The Asus Striker Extreme does in fact kick butt

Thanks for hunting a monitor down for me. No I wont go 4000 for a LCD display. I live in a small apartment. But you 1000 or even a little more I would consider. I just want something maybe a little bigger than like a 22 inch but it has to refresh like a CRT and it is really difficult for LCDs to pull it off.

The only reason why I am willing to pay money like that is because of the money that is rightfully mine for the injuries I have sustained for life from a Car Accident. I dont know how much exactly I will get but it should be in the thousands. I dont have a family so I just work, play video games and watch movies. So why not do it as nicely as I can. I cant perform music anymore. I cant lift my amp. I actually should just sell it. My entire performing guitar rig is worth over 5000 dollars. I cant lift anymore down my stares and you just cant function in a band scenerio if you have to rely on others to carry your stuff. So you guys are bustin my chops about how I am spending money but you really dont understand what is going on in my life. As I am typing for example I just took 2 Tylox for pain due to a questionable Jaw injury. I may nead reconstructive surgery on my jaw. Currently it is thought to be TMJ but an MRI has not been done yet and TMJ isnt this painful. I was knocked out when I T boned a big 4 door sedan accelerating. I was leaning forward at the time with my belt on and BOOM I was out cold. I came too and my ears were ringing and my head spinning and then I went to the emergency room.

So with the Back and Neck injuries from the whiplash and the Jaw which includes severe earaches like what I am having right now what the hell am I supposed to do.

I work everyday in pain and deal. Thats the only reason I am keeping on. Theres adults here and kids and young adults. For some reason I seem to have been like a magnet to some flaming. As you can tell I dont have the ability to even do it. I am on major drugs for blood pressure anxiety (xanax 4milligrams per day) at least 4 Tylox(Oxycodone per day).
Some of the adults on this board will know what these drugs are and that I am not just BSing. The pain I am talking about will bring tears to your eyes at times. Currently the earaches are the worst.

So there I have thoroughly explained me and why I like my computer and why I am into it so much. Its all I have other than work.

Thanks
 
Crash[man] said:
Thanks for hunting a monitor down for me. No I wont go 4000 for a LCD display. I live in a small apartment. But you 1000 or even a little more I would consider. I just want something maybe a little bigger than like a 22 inch but it has to refresh like a CRT and it is really difficult for LCDs to pull it off.

The only reason why I am willing to pay money like that is because of the money that is rightfully mine for the injuries I have sustained for life from a Car Accident. I dont know how much exactly I will get but it should be in the thousands. I dont have a family so I just work, play video games and watch movies. So why not do it as nicely as I can. I cant perform music anymore. I cant lift my amp. I actually should just sell it. My entire performing guitar rig is worth over 5000 dollars. I cant lift anymore down my stares and you just cant function in a band scenerio if you have to rely on others to carry your stuff. So you guys are bustin my chops about how I am spending money but you really dont understand what is going on in my life. As I am typing for example I just took 2 Tylox for pain due to a questionable Jaw injury. I may nead reconstructive surgery on my jaw. Currently it is thought to be TMJ but an MRI has not been done yet and TMJ isnt this painful. I was knocked out when I T boned a big 4 door sedan accelerating. I was leaning forward at the time with my belt on and BOOM I was out cold. I came too and my ears were ringing and my head spinning and then I went to the emergency room.

So with the Back and Neck injuries from the whiplash and the Jaw which includes severe earaches like what I am having right now what the hell am I supposed to do.

I work everyday in pain and deal. Thats the only reason I am keeping on. Theres adults here and kids and young adults. For some reason I seem to have been like a magnet to some flaming. As you can tell I dont have the ability to even do it. I am on major drugs for blood pressure anxiety (xanax 4milligrams per day) at least 4 Tylox(Oxycodone per day).
Some of the adults on this board will know what these drugs are and that I am not just BSing. The pain I am talking about will bring tears to your eyes at times. Currently the earaches are the worst.

So there I have thoroughly explained me and why I like my computer and why I am into it so much. Its all I have other than work.

Thanks


Dude, with respect, try and cut down on the size of your posts.

The larger your post the more likely people will skim read it, thats if they read it at all.

Your rig looks great (could have been done little cheaper per performance as discussed), but don't be overly defensive there is no need.
 
If I were you I would get a Westinghouse LVM-37w3 for a monitor.. 37" 1920x1080 res.. great for gaming, movie watching, and windows stuffs.. that can be had for about a grand at buy.com! prolly the best super large monitor out there for the price.
 
revenant said:
If I were you I would get a Westinghouse LVM-37w3 for a monitor.. 37" 1920x1080 res.. great for gaming, movie watching, and windows stuffs.. that can be had for about a grand at buy.com! prolly the best super large monitor out there for the price.

Agreed. If you want super hi res, 30" LCD's are also an option. I wouldn't stick a 19" monitor on an 8800GTX. You'd be limited to 1280x1024 which doesn't come anywhere near the true capabilities of the 8800GTX.

Having a 19" monitor on an 8800GTX is like having a Mustang with a V6 in it. The V6 doesn't do the car justice anymore than a tiny LCD does a badass video card justice.

Crash[man] said:
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.

You are totally welcome here. You haven't acted like a complete ass or anything and started to flame people, so you have nothing to fear. :D

Back on topic.........................

Sorry, but it is NO better than the P5N32-E SLI and no better than the eVGA 680i or BFG version of the board for that matter. The 680i has had some growing pains and there are still many issues with sound, especially with Creative's X-Fi cards right now. Even with SLI off. So right now I can't agree. I wrote the review, and myself and Kyle had no problems with the Striker Extreme aside from poor initial overclocking experiences. ASUS has corrected those issues with a BIOS update. The very board I used in the review is running in my machine as I type this.

Additionally, the difference between motherboards is usually about 1-3%. That means that no board is better than another for gaming. The only thing that matters in this area is features, and sorry, but the ASUS Striker Extreme has nothing up on it's less expensive cousins.

Crash[man] said:
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.

This is completely incorrect Windows XP does indeed support 4GB of ram. Not that all of it is usable, and what is usable will vary by system. Vista will see no bennefit to having 4GB of ram vs. 2GB at this time. Vista Ultimate or not. Office doesn't take up that much space, and the space it takes up in ram is minimal all things considered. I don't know where you are going with this, but it still doesn't justify 4GB of ram at this time. Not that there is anything wrong with having it, but I fear you grabbed it for the wrong reasons.

Crash[man] said:
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.

So are you running them in RAID 0? If so, I'd get a backup solution because a 3 drive RAID 0 is asking for data loss without some backup strategy in place. If you aren't running them in RAID 0, then I'd like to point out that one Raptor would have been sufficient, and you could have purchased some Seagate 7200.10's that would have performed almost as well, and they would have been MUCH larger.

Crash[man] said:
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.

To each their own, but a second 8800GTX would have given you more performance, for the same money. Isn't that what we all want?

Crash[man] said:
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.

That sucks, but eventually you will find a case. When you find one with good cooling, you won't need those PCI slot fans. I'll keep saying they are worthless, because most of them are.

Crash[man] said:
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.

Understood.

Crash[man] said:
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.

You have heat issues to be sure. Ambient room temperature is too high or the location of your rig isn't ideal. Either that or something else is wrong. Your CPU temps should be fine, and you shouldn't need a whole lot of extra cooling to keep the system stable.

Crash[man] said:
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.

I have no idea what this is in reference to.

Crash[man] said:
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

Dude, you WILL NOT fry your processor. For one thing, it's almost impossible unless you get stupid with the voltages. Not saying you shouldn't use the AI method, but you will not fry your CPU using the manual method. Niether will clocking the CPU past 3.2GHz, but you need to get your heat issues resolved before hand. BTW you CAN technically damage your processor using the AI method too, but it is unlikely. The fact is that any overclocking has some risk, but with modern CPUs the risk is low.

Crash[man] said:
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.

I can't believe I am still seeing comments like this. Did you not even read my post on the Presler vs. Smithfield? The difference between so called "true quad core" and "dual dual core" isn't likely going to be anything special. Believe me. Look at the performance of AMD's 4x4 platform, and dual dual core Opteron systems. The 4x4 is two dual core CPUs on seperate packages in seperate sockets and it offers great performance sometimes equalling Kentsfield. Now also go back and look at what Presler brought to the table with a true dual core design over the dual single core CPUs slapped into one package like the Smithfield CPUs were. Guess what? So called native dual core didn't do jack shit. If a true quad core processor comes along in the near future, and if it's faster, it won't be because of being true quad core. It will be because the CPU had a die shrink and was scaled to higher clock frequencies, or had some basic architectural enhancements that made it faster. It will not be because of having four CPUs on one die. There is more to processor performance than that I am afraid.

People need to stop trashing the QX6700 for not being "true" quad core. That doesn't make huge differences the way these CPUs are being built. It didn't between Smithfield and Presler, and that will probably be the case with Kentsfield and it's successor. Got it?

Crash[man] said:
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.

ASUS is a great manufacturer that screws up and usually screws up in reference to BIOS. ASUS tends to rush things out the door. The Striker Extreme is another fine example of this. Additionally the Striker Extreme offers NOTHING of value over the P5N32-E SLI. NOTHING.

Crash[man] said:
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.

This makes no sense as ALL 8800 series cards are made in the same factory and by the same company. Flextronics. That means that the eVGA card is the SAME as the BFG card and so on. I got eVGA cards, mainly for the step up program and the warranty support. Not to mention I wanted the free copies of Dark Messiah.

Crash[man] said:
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

Your machine is not offensive. We try to educate and to understand. You had your reasons for choosing the components you did and that's great. We don't all agree with your choices, but it's not our machine it is yours. Do what you want and be happy. We are just offering some constructive criticism and asking some questions along the way.
 
SentToSchool said:
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?

Hey, no offense taken I overlooked the 4mb cache being the same on the E6600 and E6700 we all make mistakes (at 39 I am getting kinda old!! LOL) my bad, I wish I could afford 2 8800GTX's to go with my setup, hey but I ove my E6700 I kmow I can push it further but I will stay at 3.6Ghz for now. :p
 
Dan_D said:
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.

On the third Raptor: I can actually see the reason for it. Not every application (or game, for that matter) performs well in a RAID setup. (In fact, having the Windows swapfile on a RAID array is usually a bad idea.) So the third Raptor (as opposed to a second array ot a larger array) actually has a point behind it.

No SLI: He stated quite plainly that his current case lacks the room for SLI (given a full tower, SLI would be an option). In this case, I happen to agree with the OP: SLI demands a full tower case. Also, there is an application mix issue with SLI (what games truly demand SLI, since the desktop itself certainly doesn't) and the support in Vista itself for SLI (there *has* been ongoing issues with SLI support in the current Vista ForceWare drivers).

E6700 vs. E6600 While the E6600 and E6700 have a major price difference, they also have a major *availability* difference (especially sice we have no idea when the parts were purchased). The E6600 is the sweet spot for Conroe, and as such, is in higher demand than the higher-priced E6700. It could very well be that the E6700 was available, while the 6600 was not. Because I don't know the situation, I refuse to engage in a semantical battle over this.

4 GB of RAM: Given Vista Ultimate x64 Edition (which can actually see, and use, all that RAM), 4 GB makes all sorts of sense if you have applications that can use it all. (Video transcoding *can* use all 4 GB.)

DVD burner: My only real criticism; instead, I would have gone with dual Lite-On 16x DL burners (preferably with at least one supporting LightScribe).


Enjoy your rig, but please give some serious thought to some of the suggested changes once your cash-flow (and case-flow) situation improves.
 
PGHammer said:
On the third Raptor: I can actually see the reason for it. Not every application (or game, for that matter) performs well in a RAID setup. (In fact, having the Windows swapfile on a RAID array is usually a bad idea.) So the third Raptor (as opposed to a second array ot a larger array) actually has a point behind it.

I've found little to no performance bennefit to using another disk for swapfile. With 2GB of ram, I've rarely ever needed swapfile. Occasionally using Photoshop I have, but rarely.

PGHammer said:
No SLI: He stated quite plainly that his current case lacks the room for SLI (given a full tower, SLI would be an option). In this case, I happen to agree with the OP: SLI demands a full tower case. Also, there is an application mix issue with SLI (what games truly demand SLI, since the desktop itself certainly doesn't) and the support in Vista itself for SLI (there *has* been ongoing issues with SLI support in the current Vista ForceWare drivers).

With proper research and planning, the original poster could have found a case that would accomodate SLI'ed 8800GTX's. Usually, if the case fits one 8800GTX, it should be able to fit another one. This is obviously not always the case, but most often it should be. It is also likely that Vista drivers that support SLI and the 8800GTX's are forth coming very soon. I'd also like to point out that running Vista on release day on production machines is NOT wise in most cases. Even with non-production machines, there is likely going to be quite a few application/game issues with the new OS for a little while at least. Therefore I consider this point moot.

PGHammer said:
E6700 vs. E6600 While the E6600 and E6700 have a major price difference, they also have a major *availability* difference (especially sice we have no idea when the parts were purchased). The E6600 is the sweet spot for Conroe, and as such, is in higher demand than the higher-priced E6700. It could very well be that the E6700 was available, while the 6600 was not. Because I don't know the situation, I refuse to engage in a semantical battle over this.

E6600s have never been hard to get ahold of unless you live in another country, This isn't true unless the original poster wanted to buy it locally instead of online. Availability of the Core 2 Duo's in general has been very good. In such an event that local availability was an issue, spending an extra $200 for a negligible performance increase is wasteful especially if he could get the E6600 online. This wouldn't be an issue if the original poster said that money was no object. In which case he'd likely have an X6800 or QX6700 instead.

PGHammer said:
4 GB of RAM: Given Vista Ultimate x64 Edition (which can actually see, and use, all that RAM), 4 GB makes all sorts of sense if you have applications that can use it all. (Video transcoding *can* use all 4 GB.)

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition can use and see 4GB of ram and more today. 4GB does NOT make sense unless you are going to be doing something that requires it. The original poster didn't clarify on this issue, and unless he's doing more than just gaming, I'd stand behind the statement that 4GB doesn't make much sense. I've used Windows XP Professional x64 Edition on a machine with 5GB of ram. I've run video applications and photoshop extensively and the ram usage rarely if ever went above 2GB. You need to be doing hardcore video editing or computer animation to really make 4GB of ram or more a worthwhile purchase.

PGHammer said:
DVD burner: My only real criticism; instead, I would have gone with dual Lite-On 16x DL burners (preferably with at least one supporting LightScribe).

I would go with Plextor myself, but that's a preference of mine. That and I can't stand EIDE cables in my machine and Plextor has SATA optical drives readily available.


PGHammer said:
Enjoy your rig, but please give some serious thought to some of the suggested changes once your cash-flow (and case-flow) situation improves.

Agreed.
 
Dan_D said:
\
Sorry, but it is NO better than the P5N32-E SLI and no better than the eVGA 680i or BFG version of the board for that matter. The 680i has had some growing pains and there are still many issues with sound, especially with Creative's X-Fi cards right now. Even with SLI off. So right now I can't agree. I wrote the review, and myself and Kyle had no problems with the Striker Extreme aside from poor initial overclocking experiences. ASUS has corrected those issues with a BIOS update. The very board I used in the review is running in my machine as I type this.


ASUS is a great manufacturer that screws up and usually screws up in reference to BIOS. ASUS tends to rush things out the door. The Striker Extreme is another fine example of this. Additionally the Striker Extreme offers NOTHING of value over the P5N32-E SLI. NOTHING.

So does the p5n32-e sli use the exact same bios as the striker? I want to oc mine to 400 fsb so I can do 1:1 with my ddr2 800 ram and 3.2 with my e6400, but the striker wasn't really able to reach that high very easily in your review =/ and if the p5n32-e sli is the exact same thing it probably won't either T.T
 
Damuman said:
So does the p5n32-e sli use the exact same bios as the striker? I want to oc mine to 400 fsb so I can do 1:1 with my ddr2 800 ram and 3.2 with my e6400, but the striker wasn't really able to reach that high very easily in your review =/ and if the p5n32-e sli is the exact same thing it probably won't either T.T

Actually, in the Striker Revisited article I was able to break 400MHz FSB. I was able to post the system at 450MHz FSB, and I was only able to run the system at 437.5MHz FSB. That was the highest stable setting. Also in the Striker Revisited article Kyle tested a second Striker Extreme and reached an FSB speed of 509MHz. BIOS 0505 allowed for much better overclocking than the 0402 BIOS we used originally. You can find the Striker Revisited article here. I'd also like to add that while the first test was conducted on a test bench with no case, the Striker Revisited article was done with the Striker Extreme inside my case, with my parts and not parts owned by HardOCP. So it was a very real world test. In fact I wrote that article with the board overclocked to 437.5MHz FSB. In doing research on the Striker issues I found that most boards top out between 425MHz and 480MHz. There are a few that break into the 500MHz territory but they are few and far between it seems.

To answer your question, the BIOS' are probably not the same. The Striker Extreme has settings in BIOS for the LCD post screen and LEDs. Those would have to be removed from the regular P5N32-E SLI. Not to say that the BIOS' aren't very similar, because they should be. Many people are reporting overclocking on par with the Striker Extreme using the less expensive board.
 
Well, got my p5n32-e sli and it's a defective board anyway. YAY.

How is asus' tech and rma support? lol

edit:

Hmm, well I can get full store credit and exchange this for a evga 680i mobo, or wait for asus to do whatever the hell they do and fix mine. Lol I already know your feelings about the Evga board Dan D, but do you still feel that way even with the new bios stability updates? I mean, it supposedly overclocks much better, and is now stable right?
 
Well, got my p5n32-e sli and it's a defective board anyway. YAY.

How is asus' tech and rma support? lol

edit:

Hmm, well I can get full store credit and exchange this for a evga 680i mobo, or wait for asus to do whatever the hell they do and fix mine. Lol I already know your feelings about the Evga board Dan D, but do you still feel that way even with the new bios stability updates? I mean, it supposedly overclocks much better, and is now stable right?

I rather like the eVGA 680i. I just had bad luck with them. With the new BIOS updates, the bulk of them are working now. Though I have still heard of SATA and sound problems with a few of them that have no resolution. (Almost the same experience I had with mine.) In general the eVGA 680i overclocks better, but you can still get 400+ FSB out of the Striker and the P5N32-E SLI and that's plenty for most CPUs. Additionally, stability seems to be pretty good on the eVGA boards, and it was on mine up until that last few days.

Where did you get your P5N32-E SLI? Why can't you exchange it through them? Are you 100% sure it is defective?
 
ASUS RMA is good if the board is indeed bad.
What is your problem?
I have the P5N32-E SLI and have had none.
Let us know, maybe we can help.
 
I rather like the eVGA 680i. I just had bad luck with them. With the new BIOS updates, the bulk of them are working now. Though I have still heard of SATA and sound problems with a few of them that have no resolution. (Almost the same experience I had with mine.) In general the eVGA 680i overclocks better, but you can still get 400+ FSB out of the Striker and the P5N32-E SLI and that's plenty for most CPUs. Additionally, stability seems to be pretty good on the eVGA boards, and it was on mine up until that last few days.

Where did you get your P5N32-E SLI? Why can't you exchange it through them? Are you 100% sure it is defective?

Well, I bought it through computerhq.com, and they have no more p5n32-e sli's in stock, as neither do 99.9 of the other websites out there. So if I were to rma to them I would have to exchange it for the evga 680i, as it's the only other 680i mobo they carry.

Yeah, I'm 100% sure it's defective, as the board will not do a POST beep, and no video comes on. I tried every combination of ram and video card placement, including taking both out altogether. Went through the steps with Asus; they confirmed that it's defective.

Lol I would exchange for the Evga 680i, but I'm just wary of being the 10% that still has the sata issues, since that's my type of luck with these things.
 
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.

I have to disagree with your disagrement. In a case where the motherboard is upside down, and the pci slots are at the TOP portion of the case instead of the bottom AND your video cards exhausts hot air into the case instead of out the back... PCI slot fans do work and work well. In a standard configuration, they won't perform nearly as well.

Crash[man said:
]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.

If you overclock the proper way... (in small increments), you won't burn up anything. Cranking FSB speed immediately to 350MHz, and maxing out all the adjustments on
voltages is a good way to fry a system. Your Zalman gets hot?? I had a 9500 on several different CPUs (all overclocked by 30-50%) and my Zalman was barely warm. Sounds like heat saturation to me... you need better airflow in that case.... and the dominator in front of the Zalman is probably not helping.

You have an awesome system.... but not everyone has the same tastes. Don't let the "haters" drag you down... its E-penis envy.

Here's *MY* critique...

1. The title of the thread is interesting... and although I have read through every single post (my god... my eyes are burning!!!! and my head hurtz), I have yet to discover why or how "The ASUS Striker Extreme does in fact kick butt". Before I plunk down that kinda change, I need further convincing.

2. Dominator active cooling for the RAM... maybe I'm ignorant since I've never used DDR2, but does DDR2 get hotter than DDR memory sticks? I've had 2x512MB sticks of Mushkin! PC-3500 (BH-5) at 268MHz (1:1) at 3.4v and the heat speaders on them were barely warm to the touch.

3. Raptor X do not perfrom any better than the Raptors without the window... unless you are able to view all 3 Raptors in action through the side window... what was the point? Money could have been better spent on the non-windowed versions.

4. Memorex DVD reader? No burning capabilities??? DL-DVDs make for excellent backup media... maybe just a typo. :)

That's all I have... others have brought up several other issues I won't re-hash.
Enjoy your system!!!! It's a good one!
 
Well, I bought it through computerhq.com, and they have no more p5n32-e sli's in stock, as neither do 99.9 of the other websites out there. So if I were to rma to them I would have to exchange it for the evga 680i, as it's the only other 680i mobo they carry.

Yeah, I'm 100% sure it's defective, as the board will not do a POST beep, and no video comes on. I tried every combination of ram and video card placement, including taking both out altogether. Went through the steps with Asus; they confirmed that it's defective.

Lol I would exchange for the Evga 680i, but I'm just wary of being the 10% that still has the sata issues, since that's my type of luck with these things.

That really stinks.
I'd send it to ASUS. They will generally return it in 10 business days,either new or fixed.
Keep all the other stuff and just send the board.
ASUS will do you right, use them.
 
That really stinks.
I'd send it to ASUS. They will generally return it in 10 business days,either new or fixed.
Keep all the other stuff and just send the board.
ASUS will do you right, use them.

Sounds like a plan :D . Will do.
 
As everyone already said; enjoy your system. Mine is similar, I made a choice of going with e6700 as well, but I must admit I should of educated myself further before I made that decision. Ah well lesson learned.

As far as 4GB, you may not be able to use it now, but a year from now? Eh who knows? Then again I have never kept a system intact for longer then 8-12 months in 20 years I've been building systems, or clones as we used to call them in the 80's :)

I also agree with the statement that all 680i Motherboards are darn close to performance. I will go as far as to say that at stock you will be hard pressed to tell the difference. As for OC capabilities, well I have to agree that the EVGA is the best at the moment.

It comes down to personal preference, someone bashed the BFG 1000W PS, hell I think its one of the best PS's I've ever had, rock solid, looks good, and great price for what you get.

At the end of the that day...to each their own :)
 
ooh one more comment on RAID 0, NEVER EVER again...I ran RAID-0 for years, in fact this is the first system that I chose not, and you know what all the white papers saying that there is little real world performance gain with RAID-0 Vs NOT....they were RIGHT!

Maybe with 4 drive, but vs 2 drive, sorry to say there is no perceivable difference.
 
I have to disagree with your disagrement. In a case where the motherboard is upside down, and the pci slots are at the TOP portion of the case instead of the bottom AND your video cards exhausts hot air into the case instead of out the back... PCI slot fans do work and work well. In a standard configuration, they won't perform nearly as well.



If you overclock the proper way... (in small increments), you won't burn up anything. Cranking FSB speed immediately to 350MHz, and maxing out all the adjustments on
voltages is a good way to fry a system. Your Zalman gets hot?? I had a 9500 on several different CPUs (all overclocked by 30-50%) and my Zalman was barely warm. Sounds like heat saturation to me... you need better airflow in that case.... and the dominator in front of the Zalman is probably not helping.

You have an awesome system.... but not everyone has the same tastes. Don't let the "haters" drag you down... its E-penis envy.

Here's *MY* critique...

1. The title of the thread is interesting... and although I have read through every single post (my god... my eyes are burning!!!! and my head hurtz), I have yet to discover why or how "The ASUS Striker Extreme does in fact kick butt". Before I plunk down that kinda change, I need further convincing.

2. Dominator active cooling for the RAM... maybe I'm ignorant since I've never used DDR2, but does DDR2 get hotter than DDR memory sticks? I've had 2x512MB sticks of Mushkin! PC-3500 (BH-5) at 268MHz (1:1) at 3.4v and the heat speaders on them were barely warm to the touch.

3. Raptor X do not perfrom any better than the Raptors without the window... unless you are able to view all 3 Raptors in action through the side window... what was the point? Money could have been better spent on the non-windowed versions.

4. Memorex DVD reader? No burning capabilities??? DL-DVDs make for excellent backup media... maybe just a typo. :)

That's all I have... others have brought up several other issues I won't re-hash.
Enjoy your system!!!! It's a good one!


While DL DVD media makes for a killer backup option, getting hold of media (or finding a backup solution that supports said media) is proving to be Rather Dicey at present (especially if shopping online is not an option; for example, Windows Live OneCare doesn't support DL media, but *does* support SL DVD+R and DVD+RW media). Chances are he meant a reader/burner (under no circumstances would I buy a plain *reader* with burners (especially multi-format) going for little more). Right now, with the low availability of DL media (and the even lower support in terms of backup utilities), while having the capability makes sense, relying on being able to use it for backup does not.

What I was thinking with the three-drive mambo: the OS (with it's swapfile) on the single drive, with the apps and data on the array. (This can be done with a multi-OS setup as well, with careful partitioning.)

4 GB: My question was indeed toward the application mix. I don't know what it is, and I refused to pry into it (not my business). However, if he runs multiple large applications (and does any remote-desktop or VM stuff), the more RAM, the better (he mentioned being in technical support, so he likely does have a need to be able to log into the company LAN remotely). If he has to be doing that *while* gaming (possible, though normally unlikely) he would certainly need as much RAM as the OS can handle.

Smaller cases and SLI: My issue with a smaller case was cooling. Keeping the components in a smaller case cool is tricky enough *without* adding SLI to the mix (the same applies to ATI's CrossFire); therefore, I tend to rule out SLI/CrossFire in anything less than a full tower case.
 
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