# Computer hobby !^^!



## xellos99 (Dec 17, 2015)

Was going to call this thread "my other hobby" but somebody already thought of that today lol.

Anyhow one of my other hobbies is computers so I thought I would take a pic of my computer.

I built it myself and upgraded it over the last few years into its current state.

It has ended up over the top now but what the hell.

It has a water cooled i7, 16gb ram, gtx 780 graphics and seasonic power supply.

I keep waiting for it to blow up or catch fire lol.


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## Guest (Mar 4, 2016)

a bit of a beast :thumbsup:


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## Faze (Mar 1, 2013)

Nice one.... One of my things too.
What's your main hard drive and windows score?


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## Krispy (Nov 7, 2010)

Good stuff - that looks like a Mr Fusion!

I've always built my own too as I can get hold of MS stuff for free (saves a large chunk on the build price).

I've recently upgraded the lot bar the motherboard and processor. The only thing that's stopping me is I think you have to re-licence Windows when it spots a new motherboard and I'm terrified of losing a lot of software. I mistakenly uninstalled Football Manager 2009 last week and I'd just got Thurrock into the Premier League - gutted would be putting it mildly!

I use QuietPC for most of the casing and bits and bobs - great service and really do provide silent computing. How do you find the watercooling for noise?


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## xellos99 (Dec 17, 2015)

Faze said:


> Nice one.... One of my things too.
> What's your main hard drive and windows score?


 The main drive is 128gb SSD Samsung evo. They were expensive back when I got it so only small drive.

The scores out of 0 - 7.9 are :

7.7

7.8

7.9

7.9

The drive scored 5.9 but I think it tested the wrong drive lol. There are 7 drives so I have muddled myself up. It should read over 7 for a fast SSD drive.



Krispy said:


> Good stuff - that looks like a Mr Fusion!
> 
> I've always built my own too as I can get hold of MS stuff for free (saves a large chunk on the build price).
> 
> ...


 The whole PC is quite noisy. There are 5 fans running. 1 large fan at the front, 1 small at the back, 1 small on the graphics card, 2 small on the water cooling. There is a pump on the water cooling also.

Next time I upgrade most of the guts of the PC I will ditch the water cooling and go for a quiet build instead. It does get annoying after afew hours.

I will have to look into quietpc, I have not heard of that.

Free MS sounds good to me, I wish I could get the new office software. I hated when they stopped giving ms word for free.


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## Krispy (Nov 7, 2010)

xellos99 said:


> The main drive is 128gb SSD Samsung evo. They were expensive back when I got it so only small drive.
> 
> The scores out of 0 - 7.9 are :
> 
> ...


 This is them http://www.quietpc.com/

Free MS stuff is via their MSDN subscription, so I guess it's not strictly 'free' e.g. my employer has to pay for it!

I took the same approach with HDs as you. Got the 128 Samsung a few years back and have just added 2x 1tb Evos - scores the same as yours!

The SSD system drive upgrade was the single best upgrade I've ever made. I run a lot of sound processing software (based around Cubase) so having a quiet setup has always been essential. I just did away with all mechanical drives so I'm very happy.

Bloke I work with just treated himself to a totally fanless / noiseless build from QuietPC - I'm tempted!


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## xellos99 (Dec 17, 2015)

Krispy said:


> This is them http://www.quietpc.com/
> 
> Free MS stuff is via their MSDN subscription, so I guess it's not strictly 'free' e.g. my employer has to pay for it!
> 
> ...


 Yes SSD is the best thing to happen to PC`s in a very long time. I have been waiting and waiting for 1TB SSD to drop under £100 for a good brand. I can get them for £160 now but I suspect they are not the best build quality. 2 of them would be lovely.

Noiseless is certainly very attractive, I have a velociraptor 10,000 rpm HDD and the noise it makes is annoying to say the least. I only got it because when I was young I always wanted one, probably because I thought the advertising was awesome at the time.


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## Krispy (Nov 7, 2010)

You could try a disk silencer although, at the cost, you're nearly at a decent SSD - http://www.quietpc.com/smartdrive-classic

My first try with SSD was with a cheaper OCZ drive. It failed within a week, never again!


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## xellos99 (Dec 17, 2015)

Krispy said:


> You could try a disk silencer although, at the cost, you're nearly at a decent SSD - http://www.quietpc.com/smartdrive-classic
> 
> My first try with SSD was with a cheaper OCZ drive. It failed within a week, never again!









Problem is now SSD are becoming affordable there is a new type of SSD called NVMe that seems to beat the hell out of ordinary SSD. Look at the benchmarks scores for it, it wipes the floor with everything with the old SSD tech :



Samsung SSD 950 Pro 512GB NVMe


13,338


Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB


4,268


Samsung SSD 850 PRO 256GB


4,185


Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB


4,059


Samsung SSD 840 EVO 500GB


4,047


Samsung SSD 850 EVO 120GB


4,017


Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250GB


3,844


Intel 520 240GB SSDSC2CW240


3,681


Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SH103S3240G


3,596


Samsung SSD 840 EVO 120GB


3,571



 




































 


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## Krispy (Nov 7, 2010)

Yowzer. Are those the one's that go straight into a PCI slot?


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## xellos99 (Dec 17, 2015)

Krispy said:


> Yowzer. Are those the one's that go straight into a PCI slot?


 Not sure, I have stopped myself from researching them too much because that is the kiss of death lol.

All I know so far is they kick ass hahaha.

But yes looking at them they go straight into a motherboard slot. ( no doubt only compatible with the latest motherboards etc )


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## Krispy (Nov 7, 2010)

Well, that'll kill the next few hours for me!

This is exactly how it starts. I was looking for a USB3 card the other day and had to stop myself when the basket was full of £500 worth of new boards and processors!


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## xellos99 (Dec 17, 2015)

Krispy said:


> Well, that'll kill the next few hours for me!
> 
> This is exactly how it starts. I was looking for a USB3 card the other day and had to stop myself when the basket was full of £500 worth of new boards and processors!


 Yea I know what you mean, I used to be on PC forums but left because you get tempted the more you research and look at new tech.


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## William_Wilson (May 21, 2007)

I'm married to my i7 2600 because it is too expensive to simply replace it as new versions are not really that much better. Last fall my old Intel DQ67SW motherboard calved and I managed to find some new Intel DZ77GA-70K motherboards. This is about the most useful consumer level board Intel made, with 9 SATA connectors, 10 USB 2.0 connectors, 8 USB 3.0 connectors and dual LAN jacks. I have 32gb of RAM, 2 Intel 480gb SSDs, 1 480gb OCZ SSD, 1 SanDisk 960gb SSD and a GTX 680 Classified video card. I'm running a 60 inch TV with the GTX 680 and an old LG 20 inch monitor off of the motherboard HDMI port. The system works well for graphics editing, sound editing and running movies. :wink:

Later,
William


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## Guest (Mar 4, 2016)

William_Wilson said:


> I'm married to my i7 2600 because it is too expensive to simply replace it as new versions are not really that much better. Last fall my old Intel DQ67SW motherboard calved and I managed to find some new Intel DZ77GA-70K motherboards. This is about the most useful consumer level board Intel made, with 9 SATA connectors, 10 USB 2.0 connectors, 8 USB 3.0 connectors and dual LAN jacks. I have 32gb of RAM, 2 Intel 480gb SSDs, 1 480gb OCZ SSD, 1 SanDisk 960gb SSD and a GTX 680 Classified video card. I'm running a 60 inch TV with the GTX 680 and an old LG 20 inch monitor off of the motherboard HDMI port. The system works well for graphics editing, sound editing and running movies. :wink:
> 
> Later,
> William


 compared to that mine is made of potatoes :sadwalk:


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## William_Wilson (May 21, 2007)

Bruce said:


> compared to that mine is made of potatoes :sadwalk:


 I'm not a snob about computers. I have an Intel Compute Stick plugged into the TV in the family room. In terms of general use and price, the Compute Stick is a far better deal and very powerful. :wink:

Later,
William


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## Krispy (Nov 7, 2010)

My motherboard doesn't have usb3 or data 6gb ports so I've had to bolt those on instead changing the whole motherboard.

I still run on board graphics rather than a dedicated card. Silly question, but would a card make much difference to photo editing?


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## Stan (Aug 7, 2003)

William_Wilson said:


> I'm married to my i7 2600 because it is too expensive to simply replace it as new versions are not really that much better.
> 
> Later,
> William


 I agree, I have a Dell OptiPlex 990 Mini Tower with an I7 2600 and it will be viable, for me, for some years yet. I don't play games now, so the Intel IGPU is fine for me. I can upgrade the GPU if needed but that would entail upgrading the PSU at the same time.

Primary drive is a Crucial M500 240Gb SSD with a WD Green 3Tb storage drive. I`ve added a four port USB 3.0 card and a USB 3.0 hub that runs from it to the front of the tower.

On the rare occasion that I transcode an average length movie, with the I7 2600 with HD 2000 GPU, it takes around 12 minutes. That's not bad, in the great scheme of things, IMO.


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## Guest (Mar 4, 2016)

Stan said:


> On the rare occasion that I transcode an average length movie, with the I7 2600 with HD 2000 GPU, it takes around 12 minutes.


 blimey, mine takes nearly 2 hours

i am feeling inferior


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## Stan (Aug 7, 2003)

Bruce said:


> blimey, mine takes nearly 2 hours
> 
> i am feeling inferior


 My Q6600 took about that long too, I was a bit surprised that the HD2000 was that quick at video processing. Intel IGPUs may not be the best for games, but they seem quite ballsey at video processing.


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## Guest (Mar 4, 2016)

Stan said:


> My Q6600 took about that long too, I was a bit surprised that the HD2000 was that quick at video processing. Intel IGPUs may not be the best for games, but they seem quite ballsey at video processing.


 to be fair mine is ok for what i do, a bit of surfing and some photo's, it ticks along just fine


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## Stan (Aug 7, 2003)

Bruce said:


> to be fair mine is ok for what i do, a bit of surfing and some photo's, it ticks along just fine


 What's in your rig Bruce?


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## Guest (Mar 4, 2016)

Stan said:


> What's in your rig Bruce?


 no clue Stan, but i do remember its an unusual 3 core processor

AMD Phenom 8550 triple core


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## William_Wilson (May 21, 2007)

Krispy said:


> My motherboard doesn't have usb3 or data 6gb ports so I've had to bolt those on instead changing the whole motherboard.
> 
> I still run on board graphics rather than a dedicated card. Silly question, but would a card make much difference to photo editing?


 On the remote chance a video game comes along that I want to play, the PCI-e card makes all the difference. It It is also good if I happen to be editing a video while simultaneously viewing videos. It also gives me the option to connect an ungodly number of monitors, if for some strange reason I should want to. :wink:

Later,
William


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## Stan (Aug 7, 2003)

Bruce said:


> no clue Stan, but i do remember its an unusual 3 core processor


 Probably an AMD then mate. :wink:

If it works, duuner knock it.

The Q6600 was fine for me and still would be, but I decided to treat myself to an off lease OptiPlex 990 MT in January of 2015. For no other reason than I fancied it and I don't spend much on myself anyway. :wink: It runs cool, it's quite enough and has enough power form my most challenging tasks.

Off lease, top end, business machines can be a bit of a bargain, if you spot them in time.


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## Guest (Mar 4, 2016)

Stan said:


> Probably an AMD then mate. :wink:
> 
> If it works, duuner knock it.
> 
> ...





Bruce said:


> AMD Phenom 8550 triple core


 i may treat my self at the expense of a new watch.......................nah :nono: the watch wins ..maybe a Hamilton khaki :wink:


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## William_Wilson (May 21, 2007)

Stan said:


> Probably an AMD then mate. :wink:
> 
> If it works, duuner knock it.
> 
> ...


 The bargain days are gone in North America. Most off-lease machines are "recertified" and funnelled into the big retail chains. Off-lease accounts for more than half of the stock in many retail places.

Later,
William


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## Krispy (Nov 7, 2010)

Bruce said:


> no clue Stan, but i do remember its an unusual 3 core processor
> 
> AMD Phenom 8550 triple core


 You may find you actually own a quad core chip with the 4th core 'locked'.

I bought a Phenom dual core chip as I heard a rumour that AMD's dual and quad core chips were in fact the same thing but the former had it's additional cores locked. Apparently this worked out a cheaper way for AMD to manufacture 2 different chips for 2 ends of the market.

With the right Bios, you can unlock the locked cores. It was as easy as ticking a selection in the start up for me and, hey presto, my x2 turned into a x4...

http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/processors/how-to-unlock-the-phenom-s-fourth-core-618501


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## Guest (Mar 4, 2016)

Krispy said:


> You may find you actually own a quad core chip with the 4th core 'locked'.
> 
> I bought a Phenom dual core chip as I heard a rumour that AMD's dual and quad core chips were in fact the same thing but the former had it's additional cores locked. Apparently this worked out a cheaper way for AMD to manufacture 2 different chips for 2 ends of the market.
> 
> ...


 i remember buying and it was supposed to be an experimental one that shouldnt of hit the market, i will have a look though, wouldn't be the first time someone said the wrong thing to me :wacko:


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## Stan (Aug 7, 2003)

William_Wilson said:


> The bargain days are gone in North America. Most off-lease machines are "recertified" and funnelled into the big retail chains. Off-lease accounts for more than half of the stock in many retail places.
> 
> Later,
> William


 Hardware has always been expensive in the UK compared to the US (I don't know how Canada fares), but off lease here is still sold by specialists. The term bargain is relative I suppose. When I looked at the OptiPlex and compared it to a new computer with similar specs, it seemed to be "price advantageous", in relative terms. :laugh:


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## Faze (Mar 1, 2013)

Bruce said:


> the watch wins ..maybe a Hamilton khaki


 Great watches, was going to be a toss up between the Hammy and Steiny to start off tomorrow with


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## Stan (Aug 7, 2003)

Krispy said:


> You may find you actually own a quad core chip with the 4th core 'locked'.
> 
> I bought a Phenom dual core chip as I heard a rumour that AMD's dual and quad core chips were in fact the same thing but the former had it's additional cores locked. Apparently this worked out a cheaper way for AMD to manufacture 2 different chips for 2 ends of the market.
> 
> ...


 I think, at the time, AMD said it sold triple CPUs that were quad core units that failed quality control on one of the cores and they locked out the substandard core?

I found it hard to believe that any manufacturer would release a substandard CPU to the open market at the time, very poor marketing strategy, IMO. :wink:


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## Krispy (Nov 7, 2010)

Stan said:


> I think, at the time, AMD said it sold triple CPUs that were quad core units that failed quality control on one of the cores and they locked out the substandard core?
> 
> I found it hard to believe that any manufacturer would release a substandard CPU to the open market at the time, very poor marketing strategy, IMO. :wink:


 I think that poor PR decision was made once they realised how many cheapskates like me were out there! Oh, and how well the likes of ASUS and others were doing by selling motherboards on the strength of their 'unlocking' capabilities!! The unlocking functionality seems to be getting removed from newer revision motherboards now.

To be fair, the routine does always come with a 'without warranty' warning, but I've not seen one fail yet...


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## Faze (Mar 1, 2013)

xellos99 said:


> The main drive is 128gb SSD Samsung evo. They were expensive back when I got it so only small drive.
> 
> The scores out of 0 - 7.9 are :
> 
> ...


 Nice, I have a couple of things letting the side down on mine


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## William_Wilson (May 21, 2007)

Stan said:


> I think, at the time, AMD said it sold triple CPUs that were quad core units that failed quality control on one of the cores and they locked out the substandard core?
> 
> I found it hard to believe that any manufacturer would release a substandard CPU to the open market at the time, very poor marketing strategy, IMO. :wink:


 I lost all respect for AMD in the late 90s when they started stating virtual processor speeds. You remember, back when they took the actual speed of the processor and did a magical incantation involving the memory bus speed and internal pipeline speed and then compared it to an Intel product that would be out of production before their chip made it to market. :wink:

Later,
William


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## Krispy (Nov 7, 2010)

Remember? The 90's???


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## Stan (Aug 7, 2003)

William_Wilson said:


> I lost all respect for AMD in the late 90s when they started stating virtual processor speeds. You remember, back when they took the actual speed of the processor and did a magical incantation involving the memory bus speed and internal pipeline speed and then compared it to an Intel product that would be out of production before their chip made it to market. :wink:
> 
> Later,
> William


 The AMD Barton was quite tasty at the time. Overclocked with big sink and a fast Delta fan on them. :biggrin:

I had to close the door on my rig whilst it did SETI units. :laugh:


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## William_Wilson (May 21, 2007)

Stan said:


> The AMD Barton was quite tasty at the time. Overclocked with big sink and a fast Delta fan on them. :biggrin:
> 
> I had to close the door on my rig whilst it did SETI units. :laugh:


 Yes, I forgot to mention the spontaneous combustion problems. :laugh:

Later,
William


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## Stan (Aug 7, 2003)

William_Wilson said:


> Yes, I forgot to mention the spontaneous combustion problems. :laugh:
> 
> Later,
> William


 My last PC had a Delta PSU and Delta fans, I have to love Delta, never give up, never surrender! Despite the cost to Human ears. :laugh:

I admire the quality of Delta's kit though, it always surpasses design spec, in my experience.


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## hughlle (Aug 23, 2015)

I spent untold thousands on water cooling and tecs and custom built radiators etc. Then I gave up on chasing benchmarks, and realized that there are just no games that require anything close to the power offered by today's hardware to play at enjoyable settings. Now I just have some i5 or other and an hd7850 I think, and it plays everything on the market quite happily  got a new keyboard yesterday so I can finally game again


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## William_Wilson (May 21, 2007)

hughlle said:


> I spent untold thousands on water cooling and tecs and custom built radiators etc. Then I gave up on chasing benchmarks, and realized that there are just no games that require anything close to the power offered by today's hardware to play at enjoyable settings. Now I just have some i5 or other and an hd7850 I think, and it plays everything on the market quite happily  got a new keyboard yesterday so I can finally game again


 Yes, processors seem to have reached a plateau and overclocking is of little benefit. I found that video cards were the area of importance over the last few years. These days the fact that TVs are large and practical for gaming, it is all about resolution and video quality. :yes:

Later,
William


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## xellos99 (Dec 17, 2015)

Faze said:


> Nice, I have a couple of things letting the side down on mine


 Same CPU as me only I overclocked my one slightly.

What 120gb SSD is getting 7.9 ? My one is 128gb SSD and only gets 5.9.



William_Wilson said:


> The bargain days are gone in North America. Most off-lease machines are "recertified" and funnelled into the big retail chains. Off-lease accounts for more than half of the stock in many retail places.
> 
> Later,
> William


 Ex business ultrabooks and notepads are the best bargains. Not standard ones, the ones that cost a fortune new and are well built and high spec, like $2000 as new and 30 months later they end up on ebay for $200. The notable ones are Lenovo thinkpads, hp elitebooks, dell latitude. The 3rd gen i5 ones with 8gb ram and 128gb SSD go like a bat out of hell. My one gets into windows in 13 seconds and shuts down in 7 seconds.



hughlle said:


> I spent untold thousands on water cooling and tecs and custom built radiators etc. Then I gave up on chasing benchmarks, and realized that there are just no games that require anything close to the power offered by today's hardware to play at enjoyable settings. Now I just have some i5 or other and an hd7850 I think, and it plays everything on the market quite happily  got a new keyboard yesterday so I can finally game again


 Your right, there is no point upgrading all the time. Since 2011 when the 2nd generation of i processors came out there is just no point because the gains are only small and almost unnoticeable.


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## William_Wilson (May 21, 2007)

xellos99 said:


> What 120gb SSD is getting 7.9 ? My one is 128gb SSD and only gets 5.9.


 Microsoft has discontinued the performance index due to its rather dynamic nature, and it is a poor comparative resource between machines because of the lack of uniformity.

Later,
William


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## Faze (Mar 1, 2013)

xellos99 said:


> Same CPU as me only I overclocked my one slightly.
> 
> What 120gb SSD is getting 7.9 ? My one is 128gb SSD and only gets 5.9.












It's been a while since I built it originally.
I'm on my 3 motherboard with this CPU


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## artistmike (May 13, 2006)

I like playing about with my computer, that I bought as a general dogsbody, running my railway simulators, a TV and doing a bit of website design and graphics. I bought it from PC Specialist and it does multitask quite well, though I've not tried to get it to do anything too high end at all... It runs a somewhat weird AMD 8 core processor which is surprisingly successful and with an ASUS M5A99x EVO R2.0 board and a AMD Radeon R9 200 Series graphics card seems to cope with most things I throw at it.

I'd love to go a bit more hardcore with my computing but I know that it gets a bit more expensive than I'm prepared to pay out, to do what I need to do. Fun though and when you think about it, the power of even an average home PC is amazing these days....


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## xellos99 (Dec 17, 2015)

Faze said:


> It's been a while since I built it originally.
> I'm on my 3 motherboard with this CPU


 How come ?

I have never had any PC part fail since the early 1990`s. I had a dell laptop in about 1996 and I sold it to my nephew and it still works 20 years later and they use it daily. My sister also has a 1990`s dell and that never had any fail except the hard drive.


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## watchandbullion (Apr 5, 2016)

i've only got and 8gb , Gtx745 4g , 1 terabyte hard drive , I5 quad 3.3ghz . But i can run Fallout 4 , which is nice .


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## hughlle (Aug 23, 2015)

watchandbullion said:


> i've only got and 8gb , Gtx745 4g , 1 terabyte hard drive , I5 quad 3.3ghz . But i can run Fallout 4 , which is nice .


 I can play that game on my tablet 

Thought I'd just throw up a couple of old pics given I found them, and this thread popped back into existence.

Shuttle SN26P with dual nvidia 6800gtx's










Stripped down










First loop installed (CPU, later upgraded to also cool chipset)










Now for the second loop for the SLi cards. Lots of bodging together due to the graphics cards spacing (2mm between heatsink to the next cards PCB)










Water blocks



















Second loop installed.










Then there was the SN37P2. Contracted a car engineer in Gurnsey to build me a custom radiator for a pretty penny.




























Then there was a different shuttle, I forget which, Decided it wasn't small enough












































Then there was a sugo sg03 I think, with a double 120.2 and 120.1


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## hughlle (Aug 23, 2015)

Then there was a dual xeon file sever from old parts and such lying around including a built in screen on a hinged front panel.




























And then I got a bit drunk one night and found double sided sticky pads....


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## xellos99 (Dec 17, 2015)

hughlle said:


> I can play that game on my tablet
> 
> Thought I'd just throw up a couple of old pics given I found them, and this thread popped back into existence.
> 
> ...


 I cant believe how much you fitted in there, and not only that the spec of the thing in that size. Usually with watercooling a massive full size tower is used.


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## hughlle (Aug 23, 2015)

I had a big thing about watercooling SSF pc's. Anyone can do a tower, I fancied a challenge. The shuttle I cut in half also became watercooled because why not. I did numerous water cooled towers using TECs (peltier?) but it was just too easy. The shuttles were never greatin terms of their cooling ability vs stock, but they were just soo much quieter. This was all done when i was 17/18yrs old within nothing more advanced than a hacksaw, knife, and leatherman. I'd occasionally have an electric drill if i was lucky.


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## xellos99 (Dec 17, 2015)

The ones I wanted to build were the isotope ones with artwork on them. I thought I could sell them to teens and gamers but its so dead where I live I gave up. Could certainly sell them all day in a city though but I imagine an advert in a city papar costs a fortune ~:


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## hughlle (Aug 23, 2015)

xellos99 said:


> The ones I wanted to build were the isotope ones with artwork on them. I thought I could sell them to teens and gamers but its so dead where I live I gave up. Could certainly sell them all day in a city though but I imagine an advert in a city papar costs a fortune ~:


 Yeah, they looked cool, but also looked totally impractical. Not to mention I wasn't ready to pay that much money to Scan for an in-house case, when for the same money I could get something tried and trusted from lian-li or silverstone.


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## watchandbullion (Apr 5, 2016)

hughlle said:


> I can play that game on my tablet
> 
> Thought I'd just throw up a couple of old pics given I found them, and this thread popped back into existence.
> 
> ...


 yeah , i spent about £600 on my PC . It can actually play Fallout 4 , not at glorious 4k 60fps , but i get by , enough to keep me gaming at least .


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