Oh, I'd swear you used a 9 in that one!

I did use a 9 series in my own personal system using a Coolermaster Wavemaster. It just about fit a 9500 in there... but it was very tight! The likes of a Ninja or an Ultra120 would never be able to fit without some tight modification! The 9 series was great for cooling performance and it definitely looked the part, I just wouldn't recommend it for motherboards with passive northbridge cooling.

The 7 series is not too shabby either. I checked out my girlfriend's computer recently and it's still running at about 35C at 3GHz on the 4 cores. She's happy with it as it's never caused her any problems, and needless to say I think it was a brilliant way to spend £30. The 7700 would not fit on the motherboard though, the 7500 was such a tight fit that I almost had to remove the heatpipe cooling system but I decided a cut finger and a slightly bent fin wouldn't be too bad...

More information on the Rampage Extreme!!

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/ ... us-rampage

OK.

The current state of affairs...

I now know that the Rampage Extreme isn't just a paper-launch and it's actually going to come out! I might just get it... It's going to be 270 squids. You can find the preorder link on Overclockers UK today: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... cket%20775)%20PCI-Express%20DDR3%20Motherboard . I don't intend to buy it until the end of next month, after the Core 2 Quad 45nm price-drops.\

A little birdy also tells me that affordable Nehalem could be coming out at the end of this year, which is quite gutting. But like always, when you buy a computer, you just have to dive in and hope for the best. No PC is ever going to be future-proofed. I might find myself upgrading the motherboard and processor next year some time (no, not the memory, I'm going for dual-channel DDR3 which is 1366 compatible )

I can't wait to get the computer... it's so close now.

Oh, I also bought the PC-P80 today. Yes, I'm still in Corfu. I'm in an Internet cafe. It's the reason I used the word squids instead of a pound sign. It's sad isn't it? Oh well, at least I have the most killer case out of all you lot ... PUT TOGETHER !!!

Expensive motherboard

Cases are subject to opinion, lol.

Yeah, a very expensive motherboard indeed. In line with the 790i prices and pretty much feature-for-feature, apart from that X48 produces less heat and that the X48 is Crossfire-X instead of SLI.

I am expecting delivery of the case to my work address on Monday, but I won't be there until Tuesday, and the system won't be built until the end of August. Anyway, I'll take some photo's of the new case when I get to work on Tuesday and post them on here.

Yeah, cases are subject to opinion and if I had my way I would cut off all the angular pieces of the PC-P80 and make it a big square box, with edges sharp enough to shave with.

Heh, you'd like my plans for my case (if I ever get round to it, lol) probably, then.

It's my day off work today, but I just had to check to see if the case had been delivered...

It had

It's so big that it doesn't fit under the desk!

Best case ever!

Update: Overclockers have the Rampage Extreme in-stock! http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... =MB-284-AS

Is big enough for you?

Ok, that is massive.

However.... my case is WIDER! Haha! xP

YAY!

First preview of a 4870X2 is out...

http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1317&pageID=5160

Unfortunately, they did not benchmark at high resolutions.

3DMark Vantage:
4870X2: 6532 GPU
GTX280: 4726 GPU

Currently, the drivers and the energy saving features are not up to scratch.







Update: fix'd images

Some impressive scores there Your images aren't working, though.

I can't wait to get hold of two of these things!

I fixed the images.

Also, sorry I cannot take any decent photo's of the computer until the end of the month, I guess. I don't have a camera at the moment.

Do you know how long the X2 is?

It looks the same as the 3870X2.

Not as big as this one.



My case can fit that one...

Anyway, here's a couple more pictures of the case itself...





OK, so it does fit under one of those desks!

Crazy card, what's it for?

That case is colossal, though it will look empty even with a tri-gpu setup.

That card is an old graphics card it's an IBM Intergraph MSMT447. I believe it has 20MB of RAM.

Yeah the case will look empty-ish. I should be beefing it out with a LCS though. But that will be September, and I'll just run with high-end air cooling until then.

OK. There's a change of plan with the build now...

I have decided that it is equally as important to live as it is to build this computer, so I am staggering the purchases slightly.

I will be purchasing the motherboard, processor, memory, power supply, hard drives, optical drives, operating system and one graphics card at the end of August, to at least get the system up and running.

Then at the end of September, I will be purchasing some more memory, a second graphics card and the watercooling kit for the motherboard and processor.

By doing it like this, I leave myself with a not insignificant amount of money to actually live, as in to buy food and to do some driving lessons, get transport to my girlfriend's, etc. I do not want to die between August and September due to having not enough money to feed myself.

Update: The system will cost over £2k, so much for making a moderately priced system...

Update 2: Guru 3D have an awesome preview of the 4870X2 - with some really nice pictures and benchmarks... http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd ... 2-preview/

I don't think you can do moderately priced for yourself, lol.

It's so tempting to buy things already... the Rampage Extreme is on special offer on Overclockers, but only on a £10 exc. VAT reduction. I'm sure the 45nm price drop will hit the Q9450 very very soon so by the time I buy the system the prices should be better anyway... Just... need... to... wait...

OK, I've decided that waiting is for SUCKAS!

I'm going to get the whole lot as soon as the 4870X2's are out.

Now I'm downloading a few games to demo to my workmates once I have built the machine in a couple of weeks time. I'm currently downloading the FEAR single player demo and I'll be downloading the Crysis single player demo after that.

Why the demos? You have the full games, don't you?

Well, yes.

The network at work doesn't allow me to:

a) Connect to EA Download Manager (for Crysis)
b) Connect to Steam (for anything else, including UT3)

Also, I gave FEAR to somebody, and I can't remember who.

Own up guys.

Not me, I've never borrowed anything off you ^^