Finally Gave it a Go

[chrisk]

If that is your first build, then you have found a calling.

Wicked job!

[lemonlime]

Originally Posted by zc1

Thanks everyone! Lemonlime, your review was a big help in swinging me towards the FT02. It turned out to be the right case for me, and pretty easy to work with.

Glad you liked the review. It certainly is a very nice case

How do you like the 5750s in crossfire? Plenty of oomph?

[punk_zappa]

That was pretty good. I'm impressed.

[zc1]

Lol. Thanks again, all! You don't want to know how long it took me to put this system together. I'll just say "several hours" from start to the final install of Win7 (installed Win7 3 times).

It really is my first build, and I spent a lot of time staring at cables and trying to decide how best to route them, fixing little mistakes (eg. installed mobo then had to take it out because I forgot the backplate), etc. What held me up was some of the small details that you just don`t notice in photos/videos if you`ve never done something before. Otherwise, the case itself has a lot of room and is easy to work with, aside from the 2 uppermost 5.25`` drive bays.

Lemonlime, I'm very happy with the 5750s. I actually was torn between the 5750 (should be great for now) and 5770 (might be better for the future) going into the build. Locally I could only find 1 5770 though (vs. 3 of the 5750s) so that made the decision easy. For my purposes now, the 50s are very good. NFS runs absolutely smoothly with the default settings, and I haven`t tried to push beyond those, yet -- wasted a lot of time trying to get the Logitech PS2/3/PC wheel and pedals working properly, then installed almost all of my remaining software. I probably won't be able to play around with things much until the weekend.

[CTA]

impressive... but i am most confusing about

-Processor: Q6600 (from old system)
-PSU: Corsair HX650

O.O

can hx650 support cossfire?! and can processor handle them?

[zc1]

Originally Posted by CTA

can hx650 support cossfire?! and can processor handle them?

It has been fine for the last 3 days-or-so. By the numbers would be cutting it close if the CPU (not overclocked) and GPUs were maxed out and everything else was running at the same time. In regular use, though, it's more than enough. That said, I was very close to going with the HX850 because I thought the same as you. I'll play with it this weekend and make a final decision but for now, I'm happy with it.

[Jokester]

Originally Posted by zc1

-GeForce 8600 GTS and 6200; Nvidia drivers bogged things down and weren't stable -- random failures to refresh, etc. Fresh install of Win7 w/o updating drivers and system was faster to boot, but still unstable (hangs, refresh failures). Update drivers and Windows boot became too long for my liking and the hanging/refresh problems persisted. These glitches even occurred with benign tasks (word processing, web browsing) --> Gave 8600 GTS to my wife since her MOBO has an Nvidia chipset.

That doesn't sound like drivers at all. But obviously with your new system that problem is gone. Nice setup.

[headsh0t]

I was running an HX520 in my system before my current PSU and it was powering everything just fine. My overclock wasn`t quite as high, but it probably could`ve handled it as well. THAT was kinda of cutting it close. Crossfiring 5750`s would be like just having my GTX 260 in there, well maybe a bit more power consumption but not by much. Anyways nice first build zc1! Pretty sick to have that rig and an Eyefinity setup for your first build.

[zc1]

Originally Posted by Jokester

That doesn't sound like drivers at all. But obviously with your new system that problem is gone. Nice setup.

Thanks Jokester. It wouldn't happen until I installed the Nvidia drivers from Windows update (hence installing windows7 three times initially...several more between then and getting the new cards). I could install everything else and it would be fine. Then if I went back into Windows update and added just the Nvidia driver update (or the one on the Nvidia website), slowness resulted. I found many, many reports of the same online.

[Jokester]

Originally Posted by zc1

Thanks Jokester. It wouldn't happen until I installed the Nvidia drivers from Windows update (hence installing windows7 three times initially...several more between then and getting the new cards). I could install everything else and it would be fine. Then if I went back into Windows update and added just the Nvidia driver update (or the one on the Nvidia website), slowness resulted. I found many, many reports of the same online.

It must have been a problem with that specific card model and driver issue. I would have guessed that it was just a hardware problem with that card at first glance.