New toys for the new pad

[junglist1996]

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Got myself some new toys.

Gaming rig
1. 2 x 6970's
2. Corsair AX1200 PSU
3. Logitech Z5500 speakers

HTPC
4. Wyred4Sound DAC2
5. CryoParts USB cable
6. Odyssey Audio TOD USB noise absorption device

New bedroom minibox
7. ASRock Core 100HT (Core i3 330M 2.13GHz)
8. 4GB Kingston DDR3-1333
9. OCZ Vertex 2 SSD 60GB
10. Win 7 Home Premium x64

Other things to arrive in the coming days:

Gaming rig
11. 3 x Dell U2410 monitors for 3600x1920 Eyefinity

HTPC
12. Panasonic TH-P50V20H 50" Plasma
13. Musical Fidelity M6i integrated amp with 200wpc
14. Vienna Acoustics Beethoven Concert Grand speakers
15. Solidsteel H-6 audio rack
16. a bunch of interconnect, speaker cables, and power cord

I'm supposed to receive the BDI Vista 9960 TV stand early next month (ordered the thing in October 2010 ) so that I can move the existing Toshiba 37" LCD TV into the bedroom for use with the new minibox. I'll also move the existing amp / speaker into the bedroom, and probably get an external DAC for the minibox as well. And with the Wyred4Sound DAC for the HTPC, I'll also move the Asus Xonas D2X into the gaming rig.

I'll probably be quite busy in the coming weeks. Bought the new place in October 2010 and I can't wait any longer for the move. I better get back to packing up all of my sh*t now for the removal people who'll come tomorrow morning.

[pahncrd]

Pure hawtness! Gratz.

[Matrix0507]

guh *wipes sweat from brow* that's pretty nice man...have fun with all the goodness!

[JZL]

We're all invited to the housewarming, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight???

[Dungeoncrawler]

can i ask how much you paid for the dell monitors? I've been thinking of going eyefinity for some time now.

edit - nvm; wow, $580 at newegg but only $449ea at dell

[ViCyniC]

That's some serious audio gear. I'm jelly.

[Soulkrusha]

awesome.

[junglist1996]

Thanks guys!

Holy crap. Packing up all of my stuff (and those of the gf's) was a lot harder than I thought! Didn't even realize I have so much crap in my previous 494 sq. ft. apartment and I've packed up so many boxes that I've literally ran out of space to keep the boxes inside the apartment. I couldn't finish packing everything although it was already 5 a.m. on the day of the move. The removal people helped me with the majority of the stuff and I ended up moving the rest myself till around 11pm last night. And I don't have internet at the new place yet and I'm finally finding the wireless AP function of my SGS to be really useful for the first time. But the connection speed leaves much to be desired...



But the good news is:



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We're all invited to the housewarming, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight???

Of course! We can smoke a few virtual spliffs if you like.

[Trunks0]

Careful or you'll get caught up in the, crossfire!

[A2597]

Crossfire?

[Tyler582]

I hope you're moving into a house. I don't know about the TV speakers, but those Z5500's are f'in loud. Just re-attached mine to my PC and man is it better than headphones.

[Trunks0]

Crossfire?

you sir win one imaginary cookie.

[junglist1996]

I hope you're moving into a house. I don't know about the TV speakers, but those Z5500's are f'in loud. Just re-attached mine to my PC and man is it better than headphones.

I wish I can afford a house here in Hong Kong but most of them are mad expensive (1 USD is about HK$7.8 FYI)!

[Matrix0507]

Get yourself a pair of really really good headphones and if you have to use your speakers please be a respectful neighbor

[junglist1996]

Get yourself a pair of really really good headphones and if you have to use your speakers please be a respectful neighbor

I'll try my best but there's no guarantee.

[Payne3d]

ballin'!
What do you do for a living?

[junglist1996]

Finally finished setting up some of the stuff:

Gaming rig

By junglist1996 at 2011-02-27


By junglist1996 at 2011-02-27


By junglist1996 at 2011-02-27

HTPC

By junglist1996 at 2011-02-27

Haven't had much time to play with either system as the HTPC is currently out of LAN connection until the contractors come and fix the CAT6 line on Tuesday. For the time being, I can't access the music on the NAS and I haven't been able to properly burn-in the new gear. On the gaming rig, I see tearing on the monitor connected with the DVI cable in MoH which is the only game I've tried. I've forced v-sync and triple buffering in Radeon Pro but that didn't get rid of the tearing. I think getting a MST hub to hook everything up via DP is probably my only safe bet.

As for the mini box for the bedroom, I haven't even had time to start working on it. I guess I'll just wait for the TV stand to arrive early next month before I put it together.

ballin'!
What do you do for a living?

I'm by no means rich by Hong Kong standard.

Anyway, I work in the finance industry...

[Trunks0]

o_o' how does the top card get any air

[junglist1996]

Let 'em burn.

Hahaha, just joking. Looking at various posts all over the internet, it looks like many people are running the 6970's side by side to each other. I also ran my previous 5870's on this same motherboard w/o any issues.

I'm not too worried about airflow for the top card. If I manually set the fan speed in CCC to say 80%, there's a lot of air coming out of the top card. What I'm worried about is the bottom card as the fan doesn't seem to ramp up, either during a gaming session or if I manually increase the fan speed in CCC. I think I ran into a similar issue with my 5870's with early drivers so hopefully this is a driver issue which would be resolved shortly.

[moshpit]

I have to give a dissenting opinion to what you just said, junglist. I also had a pair of 5870's right on top of each other like that and it stressed the fan on the top card over time causing it to begin making a noticeable whine. I would have broke up the Crossfire pair for their own safety soon even if GTX 580 hadn't come out when it did.

I really think AMD is screwing up on cooler design for multi-GPU setups.

[DaJMasta]

Finally finished setting up some of the stuff:

Gaming rig


HTPC

Needs more bloom.

[junglist1996]

I have to give a dissenting opinion to what you just said, junglist. I also had a pair of 5870's right on top of each other like that and it stressed the fan on the top card over time causing it to begin making a noticeable whine. I would have broke up the Crossfire pair for their own safety soon even if GTX 580 hadn't come out when it did.

I really think AMD is screwing up on cooler design for multi-GPU setups.

I love dissenting opinion.

Anyway, what I've said about the 5870's are only my personal observation. Both cards are still alive and kicking when I took them out of the rig prior to the upgrade. Having said that, I must add that I game a lot less these days so I'm probably an example of a "light use" scenario. I suppose if someone game a few hours a day every day, that design may eventually become a problem. Anyway, we shall see if the top 6970 fan will suffer a pre-mature failure.

Needs more bloom.

The pics were taken by a Canon S90 in auto mode w/o flash. My gaming room is actually quite a bit darker that what it looks like in the pic, and I guess the camera compensated with probably a higher ISO so the screens look really bright in the picture.

[Danny Nissan]

Wow nice eyefinity setup! Me wants =D

[junglist1996]

Mosh, I would actually retract my earlier statement regarding airflow for the top card. I actually haven't checked the temps of the cards before, and when I checked just now, the top card was idling at around 80°C so there's definitely some airflow issue.

Anyway, I'm still tyring to figure out what's the deal with the apparently non-functioning fan speed adjustment for the second card.

[moshpit]

Mosh, I would actually retract my earlier statement regarding airflow for the top card. I actually haven't checked the temps of the cards before, and when I checked just now, the top card was idling at around 80°C so there's definitely some airflow issue.

Anyway, I'm still tyring to figure out what's the deal with the apparently non-functioning fan speed adjustment for the second card.

I've been saying this for some time and is the MAIN reason I left AMD video cards. It's a STUPID mistake AMD is making on that issue. At this point it's honestly incompetent of the engineers who designed the cooler to not take account of this issue. I gave them a chance to avoid repeating history with dozens of emails and complaints about 5870's cooler. They ignored this and are now causing users to pay for AMD's stupidity.

I'm almost to the point of not buying AMD at all anymore. VERY very frustrated with them.

[junglist1996]

So after I have swapped the cards' position, made a small gap between the top and bottom cards, removed Cats 11.2, ran Driver Sweeper, reinstalled Cats 11.2, and installed MSI Afterburner v2.10, I managed to get more reasonable idle temps with auto fan at around 53% (for the top card). After the above procedures, fan speed adjustment also seems to be working fine for the bottom card.



I guess having the top card idle at 53% fan speed isn't ideal. But considering I don't really use this rig for anything other than gaming, I suppose having this noise coming from the top card is still acceptable. That just means that I'll need to crank up the volume on the Logitech Z5500 to overwhelm the whining noise coming from the 6970 fan.

edit: Also posted some updated pics of the new setups.

[friskyolive]

OMG, I just became tired thinking about what you've accomplished! Regardless, you have a really nice setup. In terms of fan noise and heat dissipation, just make sure both fans are running and the one isn't stuck as mine was. Nice TV and nice Eyeinfinity, heheh.

[moshpit]

I guess having the top card idle at 53% fan speed isn't ideal. But considering I don't really use this rig for anything other than gaming, I suppose having this noise coming from the top card is still acceptable.

And this is how it began for me. It ended with both of my 5870's living in different rigs because the top one only liked running at a higher speed with constrained air flow coming into it for a while before the whining began. Fortunately, right as it began, GTX 580 was coming out. Pulling the 2 5870's apart and letting them run stock fan speeds again made the whining go away, I think it was just stressing the top card's fan too much, but didn't actually damage it as the card runs perfectly quite today in it's new home.

[Dungeoncrawler]

according to your msi pic, that top card still seems to be running a little hot (54c). I have two of those cards and my top card idles around 37-41c.

[junglist1996]

OMG, I just became tired thinking about what you've accomplished! Regardless, you have a really nice setup. In terms of fan noise and heat dissipation, just make sure both fans are running and the one isn't stuck as mine was. Nice TV and nice Eyeinfinity, heheh.

Thank you for your kind words.

And this is how it began for me. It ended with both of my 5870's living in different rigs because the top one only liked running at a higher speed with constrained air flow coming into it for a while before the whining began. Fortunately, right as it began, GTX 580 was coming out. Pulling the 2 5870's apart and letting them run stock fan speeds again made the whining go away, I think it was just stressing the top card's fan too much, but didn't actually damage it as the card runs perfectly quite today in it's new home.

TBH, I didn't seem to have any air flow issue with my two 5870's stacked up right next to each other. Maybe the 2 intakes at the end of the card helped with airflow in this kind of situation? Good that you're happy with the GTX580.

according to your msi pic, that top card still seems to be running a little hot (54c). I have two of those cards and my top card idles around 37-41c.

Yeah, my cards seem to run pretty hot. But considering the top card used to idle at ~ 80°C at low fan speed, I guess I just have to deal with these high temps. With the mid-section fan on the TJ09 blowing cool air directly onto the 6970's, I don't think there's much more I can do in terms of case airflow. Just wondering what % fan speed do your cards idle at for the temps you've mentioned? Also, are your cards stacked up right against each other like mine, or do you have an empty slot on the mobo separating the cards like this?

I think in the end, I might just trade in the 6970's and get a 6990 instead. Not interested in changing mobo at this point as I'm waiting to see what SB-E / s2011 has to offer.