slight problem

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After benching yesterday and looking again at it today, it seems my power supply situation is a bit wank.

I have 3 power supplies being used atm:

550W: 1 6-pin, 4 molex
700W: 0 6-pin, 4 molex on one rail, 4 SATA on another rail
800W: 2 6-pin, 2 8-pin, lots of molex and SATA

The plan was:

HAL: 800W w/GTX280
Dutchie: 700W w/2x4850
HK: 550W w/4670 and HDDs

But during benching, because the 700W hasn't got many connectors and the 4850s require a 6-pin each, running them both off one 22A rail was a bit futile.

As a such I'm going to have to have this set up:

HAL: 550W (should be OK with the 280)
Dutchie: 800W (due to the connectors and rails)
HK: 700W (enough molex/SATA to keep it happy)

Annoying thing is that I had HAL and HK all done up nice cable wise. Now I have to take them apart :( Might leave it til the weekend - I'm annoyingly tired right now.

dutchie is all go go go

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As I write, Dutchie is up and running, and installing Windows XP. Installation was fairly straight forward - CPU fit nicely, cleaned the CPU and cooler with some Akasa citrus CPU cleaner, added some Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste. The AS5 didn't want to spread evenly, so I did the best I could. What amazed me is that the Zalman CPU Cooler didn't fully go over the CPU - I was expecting it to.

It's currently got a stick of HALs PC8500 in there, and running off my WD Raptor. Why? Well before I set it up for BOINC, we have benchmarks to do! To start, all the 2D benchmarks. Then I'll have a look at some 3D ones with the 4850s in crossfire, if it'll play ball. Watch this space :)

switcheroo

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Spent a good 6/7 hours last night rearranging my PCs for the arrival/building of Dutchie - just general maintenance, cable tidying and seeing if I can get any more performance out of HAL.

So now HK is in the ThermalTake Armour, with 6 HDDs and a HD4670, and plugged into the 32 inch TV via HDMI. This was the plan for HK, so all I ever need to upgrade on that side would be replacing the HDDs with larger ones as and when the need arises.

HAL on the bench with powerful fans beside it didn't want to overclock any more. I did however manage to get the RAM timings down from 5-5-6-18 to 5-4-4-6... which seems a little wierd. The mobo wont let me reduce the first timing from 5 to 4, oddly enough. I also used this 'out of case' time to try and bench the 2x4850 in Crossfire setup, but for some reason it wouldn't see the CF setup. Boo.

I also had issues with the GTX280 in it - the MSI Platinum PowerUp motherboard had a big plastic housing just behind the first PCI-E slot, which was blocking the GFX card from going in completely. I took a pair of pliers to it and trimmed it down 4-5mm or so, giving enough room to put it in properly.

So now HAL is in HKs old case, a Verre V770 (this isn't mine, just generic picture):


I'm really wanting this Core i7 stuff, so I've offered HAL up for sale to a few people who I know need new PCs.

more upgrades on the horizon

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I was thinking of getting an E8600 system, with a Foxconn Blackops motherboard, for benchmarking. In retrospect, and contrary to this blog, I rarely upgrade my main system. HAL was built in the winter of 2006.

Thus, I've decided that a Core i7 system is what I should be aiming for. Thus the quest is on to find some decent prices.

Luckily today is a fun day for looking for prices, and this is what I've come up with:

CPU: Corei7 920 E0 (£200, friend runs an eBay shop)
Mobo: XFX X58 (£175 Dabs.com)
RAM: OCZ 3GB (3X1GB) DDR3 1600MHz/PC3-12800 (£45 ebuyer)
CPU Cooler: CoolIT Domino A.L.C (£75 eBuyer)

Total: £495

Also I'd want that CoolerMaster Storm Scout at some point, another £105.

Total: £600

I may need another PSU. Though I could use HALs.

That, and I'm looking at some SLC Solid-State hard drives. There's a nice 64GB one from Crucial at Overclockers for £143.

Yeah, I need some money.

benchmark update

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With this new RAM and 52.1% overclock, it was time to redo all the 2D tests for HWbot.

HALBERD:

CPU: E6400 (2.13Ghz) @ 3.24Ghz
GFX: GTX280 (605/1107) @ 740/1300
RAM: 4GB DDR2 OCZ Gold (1066Mhz) @ 810Mhz 5-5-6-15
HDD: WD Raptor 150GB
Mobo: MSI Platinum PowerUp!
Drivers: Forceware 182.50

CPUz: 3247Mhz
PiFast: 30.03s
SuperPi 1m: 17.829s
SuperPi 32m: 16m 18.125s
wPrime 32m: 25.468s
wPrime 1024m: 13m 43.25s
PCMark 05(w/GTX280 @ 740/1300): 9160

When it comes time to bench the 2x4850 setup, I will probably redo the PCMark05. Even though the E6400 is a popular chip, I managed to get into the HWBot points for the PCMark05 score.

I've also joined the BenchTecUK forums (the team I joined on HWBot), and they have a few legal tweaks I can use to get these benchmarks higher. When it comes round to producing graphs, I'll put the updated scores on them :)

xfx gtx280

In this post I'll be showing you the XFX GTX280 graphics card, and my annoying installation of it =P Here it is, bundled with HALBERD in the Thermaltake Armour:


The box is big, though not as large as my Asus HD4850 boxes. Inside, the card is well protected, with its antistatic bag, and tons of foam padding:


This is a great display by XFX - knowing that Joe Postman may just have to violently brake, with your new graphics card in the back of the van. The graphic work on the card is a big display of green and black and has that 'I'm a powerful graphics card' feel.


The fan on the card is a novel design to me. I've never seen a fan like this before - but given the size of the card, some serious cooling would need to be in order:


From the following picture, we see the GTX280 requires 1x6pin and 1x8pin power supply:

The back of the graphics card is also incased with this green and black metallic monster casing, however we see some ventilation fins and a red PCB showing through:

The SLI connectors are protected by a rubber seal, which easily comes off allowing you to fit 4 in Quad-SLI if you have the appropriate motherboard and power supplies:

Just to demonstrate the sheer size of this card, here it is alongside a regular consumer graphics card, the HD4670. The GTX280 is 10.5 inches (26.64 cm) long, and I'm sure weighs the best part of 2lbs (0.8kg).

Installation into my case arose some problems. One, this card is huge, and takes over a little section of my SATA ports, thus I had to take out two SATA cables. Second, my case uses a novel screwless system for sticking the cards in:

This purple/green combination is great for single slot cards, and the 4850s, because the 4850s have a little notch between slot1 and slot2. However, the GTX280 has essentially a solid bit of metal, and I had to remove the screwless design to even fit it in:

As you can see, this card is longer than the standard ATX motherboard! Thus be forwarned if you have a small case. This card is heavy and bulky, but looks awesome:

You may think, especially with the 4670 size comparison, why a card should need such a powerful heatsink and cooler? Well now we come to the overclocking.

The standard speed of this card was 605Mhz core, 1107 Mhz memory, 1300Mhz on the shaders. Without too much hassle, I was able to push this using RivaTuner to 740Mhz/1300Mhz/1596Mhz, and now runs at 70°C on full pelt.

So how about the benchmarks?

The system used for this bench was essentially the now souped up HALBERD:

CPU: E6400 (2.13Ghz) @ 3.24Ghz
GFX: GTX280 (605/1107) @ 740/1300
RAM: 4GB DDR2 OCZ Gold (1066Mhz) @ 810Mhz 5-5-6-15
HDD: WD Raptor 150GB
Mobo: MSI Platinum PowerUp!
Drivers: Forceware 182.50

Aquamark 3d: 170979
3D Mark 01: 56390
3D Mark 03: 57485
3D Mark 05: 19729
3D Mark 06: 14593

What are benchmarks without a comparison? Well, most people at HWbot use an E8600 (3.33Ghz) chip to do their benchmarks, which I'd love to have. And the GTX280 is a relatively popular card. Thus I don't really feature highly on the tables. Yet, I'll compare my other graphics card setups to this, make some pretty graphs.

Overall though, it looks nice and feels solid, and overclocks well. However, for £340, and the fact that a pair of HD4850s in Crossfire would/should work better, you can't really justify the cost.

overclocking is fun

As part of Dutchie (the X2-5050e crunching machine) being built, I bought some DDR2-1066 RAM to put into HAL (the E6400), and then put the DDR2-800 in HAL into Dutchie. As a result, I was able to overclock HAL. A LOT.

Before, my overclock was from 2.13Ghz to 2.4Ghz - a modest 12.7% overclock. The FSB would not rise about 300Mhz, no matter what I did. It kept restarting, and I wasn't sure why. I assumed it was the limit of the E6400 chip.

However, when putting in this new RAM, I had another go at overclocking. First 2.5Ghz, then 2.6Ghz, then 2.7Ghz straight off the bat! No rise in voltage required. Then 2.8Ghz, 2.9Ghz, 3.0Ghz too. I thought this was too good to be true! At 3.1Ghz, I had to detune the RAM from 4:5 to 1:1, and at 3.2Ghz I upped the voltage of the CPU a little.

Now I'm running at 405FSB, *8 multiplier = 3.24Ghz, with a small voltage change, making a 52.1% overclock! RAM is on a 1:1 divider at 5-5-6-15 timings - the RAM is rated 2.1V 5-6-6-18 @ 1066Mhz, but the MSI motherboard wont let me set it to 18, thus it won't boot properly if I stick it on a 4:5 divider (making the RAM 405(FSB)*2(DDR2)*1.25(multiplier) = 1012.5Mhz). But 1:1 Divider, making it 810Mhz, is OK at the minute.

It means I've learnt a lesson - RAM does matter quite a lot when it comes to overclocking. Also, it helps to have a decent motherboard. HAL's isn't the best.

I was also able to keep track of wPrime 32m and 1024m times as I overclocked the E6400:


A fairly linear progression over my overclock.

It also means I'm going to reclock all my PCI-E graphics cards. There was a couple of I hadn't posted yet - I'll probably post them all at once in uber Excel graphs.

future purchases update

Given my recent splurge, my list from last week goes out the window. Specifically the RAM and the CPU/mobo sections. And my decision to get a different case, well that too.

I've also started to think about my next crunching system. Ideally, it'll be roughly the same for cheaper, or slightly better for the same money (as stuff gets cheaper), but still do the same job. That, and if I can find hardware to benchmark at hwbot.org, even better. Hence, when looking today, I found the stuff I want:

2nd Crunching PC
CPU: AMD 64 X2-4850e (2.5Ghz) (£48)
Mobo: AsRock ALiveXFire-eSata2 (£50)
RAM: 2GB DDR2-800 (£20)
GFX: Depends on the current market prices in £ per credit/day at BOINC.
PSU: 800W (for two dual GPU cards) or 600W (got two single GPUs) (£45)
Case: CM Elite 355 (£35)
HDD: 80GB is more than enough (£0, I have some)
CPU Cooler: Zalman Flower (£20)

That makes £218, without any GFX cards (another £220 for 2x4850).

Actually, this puts my future upgrades in a good order:

1) CoolerMaster Storm 'Scout' (£103)
Initially, this will be HALBERDs home, before I upgrade HAL. HK will move to the ThermalTake Armour.
2) 1.5TB HDD for Storage (£117)
Put it in HK, because I'm running out.
3/4) Look into HAL upgrades. I'm eyeing some E8600 chip with the Foxconn BlackOps motherboard, but that's £400 even without RAM or a PowerSupply. Then another £75 for the CoolIt ALC water thing, which I may buy as no.3 or even no.2.
5) The next crunching machine (min £450)

Fun fun fun times. Now where's my moolah.

case change

For a while, I've wanted the Antec 1200 case - it's big, brash, lots of space, looks neat, and is considered one of the best cases of all time for air cooling. It looks like this:



I love the blue (and UV-purple style here) and the styling. Again, the case is massive. You can see the comparison with the Thermaltake Armour (my current HALBERD case, soon to be my HarukaKanata case) here.

However, in retrospect, I'm not getting a gaming case for the size. Mainly the cooling. I saw this case being advertised at overclockers this week:

The CoolerMaster Storm 'Scout'



This case is designed for portability and ruggedness, with plenty of fans. It's marketed as a mid-tower case (the Antec 1200 is a 'full'-tower case), and has that handle on the top so you can chug it around to LANs easier.

That being said, I haven't been to a LAN yet in Oxford. But this case is £40 cheaper than the Antec. Pair that with the CoolIt ALC I posted on previously, it's either £175 for the Antec and a cooler, or £175 for the CM Scout and the CoolIt. And because it'd have the CoolIt, the air cooling isn't that important (though the Scout still has good cooling).

So I've changed my mind. I want this Scout case :)

boinc update

I just hit 2 million total BOINC cobblestones today :)



That's just under 1 million this month alone :)