Computer Some love for your rig.

[Pony_Sage]

Hello everyone. I am not one to make frivolous posts, or that many posts to begin with. However I think there is a piece of technology that often gets overlooked and under appreciated. It may be the subject of your ire at times but it has been there for you through thick and thin. It shows you funny pictures and videos, prints your papers, remembers your name and your birthday, and even doesn't judge you for how messy your room is. That's right this Thanksgiving season I think we should take a moment to thank our computers for all they put up with, and everything they do for us. Maybe treat them to a few cans of air and blow out that dust you have been ignoring!

Pretty much this thread lets you post your rig's stats, what you have personally done to improve your computer, some benchmarks if you have them, and maybe a few pictures!

My girl is a custom built Falcon Nortwest Talon. Her birthday is October 31st of this year, barely a month old! I do have to say that she was absurdly expensive, but worth every penny. I rationalized the purchase as an early birthday, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, Hearth's Warming Eve present ... for the next few years.

Behind this spoiler tag are the components from the invoice of what I had built.

SP1225FDB12M SCYTHE FAN - 1400RPM - 120MM - FDB

2x SCYTHE FAN - 800RPM - 120MM

SS-ST1000P SILVERSTONE ST1000P MODULAR 1000W PS

AS-Z87PLUS ASUS Z87 PLUS MOTHERBOARD

INTCI74770K INTEL CORE I7 4770K 3.5GHZ

ASTK-G4550LC ASETEK 120MM LIQUID COOLER 550LC

2x GS-8GB1866RS G.SKILL 8GB 1866MHZ DDR3 RIPJAWS (16GB)

2x NVGTX760E_2761 EVGA GEFORCE GTX760 2GB PCIE

CR-M500.120 CRUCIAL M500 SSD - 120GB (OS HERE)

WD1002FAEX WESTERN DIGITAL BLACK - 1TB

AS-DRW-24B1ST ASUS DRW-24B1ST 16X DVD+-RW BLACK

3D Mark has a great software for testing your computer's graphics card(s). The best part is that it is free to use from steam! If you haven't benchmarked your computer yet, and would like to be able to brag about your scores, head over to steam and download the program!

Ice Storm - 188,945 Cloud Gate - 29,625 Fire Strike - 9,223

The scores follow the names and the links will provide a breakdown of how they stack up against other computers that were tested.

I have recently overclocked the core i7 CPU from its base clock of 3.5 GHz to 4.5 GHz, that's a 24% improvement! The scores reflect CPU in it's overclocked state. I have yet to overclock the GPU, however. I am contemplating this but honestly since I am running two GeForce GTX 760's SLIed together, I don't feel it is necessary for gaming. Although, I know that the scores would increase if I overclocked them and ran the benchmark again. At the moment I can throw pretty much any game at my girl on the highest settings and it never falls below 60 FPS. I have it limited at 60 so that it won't over tax the GPU and allow for more physics calculations rather than just increasing the FPS.

Now for some photos! Please excuse the quality, but here she is. My baby.

Well, that's pretty much that. Just figured I would start a thread about giving thanks to the computers that we take for granted every day. (Maybe to brag a little, but what else is a proud owner to do!?)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

~Sage

[Slazer]

This is only tangentially related, but I have to ask where you bought that beauty from. My rig was, regrettably, eaten by a pawn shop recently, and with income tax time coming soon and college not long after that, I'm looking for a new one.

[Pony_Sage]

Up in the first post there is a link to the website of the company that I had build it for me. Falcon Nortwest is that company. Their customer support is amazing and their attention to detail is top notch. If you are in the market for a performance machine, I would suggest no other company. I stand by their products 120%.

~Sage

P.S. Sorry about your computer getting eaten by a pawn shop, times are hard all around, and I hope that you pick up one soon!

[Dio]

I've since done some more effective cable management and pulled some of my unused HDD trays so it doesn't look like such a mess inside. I just haven't taken any case shots since then

Spec Sheet

Case: Thermaltake Chaser Mk. I

CPU: Intel Core i7 3770K (Ivy Bridge) overclocked to 4.2GHz

CPU Cooler: Corsair H60 closed-loop liquid cooler

RAM: 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws X @ 1600MHz

Motherboard: Intel DZ77BH-55K

GPU: Asus GTX 660 Ti DC2OC overclocked to 1145MHz

PSU: Corsair HX650

HDD: WD Black 7200RPM 2TB

This was my first build and after some tweaks and swapping out a lemon HDD, I'm happy with it. It runs BF4 smoothly with some settings optimization and every other game on pretty much max settings. I'm planning on adding an SSD and maybe an upgraded GPU down the road. I have to focus on securing a new job first.

[Slazer]

Sweet stars, Diomedes. Your rig beats the hell out of my old one, by a factor of two almost across the board.

[Pony_Sage]

One would be surprised by how much simple cable management can improve airflow and make your computer more efficient at cooling the MoBo, GPU, and CPU.

~Sage