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Post by Nostra1 on Aug 23, 2006 16:39:06 GMT 1
Hey if you have pics of your gaming system, show us your rig! If you modded or built in extras, all the better. Any system stats would be appreciated as well.
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Post by osiris on Aug 23, 2006 20:04:02 GMT 1
Nice idea Nostra1! Never seen a similar one in a TES forum, so yours is welcome. I know people who mods their cases in every possible way, and many decorates it: they're such as artists! Hope to see people showing something here soon, i like full res pictures.
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Post by Magicflame on Sept 1, 2006 12:26:31 GMT 1
This is my "gaming-system" at the moment, no art-work or anything, just like it is, right out of the shop a few weeks ago: Asus Z 92 JM - T2400 1,83 GHz 15,4"WXGA,100GB,2048MB,GForce Go 7600 512 MB Intel 945GM /PM Express 2 x 1024 MB DDR HDD 100 GB integrated WebCam DVD +/-R/RW burner 8XDVD+-R,4X+-RW,2,4x DualLayer Sound: 16bit 3D Stereo Sound PCMCIA Slot (16 Bit) 1 x Card Bus, PCMCIA Typ II Cardreader 4-in-1 integrated WLAN 54 MBIT integrated Modem 56K V.90 und V.92 Fax-/Data LAN LAN-Modul 10/100 Akku Lithium-Ionen Akku average charging period: ca.3,0 h (on)/ca.1,5 H (out) average operating time: ca. 4,0 h PS/2 komp.Trackpad(GlidePoint) Power Management Global Standby Mode, CPU Standby, Suspend-to-Disk Suspendend Mode USB 4xUSB 2.0 VGA interface: CRT out other interface: 1x S-VHS-OUT,1xRJ-45,Bluetooth ,RJ-11,Firewire Size/weight 328 x 288 x 38 mm 2,85kg (sorry, I had to translate some things from German to English, don't know if everything is correct ;D)
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Post by Nostra1 on Sept 1, 2006 14:49:31 GMT 1
Wow Magicflame, that is a sweet laptop! 1.83 Ghz Mobile Centrino Duo processor A 945 GM/PM Intel chipset 2 Gig of RAM (DDR2 667? I think thats what the 945 PM lets you take) 4 h Li battery and a GeForce 7600 with 512 Mb dedicated RAM That must play all games really nice. How does OB fly with that rig?
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Post by osiris on Sept 1, 2006 16:11:38 GMT 1
I have anything special at the moment; i'm not an addicted of case modding or such, and since i use my pc especially for Photoshop, Illustrator or similar softwares instead of "hardcore gaming", here's my case (or something similar, i can't find its original picture...) System specs will be not reported, to prevent "admin teasing" (which is a bad thing). But Magicflame, a laptop is able to run Oblivion?
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Post by Nostra1 on Sept 1, 2006 17:06:54 GMT 1
I like that case Osiris. Nice and clean and looks very easy to upgrade parts. Bet you have some nice Photoshop art stored in there. Would love to see them in the art section. Yeah some of the really high-end laptops can run OB. Emma runs OB from her laptop (she posted the specs of her rig in her forum). But if I remember, her rig was a top of the line Dell XPS laptop with a GeForce Go 7800 GTX vid board. The 7600GT usually has 256Mb of dedicated ram and that has been known to run OB quite well based on various reviews. With 512Mb of video RAM and 2Gb of system RAM, I would think Magicflame's laptop would play OB better than many desktop systems (including mine ). Mobile technology seems to moving forward at a tremendous pace these days.
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Post by Wildman on Sept 1, 2006 17:28:10 GMT 1
I have a slightly upgraded gateway GT5014basically it's dual 2.8 Ghz processors 2 Gigs DDR2 dual channel memory the integrated graphics sucks ass so i got a $100 card PCI x-press Nividia 7300gs 256 meg built in but shares bandwidth with system memory giving me a total of 512mb VRAM.
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Post by osiris on Sept 1, 2006 17:32:48 GMT 1
Do you prefer to use a normal case, or an alluminium case? Such as Thermaltake, etc.? I heard they're better than normal one, and don't costs too much...
And naturally i read about hardgaming laptops on many magazines, but their price (as usual) seems to me very high. If i have to spend $ 1.000 for a laptop, well i prefer to add $ 300 and have a super desktop...
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Post by Nostra1 on Sept 1, 2006 20:27:34 GMT 1
Wow nice Wildman. Of the brand names, I have always liked the look of the new Gateways. They seem to have put aesthetics and functionality together well in their case. Is your system an A64 x2 2.8Ghz? 2 Gigs of Ram sounds great and the 7300 seems like a nice vid board. Then you can wait for the other boards to come down in price before upgrading. What sort of framerates can you get in OB with that board?
@osiris I am not sure about anyone else but I am not really as hardcore an aluminum case person as others. The light weight is great and the look of an Al case seems to be so much better than the steel counterpart but many are so expensive (though you do get what you pay for).
The better thermal management by using aluminum argument is something I do not tend to take as a major importance for cases in general. It is true that Al is a much better thermal conductor than steel and so if you could physically (and thermally of course) bridge your components to the case, that may prove to be an advantage. However in most cases there is no physical connection between the processors and the case or the heat sinks so the thermal conductivity really doesn't add any benefit.
You see Al is a better thermal conductor than steel but air is a terrible thermal conductor when it just sits there. It also has really low heat capacity which means air heats up pretty fast and needs to be moved out. So I find a good airflow design is much more important a factor for a good case than whether it is made of Al or steel.
I tend to look for cases that have very good airflow near the processors, which of course means a good rear fan. 120mm fans are the best for this. However, there is also a limit in how much air you want to flow through the case. You don't need and probably don't want a tornado in your case and after a certain amt, there is not much additional benefit in heat transfer and a much higher probability of getting turbulence. So moving large volumes of air slowly is better than moving small volumes of air quickly. So a 120mm fan running slowly is better than a single 80mm fan spinning quickly IMO.
Also good airflow that can enter the inlets to the outlets is really important to get a good air tunnel effect. That means good fan placement. If you have two fans blowing against each other, it defeats the purpose and just creates turbulence. So just adding more fans is not always helpful. A good case, I find has the ability for the user to put a variety of fans in different arrangements depending upon how the user wants to configure the airflow. Bad cable management seems to disrupt airflow a lot and I have heard of people getting 20C improvement and more taking their tangle of cables and cleaning it up.
The other of course is how well the air can enter from the outside so a good ventilated case (especially in the front) is useful. Some cases seem like they don't have any way for the air to enter from the front. The Gateway cases for example has two ventilation ducts that help bring cool air into the case.
Finally quality is very important. A poorly insulated power switch can short, blowing out the power supply, which in turn takes out your $150 mobo and $600 CPU in the first power up. flimsy cases can dent easily causing stress on the components inside. So it is important to make sure that the case at least works well.
I like some of the Thermaltake cases such as the Armor Jr and the Tsunami and though Thermaltake is expensive, many of their cases are nice. Coolermaster has both expensive and cheaper cases and most are very well designed. Antec is also another company that has very nice cases at variable prices. There are other companies I seem to like such as Aspire (I like their Q pack case just because it looks different), Raidmax, Kingwin, Chenming, Enermax, Sunbeam, Xion, Foxconn, Apex, Rosewill and others. Many cases can always be modified to provide good ventilation. I did that for my case. Others are premodded and really don't need much change. High end cases like Lian Li, Silverstone and others have some really really nice designs but cost an arm and a leg. To each their own I guess.
As for the cases I recently use, I seem to just go for cheap cases with decent basic design that I can mod. My present case is a Rosewill Tu155 that was modded a bit and I just got the Coolermaster C5 case so that I can mod and then transfer all the guts from the Rosewill to give to my wife. I want this case to look more elegant for her than the extreme design I have on the Rosewill. The C5 is a very popular case that people seem to mod quite often.
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Post by osiris on Sept 2, 2006 11:10:57 GMT 1
Not every alluminium cases are expensive, as usually it depends on brands and i seen something also for only € 90.00 or such; and IMO they're better than Thermaltake's cases, which could be cool but usually only for computer freaks.
- Ok, and now let's keep to post images above all here, please.
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Post by Nostra1 on Sept 2, 2006 20:18:42 GMT 1
Yeah true Osiris and there are some nice aluminum cases for not much money (like the Kingwin cases and Antec's Super Lanboy). I just tend to not focus on the case material as much as other factors. And being the cheapo that I am, I tend to look for cases around $50 or less. ;D
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Post by osiris on Sept 3, 2006 11:12:48 GMT 1
Ok, since there's actually nothing new to show up about our gaming set up, i'm posting some "bizarre" images i found on the web. Let's start with a wooden case, it reminds me some old valve radios of the '50s... ...Interesting, uh? And now i'm just wondering how this case can handle the heat...
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Post by Nostra1 on Sept 3, 2006 23:23:39 GMT 1
Nice pic Osiris. I like the AMD Icon carved into the front opening. I see more and more wood cases and they do look nice (more furniture related). As you say, you got to take care to keep airflow well so that it can cool the system. Of course one can always go the watercooled route. Oh and here is the most recent system I put together. Components are Athlon 64 3000+ 1.8 Ghz overclocked to 2.3 Ghz 1 Gig of DDR 400 running at DDR 410 250 Gig HDD on SATA 150 ASUS A8N5X NF4 motherboard Thermaltake T2 430W PSU GeForce 7600GT factory overclocked to 580MHz DVD +/- Burner Right now runs my wife's system while I work on her case but when I have a chance, I play MW on it. Currently playing The Black Mill. ;D
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Post by Wildman on Sept 4, 2006 6:13:53 GMT 1
What sort of framerates can you get in OB with that board? I don't know. I guess I'd better figure out how to turn the counter on. I just cranked up the settings and INI tweaks, enabled pixel shader 3.0 and other stuff you can't do from the normal options, It looks beautiful but did slow it quite a bit.
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Post by Nostra1 on Sept 6, 2006 4:49:13 GMT 1
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