- 9,168
- United Kingdom
- neema_t
Just a quick update for anyone interested; the PC is working fine but has room for improvements. It can run BF3 maxed at 4x MSAA which looks pretty nice (massive understatement) and I tried Dirt 3 (a recent-ish game, if not renowned for being a good benchmark) maxed last night and got in the region of 80fps on the timedemo.
However, the airflow isn't great; the GPU idle temp is around 30-35C in a 22C room, the CPU is around 40-50C, and under load the GPU has been seen to hit 85C. When I can afford them I'm getting some higher flow fans, probably four; two front intakes, one side intake and one rear exhaust and I'll move the two I have to the top as exhausts, probably, so hopefully I'll have positive pressure in the case to help it extract dust.
Also the DVD player seems to be unable to read the motherboard software DVD but other computers do (I copied the software off it anyway so it doesn't really matter) and it also reads DVD-Rs, so I don't understand the problem.
Oh and one other thing is that I can't install the software I need for the various functions of my motherboard, for example there's one thing that's supposed to boost graphics performance (possibly by sharing the built in VGA?) and some other stuff, but that doesn't bother me too much.
Basically my plan for now is to improve the cooling so I can think about overclocking the GPU a little. A friend of mine claims to have OC'd his 580 to 900MHz, mine is at 800MHz now, that's a fair chunk of speed really. His case is pretty much entirely mesh, I think it's called a LANmaster or something, it's black and yellow so it basically just looks like a toolbox. I imagine he has very few airflow issues with it, though!
However, the airflow isn't great; the GPU idle temp is around 30-35C in a 22C room, the CPU is around 40-50C, and under load the GPU has been seen to hit 85C. When I can afford them I'm getting some higher flow fans, probably four; two front intakes, one side intake and one rear exhaust and I'll move the two I have to the top as exhausts, probably, so hopefully I'll have positive pressure in the case to help it extract dust.
Also the DVD player seems to be unable to read the motherboard software DVD but other computers do (I copied the software off it anyway so it doesn't really matter) and it also reads DVD-Rs, so I don't understand the problem.
Oh and one other thing is that I can't install the software I need for the various functions of my motherboard, for example there's one thing that's supposed to boost graphics performance (possibly by sharing the built in VGA?) and some other stuff, but that doesn't bother me too much.
Basically my plan for now is to improve the cooling so I can think about overclocking the GPU a little. A friend of mine claims to have OC'd his 580 to 900MHz, mine is at 800MHz now, that's a fair chunk of speed really. His case is pretty much entirely mesh, I think it's called a LANmaster or something, it's black and yellow so it basically just looks like a toolbox. I imagine he has very few airflow issues with it, though!