Rest In Peace, DFI LANParty

I know the brand has been dead for many years now, but my upcoming hardware upgrade made me think of how awesome the LANParty series of boards was from DFI. I only really have experience with the P35-T2RS and the Blood Iron, but man, the overclocking fun I had with that T2RS gives me a fuzzy feeling. If I could go back and redo things, would I choose a LANParty P55 board over my EVGA? I really can't say. I can say that if LANParty was to ever make a return, it would probably re-spark a bit of the enthusiast in me.

Upgrade Plans: 2016

It's 2016. I've had my current processor and motherboard since 2010. That processor and motherboard released in 2009. I feel like a total scrub, but I'm using SEVEN YEAR OLD HARDWARE. And you know what? It's actually not that bad. You can definitely feel a bit of a performance hit in modern games, but day to day usage isn't hindered by speed. If anything, I really want to upgrade for newer standards, like USB3, SATA3, and M.2. The SSD is still plenty fast, but 120GB of storage is feeling cramped. So, I've set out with a few requirements in mind, and I think I hit most of them with my choices.

Larger SSD
Core i5 or better
USB3/SATA3/M.2
Dual Intel Gigabit LAN
SLI Functionality

I believe my final choices will be:

Intel Core i5 4690K
Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H-BK
Samsung 850 EVO M.2 250GB SSD
HP NC360T Dual Gigabit PCIe x4 NIC

Intel Core i5 4690K: This processor is a 4th gen Intel Core i5, which is considerably faster than my first gen i5. I'm opting for a K series unlocked CPU in case I choose to overclock in the future. I'm currently running my processor stock, so even at stock clocks it should be leaps and bounds ahead. Another great advantage to 4th gen processors is they still support DDR3 fully. Although it would be nice to grab a Skylake CPU, I don't really want to drop the extra money for a RAM upgrade. The 16GB of Mushkin Blacklines I have now will be plenty of RAM for the time being, though I may see myself expand to 32GB over time.

Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H-BK: After a lot of searching, this seems to be the board of choice. It supports USB3 (4 USB3 and 4 USB2 ports on board), SATA3 and M.2 (6 SATA3 ports with 4 usable while the M.2 slot is in use), and has on board Intel Gigabit LAN, even though it's only a single port. rounding that out, it fully supports SLI with 2x PCIe x16 slots (Running at x8 with 2 cards installed) and a 3rd PCIe x16 slot that runs at x4. Reviews are favorable of the on board sound too, with custom capacitors, and a decently loud built in amp. I'll likely retire the HT Omega Striker in favor of the on board audio.

Samsung 850 EVO M.2 250GB SSD: Affordable, fast storage, in the M.2 2280 format. Should save space and be a bit quicker than regular storage, and let me have plenty of breathing room for games that benefit faster loading times. I may decide to go with a regular SATA3 SSD if it's priced any cheaper, but right now this M.2 drive is in a pretty sweet spot.

HP NC360T Dual Gigabit PCIe x4 NIC: Since I couldn't find an affordable Z97 board with dual gigabit Intel NICs, I think the NC360T is a great choice for an add in NIC. Not only is it basically an Intel Pro 1000 PT dual port, it's also freaking affordable, regularly selling on eBay in the 30-40 dollar range. This is due to them regularly being pulled from off lease/EOL servers. I'm very pleased with it's performance in my ESXI box, so I can't see it being disappointing in my regular box. I could go with a single port, but for 5-10 dollars more, it makes sense to just grab a dual port.

At the moment, all in this upgrade should roll for under 800 post taxes and shipping, and I'll be able to sell my existing gear for a bit of cash to offset. If this lasts for another 6-7 years, I think I'll be pretty happy. The only upgrades I can see occurring after this are video card related, and it may just end up with me grabbing another GTX670 for SLI, or migrating into something completely different once the performance gap between my card and something newer is a bit higher. For right now, I can run 3 EVE clients at max settings pretty easily, and I can max out any Source engine game at 2560x1080 pretty easily. There isn't much that I play that would benefit currently from a new video card. If there's any more hardware upgrades, it's gonna be more monitors!

Desktop Update!

If you’re in touch with the gaming world, you’ll know that Battlefield 4 was released at the end of October. If you know me at all, you’ll know I’m a pretty big fan of the Battlefield series. With previous blog posts, you can see that the release of a new Battlefield title almost requires a new hardware update. This release was really no exception.

From my post on my ESXi host, I listed my desktop specifications. Now, the HD6850 I had was an absolute trooper. I was able to play Skyrim and BF3 with few issues, and the overall desktop experience with the Catalyst drivers was actually really good. Honestly, both Nvidia and AMD have very mature drivers with few issues (that I can see). I figured I’d be able to carry my HD6850 over into Battlefield 4 and maintain a similar performance level without having to upgrade. How wrong I was…

I fired up the open beta, and was instantly disappointed. I was running at 1920x1080, ALL low, and barely maintaining 45 frames per second average. Even playing with resolution scaling didn’t work too much. I struggled through maybe 2 to 3 rounds, before deciding to just set it aside for now and look at it once launch day came. (Silly me, I should have updated my drivers). I preordered, the night before updated my video drivers, and was up at 6AM for some launch day fun.

The performance difference was astounding. It’s almost like that short beta worked out a lot of the frame rate issues, and suddenly I could play on all low, with 95% resolution scaling, and maintain a fluid, playable, 60 frames per second. However on the larger maps, I was getting some frame drops during large “Leveloution events”, or when there was a ton of action on screen. This really wouldn’t do for a more performance oriented player, and dropping the resolution scaling any further would result in an extremely poor picture, and put me at a huge disadvantage. So, naturally, I decided to upgrade.

My processor was fine, my RAM and hard drives were fine, it was just the video card. Buying new was out of the question. I don’t need a cutting edge r9 or 7xx series card, so I took to the Hardware Canucks forums as usual. After browsing for a few days, I settled on a really good deal for a GTX 670 FTW Signature 2, by EVGA. The install was easy, and after a clean driver install, I was up and running and good to go.

I started Battlefield 4, jumped in game, and pushed my settings to a mix of high/ultra. Frame rate was definitely better, but I was still getting these really stupid frame drops. I tried pushing my processor from stock to 3.6GHz. Still the same results. Tried running on low, vsync’d, etc. Same problem. I tried practically every fix I could find on the internet, and still the same results. I wasn’t pleased. My last ditch option was Windows 8.1. So, Sunday afternoon, I spent the 2-3 hours pushing the update to my desktop. And you know what? Problem solved.

I run a current mix of ultra/medium settings, with my frame rate capped at 70. I see occasional dips into the 60s, but beyond that, it’s almost always pinned at 70 frames per second. And to be quite honest, Windows 8.1 is pretty awesome too. Resource usage is lower, the task manager is considerably better, being able to pause file transfers is a nice feature, built in Hyper-V will be awesome to play with, and the interface is a bit more mature feeling. Everything can be configured so you rarely have to see “Metro” apps too. I’m really glad I made the jump.

Finished! ...Well, sort of.

Alright! Longer time than expected to actually make another post, but hey, that's alright! I ended up finishing Water FTW 1.0 the night of the 16th when I returned home. I really didn't run into any trouble at all, other than the Switech micro reservoir being a bit hard to mount, especially with properly routing the tubing... I ended up getting it done, but the tubing wasn't quite as clean as I had liked. Oh well, it was done. Anyway, here's the first phase, along with all the parts that had been received.

Above is the weekend haul. You can see here, I brought home not only a fair number of shiny fittings and water blocks, but I also have... WHAT'S THAT? 16GB OF DDR3? Oh my. Yeah, I upgraded to 16GB of DDR3, Mushkin Blacklines. All of the fittings were ordered from Dazmode/NCIX, and arrived by Friday! Service from NCIX is normally amazing, but they went above and beyond with these 3 orders to them. The only thing that didn't arrive was the package from Elwoodz, which I was initially disappointed about, but got over it awful quick. Also pictured are the 72 K Cups from Singlecup.ca, my new spot for my coffee fix.  2 boxes of dark roast, a box of medium roast, and a box of jet fuel.

Above are the pictures that I took that actually turned out okay from Water FTW 1.0. As you can see from the first one, it's a bit of a tight fit for the reservoir with the tubing. I only had one leak during the build, and it was actually the fill port of all things. The EK blocks are simply great. Amazing machining, even if the GPU blocks seem a bit rough. I guess seeing finishes like Zalman, or the base of the Supreme HF kinda spoiled me... I was happy with this, but I wanted it to look even better... So off to Dazmode. The results are posted below...

As you can see above, with the dazmode order I decided to add a lovely tube reservoir. This particular tube is the EK Multioption 150 x2 Advanced. It comes with like, 3 holes on the top, 5 on the bottom, 3 tubes for inside the reservoir to reduce cyclone formation, along with an anti cyclone attachment. I decided to go with the tubes.  This really reduced the number of sharp turns, and actually shortened my tubing runs, which was my main goal. My second goal was a usable drain port. Because, holy crap, holding a full HAF 932 over a tub is NOT a fun experience. My drain port is right after the pump, and consists of a t block with a quick disconnect attached to it. The female end is attached to a length of tube, and I keep it for draining. This really does simplify things... A lot.

Picture of the drain port above. The Koolance quick disconnects are simply amazing. really nice build quality to them. You can also see here my pump mounting choice. I decided to zip tie it to the drive cage, with some neoprene from a cheap laptop case acting as a vibration dampener. I can't hear it, and I couldn't really even hear it when I was leak testing. Maybe it's just me, but the MCP355 isn't loud with proper mounting. Definitely not audible over the fans, which are pretty darn quiet as it is.

Upsettingly, I didn't quite have room for the above. This doesn't mean I won't try to fit it in at a later date, but I had to leave this wonderful single radiator out for now. I am, however, very happy with the temperatures I'm getting from this triple radiator. Sadly, the highest I can manage to push the processor with hyperthreading on, while still maintaining good temperatures, is 3.8GHz. I'm partially blaming this on the 16GB of DDR3. At 1.25v in the bios, 1.25v on the VTT, I can manage 3.8GHz, with a maximum temperature of 63 degrees in LinX. That's a 25 pass run with all memory. 4GHz required over .1v more, and shot temperatures up another 10 degrees, if not more. My happy medium is 3.8GHz, as the extra "performance" isn't really worth the heat. I'm very happy with a processor that idles around 22-24 degrees, and has an average load temperature of around 28-30. Even gaming doesn't push it all that far. The maximum temperature I have seen during gaming wasn't even close to the 63 max in LinX on the processor, and the GPU doesn't even hit 50... Oh, and by the way, the GPU idles around 28 degrees. Not complaining there. On the heatsink, it would easily hit 35-40 degrees idle, and I don't think I had ever seen it go under 70 degrees with a gaming load on it.

Oh, as for that 16GB of RAM... This is what I've been doing. ESXi 4.1 running in Workstation 7, virtualizing 3 different operating systems! I plan on doing a lot more tests with it, but I'm a little limited by the single Western Digital Black... I think, however, I can use this as an excuse to set up a raid array!

Well, that's enough for tonight... I'll definitely be back to post again. And, I'll leave this post with one more picture.

-Jon

Since I won't be getting any sleep tonight...

May as well update the blog with more of an "overview" of what's going on with the water cooling project. So, let's start out with a total parts list.

1x Feser X-Changer 360 Radiator
1x Feser X-Changer 120 Radiator
1x Swiftech MCP355 w/ EK X-Top
1x Swiftech Micro Res Revision 2
1x EK Supreme HF Revision 2 CPU water block Nickel/Plexi
1x EK FC470 GTX 470 full cover GPU water block Nickel/Plexi
12x Bitspower 1/2" ID 3/4" OD silver compression fittings
11x Feser 1/2" ID 3/4" OD Nickel compression fittings
6x Feser 1/2" ID 3/4" OD Silver 45 degree rotary compression fittings
5x Feser Nickel 45 degree rotary adapters
1x Bitspower silver 90 degree rotary adapter
1x Bitspower Nickel 90 degree 1/2" rotary barb
10x Bitspower silver 1/2" barbs
7x Feser nickel 1/2" barbs
1x Enzotech nickel T adapter
1x Enzotech silver 10.5mm G1/4 threaded spacer
2x Swiftech fill/drain ports
2x Poly tees
16~ Feet of PrimoChill Primoflex LRT clear 1/2" ID 3/4" OD tubing

So, as we can see, there are a TON of fittings here. I shouldn't have any trouble getting things to fit properly with everything listed here. I'm still thinking I might grab that second Feser 360, and use it for a near-future project... Water cooled media PC/Server anyone? I really can't think of anything else to do with another radiator... Other than find a way to fit it into my main loop. But what I'm going to have is already overkill as is. Well, I'll know for sure if I'm going to take that radiator some time in the afternoon. Should have all of my cash by then.

In other news, Nick's board should be shipped out tomorrow via expedited or express parcel! Since it's coming from New Glasgow, it shouldn't take all that long. The weekend will be building Nick's machine, followed by stability testing it. He'll game, I'll see the girlfriend and my friends. Sunday, I'll gather up the plethora of components and my 72 kcups, and hit the road back to Truro.

I'll be sure to update throughout the week. Perhaps we'll even see a nice review of my Keurig B44.

Bed time now...

-Jon

Oh look, more money spent

Well hot damn, I'm just on a roll now.

So, I really couldn't pass it up, someone else from the Hardware Canucks Forums, his handle being Elwoodz, was selling some lovely water gear. So, I got away with some lovely components, that'll be listed below. I also made another order from Dazmode, and got a couple more fittings from NCIX as well. So, my parts that have been obtained over the past few days are as follows...

TFC X-Changer 120
2x Bitspower 1/2" silver compression fittings
11x Feser 1/2" Nickel compression fittings
6x Feser 1/2" 45 degree rotary compression fittings
1x Enzotech nickel T adapter
7x Feser Nickel 1/2" Barbs
3x Feser 45 degree rotary adapters

There's also a pretty good chance of grabbing a second X-changer 360, for 60 dollars shipped. I could pretty easily use this in a later build, and it'll be just nice to have around in case I get a larger case. Water cooled HTPC or what?

Here's hoping everything comes in by Friday.

-Jon

Boom!

Alright, back at the apartment, with some new gear!

Arriving back at the apartment, I was greeted with some nice new gear. Well, it was used stuff, but still new to me! 20 feet of clear Primochill PrimoFlex  LRT 1/2" inner diameter tubing, some angled fittings, a couple poly tees, a couple fill/drain ports, and of course, a Swiftech Micro Res! All these parts were, once again, from that nice fellow Rison from HWC forums. So, of course, me being impatient, I got to work, and eventually came up with this:

That pump has some pretty good power behind it for being so small... Then again, it was just shooting water through a radiator. Runs a little loud, but to be fair, it was on the table. When I picked the pump up, all I could really hear was the bubbles flowing. After this, I decided to remove the i5 and my Noctuas from my system and install the i7. This, of course, went just fine. The Noctuas were cleaned, and mounted to the radiator.

My god it looks imposing. It's going to be tight in the case, that's for sure. Pictured beside it is the Swiftech Micro Res. I have also decided on a mounting point for the reservoir. It will be mounted inside the drive bay, above the DVD drive with two strong pieces of velcro. It's a perfect fit, and it's just hidden from view. I can still check liquid levels if need be as well, by peering through the grills on the front.

Onto the i7. This thing was an easy install and boot, but it wasn't too much fun to get the overclock actually functioning. Most everything I tried ended in a boot loop with the post codes 6F or D4. Eventually I managed to get something working, and now I can post at whatever clock speed. Right now it's happily sitting at 3.8GHz with hyper threading enabled, at 1.26 volts. This is good enough for me. I believe 1.24 volts is what it dips to under load. I managed to prime at 4.05GHz, but the heat was a little too much for my poor NH-U12P, managing to hit 85 degrees within just a few minutes. Water cooling should let me really open up and push that little fucker till it screams.

So... A parts list for the water cooling!

TFC X-Changer 360 w/ 6x Noctua NF-P12s in Push/Pull configuration
Swiftech MCP355 w/ EK X-Top revision 2
Swiftech Micro Reservoir revision 2
EK Supreme HF revision 2 Plexi/Nickel CPU water block
EK 470 Full Cover Plexi/Nickel GPU water block
Primochill Primoflex LRT clear 1/2" ID tubing
Bitspower shining silver compression fittings x10
Bitspower black speckle T line x1
Bitspower shining silver barbs x8
Swiftech Fill/Drain port x2

I decided on going plexi/nickel for my blocks, because I managed to get a really good deal on the GTX470 block. Another nice person from the HWC forums is selling it to me for 85 dollars shipped, so I had to jump on it. I already ordered the CPU block too, so it should be in Amherst next week, along with the GPU block and my latest decision, the compression fittings. If you're doing it, you may as well do it right, right?
Also, here's what I ended up doing in Christmas morning with Nick...

As expected from the HAF series, this was a pleasure to build in, with lots of room. Will soon be housing my i5 and Noctua NH-U12P.

It's after 4 AM now, so I believe I'm going to be going to bed. GOODNIGHT!

-Jon

Pump is in!

Definitely a nice looking pump. Arrived on time, actually a day early. Didn't get it until the next day though. I like the looks. The previous owner included 1/2" barbs, and sleeved the power cable. This picture was taken after I changed the orientation of the outlet.

Also, the processor is in the mail, should be here by the end of the month! I managed to get it for ~$210 shipped, which is good enough. And all things considering, it does 3.8GHz at 1.24v with hyperthreading ON.

Will be sure to update more when more parts come in, and will have a few reviews up in the near future. (ereader, etc.)

-Jon

More upgrades? WHY YES!

It seems as though I have come across 5 more upgrades to my system, a new case, a new power supply, a sound card (AGAIN!), 4 more gigabytes of RAM, and a solid state drive! three of these aren’t really new, which isn’t overly great, but I can get over it, as they were stellar deals, and they weren’t abused. The other two were brand new, one being a gift, one being a purchase on a whim.

The first upgrade, I decided to make things a bit bigger, and I am now rocking my roommate’s HAF932. It’s a much bigger case, not exactly quieter, but more room to grow, and my components seem to run a bit cooler. I’ve replaced the rear 140mm fan with one of my NF-P12s, and the side 230mm fan with 4 of my remaining NF-P12s. I think they offer a lot more static pressure and airflow, and, most people would disagree, but I think they look nicer too. So, with this case, I’m now set up for just about anything, at least when compared to my CM690. Alas, the CM690 will be missed, but I can deal. After all, the HAF is just a better case.

The second little upgrade I did was a new power supply! I decided, since I have the 470, and I’ve already overclocked it ludicrously (more on that in a bit), I may as well have a better power supply than my aging FSP FX600-GLN. So, again, I make another upgrade through my roommate, A Corsair TX650. Sure, it isn’t modular, and it isn’t a huge upgrade wattage wise, but the power supply is much better built (Seasonic based I think?), and can handle much more than it’s rated output. It was basically a free upgrade, so it’ll hold me over until I decide to bite the bullet on the Strider 850w fully modular from Silverstone.

The third upgrade would be the used soundcard from my roommate as well. The HT Omega Striker 7.1 is a fairly highly regarded sound card, and I couldn’t be happier, especially at the price of 20 dollars. Having something to drive the Sennheisers properly is great, and, unlike the Asus Xonar DX, the drivers aren’t rubbish!

For my Birthday, Nick got me 4Gb of Corsair XMS3. What really surprised me was I didn’t have to increase vtt voltage on my processor. It was basically plug the RAM in, check it was recognized in the BIOS, then boot. I can now run tons of VMs and other applications at the same time, without having to budget my memory! Overall, really pleased. With a bit more voltage I might even be able to tighten the timings.

The final upgrade for this post is the SSD. I was considering a 3^rd monitor, and although I would have gotten more usable desktop workspace out of it, the SSD ended up being a bit cheaper, and in the end the sheer performance gains from an SSD were much more appealing. The SSD I ended up going with was an OCZ Vertex 2 Extended, which is a sandforce based drive. They seem to be tops when compared to Samsung, Indilinx, and Intel controllers, with a 285Mbp/s peak read and a 275Mbp/s peak write. Averages depend on what’s being written/read though. It also supports TRIM, and has a couple Sandforce exclusive features such as Duraclass and Durawrite. The installation process was just a ton of fun. I spent a good week researching optimal install methods. I’m going to go over an SSD install and tweak guide in another post though, so I’ll leave that alone for now. The performance gained from that drive though is ridiculous. Boot times are about 17 seconds after post, and everything is usable as soon as boot is finished. It doesn’t take a couple seconds to open firefox, or load digsby, it’s just instant. Shut downs are done within 5 seconds. I love this thing.

Just a quick youtube video of 11 applications loading simultaneously.

OCZ Vertex 2 Extended 120Gb Opening 11 applications simultaneously.

I have the SSD configured as the boot and application drive, where my most used apps will be. The previous boot drive, the 640Gb Western Digital Black, is a multidrive/scratch disk basically. It holds music, non-installed software, literature, FRAPS footage and screenshots, the Photoshop scratch disk, less used programs, and, all of my user files. (This prevents unnecessary writes to the SSD). Finally, the 1Tb drive is dedicated to video. All of my movies and TV shows are on there.

That GTX470 is a tank. Stock clock speeds of 608/1215/1600, with a bump in core voltage to 1.087v, I managed to get it up to 825/1650/1900. It runs any current game I play with ease, and never sees more than 75 degrees on load. Oh, and idle temps? 35 degrees. Ridiculous. Frame rates? Well, Counter Strike Source at 1920x1080, all settings on high, and Anti Aliasing set to 16x QCSAA, I manage to push out an average frame rate of 210~. Bad company 2 skips along happily at full settings, no AA, average of 60-80FPS, and Borderlands doesn’t really drop past 100. Overall, very happy with that purchase.

So, keep your eyes out for an SSD install and tweak guide soon, along with some book reviews, but that’s just a quick update on the current state of the system.

-Jon