System build - recommend me the details.

[X-Warrior]

Smooth... well, let's hope so. Some items are still labeled 3-5 days, and the GPU/CPU have gone out of stock without known delivery time. I sure hope that's because of my order that they've gone out of stock, otherwise I'll be waiting until well into 2010 for this. And since I already paid, that's not going to be an option - I am so going to be on the phone if I don't get word this week.

The Vapor-X cards run cooler and quieter than the 'stock' cards. That's important. :)

There's a reason I chose to pay up €30 more ;). Also, it has a higher clock speed than the standard edition.

[Cboy]

congrats! looks like a system that you will enjoy for many many years... !

Mine just shipped yesterday , and its 4 days ahead of schedule from cyberpowerpc.


hope the ssd drive from intel will have updated firmware already installed.

[X-Warrior]

hope the ssd drive from intel will have updated firmware already installed.

Same here, that would make things quite a bit easier.
And many many years is what it's supposed to last for. Well, maybe a bigger SSD once the things get cheaper ;)


Looks like the memory I ordered is now in stock... means everything should've been in stock at some point since my order. Unless something's gone horribly wrong on their end, like no delivery on CPUs or something like that. Gah, the waiting for the dispatching email is horrible :|

Ah, maybe just a friendly inquiring phone call tomorrow if I still haven't got news by then...

[X-Warrior]

Ah, maybe just a friendly inquiring phone call tomorrow if I still haven't got news by then...

And so I called.

CPU: Apparently it never actually has been in stock yet. It's on the list, but they haven't sold any yet. Delivery date unknown...
GPU: Yep, sold right between ordering and payment. So I'll be waiting for that one as well. It's a hard one to come by, especially just before Christmas. But it's suddenly appeared in stock before, they'll have it before 2010 I reckon (or hope).

The CPU is the most worrying bit though, if they've never actually had it yet...

[Paradigm Shifter]

New Intel chips (930, 960...) are due early January from all reports. :|

[X-Warrior]

New Intel chips (930, 960...) are due early January from all reports. :|

Bummer. Well, I'll be off work until the 10th, so maybe if I'm lucky I can get some time in during holidays :?

[X-Warrior]

Update:

The GPU is finally going to be in stock in two days. Yay.

The 960 processor is erm... an unknown still. Early January is past, yet still noone knows anything about an actual release of the things.

I've done some calculating, and it would seem that the 950 is actually slightly more cost-efficient (MHz/€), though it doesn't differ much. Let's call them equal. The most important thing is of course that it actually exists.


Perhaps I should 'downgrade' the 166MHz and get my system up and running next week.

Thoughts?

[whismerhill]

166Mhz ain't going to change your life that's for sure
3.2Ghz / 3.06Ghz = about 4% difference
from hardware.fr : http://www.hardware.fr/articles/778-14/comparatif-geant-131-processeurs-intel-amd.html
i7-960 perf index : 183.4
i7-950 perf index : 177.9

183.4/177.9 = about 3% difference ... while keeping in mind that the game's test were done in lower detail that you will play yourself
so this probably means a lower than 3% overall difference for your usage I'll say ...


up to you 8)

[Paradigm Shifter]

Yeah, sod it. If you need that 3% that badly, a 5% boost to your BCLK isn't going to require any other tweaking. ;)

[Abram]

And apperently those i7's overclock pretty well...

[X-Warrior]

Got a call around lunchtime again. Decided to go with the 950. I should be getting it for €479, which I believe was specifically mentioned in the phonecall. Couldn't convince him to do it for the price it was back when I ordered the whole stuff, €469, but I'll live. They'd better not try to charge me the new €499 price tag though, which I've just noticed on their site. Just got more expensive today, same price as the proverbial 960 :o


Anyway, everything should be here either tomorrow or Saturday. Probably tomorrow if they actually send it today. Dutch mail is gooooooood :)

[packerfan]

Anyway, everything should be here either tomorrow or Saturday. Probably tomorrow if they actually send it today. Dutch mail is gooooooood :)

Helps when your country is rather small too :D 7.7million square kilometers is the continuous 48 states vs 41 thousand for you. My state is like 6 times the size of your country..... I just realized how small the Netherlands is now... (always helps to put stuff in perspective)

[Paradigm Shifter]

If they try to pull a fast one on the price, return it unopened and get a 920. Use that pro tem then sell it on and replace it with a 950/960 later. From somewhere else.

[X-Warrior]

Package sent today. Should be here tomorrow then. Usually packages get delivered in the early evening. Which is a pity if it's a Saturday. Of course on working days it's convenient.

Anyway, that mail contained a full list including prices again, and it's at €479 - no fast one there ;)


Now I can spend some time downloading the drivers and stuff I'll be needing, and backing up whatever has to be backed up :)


Anything I should really not forget?
I suppose I should at least:

- Download GPU drivers.
- Download X-Fi drivers.
- Backup picture files. As far as they are not on the harddisk-to-be-transferred anyway.
- Download Opera for Win7 - should be on the Win7 DVD actually, but I'll download it just in case.
- Email client. I hope Pegasus will work with 7.


If not download, I'll get them on a USB stick anyway, for easy access after fresh install :)
I'll be building/installing first without the old harddisk. When everything's done, I'll add it to transfer the pictures and rid it of the rest of the data (like WinXP).

[Paradigm Shifter]

- Download GPU drivers.
- Download X-Fi drivers.
- Backup picture files. As far as they are not on the harddisk-to-be-transferred anyway.
- Download Opera for Win7 - should be on the Win7 DVD actually, but I'll download it just in case.
- Email client. I hope Pegasus will work with 7.

That's pretty much it. Only driver I've needed to install in Win7 was Catalyst 9.12. Everything else works perfectly out of the box.

[X-Warrior]

Actually, I've downloaded / backed up quite a bit more in the end :P

- Camera software. The only stuff that doesn't have specific Win7 support yet. But Vista64 versions should be fine I guess.
- Email software. It's had a Win7 update :)
- Sound drivers.
- Input drivers. That's my G15 keyboard and G9 mouse.
- Motherboard drivers. LAN and chipset.
- Opera
- Printer drivers. And wow, Brother actually has Win7 x64 drivers for the HL-2030 :o
- Flatbed scanner drivers.
- A selection of savegames, game progress files, PSP macros, etc.
- Spyder 3 software.
- Steam. Yes, I could do that afterwards, but I like having many things available right from the start.
- GPU drivers.
- Website files. Rather important detail this, as it's not located on the harddisk to be transferred :roll:


So uhm, yeah, I suppose I forgot a few things initially. Now it's a 2GB USB stick full of data. Bring on the package! The waiting is horrible. I know what time he usually comes, but still I keep hoping I get an early delivery this time :P
According to track&trace, the driver's been en route for a while now.


edit: ah yes, I still need to burn the latest pictures to DVD... that'll keep me busy for a little while :)
edit 2: never mind, way too much data to put it on something tiny as DVDs... I seriously need to get me a pair of external harddisks to backup everything in duplo. Recommendations on this?

[Paradigm Shifter]

I like the Western Digital Passport external drives - they're not the fastest, but they're small and are powered straight out of the USB port.

If not that, then get a NAS box and stuff a couple of drives in it and set it up in RAID1.

[X-Warrior]

It's building time!

Perhaps I should take pictures...

[BlackHat]

It's building time!

Perhaps I should take pictures...

Good luck... maybe you can make some kind of building log :D

[DaFox]

[quote]It's building time!

Perhaps I should take pictures...

Good luck... maybe you can make some kind of building log :D

Here's everyones building log summed up:

Shits going great, this is so awesome!

Frak mounting the heatsink sucks.

I forgot to turn on the PSU switch, I thought something was broken. :oops:

It works!