My new 680i

[THEKATZ*{MEOW}*]

Well, it is a big difference!  I moved up in the world of online gaming from an older P4 3.0 LGA 775 Abit AG8 to the new improved XFX 680i LT9 with the Dual Core 2.66 and 2.75 gig of RAM.  Bob, you were right only Vista will recognize 4gig and 64 bit systems can see up to 8gigs.  So I am stuck with 2.75 of recognizable memory until I move up to Vista.
I really wanted to try the 780i but the sad reviews held me back.
I will be moving up to the Q6600 Quad core this summer.  This Dual Core  2.66 CPU may be for sale at that time.

 

Anyhow, I had not one issue with setting this thing up.  Was complete about midnight Friday night and fired it up Saturday morning.  Everything fell into place from the get go, not one hiccup.  I finished loading up all the updates and drivers by Saturday evening.  All games are now on board.  Put Crysis in and turned the settings up to high.  45 – 60FPS and running smooth.  Core at 145F GPU was running at 130F chassis running at 95F.  Mind you that this was done while a bench mark was in progress.  Passmark scored it at 895.11.  Second Passmark rating shows 1435.0 with nothing running but the benchmark application.

 

Comparing the score of the new 1435.0 to the old 365.95.  This is almost a 400% increase in performance.  I will need to get a better CPU cooler than the stock one I have in it.

I am ready for gaming now! 
 
 

Spec’s

Corsair TWINX 2048MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz (4x1024)  (recognising 2.75 mb XP pro) will move to Vista Pro soon.
Ultra 750w X2 Power Supply/120mm Titanium UV Side
XFX nForce 680i LT SLI Socket 775 Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66Ghz 4MB 1333FSB CPU
XFX 7950GT GPU 512mb PCIe
Soprano ThermalTake VB1430BWS Computer Case (yanked the 430w and installed the 750w UltraX2)

[WildKatZ*{MEOW}*]

looks sweet, dunno bout moven to vista anytime soon tho. I've only heard nitemare stories about it so far.

[THEKATZ*{MEOW}*]

I am looking at 3 stable running Vista gamers.  So far these machines are not having one issue as for the current games today.  These are Vista Pros running all current updates.  Very smooth running and they are memory hogs (1.5gig right off the top) so a 4 gig system is a must.

[NighEve*{MEOW}*]

kewel 

[Kitty*{MEOW}*]

been running vista 64 bit since it came out. After a few updates its been great. Not to much i can't do now.

[THEKATZ*{MEOW}*]

Nice, I will be picking it up shortly.  This machine will run a dual boot very nicely if I choose to go that route

[Doball{MEOW}]

I've had nothing but outstanding results with the Zalman 9700. It took quite a bit of pressure to get it in place, but I like the variable speed contoller for whan I'm gaming. Keeps things  really cool - 112F after an hour of COD4, but it pushes straight into a case exhaust fan which really helps. Well worth the $$$

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118019

[THEKATZ*{MEOW}*]

Well, the only problem I had with this build was the stock fan.  I was impressed with the reviews about how even the stock fan will work just fine for this chip even with over clocking.  I really can’t dispute that it would though my problem was not the fan cooling the CPU rather it was how it connected to the MB.  It is a plastic push through (4 pins) with tabs that expand on the other side of the board.  These would not hold, as they kept popping off.  Just when I think it is snug and all set I see the idle temp rise to 75C on both cores!  All other cores and chips register 30-35C and GPU @ 50C. 
I pull the cover and find that the CPU stock fan is again loose and not making good contact with the chip.   Gggggrrrrr!   So off to PC Club I go and I picked up a Coolermaster fan, pretty much stock but with a backing plate!  Yes, it was a small hassle to remove the board (which I hate to do, a mother board should be handled at a minimum as far as I am concerned).  Well it now runs @ 30-35C @ idle and has not gone above 50C in and hour of playing Crysis.  COD4 it runs at around 40-45C.  I am a happy camper now. 

[WildKatZ*{MEOW}*]

i average 73C in COD4 only. the rest are about 45C. 

[Smooth*{MEOW}*]

73C on the GPU Wild?  That's pretty hot, about 163F.  I run GW around 120F, CoD4 around 150F.  I know my card will start to show artifacting around 170F.  From what I can tell, these modern Nvidia drivers have a bug that causes the fan to stick at 43%, regardless of 2d/3d mode.  I use Rivatuner to manually crank mine up to around 75% before I go into CoD.  If you like I can show you how to set that up, I have a feeling that your fan is running under power also as Crazy has the same problem with his cards.

[WildKatZ*{MEOW}*]

any help i can get brother. thanx.

[Smooth*{MEOW}*]

Catch me on TS tomorrow sometime and we'll set it up.