So Its Fun to tinker With Stuff….

So basically the idea behind this was to make it the smallest footprint as possible with out compromising speed and power.

Same specs, a USB 3.0 upgrade and even smaller machine footprint and a tight squeeze and the world most horrible cable management.

Cheers to PC Casegear for all there awesome stuff for this build.

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Building a box to run Xcode and to perform all other development tasks im doing ATM seemed far away a while ago, however i made a small break through after the recent upgrades of Apple Hardware, i5′s have opened up most newer board revisions to be vanilla bootable. So with the following i was able to start this build:

1x Core i5 650 3.33Ghz
1x GA-H55M-D2H
1x 9800GT 1GB
1x 128GB SSD
1x 500GB 7200rpm
1x 160GB 5400rpm
1x Xcube Case
1x DVD+RW

Current Running OS’s, 10.6.4 Snow Leopard, Windows 7 x64 Ultimate and Ubuntu 10.04 x86

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Things have been moving so fast , been so busy with smartphone testing, OSX Rigging, Starcraft II Playing and working hard.

Plenty of things to add to the blog later today, have work log of a new project to do with a Xbox 360 and total conversion to something portable and self contained
I Have finally finished making the MS-1727 the best notebook it can be. Have lined up for an iPhone 4 and compared to the Android world lastests Samsung Galaxy S. Pics and thoughts to be added for your enjoyment. Have somthing a litle fun with a 980X 6 core i7.

Coming Soon,

FYI Posting it has been postponed due to the last Hardware unit coming soon

UPDATE – The Unit has arrived today, installation and testing will commence tonight. With temps pics and all that jazz!

Core i7 920XM

After playing with the MS-1656 barebones unit, i loved the idea of building something to suite your specifications and putting what you want in it to get what you want out of it. It seems that 15.4″ Screen and a GTS 250M was not enough, i needed something to be close to my desktop specs, my expectations kinda rose a little after having crossfire and an i7 OC’D for quite a while, even though from real world numbers it seems (for playing games and doing “normal” things) it seems no different. So i decided to see what i could find out there to suite what i needed. I needed something close to the following:

– Core i7 920 2.66Ghz
– 6GB 1066Mhz
– 2 x HD 4890 1GB
– DVD+RW

Meeting those was a tall order, i mean i could get those in a notebook if really wanted to splurge the monies to do so, but i think it would be better to stick to realistic budget and performance. I first place i started looking was something to compare if it was worth it to get the barebones upgrade or to go with something pre-built / OEM. Now i have had OEMS before over the years but only in the last 3 years have i started using notebooks for gaming on the go and hard lanning. I mean we have all lugged our machine to LANS and back and caused outselves damage indoing so, after i moved to laptops to get over that issue i started noticing a few things. All OEMS today seem to built thier notebooks with GPU’s not as the focus and if they do build gaming notebooks they are always 3,0000000,00000000 dollars more than they should be for what you get.

So i set in mind to continue down the path of barebones unit building, but i didnt know where to start, i mean there are a few main contenders to start with:

– Clevo
– MSI

And then there are pre-built units using custom versions of each sold by (mostly EU builders) like DevilTech and XoticPC, these units again are still a little to steep for the needs but do live up to the performance bar very very well, the only other part that discounted them for me was simply that they don’t accept most customers outside of the EU areas. There are only a few other options but i then turned my attention to the USA, there are some there i could find again finding not what i was looking for, after looking around on http://forum.notebookreview.com/ and found a lot of ravings about clevo and the MSI range but more so towards the barebones. So i started looking towards what the resellers had comming out and the future proofing my idea. I set my sights then on the MSI based barebones mainly the MS-1727 as even the OEM version of it, GX740 was not even released at the time, Core i5 was the fastest CPU in these pre-built units. I then did some more hunting and discovered a interesting reseller Frostycomputers. The first thing that came to my head was “there is sooo much stuff here!!!!” and starting looking at the range of product and the amount of support and information on this site is extensive, a main thing that caught my eye, INTERNATIONAL WARRANTY?!?, smokes most places dont even support local warranty besides the reseller, but there guys sell the machine with international warranty on parts and machine for all MSI based products. this was definatly not the adverage seller, they new thier stuff, video reveiws and all.

So i looked at what they had for the MS-1727 and even pre-order for the MSI-GX740, which again was a surprise. These blokes have everything in MSI gear and if your looking for the good on MSI barebones and OEM i’m telling you not to go past it. Considering the parts i already had, i went first for the GT720, but after a few minutes of confirming the order i emailed back support and asked if they could upgrade to the GX740 (MS-1727) even though it would be on pre order. They changed my order ASAP and even threw in a wonderful 17″ carry bag FTW!!

A week after the unit had been ordered in the US, it arrived at desk! UPS is such a brilliant idea for this sorta thing, and as included with the pictures i have already, i assembled it with the following specs:

– Core i7 720QM
– 4GB 1066Mhz DDR3
– 5870 1GB (Alredy with this model )
– 128GB A-RAM PRO SSD
– Intel 5100 N WIFI

And the results from first boot was rather impressive, though anything with an SSD these days will be awesome as it is. 3D Mark Initial tests with 10.3 Preview drivers were giving around the 11000 Mark, so i was then able to use the drivers from the GX740 as they were released, sadly the normal AMD drivers will not work without some mild INF tweaking. But after the unit began to give some interesting results compared to my desktop setup, 3D mark of 12000 and even the ability to OC the GPU close to its desktop counterpart. This however from most of my testing didn’t seem to make too much difference in the real world gaming but another 350 points in 3Dmark. Temps i have also included here for idle, gaming and heavy usage. The AUDIO controller in this unit is very very nice, the software to support it is defiantly recommended as this adds some support for other surround setups, the fact that it have individual controls for all 4 audio output jacks makes it great for multitrack recording situations.

I will be also including the second part of this review with my full thoughts and conclusions about the performance and feel of the machine, Including HDMI and usage on battery and keyboard and touchpad feels when in use.

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Specifications:

– Core i7 720QM – 1.60Ghz / 2.66Ghz
– 4GB DDR3 1066Mhz
– Intel PM55 Express Chipset
– ATi HD5870M 1GB GDDR5 MXM 3.0 B
– 500GB SATA II HDD
– Intel WiFi 5100 a/b/g/n
– 15.4″ 1680×1050 LCD

HD5870 1GB GDDR5 and cooling update.

3Dmark in the 10,000 Range

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I have got a few things to do:

1) Test with more than 2 People
2) Multiple User authentication
3) Max load test
4) See if we can crash it.
5) Suggestions on new channels to add (Once i have listed the main TBA below)

So i thought i would appeal to the OCAU and general Gaming people and see who would be interested in testing this for me, i have a huge array of channels for a multitude of games so im sure there is something for all.

I also need ideas and suggestions, but most of all feedback. once i get some interest we can talk testing dates and times.

And after this it might become free range for those of OCAU who wish to use it or public to see what happens

Active Users: 1 / 30 (Preferred Min Stress Test)

So after some awsome overclocking results, i moved to how i was gonna contain the beast and cool it properly to maintain these levels 24/7 scenario. After thoughts and some research i ended up with the following:

1 x Antec 902
1 x external loop, 2 Radiators , 1 res

So with that i have built so far about 98% of what i need to have running, although to create room and to make things neat is not an easy job. All that is left to do now is to make 2 custom brackets to hold the external rads onto the case and to deflect the air from the 4890′s to not get sucked into them, as this will just increase heat, and serious who wants that. Now i also in the future get custom blocks for the 4890′s so they are water cooled to reduce the noise of thier fans under full load. But attached are the pics of the build so far..

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Well a small explanation is needed as to why this had to come about in the first place.

I had too loops in my machine, GPU and a CPU loop, although heat and some small fail caused one of the reservoirs to obtain some small cracks and leak somewhat, so after some thinking and pndering on what to do as my machine would simply overheat it i played games, which frankly is almost useless to me, i had to come up with a way of new system design with what i had and not spending too much along the way. So i set about pulling apart the current machine and i set it out on an open air bench to see what happened. After a while i had to get rid of the GPU loop all together and a get the Original Fan based cooling system back on there, then i had to use the res from that on the CPU loop which was sadly the cracked one. After some testing and more frustration, discovered just dinna have enough power!!!!

So a new PSU has found its was into my machine testing.. thus getting more overheat and leading to some interesting Overclocking results of 4.25Ghz , heat then preceeded to be no issue achieving only 42c on idle and 71c on full load at this speed. This moved more towards overcloking results of 26786 3Dmark 06 score’s and 19380 Vantage score

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Got the gear yesterday, and was planning on installing it on the weekend……. this plan failed i got excited and a little impatient and went ahead and dismantled the Q8200 system and proceeded to install the whole i7 with customer coolers and reseated CPU blocks. The GPUS are now sitting a little closer but i do need to reveiw the placement of the pipes, may need some L junction pipes soon and some thicker piping. plus i do wanna do a complete spray black on the inside of the case….. or i may wanna just get a new case all together and work it over. Either way so far without any OC its performing as expected. Gonna acctually get to start the long process of Stabilization this weekend i hope.

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