New build, Maximus V Extreme, 3770k, 7970

[SecretCobraz]

It took a lot of work but I am extremely pleased with end result, and I finally got around to taking better pictures of the system.
Total cost of hardware was $2,000 before CA state Taxes, with some hardware like the OCZ 1KW being over $50 off, and my 650D case being $80 off, some deals were too good to pass up.

System specs:
Asus Maximus V Extreme
i7-3770K (Overclocked to 4.6 Ghz)
Reference Radeon HD7970 (Ghz Bios)
Corsair H100 with SP120 fans
Corsair Dominator Platinum 16GB (2x8GB), 1600Mhz
Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD
WD Black Caviar 1TB
OCZ Fatal1ty 1KW PSU, 80 PLUS GOLD (Shipped with Uni-Sleeve cables)
Asus DVD Drive
Xigmatek 120mm fan (rear)
Cooler Master 200mm fan (front)

The Extreme board and the 1KW PSU allows me to run up to 7970 TriFire for future upgrading, and the MVE also has onboard Thunderbolt, which I use a lot in my profession.

[Area_66]

Welcome to the forum, With your title I was expected one of the modded masterpieces we see often on this forum, anyway , Nice build, but your GPU is in the wrong slot, ( check the manual ) you better to place it in the first slot so it will be native and not use the PLX chips. Even your RAM are in non recommended configuration, you have to place them in the red slot. Also don't count on this OCZ PSU to drive 3 GPU.

[SecretCobraz]

Area 66 wrote:
Welcome to the forum, With your title I was expected one of the modded masterpieces we see often on this forum, anyway , Nice build, but your GPU is in the wrong slot, ( check the manual ) you better to place it in the first slot so it will be native and not use the PLX chips. Even your RAM are in non recommended configuration, you have to place them in the red slot. Also don't count on this OCZ PSU to drive 3 GPU.

According to the motherboard manual PCIe slot 2A runs natively at x16, and while I have since moved it up in anticipation of a Crossfire config, both slots run at x16 natively. This comes directly from the motherboard manual. Based on my systems power consumption, 3 7970s would be no problem, 4 is a bit of a stretch though.

The only recommended configuration for Ram according to the manual is to fill one channel (Same color) first. It doesn't make a difference what channel you saturate first.

[Area_66]

SecretCobraz wrote:
According to the motherboard manual PCIe slot 2A runs natively at x16, .

No you are wrong and the manual don't say so, it's 16X but not native, it pass true the PLX chip, that make a difference. here what the manual said . Aside your board has only 16 lanes for PCI-e so you can't have 32 lanes natively on a 16 boards. For a dual Xfire you have to use the slot 1 and 2b , that will give you 2 x 8x native.

SecretCobraz wrote:



The only recommended configuration for Ram according to the manual is to fill one channel (Same color) first. It doesn't make a difference what channel you saturate first.

no the manual specify with slot to use when using 2 RAM , here the schema, A2 B2 it's the red slot



OCZ is not a good brand of PSU , you don't skim on the quality of a PSU to save $ 50

[SecretCobraz]

I haven't noticed any performance difference between the 2 ram channels or PCIe slots at all, especially while playing Crysis 3 Beta Maxed out, no difference whatsoever. While the PLX chips do factor in with Multi-Card configs it doesn't matter with a single card at least in my experience and testing. 3DMARK doesn't show any difference in performance either. Nothing wrong with OCZ PSUs, this particular unit had great professional reviews and 80 PLUS GOLD certification. The PSU has been running fine for quite a few months and I haven't had any issues.

Even if it did have problems, it came with a 5 Year Warranty, also here is the JonnyGuru review if your interested http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=278

[Jericho]

Very nice job! It looks great. I agree with the others about the placement of the video card and ram. OCZ is a decent psu. There are better ones but I ran an OCZ 700 watt for several years with no issues.

[SecretCobraz]

Jericho wrote:
Very nice job! It looks great. I agree with the others about the placement of the video card and ram. OCZ is a decent psu. There are better ones but I ran an OCZ 700 watt for several years with no issues.

I moved the card up to Slot 1 and haven't seen any performance difference between the Crysis 3 Beta and 3DMARK, same goes for the ram installation, literally Zero difference. That to me rules out any type of performance degradation between Slot 1 and 2A using a single GPU, and using A2-B2 over A1-B1 regarding Ram.

[Area_66]

You have 3 DMark to post ? we have a tread about it .


This is not only about performance, this is an Official Asus website, I point out the things you don't do by the book. If we come back to your title

" Built with my own hands, I present my masterpiece"

Well since it's not a mod project, no custom water loop involved, I deduct it was one of your first build. This is why I points few things out of the Asus recommended pratices. I just present to you the correct Asus way to do the things.

I RMA so much RAM, PSU and throw in the Garbage 3 OCZ SSD only 18 months old. Only the Fujitsu hard drives was worst than OCZ products.

[SecretCobraz]

Area 66 wrote:
You have 3 DMark to post ? we have a tread about it .


This is not only about performance, this is an Official Asus website, I point out the things you don't do by the book. If we come back to your title

" Built with my own hands, I present my masterpiece"

Well since it's not a mod project, no custom water loop involved, I deduct it was one of your first build. This is why I points few things out of the Asus recommended pratices. I just present to you the correct Asus way to do the things.

I RMA so much RAM, PSU and throw in the Garbage 3 OCZ SSD only 18 months old. Only the Fujitsu hard drives was worst than OCZ products.

I do systems design and integration for enterprise, this is just one of many, many builds. It isn't "the Asus way" it's just what is generally recommended by manufactures. In the Professional sector, real standards start to come into play, but consumer level hardware doesn't get too complicated. I don't know exactly how PLX bridges work but my theory is that the PLX isn't even engaged when you are only running a single x16 GPU, if the slot itself is tied to the PLX then it just doesn't seem to have any performance difference vs just the PCH. I will post the 3DMARK scores in a bit for my system but I am not going to run them twice. Luckily I have never had to RMA a unit and I am sorry if you have.

I pretty much researched all the components to death before buying and while a Full LC unit would be nice it was out of my budget for the power I wanted. I guess the title is a little fanatic and for that you have my apologies. It's not really a masterpiece so to say but just my personal consumer-level system for work and Gaming that I think looks awesome but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Obviously you might ask if I am an IT pro why am I using consumer level hardware, and it's mainly do to price and the fact I don't need Workstation class power at home. Most of the Professional Firepro and Quadro GPUs are optimized for things like After effects and AutoCAD rather than games.

DING! Results are in http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/185678

However I just realised that my ram was running at 1333Mhz instead of it's XMP of 1600. I must of forgot to set it to the XMP last time I updated the bios. However these tests are mainly for CPU and GPU, and I don't see how it factors in 2 much.

[xeromist]

Congrats on your build. The important thing is that it is working well. 🙂

My 2c of personal experience with OCZ is that the PSUs have long term reliability issues. I had one that just stopped working one day. Luckily it didn't take anything with it but I'm thinking it only made it a year? Perhaps anecdotal but I've never had any issues with my Corsair PSUs and they've had many more hours on them than that OCZ. I'm not telling you to change your PSU because you've already paid for it and you're happy with it, but just maybe a recommendation for the next build in the future. 😉