Gulftown Giveaway unboxing pics!

Rombus

2[H]4U
Joined
Oct 12, 2001
Messages
3,285
First, a huge thanks to everyone at [H]ard|OCP, Intel, and iBuyPower, I can’t thank you guys enough for the awesomeness you bestowed upon me!

So I go the computer last Monday, but due to work schedule, and real life in general, I have not had time to post pics until now.
The huge box it came in
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A bag full of goodies: Manuals, Driver Disks, Extra Hard Drive rails and 5 ¼” mounting screws, a power cord, a DVI/VGA adapter and a CD Key for Dirt 2 included with the video card
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It came rather well packed in my opinion.
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The case right out of the box Note: my camera cannot do the graphics justice, the look much better in person, and the front is covered with a protective plastic.
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front.JPG


The backplane. The big blue blob inside the case is an expanding foam packing material that iBuyPower used to keep the cards in place and keep the internals safe. It was quite wedged in and felt very secure. It’s great idea in my opinion.
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And of course the internals, See below for a description of everything included and some thoughts about the build quality
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The front panel, the 2 bars to each side light up blue, and it has 2 fan controls. And of course the Blu-ray re writer I have yet to play with
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So the initial specs were kind of vague on some spots, but here is exactly what it came with:
Case: iBuyPower’s Chimera Inferno 2, it’s a NZXT Lexa s with a vinyl graphics wrap and a solid side panel.
Internal Expansion: [6-Port] NZXT Internal USB Expansion System + Bluetooth Module
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7 980X Gulftown
Processor Cooler: it’s an Asetek LCLC, Pretty much the OEM version of a Corsair H50
Memory: 6GB (2GB x 3) DDR3-1600 ADATA Ram
Video card: Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1 GB Reference card
Motherboard: Intel DX58SO
Add-on card: Asus U3S6 True USB3.0 card
Power Supply: Xion Gamer Series 1000W
SSD: Intel X25-M SSD
Data: 1TB Hitachi
Optical: LG Blu-RAY Re-Writer
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium

This is actually the first desktop I have owned that I have not built myself since an old Pentium 90 I bought from Midwest Micro so many years ago. Overall I was very impressed with the build quality. I was also impressed to see that the cable management was used. Everything inside seemed to be built with care and no shortcuts were taken.

Cooling wise, I’m thinking about getting another fan and setting up the radiator in a push pull configuration, but I might only need to do that when I start to overclock it. Honestly at stock speeds even after a few hours of heavy game play nothing seems to get warm at all. The system is extremely quiet too. I don’t think the 5870s fan has ever ramped up at all yet!

I’m amazed at how fast this machine is. Anything I load up from the SSD is near instantaneous. It’s pretty fun to take any game I want, max out every setting at full res, and still have a very fast frame rate. Even in World of Warcaft in Dalaran with every setting maxed I still was above 50FPS. I still want to get in there and tweak some settings and try to eek out some more power. Granted, I’ll admit, I’m a bit rusty when it comes to tweaking a system out now a days. It’s been a while since I have had a system worth doing it on.

Big thanks again to everyone here at [H], Intel and iBuyPower!
 
Very nice! Welcome to the 980x club! I never win anything, let alone anything so damn cool.;)

Remember to use it for good and not evil!:D
 
I hate you... the case looks gay, but I am jealous. Did I mention I hate you?

:(
 
I hate you... the case looks gay, but I am jealous. Did I mention I hate you?

:(

Admittedly, the case design was a bit over the top to me, but its slowly growing on me. Im not a huge flames guy, im much more modern/sleek in the style i look for.

@Lollipop: yeah i know, so far the bad karma i have been getting is just getting hammered at work, which means less time to play around on it.

Thanks for the congrats guys!
 
Admittedly, the case design was a bit over the top to me, but its slowly growing on me. Im not a huge flames guy, im much more modern/sleek in the style i look for.

@Lollipop: yeah i know, so far the bad karma i have been getting is just getting hammered at work, which means less time to play around on it.

Thanks for the congrats guys!

Someone needs to remind that boss of yours that "playtime" is most important! And never look a gift horse in the mouth. :p
 
You should check out our DC section of the forum, but we have one fellow Gulftown owner who is doing some serious production at folding. Come join our team!
 
Congratz.
Actually I really like how the casing looks from the outside. The interior is too cramp for my taste, but from the outside, it looks really great.

I'm jealous :(

Heh. enjoy
 
Yes I know, this thread was long dead, but I had to give iBuyPower another shout out for how they handled a problem:

Initially the computer was fine both on a LCD screen and my HDTV via HDMI. Then i started getting GSODs and black screens. It seemed to be due to the HDMI port, it seemed touchy for lack of a better description, so i hooked up a DVI to HDMI adapter. It was good for another week, maybe getting a GSOD once or twice after the swap.

Then it started to get worse. I took the system to a LAN and it got some serious play time. I kept getting GSODs, lockups, ect, to the point where it would not boot consistently. I left the LAN figuring it was heat related. The system never seemed very hot, just seemed hotter than usual at the LAN. Since i wanted to get the radiator on a push/pull fan setup anyway, i decided to just rework the entire airflow of the case. This dropped my processor and case temps as i expected, but the video card still idled the same and topped out at ~87ºC with FurMark in extreme burn mode. Still had GSOD issues, still had boot issues. :confused:

I contacted Sapphire, and they sent me a BIOS update that seemed to fix the problem for a few days, but it kept happening. They were pretty clear about not being able to RMA the card since i did not have proof of purchase, and rightfully so, they expected me to go back to the manufacturer.

After a day where i could not get the system to boot up at all (20 min of trying before i gave up) I hit up iBuyPower not knowing what to expect. I called up, and after explaining what was going on and i explained how i had won the system. It did not seem to phase the tech i talked to on the phone, who after a short conversation with his supervisor on how to setup the RMA in this case got me all setup. I did the Advanced RMA option, which meant the shipped the card and put a hold on my credit card till i shipped the RMA back. I setup the RMA on the 22nd, and i got the replacement on the 28th.

When i opened the box, i was surprised to find a brand new in box XFX 5870. It was not a reference board which was my only slight disappointment. I put the card in, and the system has been solid and stable with anything i throw at it. Most amazing to me is the new card tops out at ~67ºC in FurMark Extreme Burn Mode.

So big thanks to iBuyPower yet again!

Cliffs:
1. 5870 had GSOD issue + boot problems
2. RMAed card though iBuyPower
3. Got a NIB XFX5870 as replacement.
4. Works great!
5. iBuyPower was great
6. ????
7. Profit!
 
It looks like the fan for the H50 is blowing out the back of the case. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be sucking in the cooler air from outside. How are your temps?
 
It looks like the fan for the H50 is blowing out the back of the case. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be sucking in the cooler air from outside. How are your temps?

Originally it was setup to suck out of the case with 1 fan. When i replaced the fans I sandwiched the rad between 2 Scythe Ultra Krazes 2krpms and set it so it was sucking from the outside air. RealTemp showed about a 10-12ºC drop, but i don't know if its accurate since now its showing my idle temps at 19ºC which is below what i figure my ambient temperature is (~70ºF). I know i haven't calibrated RealTemp, so it could be quite off. Now that everything is stable again ill play with the Intel burn test and see what i can get it up to.

I also replaced the front and top case fans with Scythe SlipStream 2krpms. I added another fan to the top of the case and both are set to blow out. The Scythes are pretty nice fans, i wish i could have gotten the Gentle Typhoons and the S-Flexes, but the local MicroCenter did not have them and at the time i was trying to find out if the heat was the cause of the instability.
 
always good to hear about companies with good customer service....congrats on the system and a good experience with ibuypower
 
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