it looked like a perfect fit but I was wondering , I ordered the Asus Extreme VI mb and I currently have the Silverstone Ft02s-w my mb should be here Friday and I was gonna do a weekend build.But I don't wanna run into a oh crap case and mb don't work together then be sitting all weekend with parts(money) sitting in front of me.
It fits just fine because they're not real E-ATX boards, they're only about an inch wider than standard ATX. Here's a perfect quote from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATX#E-ATX.2FSSI_EEB):


Although true E-ATX is 12 × 13 in (305 × 330 mm) most motherboard manufacturers also refer to motherboards with measurements 12 × 10.1 in (305 × 257 mm), 12 × 10.4 in (305 × 264 mm), 12 × 10.5 in (305 × 267 mm) and 12 × 10.7 in (305 × 272 mm) as E-ATX.

[Hohoz]

Thank you much for the info ... I ordered the Silverstone case because of you loved it in your vid just got the silver version instead , love the air flow if produces.

[MiRai]

Finally got around to putting together the hardware upgrade footage from about a month ago (OP updated):

http://youtu.be/7IzzNeX2hQc

[ElectronDF]

LOVED the video. Really nice system. I would like to know what you think of the RAIDR PCIe SSD. I thought it was supposed to bypass the limitations of the SATA III bandwidth.

[MiRai]

LOVED the video. Really nice system. I would like to know what you think of the RAIDR PCIe SSD. I thought it was supposed to bypass the limitations of the SATA III bandwidth.
Thanks.

The RAIDR is... definitely a niche product that is still slightly premature in terms of the consumer market adopting it (or having a real need for it). I actually found the product overview on NeweggTV (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg4nWMn3m4s) really useful and informative and it actually helped give me the final push I needed in order to make the purchase. It does bypass the SATAIII bandwidth limitation because it's not connected via SATA, but you probably won't really need to worry about those numbers unless you've got a lot of drives connected in RAID (J.J. shows this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27GmBzQWwP0) on his Asus channel -- There are some more videos on that channel as well about the RAIDR that I didn't get a chance to watch yet).

Apparently there are benefits to using it in a UEFI boot configuration as shown in Asus's marketing video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn_bxR-U3Y0), but I've yet to try all of that UEFI stuff out just yet. I would say that I probably wouldn't buy another one of these until the market was able to offer better performance (and price) from these than they do now, because, at the moment, I can just use a RAMDrive and blow any SSD (SATA or PCIe) out of the water in terms of performance.

Don't get me wrong, I do like it and it's not like that PCIe slot on my motherboard was going to be used for anything else. I'm slowly moving my games over to it, but because I'm still wary of the Sandforce-based SSD controller, I will keep an extra backup of my game folders on an external drive as well.

[moosejaw]

In keeping with the theme of this thread, I am short a kidney now.
Took a bit longer than I thought but I have ordered an LGA 2011 board and supporting sundries. I decided on the Asus X79 E Work Station (http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CFCTJ3K/ref=oh_details_o04_s01_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) MB for the greater option rom (for my LSI raid card) dual server nic and a genuine serial port. A 4930K (http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EMHM622/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1), 3 Intel 730 (http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IF4NGEU/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) ssd's and 2 EVGA GTX 770 classified (http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DBPU8B2/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) round out the machine.

This will be fun to build and fun to use. If anyone uses ssd's on a backplane or want a secure installation platform, these Western Digital Ice Pack (http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B008L5TQIS/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) sleds are perfect.

[MiRai]

In keeping with the theme of this thread, I am short a kidney now.
Took a bit longer than I thought but I have ordered an LGA 2011 board and supporting sundries. I decided on the Asus X79 E Work Station (http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CFCTJ3K/ref=oh_details_o04_s01_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) MB for the greater option rom (for my LSI raid card) dual server nic and a genuine serial port. A 4930K (http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EMHM622/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1), 3 Intel 730 (http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IF4NGEU/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) ssd's and 2 EVGA GTX 770 classified (http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DBPU8B2/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) round out the machine.

This will be fun to build and fun to use. If anyone uses ssd's on a backplane or want a secure installation platform, these Western Digital Ice Pack (http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B008L5TQIS/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) sleds are perfect.
Good stuff -- I imagine you'll have no issues multiboxing with that setup.

[Lyonheart]

Im waiting patiently for the Haswell-E chip and x99 MBs, my current rig handles anything im doing atm. I was going to 5box Wildstar and would have needed an upgrade for that, but that dream got smashed down into the dirt along with my heart 8(

[moosejaw]

An update, my first MB has a bent pin. Bonus Big Bang Theory background audio. Board wasn't as new as claimed. Returning it on Monday. :)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9zd0vNnXOU

[Pazgaz]

Pfff.... Mirai, you need a men case, not a kiddie one!
Only one way to go:
http://caselabs.net/

[MiRai]

An update, my first MB has a bent pin. Bonus Big Bang Theory background audio. Board wasn't as new as claimed. Returning it on Monday. :)
That totally sucks. I had some "unidentified material" lodged inbetween some of my pins that I had to remove with a needle (or something I don't exactly remember). It probably wouldn't have affected anything, but it's better to be safe than sorry.


Pfff.... Mirai, you need a men case, not a kiddie one!
Only one way to go:
http://caselabs.net/
There are only two cases that I know of with vertical mounting and positive airflow that I'd be willing to use -- If there are more made by other manufacturers besides Silverstone, then I might consider them. However, I'd like to make the move to a nice rackmount setup (possibly water-cooled) in the future.

[Pazgaz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBDTBHVIJiA

i got this one a few months ago, still gathering parts.
4 rads, dual pump and some other goodies already waiting.

[MiRai]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBDTBHVIJiA

i got this one a few months ago, still gathering parts.
4 rads, dual pump and some other goodies already waiting.
It does look very nice, but with all that space I'd guess you really do need water cooling (or some incredibly loud and powerful fans to move a lot of air) or else there could be a lot of heat left in the case. I'd like to have that much room for... stuff, but when the case gets that big it becomes difficult to move around and that's when I want to move to a rack (with custom wiring and water loops), but that all comes down to money, money, and more money. =\

[Pazgaz]

Yeah, it gets expensive... :D
But I'm spreading it over a few months. Figured it's better to get slapped every now and then than to get your skull crushed by a 20lbs sledgehammer ;)

[moosejaw]

I have my hex core up and running with the parts listed above. I used a Lian Li D600 Black case with a water cooling setup (vertical 360mm radiator) for the cpu. No crazy OC's just some mild adjustments. Now here is where it gets fun.

I ordered another 'open box' board (as a backup) from Newegg, the first 2 'open box' were from Amazon. The Amazon replacement board arrived first and was built with no problems. Flashed the Bios with just atx power and a thumb drive. The Newegg box arrived later and sat unopened. I was going to return the 'open box' Newegg MB until I saw the restock fee and shipping to the west coast, so ......

A couple days later with another processor (4820K), 3 gtx-670 FTW (from other machines), I have another gaming machine for the front room of the house. Playing Borderlands and Skyrim on the big screen are a joy sitting on the couch. This is also my main Windows Media Center recording machine so it will stay on 24/7. Leaving it in the low power profile unless I am gaming on it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. :p

[Shania]

Thanks MiRai for creating the video's. I enjoyed watching them All.

As you know I am in middle of getting my parts together for my new pc and am going too 'attempt' to build it myself. Probably will be epic fail, but it is something I have always wanted to do myself. I have only ever changed memory/graphics card and roms/hdd lol.

And I forgot about the thermal paste for the cpu, so was good I watched your video.

As for your chilli..... eww.