new rig, how is it?

Basically, I went to a home improvement store (like home depot or lowes) and purchased a small sheet of aluminum. I then lined up the fans on the piece of aluminum and traced the areas where the mounting holes where on my (3) Antec fans. Next, I drilled out the holes and made sure all (3) fans mounted without any issues. Again, tracing an outline where the fans were mounted, I cut an opening in the middle of the aluminum to allow the air to pass through. Finally, I simply bent the end of the aluminum in a 90 degree angle and drilled (2) holes through the aluminum and through the backside of my Thermaltake case. This allowed me to take (2) small screws and mount the aluminum bracket to the inside/backside part of my case. VIOLA!!! Instant (not to mention inexpensive) GPU cooler. I added (2) additional Antec 80mm fans for a total of (5) fans. One fan is located at the end of the cards (which blows air into my eVGA ACS3 cooler on my 7800GTX cards) and the other fan (which cannot be seen by the pics that I posted), is positioned under the bottom 7800GTX card, that blows air directly where my GPU has the ACS3 factory fan on it. I'll see if I can take a couple of pics where you can see the bottom fan and get an idea of how its mounted in the bottle of the case. The bottom card always seems to run 1-2 degrees warmer than my top card for some reason. The cards idle roughly at 46-48c and run around 58-59c under heavy load (3-4 hours of gaming on FEAR or Farcry).

I took my time to make sure I didnt have to re-do it or duplicate my efforts by messing up the brackets. Total time from start to finish was around an hour and fifteen minutes. If you are considering something like this setup to cool your cards and you need any info, just let me know and I will be more than glad to help.

Cost of Aluminum - $6.79 (Home Depot)
Cost of Screws - $3.29 (Home Depot)
Cost of (3) fans - $29.97 (Comp USA)
 
nah acually i dont have any aftermarket cooling. without oc'ing, is it necesary? if so i would be willing to pay for aftermarket cooling, but is it difficult to install?

also, just found out that my pc is in my town at the fedex place, but they dont ship on saturdays or sundays so i gotta effing wait till monday... so gay.
 
officermartinez said:
Basically, I went to a home improvement store (like home depot or lowes) and purchased a small sheet of aluminum. I then lined up the fans on the piece of aluminum and traced the areas where the mounting holes where on my (3) Antec fans. Next, I drilled out the holes and made sure all (3) fans mounted without any issues. Again, tracing an outline where the fans were mounted, I cut an opening in the middle of the aluminum to allow the air to pass through. Finally, I simply bent the end of the aluminum in a 90 degree angle and drilled (2) holes through the aluminum and through the backside of my Thermaltake case. This allowed me to take (2) small screws and mount the aluminum bracket to the inside/backside part of my case. VIOLA!!! Instant (not to mention inexpensive) GPU cooler. I added (2) additional Antec 80mm fans for a total of (5) fans. One fan is located at the end of the cards (which blows air into my eVGA ACS3 cooler on my 7800GTX cards) and the other fan (which cannot be seen by the pics that I posted), is positioned under the bottom 7800GTX card, that blows air directly where my GPU has the ACS3 factory fan on it. I'll see if I can take a couple of pics where you can see the bottom fan and get an idea of how its mounted in the bottle of the case. The bottom card always seems to run 1-2 degrees warmer than my top card for some reason. The cards idle roughly at 46-48c and run around 58-59c under heavy load (3-4 hours of gaming on FEAR or Farcry).

I took my time to make sure I didnt have to re-do it or duplicate my efforts by messing up the brackets. Total time from start to finish was around an hour and fifteen minutes. If you are considering something like this setup to cool your cards and you need any info, just let me know and I will be more than glad to help.

Cost of Aluminum - $6.79 (Home Depot)
Cost of Screws - $3.29 (Home Depot)
Cost of (3) fans - $29.97 (Comp USA)
Click to expand...

cheap and effective :) great idea there

how much did your temps drop by?
 
Sage Osaka.. Very cool that your computer atleast made it to town.. I have a feeling this whole week, you are going to be tinkering with that thing.. As for your vid card, I can only attest to what I've read or heard about the 7900GT. I've read that they run cooler than the 7800 so that's a good thing. If you are running a single card, you should be ok.. However, if you are eventually going to step up to a SLi configuration, you should consider aftermarket cooling (especially if you plan on OC'ing the SLi setup).

My temps were outrageous once I went to SLi.. At Idle with no fans, my temps were roughly 75c idle and 89c under heavy load.. WAY TOOOOO HOT! Now you see why I quickly devised something to cool them off..LOL. Necessity is the mother of ingenuity.
 
officermartinez said:
Sage Osaka.. Very cool that your computer atleast made it to town.. I have a feeling this whole week, you are going to be tinkering with that thing.. As for your vid card, I can only attest to what I've read or heard about the 7900GT. I've read that they run cooler than the 7800 so that's a good thing. If you are running a single card, you should be ok.. However, if you are eventually going to step up to a SLi configuration, you should consider aftermarket cooling (especially if you plan on OC'ing the SLi setup).

My temps were outrageous once I went to SLi.. At Idle with no fans, my temps were roughly 75c idle and 89c under heavy load.. WAY TOOOOO HOT! Now you see why I quickly devised something to cool them off..LOL. Necessity is the mother of ingenuity.
Click to expand...

nice saying/quote :)

thats amazing a 30degree loss in idle/load temps!!
 
WOW... I agree. 30 degrees. I can see exactly how an SLi setup would get hot. Especially if the heat stayed in the same area (around the cards) and had no where to go. Now that you put those fans there, I bet it keeps a fresh supply of cooler air on the cards. I must say, you could probably make a little money if you patented your idea! Big props and congrats on the fans. Inexpensive and very effecient. Sounds like a have a small project ahead of me!
 
ok now that its 4/10, it should be here later on today. when i get it set up and stuff ill post some stuff about it later tonight when i get off work and start messing around with it more. thanks guys for all ur feedback i greatly appreciate it.
 
NulloModo said:
Windows - they are pointless, they are gaudy, they weaken the overall structural integrity of the case. Give me a full tower solid steel Supermicro or Chieftec Dragon anyday. Bonus points if it is black or beige.

Also, an OCed Core Duo or P4 930 does just as well in gaming as any AMD cpu, and the X1900xtx is as fast as the 7900 series. But that is just my !!!!!!ism talking, go with what works for you there, just don't look like a douchebag with a case with LED fans, cold cathode lights, and all that glowing shit.
Click to expand...

Structural integrity of the case? What, do you use them for cornerstones in construction once you are done with them? AMD processors are generally better for gaming, nVidia 7900GTs are among the best of the low end of high range cards for the price (rivaled only by the X1800XT for the money) and some people really like their case looking cool. Perhaps they go to LANs often, or maybe they sit and stare at it like pathetic and pointless nerds, but at least they aren't worried about their case's structural integrity.
 
Just a quick look through and I noticed a couple of things:

Your motherboard has on board LAN but you have added a NIC as well, is there some reason you need 2?

Also, you have a combo CD writer/DVD Rom AND a DVD writer, like me, you will probably find that you do not use the combo drive, so I would recommend getting rid of it (I did) since your DVD writer does it all, if you feel you need 2 drives and since they are cheap enough, why not just get 2 DVD burners?
 
Oh yeah.

PC specs look pretty sweet.

Whoever said to go for Dual core is an idiot, you got the same CPU I got (still waiting for it to arrive) to be honest, Dual core seems like a bit of a hassle for gaming since some games you have to set the affinity to play them (otherwise the performance is degraded) and I for one can't be bothered with the hassle.

And as for the video card, I am a die hard ATI fan, however you can't really go wrong with video cards at the moment, and your video card is a damn site better than mine, I just can't afford the money for a new video card now, and ATI doesn't really have anything that competes with the 7900GT :confused:
 
Deimos said:
Whoever said to go for Dual core is an idiot, you got the same CPU I got (still waiting for it to arrive) to be honest, Dual core seems like a bit of a hassle for gaming since some games you have to set the affinity to play them (otherwise the performance is degraded) and I for one can't be bothered with the hassle.
Click to expand...

I think it's a good point. Dual core for gaming probably won't be necessary for a few more years at least - once the new games written to take advantage of them are released and get popular. But even so, you'll still have all your favorite games, which will still play fine on a single core.

I do believe that in a few years dual core will become the new standard for gaming, but until then I don't think it's necessary. And whether you choose to upgrade when the time comes is your call. but what you have will enable you to have a lot of fun for a long time.

How's it going so far?
 
what a bummer, man. We all hate to be right in a situation like this.

Are you sure you're ready to build your own though? I'm sure you can get a lot of help here on the forum, but it might be just as frustrating as your last experience. Especially if you've never built before.
 
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