Because some things went wrong here in the household, like TL tubes blowing out and other electrical problems, I didn’t have much time to do some real work on my PC. But, this weekend that was different, because now everything is working like usual again. I replaced 3 TL lamps in it’s entirely (not just the tube), and the electrical problems are solved.

So, it was time to get to work on my nice PC. I have a quad core AMD Black Edition 3 Ghz processor, 8 GB memory, a 1000W PSU and 2 nice video cards (ATI Radeon HD 4870), but I could only install one of these cards because the SATA cables were in the way. The ECS board therefore didn’t fulfill my requirements and needed to be replaced. Since this is all still an AM2 Chipset, I needed to be quick. AM3 comes out and before you know it, you can’t get it anywhere anymore.

So here we are: One DFI LanParty board

As you can see on the picture, this board has the advantage that the SATA cables can be plugged into the side, so that does not conflict with large video cards, like this one:

Now you may ask: why 2 of these beasts? I got 3 big 26” HD monitors here on my desk. (Each having a resolution of 1920 * 1200) This alone is very cool to work with.

Putting it all together

The task was a hefty one. Each video card needed 2 PCI-E Power connectors attached, so those were 4 cables. Then came the motherboard, with the standard power connector (the big one), and 3 aux connectors. (2 via the good’ol FDD connectors.) The audio connector for the front part is a bit in a strange place, that’s between the 2 PCE-slots where the gap is. Now came a nasty one, I had to get the proc out of the motherboard. Once I carefully lifted up the heat sink, which didn’t go really easy, I noticed the processor was attached to it. That stuff of AMD that they use on their heat sinks is way to adhesive! I got the processor loose using the hairdryer trick. You warm up the heatsink with a hairdryer, once this is warm you can slowly but surely move the processor off.

The rest was all simple, and once the box was closed, it was time to put it back in place.

Let’s run again

This was the first time I used the 2 video cards together, and I must say: "I’m impressed, big time!” Video performance is funtastic, the motherboard does also a very good job. Since this is an overclocker’s board, the BIOS is not something for the faint hearted. Do your homework or don’t fiddle with it too much.

All together this is now a rig that will almost do anything you throw at it. The only thing I’m missing is water cooling

If you want to build something like this, make sure you get a good PSU. For 2 of these video cards, a 1000W Modular PSU is highly recommended.

Sunday, August 09, 2009 10:00:10 PM (Pacific SA Standard Time, UTC-04:00)      Comments [0]