The Asus Striker Extreme does in fact kick butt

C

Crash[man]

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 5, 2006
Messages
116
With the new bios 0505 it is simply awsome
specs?
Lian Li PC-65B Case
ASUS Striker Extreme Mother Board
1000 watt PSU from BFG
Intel E6700 @ 3.2Ghz
Zalman 9700 Cooler
4 gig Corsair 8500s running just shy of 1300 fsb
Dominator fan for the memory
EVGA 8800GTX OC in games
Creative Labs Gamer Extreme Fatal1ty
2 x Western Digital Raptor X 150gig Hard Drives in Raid 0
Just bought a 3rd Raptor X not pictured under the floppy drive
2 Mad Dog PCI Slot cooling fans
Memorex DVD reader
black Floppy
beastpc2.jpg
 
it seems like a waste of money for the parts you chose. I mean the motherboard is cool and all (ASUS rulz), but why the E6700 if you're overclocking anyway? Hell, a lot of people have their E6300s clocked higher than yours. That could have easily saved you $350.

If you were to lose the extra two gigs of ram (isn't that $400 ram??) and throw in another 8800GTX, you'd have yourself a much faster gaming rig for cheaper... there's no point in 4 gigs unless you're running a 64-bit OS and I would bet you aren't.

I can't help but think you didn't really think your purchase through a whole lot, but hey, it's your money, it looks sweet, it's pretty fast, and if it makes you happy then what the hell, right?

And it's nice to see that the 8800s do in fact fit in that case. I'm using the same one and I was worried about it.
 
Your rig is fine (aside from a really cramped case, go full tower) however...the WHOLE point of a raptor X is for the window...why three? One is enough with maybe a window mod from performance-pcs.com for the first one...the rest should just be regular raptors. Huge waste of money imo. I don't care if your Bill Gates, wasting money shouldn't be an option. Even the "God" rig will only have one raptor X (or two if you can display both windows)

Frankly though, I'd be more impressed with a socket 754 system that had excellent WM than a super expensive system with wires choking the living crap out of them. Cleanliness is next to Godliness :D
 
Yea.. I agree with the above posters. Seems like you cared more about spending money then a well though out system.

And your title has nothing to do with anything you posted...
 
Nice Rig......

You should post some cpu-z screen shots.
I am curious how this "kick butt" rig really performs. :D
 
Holy Sh$t I can see I am not welcome here. The only real reason I posted here is because the HardForum crew had some problems with the Striker board. I also did and figured out how to use the board even when Asus tech support didnt even have documentation on it yet. This is about the best board for gaming.

I guess in defense of myself since several people did nothing but say I dont know what I am doing I should first tell you that I am old enough to be a lot of your Dads. Over 40!. I am a Computer Service Provider for a living. I can try and think of the various things I read.

1.) I believe I stated I bought and built this rig to run Vista which will support the entire 4 gig of memory. 32 bit XP at the most only supports max 3.25 gig. Some people can only get 3 gig. Considering I have to service computers for a living I will need to be running Vista Ultimate. I anticipate this operating system to be quite large and then adding the newest version of Office I would be using a great deal of space just for the OS and Office let alone other non related gaming apps. This leads to another issue one brought up.

2.) Why 3 Raptor drives. Well becuase of the previous statment and the fact that I like to have a lot of games 430 gig really is not enough even but that is about how much space I will have with 3 Raptors. As far as 1 of them you can actually see the glass window in the picture I posted through the cage on the lower right. There are 2 drives in that cage. I mounted the 3rd above right under the Floppy.

3.)SLIing 8800 GTX. Oh I will do it but I am not a wealthy man. I have been saving money for this for a while and I recently was in a severe car accident where by I will be getting I hope a large sum of money to replace what I have spent. This computer runs so well with just one 8800 that currently I see no need for one.

4.) Midtower vs Fulltower. I wanted to get a Fulltower Lian Li for the parts but couldnt find one I liked until I already got this one. The G70 is almost the same, Black with the window and has a large amount of free area inside. So when I do get the next 8800 GTX I will be getting that case. You cannot fit 2 of them in this case using the harddrive bay on the bottom.

5.)Noise. It is actually quite. Those PCI slot coolers are not that loud at all. I have a P4 3.2 box with a thermaltake 6000RPM fan cooling. Now that is loud and it is right in my face. Personally I am sick of it and I am getting rid of it as soon as I get more cash and time.

6.) Yes the case if very cramped but if you look carefully you can see how hard it was for me to route all the wires so there is airflow in there. The Zalman 9700 gets quite hot and that rear fan that came with the case at 2500 RPM just doesnt cut it so I put the Pci slot cool under it to help and it does. You put your hand in back and there is hot air coming off both of those fans significantly. The 8800 is huge and it gets so hot when you overclock so sticking that fan right underneath it helps out a lot.

7.) I think that covers every area. When everyone was SLIing 7900 and Quading with 7950s I dont think I ever read something like this.

8.) Oh as far as my E6700 I think I said that I use the AI -Overcloaker method. I have it on Max. I overclocks your memory, Processor and probably adjusts voltages. I am not sure about the voltages. 3.2ghz and almost 1300 FSB are just fine believe me. I am not going to attempt manual tweaks to try to fry my processor. Games will become quite unstable even if you successfully make it through 3dmark06. I watch my CPU Temp and I dont want it any higher than 50c no load. Thats where it is

BUT I intend on getting a TRUE quad core processer not 2 dual cores on 1 dye. That is why I went with this processor.

9.) I never claimed to be some God of computer building I just wanted to tell you guys that the Striker Extreme is really a good Motherboard and I will continue to support Asus. I dont think it was overpriced considering what it is and what it comes with. It does live up to what it is supposed to be you just have to take your time and really read the manual.

I will only get EVGA Graphics Cards. I think theirs are the best. Dont ask me why. I have been purchasing them for my last couple of cards.

Anyway that should cover it. Sorry guys if you find my computer offensive but when I can boot in like 15 seconds it seems and play games at the level I am, its worth the money to me.

All the new games coming are going to need this horsepower so everybody will eventually have to put aside the 7000 series cards just like I had to do with my 6800 Ultra.

Happy New Year
 
quit raining on this guys parade already!, you have a nice setup, enjoy it.
 
Sure, the reasons you got what you got for your system are fine. But just with a cursory glance, and with no explanation, the parts for your system don't seem to make sense, that's all.
It seems that the more explanation a system needs on these forums, especially an expensive one, the more criticizing it will receive.

My system doesn't make much sense, but thats because I got a lot of parts for free, like my CPU/mobo/Ram. Honestly I wouldn't go out of my way to buy 4Gbs of ram now but I have nonetheless, and along the way I've found some uses for it since I run win xp pro x64 edition.

I suggest to not use the board's wannabe automatic overclocking features and really test how far that setup will go manually... the ram, cpu, and motherboard (with the latest bios) should be a great combo, it should be able to go much higher. I have my 6700 clocked at 3.60ghz with a DS3 motherboard. Then at least this nice expensive system wont be outdone by a cheaper 6300 system.
 
If I had the cash I would get this same rig.
Nice one and good luck with it!

Hope things work out with the car accident.
 
I'd pull out those bullshit PCI slot cooling fans. Those things aren't worth a piss in my experience. The Striker is a damned good board, but their overclocking prowess doesn't match the average BFG or eVGA 680i board. Even so, I still like my Striker alot.

clayton006 said:
If I had the cash I would get this same rig.
Nice one and good luck with it!
Click to expand...

Eh, I wouldn't.

The E6700 is a waste, but if you have the money, it's not at all bad. I would have purchased a QX6700 if money was no object though. I challenge the quad core comment with this little bit of historical information:

Remember how the Pentium D's didn't get much better with the introduction of Presler? Well you can probably guess what will happen with the introduction of four dies into one package after Kentsfield. Nothing. If there is a real performance increase, it will be because of a die shrink and other added features. Just throwing 4 dies on a package instead of two on the same substrate won't be an earth shattering improvement.

That much ram hurts your potential overclocking, or it can at least. You don't need it, so why buy that much? That would have nearly paid for a second 8800GTX which would have been far more useful.

I wouldn't ever buy into those gimmicky PCI slot fans. The just don't do enough to warrant the waste of space. I say get a decent case with good cooling and call it a day. I'd be surprised if he got a -2c improvement on this overall system temps with those things.

Most of the component selection was well done. I wouldn't have skimped on the DVD Writer, I would have bougth an SATA Plextor, but that's not a big deal. I'd ditch the floppy drive, and I would go with a dual RAID-0 Raptor setup (without the windows) and I would have purchased two 750GB Seagate 7200.10's for a little RAID 1 action for my data.
 
in my experience with 4 gigs of ram on a DS3 and 6700, it had no adverse affect on overclocking.

I was able to clock the same and had the same overclocking wall with 2gigs as I had with 4 gigs.
I used to think the same thing, that more ram lowered overclocking potential because my last system was an AND athlon 64 X2
 
GnomeCop said:
in my experience with 4 gigs of ram on a DS3 and 6700, it had no adverse affect on overclocking.

I was able to clock the same and had the same overclocking wall with 2gigs as I had with 4 gigs.
I used to think the same thing, that more ram lowered overclocking potential because my last system was an AND athlon 64 X2
Click to expand...

It still lowers your potential. It depends on how you are overclocking. The fact is that you can only clock your memory as high as your worst modules. In a two chip configuration you have two points for overclocking failure. With four chips you've just doubled the difficulty. With Core 2 Duo systems and the 680i chipset, you can leave your FSB and Memory busses unlinked and not worry about this, too much, though some 680i boards overclock higher when in Linked mode. Morry found Linked mode to be most effective on the eVGA 680i as did I with the Striker Extreme.
 
Getting value for money is extremely important to most enthusiast here. Your system is poor value per performance, hence you are getting a bit of a negative reaction.



[QUOTE='Crash[man]
3.)SLIing 8800 GTX. Oh I will do it but I am not a wealthy man.
[/QUOTE]

**If you got a e6600 that will O/C to the same level and a MB at half the cost (or less) that does exactly the same job.........



[QUOTE='Crash[man]
8.) Oh as far as my E6700 I think I said that I use the AI -Overcloaker method.
[/QUOTE]

Nearly no one here will back a e6700 over a e6600, any performance gain by going e6700 will be very small and certainly not worth the $$.
 
Battleneter2 said:
Getting value for money is extremely important to most enthusiast here. Your system is poor value per performance, hence you are getting a bit of a negative reaction.
Click to expand...

True enough. There are a few places he could have done better. I've seen plenty of people do worse though.

I would have gone with this:

Lian Li PC-65B Case > Stacker 830 (Preference)
ASUS Striker Extreme Mother Board > P5N32-E SLI or eVGA 680i (Price being the main reason)
1000 watt PSU from BFG > PC Power & Cooling 1Kw SR (Obviously)
Intel E6700 @ 3.2Ghz > E6600 (For obvious reasons)
Zalman 9700 Cooler (Either this or the Sythe Ninja)
4 gig Corsair 8500s running just shy of 1300 fsb (2GB instead of 4GB)
Dominator fan for the memory (I could take or leave this)
EVGA 8800GTX OC in games (Same card x2, but probably not the OC version)
Creative Labs Gamer Extreme Fatal1ty (Maybe)
2 x Western Digital Raptor X 150gig Hard Drives in Raid 0
Just bought a 3rd Raptor X not pictured under the floppy drive (I would forget about the third drive)
2 Mad Dog PCI Slot cooling fans (IMO These are worthless)
Memorex DVD reader (Not my brand)
black Floppy (Ditch this)

Some of these items I would have changed for preferences and others because they don't make a lot of sense from a value perspective.

Battleneter2 said:
**If you got a e6600 that will O/C to the same level and a MB at half the cost (or less) that does exactly the same job.........
Click to expand...
Well I agree on the point about the CPU. The motherboard on the other hand I don't agree with. I would have gone SLI, and therefore I would have purchased a 680i board, and that can't be found for less than $200.00 at present.

Battleneter2 said:
Nearly no one here will back a e6700 over a e6600, any performance gain by going e6700 will be very small and certainly not worth the $$.
Click to expand...
This is also true. Even at stock speeds the E6700 isn't worth while. The X6800 would be worth the E6700's price, but not the E6700. The X6800 isn't worth it's price either in my opinion. The E6600 is really the sweet spot. Especially if you want to overclock a 4MB L2 chip at this time.
 
Where did you get the BIOS from?

The ASUS site has the BIOS but all links are broken.

Thanks.

Edit: I guess ASUS finally fixed the links last night, because yesterday they were still broken.
 
It seems to me that this post was only created to brag about his setup :rolleyes: Maybe i'm wrong, but I think he is trying to get his E-Penis up :cool:
 
antioch said:
Where did you get the BIOS from?

The ASUS site has the BIOS but all links are broken.

Thanks.

Edit: I guess ASUS finally fixed the links last night, because yesterday they were still broken.
Click to expand...
Antioch -

I had problems getting the 0505 BIOS from Asus last night from their website. What I did was used an FTP client (like FileZilla) and connect anonymously to download the BIOS.

The path for the bios is there when you mouseover the download link on the Asus website: http://dlsvr03.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/Stricker Extreme/SE0505.zip

FTP to ftp.asus.com
then drill down from the pub directory.

Make fun of ASUS for spelling Striker as Stricker on their FTP site.
 
It seems to me that this post was only created to brag about his setup Maybe i'm wrong, but I think he is trying to get his E-Penis up
Click to expand...

by far the best reply of them all. My E-Penis loves the new computer. Thats why I got the window right? LOL

So many people dont think the PCI coolers do anything but they do. I mean there is a lot of hot air being expelled from the case. It needs to get out of there somehow. Whit that small a case it was my only option.

Like I said once I go SLI I will get a Lian Li Full Tower G70 and I wont use the PCI coolers. I use the floppy to load raid drivers during installs, Flashing Bios and thats about it. Its less than 20 bucks what the hell.

No one is talking about Vista here? So none of you guys want to run it? I sure do.

Look about the E6700 I did look at the 6600. As I remember its not a Conroe It has less cache I think, could be wrong. It was only 200 or less expensive than the E6700 which is a little over 500. The Quad chips are 1000 dollars. I wasnt going to go that far yet. Believe me there will be a kick ass for real Quad Core processor out in the next year probably. Now this aint no bragging because I am just a computer guy in your eyes but I actually am supposed to be working as an Electrical Engineer. In other words I went to college at one of the top 10 schools in the country and got my undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering. Anyway I like my computer in its current state and thats all that matters. it will be upgraded to SLI. Improvments to the Striker will continue and the more people make fun of it will only make Asus make it better so I personally hope people keep roasting it. Unless you have one and have really used it playing games then you dont know the board. I got the 0505 bios by click another location. I am familiar with how Asus has their site. There are several doors to getting files. If you read Asus's forum there are already Beta bioses beyone 0505 so I wouldnt count this board out as a top contender yet.

My Mad Dog PCI fans say "F you"
 
Yea I was wrong about the E6600 not being a conroe core. It is. I believe I made my choice based on not ocing as much as others. With the midtower I got it just wouldnt be happening roasting the processor in there. The 6700 can run at 3.2ghz not problem at all times. I know I can push it but why? all my games run perfect with it the way it is.
BUT I will probably push it to the limits when another processor comes out that I want. just to see how stable it is at very high clocks. I just read someone got his up to 4ghz. I just cant see it lasting long at that speed and games just not running smooth.
 
Crash[man] said:
So many people dont think the PCI coolers do anything but they do. I mean there is a lot of hot air being expelled from the case. It needs to get out of there somehow. Whit that small a case it was my only option.

My Mad Dog PCI fans say "F you"
Click to expand...

Just because you feel warm air leaving through those vents does not mean they are making a huge impact. They simply do not move enough air. I've tried them, and they simply don't work well enough to be useful.
 
Hey man, I am not going to put down the guys rig, it's pretty nice, enjoy the rig dude!!!!!. I been running a [email protected] on my Evga 680i since the release of the board with no problems at all and I got mine cause of the 4mb cache versus 2mb on the E6600. With my Quad SLI setup I average 110fps on any game I play (FEAR, HL2, Quake4 etc. etc.), so I am very happy with my system too but I am glad my P180 case has the 120mm fans that help keep my parts cool with minimal noise.
 
jgdiaz said:
Hey man, I am not going to put down the guys rig, it's pretty nice, enjoy the rig dude!!!!!. I been running a [email protected] on my Evga 680i since the release of the board with no problems at all and I got mine cause of the 4mb cache versus 2mb on the E6600. With my Quad SLI setup I average 110fps on any game I play (FEAR, HL2, Quake4 etc. etc.), so I am very happy with my system too but I am glad my P180 case has the 120mm fans that help keep my parts cool with minimal noise.
Click to expand...
The E6600 has 4mb cache.... that's why it's so popular and why people in this thread is arguing with the poster getting the E6700 instead of maybe another 8800GTX. No offense but its funny how you went for all highend parts and not knowing that the E6600 has 4mb of cache.


Leave the PCI fans in there. You have them right? Put them to use if you don't think the system is too loud. Most people here care a lot about noise/cooling balance and they don't think that the PCI fans are worth it. They are probably right but you have them so keep using them.

The E6700 can probably go up to 4GHz on your setup. Do it. :) Why stay at 3.2Ghz when you can get to 4? 800Mhz is the difference between a X6800 Extreme and an E6400!!!

And your raptors.... You don't need 3. The most you'll need is 2. You could have over 1 TB of storage... for porn. ;)

What kind of monitor do you use?
 
newls1 said:
It seems to me that this post was only created to brag about his setup :rolleyes: Maybe i'm wrong, but I think he is trying to get his E-Penis up :cool:
Click to expand...
Hey dude, look at your signature; careful description of your computer. I don't think we need to know. Maybe you are just trying to make your e-penis bigger.
 
Arcygenical said:
Why?
Click to expand...

0505 Bios http://i4memory.com/showpost.php?p=54468&postcount=4

Well I just updated again using USB flash drive in Asus bios' EZ Flash from 0402 to 0505 official bios and it has fixed my heavy vcore undervolting from bios set value issue!

1.3875v vcore on:
0302 official bios = 1.28v bios and 1.26v under load in windows
0402 beta bios = 1.28v bios and 1.26v under load in windows
0505 official bios = 1.36 bios and 1.34v under load in windows

Lastest Official Bios:
http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=Striker Extreme

0505 bios
http://dlsvr01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/Stricker Extreme/SE0505.zip
Striker Extreme release BIOS version 0505
1. Support Max LDT Frequency from 5X to 8X
2. Fine tune CPU Temperature detection code
3. Fixed some default value can't save when using BIOS Profile function.
4. Enable adjustments for tRD and TrFC item
5. Enhance DDR667 memory compatibility
6. Enhance performance for Corsair CM2X1024-9136C5D
7. Fixed CPU Voltage max option drops to 1.60V when set Multi-Language option to 'Tri Chinese' , 'Sim Chinese' or 'Japanese'.
Click to expand...

Also reportedly from Gary Key (bingo13) at Anandtech, official 0505 bios improves memory clocking for certain modules. G.skill 6400PHU2 2GBHZ Micron D9GMH modules are one of these modules apparently. I also noticed CPU and LDT spread spectrum are greyed out as DISABLED on 0505 official bios by default.
Click to expand...

Yes I'm quoting myself LOL
 
Dan_D said:
Eh, I wouldn't.

The E6700 is a waste, but if you have the money, it's not at all bad. I would have purchased a QX6700 if money was no object though. I challenge the quad core comment with this little bit of historical information:
Click to expand...

I guess I didn't look close enough or read it long enough to see it wasn't a QX6700. In that case I would have saved the money on the case fans (yeah I know not much) and I would have had the Quad Core and 2x 8800GTX.

That ASUS board looks promising, but if the 680 chipset settles down a bit, then I'll probably get that.

So I probably shouldn't have made a bold of a post as I did. I was merely just pointing out that if you are satisfied with it, that is all that should matter.

BUT,
When you post... (as you probably realize) we are all (mostly all) hardware buffs and most will try to critique your system. Not saying it's right/wrong, that's just the reality.
 
Well, I have to agree......but your heart seems to be in the right place. If you like your system......thats all that matters. However if you post , you gotta be ready for feedback.

I have an e6700. I like it just fine. I have mine at 3.4 Ghz without adjusting anything but the FSB on my P5N32-E SLI. You can read my Sig. This weekend I'm going to see what I can push it to just for fun.......but 3.4 seems pretty sweet.

You got alot of stuff in there, but the value at this point seems a bit in question. :D
 
I think the big thing that people are questioning here is the choice of the E6700 over the E6600. Same amount of cache, and the difference is 266MHz. Probably every E6600 sold can overclock as least that much on probably any motherboard sold today that supports the Core 2 Duo.

The third Raptor, well I wouldn't have done it, but that's not a bad choice, but rather a matter of preference. Most people wouldn't find the cost of a third Raptor worthwhile. I wouldn't mind having four of them in RAID5 myself, or 1+0.

In any case, just about anyone would be able to find something they would change if your parts list was theirs. Most of the machines here I would change if they were mine, and I am sure plenty of people would change things about my machine if it belonged to them. As long as you enjoy your machine that's all that matters. That being said, the E6700 wasn't the best move, and neither was 4GB of ram. Contrary to popular belief, Windows Vista's requirements for Aero aren't as tough as most people would have you believe. With that money saved, you could have purchased a second 8800GTX or have come damn close to it and your system would perform better than it does now. E6700's don't generally OC any better than an E6600, so chances are, if your E6700 hits 3.4GHz or 3.6GHz, an E6600 would probably reach those same speeds as well as any E6700 on the exact same setup.
 
a lot of you guys are really funny. I dont want to burn up my E6700. I have no need at the present to push it any further at 3.2 ghz. I have Corsair 8500s at 1279. If you dont have a midtower case with the Zalman cooler then you dont know how hot it is getting in there. I have found a nice sweet spot with my settings. Oh I know I can OC further but there is no reason.

I dont get any lockups, shutdowns. BSOD. nothing. it runs flawlessly. You guys are wrong about the 11 dollar PCI fans. Quite simply wrong. thats 22 dollars guys. You are argueing about money when anyone in here seriously spending money on this gear is will to spend at least 5000 dollars. Money isnt the issue for most of us. I really dont want ANOTHER full tower in my room. I have 8 computers on a network in a small room. Well it seems small. I am Computer Service provider. As a matter of fact I have to go and do to jobs now.

My little computer packs a big punch but you dont know because you dont have it.
I am going to get another 8800GTX soon incidentely and will be forced to get another case so rest assured I will have everthing you all are mentioning. I will use my Lian li I have now for one of the other 8 computers. They all have there own primary function. Any way Im going

Bottom line is The Striker Board Kicks ass and should be recognized as such. Not an overpriced screwed up board from the best MB manufaturer around
 
As a previous poster said everyone thats on this forum would change something....the only thing I would change is I have his rig and he have mine.

The only real "ERROR" I find was infact getting the 6700 instead of the 6800X if games are your THANG! You could have lost a gimmick as in the extra RAM or a RAPTOR you really dont need TBH.

But FOOKIN awesome rig mate and no mistake!
 
Nice. machine.. I am with Dan_D on the whole "would have bought the quad core" issue.. but nice rig for sure.. I am very close to pulling the trigger on a striker.
 
Crash[man] said:
Bottom line is The Striker Board Kicks ass and should be recognized as such. Not an overpriced screwed up board from the best MB manufaturer around
Click to expand...

What exactly makes this MB so kick ass for $400? Unless I missed something I've seen nothing in your posts to make me drop so much money on the Striker.
 
Crash[man] said:
a lot of you guys are really funny. I dont want to burn up my E6700. I have no need at the present to push it any further at 3.2 ghz. I have Corsair 8500s at 1279. If you dont have a midtower case with the Zalman cooler then you dont know how hot it is getting in there. I have found a nice sweet spot with my settings. Oh I know I can OC further but there is no reason.

I dont get any lockups, shutdowns. BSOD. nothing. it runs flawlessly. You guys are wrong about the 11 dollar PCI fans. Quite simply wrong. thats 22 dollars guys. You are argueing about money when anyone in here seriously spending money on this gear is will to spend at least 5000 dollars. Money isnt the issue for most of us. I really dont want ANOTHER full tower in my room. I have 8 computers on a network in a small room. Well it seems small. I am Computer Service provider. As a matter of fact I have to go and do to jobs now.

My little computer packs a big punch but you dont know because you dont have it.
I am going to get another 8800GTX soon incidentely and will be forced to get another case so rest assured I will have everthing you all are mentioning. I will use my Lian li I have now for one of the other 8 computers. They all have there own primary function. Any way Im going

Bottom line is The Striker Board Kicks ass and should be recognized as such. Not an overpriced screwed up board from the best MB manufaturer around
Click to expand...

Going to have to disagree with you. The PCI card slot coolers are worthless. They simply aren't large enough, and can't move enough air to be truely useful. They are a gimmick at best. Pull them out and see if you are worse off for not having them. Trust me, you won't be. I've built and serviced thousands of machines in the last 10 years as well as having built tons of machines for myself. I upgrade all the freaking time. I've tried about every type of air cooling out there and I can tell you that the effect those things have is negligable. Does that mean you should pull them? Not really, but if you do it won't make a difference. Going forward, you should know that they are useless, and you shouldn't waste your money on things like that in the future. Just my opinion, but it;s backed by years of hardware experience. The design of 90% of those PCI slot fans isn't good enough to be useful.

The Striker is a kickass motherboard, and I don't think anyone has said otherwise in this forum. At least not in any post I've read. The fact remains that it is overpriced, and for less money, you can get the equally nice P5N32-E SLI, or the BFG/eVGA 680i and come out with an extra $100 in your pocket and acheive better overclocking results. Remember, I didn't have to pay for my Striker, and I still don't think it's worth the money. If I were buying, I'd get the P5N32-E SLI, or the eVGA 680i.

You are missing the point about the overclocking. You could have overclocked to 3.2GHz with an E6600 and had an extra $200 in your pocket. People aren't knocking you for havnig an E6700, but they are knocking you for choosing it for an overclocked system, when you didn't need to waste the money. You could almost definitely get those results with a cheaper CPU. If you said you didn't want to overclock, and the E6700 was the most CPU you could afford, I don't think anyone would say anything bad about that decision. Many members here would try and then convince you to overclock, but you get the idea.

Overclocking isn't about need either. It's about desire and the thrill of pushing your hardware past the advertised limits. Realize that your system running at stock speed would be virtually the same with an E6600 or E6700 as it is now at 3.2GHz.

The other thing is on the ram, you really don't need 4GB. I might have done it myself, if I already had two 8800GTX's in SLI at the tiime I built the machine. I've even considered going to 4GB of ram myself. My last computer had 5GB of ram, and I went down to 2GB when I built this Core 2 Duo setup. What does that tell you about the value of 4GB of ram? Obviously I didn't find much value in it, or I would still have that much. I'll probably try it later, after I get some other things for my box and for the hell of it, but probably only after Vista comes out. Even then, I can assure you that it will be some time before that amount of ram will be useful to most people out there. You would have saved at least $300 by going with less ram. Between that, the money saved from the motherboard, and the money saved with an E6600, you could have purchased your second 8800GTX and you would have a better performing system.

You've got a good machine there, and no one said otherwise, but when you post a thread like this, expect some critisism.
 
What Dan said :) Funnily enough I have seen the raptor X for the same price as the non windowed version. That is a stonking rig by anyones standard. I am awaiting delivery of my Asus motherboard from the US where it is £80 cheaper than in the UK so represents better value. I also got a Xeon 3060 for $250 astonishing value!
 
again another HUH!

Dan , You must like to Barbaque. I dont penny pinch like you do.

For example LOL. You probably know the band KISS. Well they released a DVD recently called Kissology 1. In the marketing strategy they put a bonus DVD in 3 different releases that could be obtained at Bestbuy, Walmart, Frye. So basically if you buy it 3 times at the different locations you can get all 3 bonus dvds. Well I gaurentee you would never have spent about 60 dollars on one KISS DVD just to get the Bonus DVDs. You dont like wasting money. Thats very responsible and you probably dont get yourself into financial problems.
Me? I dont know how much longer I am going to be around so I dont give a dam.

Now as far as the tech stuff, as I said I am a computer service provider. almost 45 years old. I have been playing games on expensive rigs for a while. I got my 6800 Ultra running cooler by at least 5 to 7 degress C. It made a big difference at the time for games like DOOM 3 , FEAR, Painkiller. It stopped lockups buy sticking a PCI cooler next to the video card. Now there is no disputing it . You can yell to hell and back but my results spoke for themselves. As far as my current rig I dont intend on it being in the case its in for that much longer. I will be SLI ing 8800s and wont have any room for the pci coolers anyway . I just hope I can squeeze my Fatali1ty i between them. I am going to stick with air cooling so I am looking into custom case design to get cold air on those video cards.
The Striker Copper cooling system gets very hot. Any amount of hot air removed from that case is positive. I could leave the side off and then it would run nice and cool but I like the window. Its the first computer I ever had with a window. I dont work like at a store that builds machines so I probably dont have the experience you have at puttting together various parts. I am very happy with mine and I have no problem with it.

Burning up processors is not my thing. I am all for overclocking but there is a stable limit under high load that needs to be recognized. My Zalman is really hot and thats with my CPU at 3.2 ghz.

Dude I am going to buy the top of the line processor as soon as it comes out. Money is not a factor. I didnt go for the quad now because I want a true quad core processor. That simple.

I didnt go for another 8800 GTX yet because too many people are having to disable SLI to get their rigs to work and the Fatali1ty from crackling.

My sound card works great and I mean great.

The computer Im on now has the P4 3.2 and the 6800 Ultra. its on a samsung 215 TW widscreen. Its great for watching movies and internet and my necessities.

BUT I have a 21 inch Viewsonic CRT A110 that I play games on on the Striker Board. I havnt seen a LCD display for games yet. Thats what I would like you to tell me.

Since you apparently know quite a bit about building machines and hardware. Tell me is there an LARGE LCD Display that can play games with NO ghosting or any graphical anomolie. Does a 2000:1 contrast ratio and 2ms refresh do it becuase I have only heard of 1 19 inch display that has those specs and are they really enough.

I am lucky as hell to still have this Moniter working. I even bought as a floor model like 8 years ago. Games dont look nearly as good on my samsung than my A110.
I am actually worried becuase I will need to replace the CRT eventually and I want games to look good. I also want a glass cover over the display. I dont like seeing the little imperfections in an LCD display. Also what really sucks is if you get like 5 bad pixels your moniter wont be fixed under warrenty. The position of the bad pixels also matters apparently. Thats what Best Buy says.

To me 1 bad pixel is enough to be pissed off.
 
sheesh just to give you guys another clue when you go trying to save money. This should
further confuse you. I always pay a higher shipping price and choose my shipping method a certain way. You guys probably always go for the cheapest shipping .

I worked for UPS loading trucks like 3.5 years ago at a hub. I know how packages are handled and loaded because I was a Loader. A really good one too. But you guys LOL when those boxes start pouring into the trucks on the rollers us loaders have no choice but to throw and stomp on boxes just to keep the flow going so you can expect your expensive stuff to possibly get damaged.

Moral of the story....

Skimping , always can really backfire on you. How would you like your $650 8800GTX thrown into the side of the truck then have several pounds of other crap stacked on top of it. Thats how it is.

You wont listen though
 
Are you thinking of the SAMSUNG 931C? Since your don't seem to mind shelling out lol have you considered the BENQ FP241W? As an electrical engineer I'm sure you'll find the BFI technology very interesting. Me I went for size over quality and as I get older ( I'm your age lol) the eyesight isn't that great anyway.
 
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