New build on Asus P5Q Pro

[yamawho]

I decide to upgrade my son's gaming rig for his birthday.

With the remaining parts arriving this morning, all systems were go for the build.
It’s been quite a while since I put together a decent gaming rig using current components and I must admit to thoroughly enjoying myself.

First impressions on components:

The E8500 looked like any other 775 cpu but the stock HSF is a half size similar to the one that comes with the Celeron 4xx series.

The Diamond HD 4870 is a beast! It’s about 1 ½” thick and you really feel the weight.
This is my 1st dual slot video card and after hearing about how hot the card runs, I really wanted the hot air to be exhausted directly out of the case.

Asus P5Q Pro motherboard is a nice piece of work. I like the black pcb and the onboard cooling. I also liked the padding on the back plate … sure beats fighting with the tabs trying to install the mobo in the case. On my last build I had finished putting together my HTPC and tried to get the HDMI connector without success … the tab was blocking the port. Anyways, the mounting holes have little raised points which help lock in the screw during assembly, very nice detail. The quick connect block provided is handy but the usb and firewire ones make the job much easier if your case has single wires to the front panel.

System specs:

CPU: Intel E8500
Mobo: Asus P5Q Pro
Video card: Diamond HD 4870
Memory: Corsair value ram 2 x 2GB DDR2 667
HDD: WD 500GB Sata2
PSU: OCZ GameXstream 600 watt
OS: Vista Ultimate 64bit

I found the video card to be idling in the upper 70’s C. I did play around with the soft mod to adjust the fan speed. At first I set it the 65% … much too loud. I made another profile and set it at 45% and it idles at around 36C, much better but still loud. Besides flashing the bios to correct the fan issue, I hope ATI comes up with a better fix.

Here are a few pics …

[Sir Skully]

Congrats on a nice looking rig.......
Always a joy to build a new rig with all or mostly all new parts...

[yamawho]

I had a bit more time today to look under the hood and found the following;

Using CPUz v1.46 the multi is at x6 and the vcore at 1.120v
This confused me a bit until there was some hdd activity and the multi jumped to x9.5 and the vcore to 1.144v. Although I don't have the Asus power utility installed, I did read that the mobo will adjust to the power requirements on it's own.

Also to my surprise, my Corsair value ram 2 x 2GB DDR2 667 is running at 400 mhz or 5:6 instead of 1:1 270 mhz.

Acording to SPD
270Mhz 4,4,4,13
400Mhz 5,5,5,18

In the bios the Dram frequency at set to auto.

So, if I set the Dram to 667 I should be able to overclock my e8500 to 800 Mhz (400 fsb) with 5,5,5,18 at 1.8v.

9.5 x 333 = 3.160 Ghz
9.5 x 400 = 3.800 Ghz

I see several bios setting which are new to me ...
Before I attempt this overclock, can anyone offer some guidance with the bios settings ?

[ATINUT]

Nice looking system there. I'm running the 3870X2 in my system, and like it alot.

If the manual for your board says to plug a 4 pin molex connector in to the board, to supply stable power to the PCI Express slots do it, it will save you a lot of trouble should you decide to add a second 4870 in the future.

My Mushkin memory can run it's EPP timings of 5-4-4-12 at it's rated voltage of 1.8.

A little advice though, and I'm no expert. Take your time setting things in the bios the way you like, you will have less trouble in the long run. I'm not even overclocking and noticed a nice performance increase by running the EPP timings for my memory.

[yamawho]

I was considering getting these Mushkin XP PC2-8000 Redline 4GB 2X2GB DDR2-1000 CL5-5-5-12

NCIX.com - Buy Mushkin XP PC2-8000 Redline 4GB 2X2GB DDR2-1000 CL5-5-5-12 240PIN Dual Channel Memory Kit - 996593 In Canada.

But I already had the Corsair and I'm over budget

[ATINUT]

Here's the Mushkin ram that I run in my machine.

Newegg.com - mushkin 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory

Corsair is still good memory.

Are you using a soundcard in that machine or the onboard HD Audio codec.

[traveler]

Congrats on the new machine yamawho!!!

I wish my new box was together already. I'm still trying to get my CPU cooler to fit. I hope Zalman sends me the right parts this week. Good to hear you got your's running.

[yamawho]

ATINUT, not using a sound card ... might be a solution down the road.

I forgot to mention that I did have an issue installing my Zalman 9500AT.
There was some solder points on the back of the mobo which were pressing against Zalman adaptor of the 775 socket. I needed to shave it down was a shipping knife.

BTW, do most games run on a 64 bit OS ?

[fvbounty]

Nice looking rig and a nice job of wireing! I see a spot for a couple of 80mm fans on the back of the case that your not using, it might help with overall case cooling by adding a couple quiet fans there?

[yamawho]

Originally Posted by fvbounty

Nice looking rig and a nice job of wireing! I see a spot for a couple of 80mm fans on the back of the case that your not using, it might help with overall case cooling by adding a couple quiet fans there?

That was a build in progress shot.

Here is a pic of the completed build.
I installed two rear 80mm fans and two more in the front.
They are controlled by a Sunbeam 4 channel fan controller.
I wired two fan per channel and they are running around 5 volts.

[fvbounty]

Very nice, you have a lucky son! I didn't notice but do you have a fan on the side panel blowing in on the video card?

[yamawho]

He is at still at camp so he has not seen it yet.

I do have the option for putting a side fan but decided to run the system without one for now. It's always a pain to need to deal with the wires every time I open the case.

I still haven't installed any games yet ... do all current games run on Vista 64bit ?

[fvbounty]

I don't know about games on Vista 64bit, I'm still running XP pro right now, but when I upgrade to 4 gigs of ram I think I'll put Vista 64 on, so I have the same question has you?

[yamawho]

Plan B is to install XP Pro on a 2nd hdd if required ...

[fvbounty]

Originally Posted by yamawho

Plan B is to install XP Pro on a 2nd hdd if required ...

Maybe thats what I'll do, I'm getting a 300gig raptor when I get my other 2 gigs of ram for my fall upgrade, maybe I'll put vista on the the 300 gig raptor and leave xp on my 150 gig raptor? How would you boot into either drive?