Rig OK? Viritual memory off? System watercooling dead?

DarthTengil

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My upcomming computer will be those components:

Case: Coolermaster HAF 932
PSU: Corsair HX850W 80+ silver
RAM: 24 GB Corsair Vengeance (6x4GB) 1600Mhz DDR3
CPU: Core i7-960 3,2Ghz LGA 1366
CPU cooling: Corsair Cooling Hydro H50
Motherboard: ASUS Sabertooth X58 S 1366
GPU: MSI N460GTX HAWK 1GB TwinFrozr II (2 in 2x16x SLI mode)
HDD: WD Velociraptor ICE 74GB 10000 RPM (2 in RAID 0)
Windows 7 PRO 64
Logitech Z-5500 Digital 5.1 speakers

Got the HDD for 2 years ago, never used before. Otherwise I had get a SSD.

Do you think my rig will work for say 10 years, besides the HDDs? Have I choosed good quality components or is there some parts that is reported buggy? I am aming for a silent computer with a noise span at 12-25 db, case fans sounds up to 19 db, know the GPUs is sounding 18-40 db, but besides that, is this as silent it can be?

With this very large RAM size, working in tripple channel (in reality dubble tripple channel or?) and with 1+1GB GPU memory as I run in 2x16x SLI mode, will I be able to stop/inactivate windows viritual memory usage of the much slower HDD memory for good? Will the system run with speed even if I do this? How much raw "data power" will be "lost" if inactivating this (very very old) system memory handling function?

Is the "big rig system" watercooling dead by now? I mean those watercoling systems that you have the pump outside the case and install pipes to the CPU, northbridge, southbridge, graphic cards and RAMs and then back to the pump and liquid case/plate. In my point of wiew almost in a modern computer is allready water/liquid-cooled. The motherboard have a big on-board watercooling system in the surroundings of the CPU and bridges. The two MSI graphic cards have a major extended system of water/liquidcooling and heatpipes and two fans. My CPU cooler is also watercooled and blows out the heat with a fan on the top of the case. The case itself have very effective aircooling with 3 230mm fans and one 140mm fan on the back. It will blow much air over the motherboard and then out. Even my RAMs have both cheramic heat absorbers and heatflenses that will be cooled by the case airflow. Is there really any meaning with "big rig system" watercooling anymore? Will use the motherboards own "automaticly" overclocking feature to make a soft but stable overclock, but not do it manually. Is there any reason to look for watercooling for just the RAMs? What product will I need to buy if I want to watercool my RAMs? Dont you have to get a special motherboard and RAM-sticks for this such of cooling? So, is the big system watercooling days over if you dont want to overclock as hell as to say?

Please give me every possible info and arguments that I may am in need of to hear. Would you have choosed another product if you were in my place? Have no experience at all in disable windows viritual memory, whats yours? All you watercooling PROs/hardcore overclockers, what have you to say of my ideas? Please show mercy... :)

Regardings
Johan
Sweden
 
(1) on H50 - I think that several of the high end air coolers beat it. Not sure about the H70 system.

(2) On page file - I know many recommend deleting it, But I've also heard that some programs will balk if set to Zero. I'd just set it to a small value (set min and max to that value)

(3) Not sure what you are going to do with 24 gigs of ram. Currently there is very little diff between 8 and 16 gig. I should talk, I have 16 gigs - But I use 8 gigs as a Ram drive.

(4) A single SSD will make Your Raptors look like a 1932 Ford that been passed by a F16
 

JasonAkkerman

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Off topic a bit... What are you using for an 8GB ramdrive? I'm using Dataram Ramdisk in it's free form and it only supports up to 4GB. Just checking to see if there was a free version of something else that supports larger then 4GB.

I have 12GB myself... got to do something with it.

Also... the '32 Ford was/is an awesome car.
 
I'm using the DataRam ramdisk program. I tried it out when I had 8 gigs of ram, created a 3 gig ram drive. Benchmarks are just crazy. Anyway upped my ram to 16 gigs. and paid the small lic fee (I think it was 10-> 15 bucks.
 

marcellis22

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I have a dual PIII still running after 11 years as a server for games and audio... it's all out of date. The X58 chipset is a dead end, and I suspect in less than five years mechanical hard drives will be gone. No problem, it sounds like you have money to do what you need to... and you'll need to at some point sooner than you may think!
 

DarthTengil

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OK RAM drive seams amazing but back to topic please! Agree with you Jason, Ill rather buy a 1932 veteran car with a V12 and 900 horse power and a chassi all in big and beutiful steel and chrome than a brand new Porce with advanced electronic box and a chassi of plastic...

Yes the chipset is a dead end, but so will the new Sandy Bridge S 1155 also be in 2-3 years from now. Even the CPU with 4 real and 4 synthetic cores will be outdated in 5 years. But I dont think 24 GB RAM will be standard in 10 years! Windows XP needs 1GB as a minimum and PC games needed say 2-3 GB RAM in 2005. Windows Vista needs 2 GB and Windows 7 64-bit needs 4GB just to run the OS itself propertly. Dont know for sure but I can guess that PC games in year 2011 needs 3-5 GB to be able to run at max settings. If you think of that fact that the time span from XP to windows 7 is 10 years long and the increased need to run windows OS only have gone from 1 to 4 GB of RAM, Im pretty sure my 24 GB RAM still will be way more than the maximum needed to run windows and play games in the year of 2021!!! And the CPU will still be a good CPU, that one will surely be able to play alot of the new games in 2021, with help from my extreme 24GB RAM. The day that PCI-e transforms into some other standard I can buy the latest graphic cards that still supports PCI-e for a small sum when everbody else goes after the new model. Therefore am I trying to only choose components that have a good chance to survive until then. This is the last time in my life I can afford to get a near-high-end computer, and Im not that type of person that first buy a cheeper processor so I can get that 6 core monster after a year to uppgrade my PC later. That sort of thinking always ends up the same: you have to buy a new motherboard, CPU and RAM beacuse there will not be any kind of that processor left in a year or two!

Please give me more answers!
 

JasonAkkerman

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wow, i never knew you could do ram drives, sorry to derail the thread, but, how much faster are they then SSDs?


Picture

That is a 2GB ramdrive on my system. Yea... they are that fast!!!

I have all my temp folders pointing there, and all my browsers put their temp files there. I edit pictures and movies from there, and sometimes I copy games to it and play them from there. That really why I want something larger then 4gb.
 

JasonAkkerman

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There is no way you are going to be able to play current games on a ten year old computer. No matter how much RAM you have in it.

As an example, Intel started selling a Pentium III 1133 MHz in July 2001. There is no way you could play a modern game on a computer of that power.

Split your budget, buy a middle-of-the-road computer today, and invest the rest the money. In 5 years, get your money out and buy another computer.
 
I know where you are coming from. Between my old computer and upgrade to E6400 was about 6->7 years. In fact have that computer at work. Use it to Image 2 Gig SCSI drives for use on a P-90 running windows 3.11.

For gaming 4 gigs is the current sweet spot for games, with little improvement between 4 -> 8 gigs. The current trend is to recommend 8 gig, But this is really dependent on software. But no harm going bigger!!.

Might want to consider a Ramdrive, say 16 gigs. Load it up with current game, or software most offten used. When you shut the computer down it saves an image to disk and reloads when powered up. Just click a box and it will not reload on start up giving you access to full memory. Turn on, reboot and back in bussiness with ramdrive and what ever is on it.

Performance wise about 10 times faster than an ssd, only disadvantage is increases power off/on time.

PS, I'm not a gamer (most demanding game I have player in the last year was elfbowl lol)- More a hobby (beat model cars, for me) and for work.
 

DarthTengil

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All you overclockers, what about my thoughts with watercooling? Is Corsair H60 better than H50 (CPU watercooling)? Give me more info about inactivating Windows viritual memory! What are your experiences? Maby better to keep it but just in terms of 1-2MB? All you people with greater experience, give me a helping hand! Well, I just cant buy new computers every fifth year, it will be this one and it better work and not break down by budget parts. Thats why I want to build this computer so it will be able to run later softwares. And yes you can run most of todays games on a 10 year old PC if it have a multi-core or dual CPU and 3GB SDRAM, only you speed it up with a new ssd and mayby look for some older second-hand graphic card on the net. Remember: the most unimportant part of a computer is the CPU, the most important is a large SUM of RAM and not the speed of it!
 
Compare H50 and H60
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/Corsair_H60/4.html
H60 is about 7 C better than H50. Note H60 only 1 C better than air cooler Themalright Ultra 120 - WITHOUT the hassle /problems of Watercooling.

I ended up going with the 9900Max-b (Got it on sale @ newegg for $65). Just waiting for the Z68 MBs to appear.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/zalman-cnps-9900-max-review/7

The Zalman 9900 max, and several others such as the Nochu C14 are on par with the H70 (Ref system I7-930 @ 3.5 GHz)
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1581/5/

For the insane OC and Max cpu voltage the H70 may be the way to go, But for others I recommend the top-of-the line Air coolers. Would not get the H50 or slightly better H60. Just my opinion.
 

JasonAkkerman

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I use the H50 at home. I would have preferred to use some big air, but I needed a way to move the heat exchanger away from the the memory. Six sticks of OC'd RAM make a lot of heat. All the heat radiated up straight to the CPU cooler. Being able to move the H50 heat exchange away from that source of heat dropped my temps 10-12c under load.

Before the H50 I was actually using an smaller OC with a slight undervolt to get the temps down.

I use the H50 with high flow fans I got form newegg, in a push pull configuration. I actually got better temps using it as an intake, and setting the other the case fans to exhaust. My air flow is from the back to the front. Even though the PSU exhaust is in the rear this was still the best configuration.

I'm glad I went with the H50. Its functionality fit my needs perfectly and it was easy to install (if you idea of easy is to completely take the PC apart and remove the motherboard).
 
Pulling the MB to install HSF is a mute point. As he would install it prior to installing MB in case. Even with the stock HSF, this is the prefered method on a new build.

Not sure what case you are using, But DarthTengil Case Comes with:
1 x 230mm front red LED fan
1 x 230mm top fan
1 x 230mm side fan
With this config the HSF would probably be pointing up, not back so air would not be "sucked" from the memory modules.
Also with this I very much dought case ventilation will be much of a problem!!

Rare, but does happen.
Leaks.
Pump or fan stops working for Liquid cooled vs Fan stops working on air cooled - Aircooled system provides better cooling when this happens - Granted not good in either case.