**Edit** PC Build Progressing....but I have a couple of ?'s

[Buffalo Six]

So I finally did it. Bought the bones for a new PC build. While I would have loved to have picked up a Maingear or similar PC, I decided to save some money and do it myself.

Intel Core i7-3820 Sandy Bridge-E 3.6GHz
G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM
ASRock X79 Extreme9 LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
EVGA 04G-P4-2673-KR GeForce GTX 670 Superclocked+ w/Backplate 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16
A couple of new HD's (10,000 and 7,000 RPM)
Win7 Pro
Thermaltake CLW0217 Water 2.0 Extreme/All-In-One Liquid Cooling System
G.SKILL FTB-3500C5-D Fans x2 (ram fans)

Should be here by weeks end

[VEGETA]

So I finally did it. Bought the bones for a new PC build. While I would have loved to have picked up a Maingear or similar PC, I decided to save some money and do it myself.

Intel Core i7-3820 Sandy Bridge-E 3.6GHz
G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM
ASRock X79 Extreme9 LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
EVGA 04G-P4-2673-KR GeForce GTX 670 Superclocked+ w/Backplate 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16
A couple of new HD's (10,000 and 7,000 RPM)
Win7 Pro
Thermaltake CLW0217 Water 2.0 Extreme/All-In-One Liquid Cooling System
G.SKILL FTB-3500C5-D Fans x2 (ram fans)

Should be here by weeks end

took you long enough.

[Tach Deneva]

Release the kraken!

[Hammer]

nice. what made you want to go with socket 2011 vs socket 1155?

[Buffalo Six]

ummmmm.....(stares blankly like a goldfish...........)

No idea, found the cpu I liked and was at my price point then worked off of that

[VEGETA]

nice. what made you want to go with socket 2011 vs socket 1155?

what is the diffrence ?? I have not been keeping track of the socket types.

[Hammer]

socket 2011 CPU's have quad channel memory, socket 1155 CPU's have dual channel memory. theoretically much faster memory access (actually i have proven it in benchmarks for work) but for gaming it is a non-issue. both are sandy bridge, although the ivy bridge version of the socket 1155 CPU's are out now. for the socket 2011 they will not be out until mid-late next year. big difference there is die size reduction, clock rate increase, and power consumtion decrease, and sometimes core count increase. for the money and gaming, ivy bridge is probably a better bet. BUT, April/May next year ivy bridge socket 1155's will be obsolete when Haswell comes out.

[Hudson]

Nice. Looks like a sweet rig. I think I will be aiming to upgrade mine middle of next year, sometime after the 'GTX 780' or whatever they decide to call it, and the next iteration of processors hits. The i920 and GTX 280 still seem fast for most things, but the more and more I look at reviews and benchmark lists the lower and lower I see my parts going as time goes on. I literally had a GTX 680 ordered on Amazon, but I can't make myself do it with the rumors of up to 50% better performance (though I've also seen 15% so who really knows) at the same price for the next version.

[Buffalo Six]

So far.....waiting on the power supply to arrive and some fan cable extenders and after thinking it over I'm going to add some led strips and EL wire here and there.


(ignore the crappyness of my iPhone's picture taking ability......)

Beware if your ordering new HD's. I swear ordered a 1TB Seagate drive but ended up with a Samsung which is made by Seagate.....didnt notice till the drive was mounted in chassis. The Samsungs have horrible reviews.

Anyway I should have it done in the next week or so depending on work load.

[Hudson]

NIce! And really nice job on the assembly. I just can't make a case look that clean to save my life. What case is that?

[Buffalo Six]

Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced, its a full tower

[Softball]

I have that exact case, damn nice rig Buff.

[Hudson]

I have an Antec 1200 and it's a nice case too, but I think yours takes the cake. I'm REALLY jealous of that 670 right now

[VEGETA]

Nice toy

Ya doing the mat on my current pc and its broken the 5 year mark and still playing every game (few now) fine. But thinking I might want to backup that hard drive as its not young any more

[Buffalo Six]

So, I have it built. I have some "bling" to add, leds and such. I mounted the OS last night. Win7 installs fast, I remember XP taking 2 hours just to format the HD's.

So a couple of problems/questions...........

My graphics card has the following outputs:
HDMI
DVI-I
DVI-D
Display Port

Ok, so, I plugged my LCD's into the DVI-I and DVI-D ports and one works (DVI-I) and the other, while the PC sees the monitor, nothing displays on the DVI-D port. Any ideas, adapters or whatnot to use to get 2 monitors going? I am ordering HDMI Cables (so I dont have to pay $100 for a 4 ft. cable.....Monoprice.com is your friend) and currently my existing monitors are sans HDMI inputs anyway (hello Christmas!) so I need some help on this issue.

2nd issue is, and I'm going to sound dumb here, I assume the RJ-45 port that ASrock calls a "Lan" port is the same as an either net port to go to the router? if so, I cant get the PC to find/see the router. I cant even get the Lynksys router software to install because it cant see the router. Help please...........

[Hudson]

RJ-45 is the connector Ethernet uses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modular_connector#8P8C, LAN == Local Area Network, ya that'd be your network port.

If your system isn't seeing it make sure the drivers for the (probably onboard) network card are loaded; might be missing in the Device Mangler - often times newer cards require loading drivers.

No idea on the video, except that maybe you need to manually choose to mirror/expand your desktop to the second screen in the display settings?

[VEGETA]

RJ-45 is the connector Ethernet uses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modular_connector#8P8C, LAN == Local Area Network, ya that'd be your network port.

If your system isn't seeing it make sure the drivers for the (probably onboard) network card are loaded; might be missing in the Device Mangler - often times newer cards require loading drivers.

No idea on the video, except that maybe you need to manually choose to mirror/expand your desktop to the second screen in the display settings?

Agree. Take the cd that came with motherhood and install the drivers form it. You can get more up to date drives later but these get you going.

[Buffalo Six]

Ok, yep forgot to install the lan drivers....opps, thats fixed.

I havent put it under load yet but Im guessing that 25c idle is a pretty good temp on the cpu. I am starting to like that thermaltake water cooler. I just wish they had better wire managment for the fans......cuz their solution sucks from a clean wiring aspect.

[Hammer]

make sure you have the video card drivers installed. do as stated, you probably need to extend the desktop to the second monitor. let us know.

you also actually have one DVI-I and one DVI-D and both are supposed to be dual link. that means they can each drive two monitors OR one very large monitor (like 27" or 30" each). for the very large monitors or for two monitors off of each connector you have to have dual link cables - my guess is the cables you do have are single link. you can tell by checking continuity between the middle 6 pins (out of the 27 total) at each end of the cable. with continuity they are dual link, without continuity they are single link.

the other connectors you have are actually one hdmi and one display port. display port is relatively new and is used to drive very high resolution and can actually daisy chain if you believe the spec. you cannot plug an hdmi cable into the display port (reference your 'ordering hdmi cables').

hdmi will also 'only' do 1920x1080 resolution.

[Buffalo Six]

nivida drivers are installed, thats the 1st ones I put on, I didnt run thru all the settings last night as it was late. This card should according to EVGA run 4 monitors at once, 3 combined and a 4th as separate (to keep tabs on comms etc they say), I'll take a better look tonight when I get home and depending on what the GF has obligated me to do.....