SLI is really just a way to extend the life of a single GPU when it ages - go find an identical card on the used market and put it in.

 

My dad has been talking about building a "gaming rig" for a while now, but I told him to wait for the new chip architectures to drop. He must've forgotten... after reading this thread, I think it's time to remind him.

My retina MacBook is really just for school.

 

Do it. I'm sure I'll be all smiles when those trucks show up and I cover my kitchen table with parts. Pics will soon follow

 

Old versus new:



FedEx and UPS will be dropping off the case and internals this afternoon. The sad part? I'm about to leave for work My next posting should be from my new computer sometime tonight.

 

Got it all running. But I do have a problem:

On startup, the mobo splashscreen loads for about 30 seconds. Afterwards, I get the press F1 to enter setup. I've already installed Win 7 on the SSD, but everytime I boot, I have to press F1 and manually select the SSD to boot. I have it set as priority 1, is this a problem with AHCI?

 

Turn off the controllers that you aren't using in the bios. I hope you are using the Intel 6.0 controller (brown ports) for all drives, the SSD should be on the lowest numbered port, followed by the HDD then the ODD. That means you should disable the ASMedia controllers (beige and red ports).

 

Yes, I am on all Intels and SSD is on SATA.0

I fixed the problem. I have water cooling so my CPU fans are connected to the water block instead of the mobo. Since the mobo realized there isnt anything connected to the CPU fan connector, it was giving me a CPU fan warning in BIOS, and one of the options was to stop boot if there was a fault. I just disables the fault boot and everything is back to normal, except for the exceptionally long boot time (~25 seconds on ASUS splash screen). This SSD is pretty amazing in load times. Everything is BLAZING fast. Decompressing files, transferring files, opening programs, etc. I love it.

Here is some pronz:

 

Did you disable the ASMedia controllers? If they are enabled, it's going to sit there for a while searching for bootable devices on them. It could also be sticking on enumerating USB devices.

There is a setting in the bios to turn off the splash screen, I always do that so I can watch the POST display, that would give you clues on what it's "sticking" on when it's booting. I believe it's called "full screen logo" or something like that.

 

Yup, I remember reading that. I'll check it out

How do you disable the controllers? The disc that came with the MoBo had Intel and ASMedia drivers, I only installed the Intel ones

 

There is a section in the bios (use the advanced mode) for disabling those controllers.

 

will do, thanks

 

Did you get it all going yet?

 

How quiet is that H100i?

 

I'm running the AMD 8 core, 32 gigs of ram PC 1866, 1 gb Samsung Pro SSD, 4 4tb WD Blacks in a HW raid 5, Asus sabertooth gen 3 pci3.0 (first PCI 3.0 AMD board), two SLI MSI SC GTX780's, and 2 LG BD burners, running a 800w Corsair power supply.

I can do Crysis 3 at roughly 150 FPS.

No water cooling yet... but to come.

 

Oh, one more thing, make absolutely sure that APC you've got there is true sine wave -- NOT simulated sine wave! You've wreck your power supply and possibly damage your system when the UPS switches to battery backup. This is because newer and larger computer power supplies use Power Factor Correction (PFC) and changes the wave shape of current drawn by a load to improve the power factor. Thus saving energy, but still providing the higher wattage output.

I went with a CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD for my system.

The PFC compliant or true sine wave UPS' cost a little more... but it's better than wrecking your rig.