Introduction
----------------
I recently built a new gaming rig, which will be my primary rig. This is an effort to document my experience, from selecting the components to the final build to stability testing.
Guys from Bangalore planning to buy from S.P road, may be interested in "Acquiring the components" section and "The Ankit Hustle". This was my experience at S.P road. May be this will help you.
I call this machine G-Rig-3 (This is my 3rd gaming rig and my 4th machine).
My first was a
PIII 550 Mhz (coppermine) with,
128 MB 100 Mhz SD RAM
i810e chipset. (circa May 2000)
Samsung 15" Monitor
My 2nd machine,
G-Rig-1 (Build date: 26 Jan 2002), was a
---------
P4 1.6 Ghz (Willamette core)
GeForce 3 Ti 200 64MB
Samsung 4x64MB RDRAM (Yes, I indirectly paid royalty to RAMBUS)
Intel mobo, i850 chipset (Socket 423, AGP4x, RDRAM)
(Will update with the exact model number)
The rig I am upgrading from
G-Rig-2 (Build date: 21 Sept 2005)
----------
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (90nm Venice core),
2x512MB TWINMOS DDR-400 CL 2.5.
Asus A8N-E.
Leadtek GeForce 7800 GT 256MB (The first version 110 nm).
Grabbed it as soon as it came out in Sep' 05. Price was insane but I got my moneys worth. Man it rocked hard. Got a lot of power. It came bundled with two free games Splinter Cell - Chaos Theory and Price of Persia: Warrior Within. For 2 years it just maxed out all the games I threw at it at 1182x864@75Hz. For a year I Had to reduce the settings a bit, tweak and fine tune the games, but it was still amazing and the games looked good. It was only in the 4th year the it felt lagging in the latest games.
Then in Sep' 09 its time has came. It was because of the SMPS. I bought a Zebronics 400W SMPS, it was a higher end model in Zebronics. May be it was a mistake that I bought this SMPS. But It worked flawlessly for 4 years, there was never a BSOD or a system crash in those four years. So it did its job. One day there is no display. After a lot of troubleshooting and borrowing parts from my cousin, narrowed down on the problem and the problem was the SMPS and it took the card with it. But surprisingly my 7800gt works on his machine and his graphic card works on my machine with a different SMPS. So there must be a problem with the GFx and my MoBo combo, may be the board is not able to deliver enough power. So I grabbed an ATI Radeon HD4350 512MB DDR2 and used a 300W SMPS from my Cousin's Dell machine, which was lying around after he upgraded his GPU and SMPS. This card also turned this rig into a potential HTPC, when it goes to my parents.
MSI ATI Radeon HD4350 512 MD DDR2. (Temporary substitute for the failed 7800GT)
Samsung 753DF 17" Monitor, from the previous rig
160 GB Seagate 7200.7
Sony DRU-810A (Failed after 3yrs. Bought a Sony V200s)
Zebronics 4OOw higher end SMPS. (Failed after 4yrs 3months, Using a spare SMPS from my cousin's DELL machine)
Zebronics GeForce 2 Case.
So , here it goes the G-Rig-3 story. I have been contemplating the idea of building an new rig since Oct'2008, as G-Rig-2 felt lagging in the latest games of the time like COD-MW, Burnout Paradise etc at high setting. I for one never liked playing a game at low setting, as the game would loose its visual appeal and immersion at those settings. I would hold off till I build a better rig, but I would not play a game at low settings. But the build did not materialize because I was not getting enough time to spend on gaming and hence to justify a new rig. I was spending 3-4 hrs a week re-playing my old favorites and games that I did not play before that G-Rig-2 can
run at high settings.
In Oct' 09 I decided to build a new rig. The latest from Intel, lynnfield is just out and what better time to build a new rig.
I have split this article into the following sections. Each section will be a different post. Click on the title, to jump to the post.
1. Tentative Components
(a) Processor and Motherboard
(b) RAM
(c) Graphic Card
(d) Monitor (DELL 2209WA: Flickering blue)
(e) Speakers (Altec Lansing MX5021: A short review)
(f) SMPS
(g) HDD
(h) UPS
(i) Mouse & Mouse Mat
2. Acquiring the components
(a) Ankit Hustle
3. Final Components
4. The Build
(a) First Boot
(b) Build complete
5. Stability testing, temperatures and power consumption
(a) Max power draw from the UPS. APC 650VA sufficient for this rig?
(b) The Half speed PCI-e bus.
6. Conclusion
----------------
I recently built a new gaming rig, which will be my primary rig. This is an effort to document my experience, from selecting the components to the final build to stability testing.
Guys from Bangalore planning to buy from S.P road, may be interested in "Acquiring the components" section and "The Ankit Hustle". This was my experience at S.P road. May be this will help you.
I call this machine G-Rig-3 (This is my 3rd gaming rig and my 4th machine).
My first was a
PIII 550 Mhz (coppermine) with,
128 MB 100 Mhz SD RAM
i810e chipset. (circa May 2000)
Samsung 15" Monitor
My 2nd machine,
G-Rig-1 (Build date: 26 Jan 2002), was a
---------
P4 1.6 Ghz (Willamette core)
GeForce 3 Ti 200 64MB
Samsung 4x64MB RDRAM (Yes, I indirectly paid royalty to RAMBUS)
Intel mobo, i850 chipset (Socket 423, AGP4x, RDRAM)
(Will update with the exact model number)
The rig I am upgrading from
G-Rig-2 (Build date: 21 Sept 2005)
----------
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (90nm Venice core),
2x512MB TWINMOS DDR-400 CL 2.5.
Asus A8N-E.
Leadtek GeForce 7800 GT 256MB (The first version 110 nm).
Grabbed it as soon as it came out in Sep' 05. Price was insane but I got my moneys worth. Man it rocked hard. Got a lot of power. It came bundled with two free games Splinter Cell - Chaos Theory and Price of Persia: Warrior Within. For 2 years it just maxed out all the games I threw at it at 1182x864@75Hz. For a year I Had to reduce the settings a bit, tweak and fine tune the games, but it was still amazing and the games looked good. It was only in the 4th year the it felt lagging in the latest games.
Then in Sep' 09 its time has came. It was because of the SMPS. I bought a Zebronics 400W SMPS, it was a higher end model in Zebronics. May be it was a mistake that I bought this SMPS. But It worked flawlessly for 4 years, there was never a BSOD or a system crash in those four years. So it did its job. One day there is no display. After a lot of troubleshooting and borrowing parts from my cousin, narrowed down on the problem and the problem was the SMPS and it took the card with it. But surprisingly my 7800gt works on his machine and his graphic card works on my machine with a different SMPS. So there must be a problem with the GFx and my MoBo combo, may be the board is not able to deliver enough power. So I grabbed an ATI Radeon HD4350 512MB DDR2 and used a 300W SMPS from my Cousin's Dell machine, which was lying around after he upgraded his GPU and SMPS. This card also turned this rig into a potential HTPC, when it goes to my parents.
MSI ATI Radeon HD4350 512 MD DDR2. (Temporary substitute for the failed 7800GT)
Samsung 753DF 17" Monitor, from the previous rig
160 GB Seagate 7200.7
Sony DRU-810A (Failed after 3yrs. Bought a Sony V200s)
Zebronics 4OOw higher end SMPS. (Failed after 4yrs 3months, Using a spare SMPS from my cousin's DELL machine)
Zebronics GeForce 2 Case.
So , here it goes the G-Rig-3 story. I have been contemplating the idea of building an new rig since Oct'2008, as G-Rig-2 felt lagging in the latest games of the time like COD-MW, Burnout Paradise etc at high setting. I for one never liked playing a game at low setting, as the game would loose its visual appeal and immersion at those settings. I would hold off till I build a better rig, but I would not play a game at low settings. But the build did not materialize because I was not getting enough time to spend on gaming and hence to justify a new rig. I was spending 3-4 hrs a week re-playing my old favorites and games that I did not play before that G-Rig-2 can
run at high settings.
In Oct' 09 I decided to build a new rig. The latest from Intel, lynnfield is just out and what better time to build a new rig.
I have split this article into the following sections. Each section will be a different post. Click on the title, to jump to the post.
1. Tentative Components
(a) Processor and Motherboard
(b) RAM
(c) Graphic Card
(d) Monitor (DELL 2209WA: Flickering blue)
(e) Speakers (Altec Lansing MX5021: A short review)
(f) SMPS
(g) HDD
(h) UPS
(i) Mouse & Mouse Mat
2. Acquiring the components
(a) Ankit Hustle
3. Final Components
4. The Build
(a) First Boot
(b) Build complete
5. Stability testing, temperatures and power consumption
(a) Max power draw from the UPS. APC 650VA sufficient for this rig?
(b) The Half speed PCI-e bus.
6. Conclusion
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