Project Raven

[ScottALot]

Buying Alienware is forgivable, but there are plenty of Asus notebooks that far outperform in performance for a lower price.
MacBooks... there are few reasons for buying them. The university I'm attending next year sent me a pamphlet telling me that I should buy a MacBook for next year. I submitted a complaint saying that such a prestigious university shouldn't be advertising products.

[ohms]

Boooo I can't use my GTX 670 Superclocked Editions because there is a recall on them because a few are faulty, and the 2 I bought are

Good part is that EVGA is doing cross shipping and upgrading everyone who got bad Superclocked Editions to FTW Editions

Buying Alienware is forgivable, but there are plenty of Asus notebooks that far outperform in performance for a lower price.

Incorrect sir, no Asus laptop has Crossfire or SLI. As far as I know of the only other laptops that have it are the Clevo and the Sager.

[hydr0x]

Boooo I can't use my GTX 670 Superclocked Editions because there is a recall on them because a few are faulty, and the 2 I bought are

Good part is that EVGA is doing cross shipping and upgrading everyone who got bad Superclocked Editions to FTW Editions




Incorrect sir, no Asus laptop has Crossfire or SLI. As far as I know of the only other laptops that have it are the Clevo and the Sager.

Look at the specs closely my friend. You will find out that yes there is "Xfire" and "SLI" but they are just there for marketing purposes and the cards actually run at either x8 + x8 or x16 + x4. in real terms you can get the same performance from a single card that is cooled and clocked better. If you look at all the motherboards that promote SLI and Xfire you will see that most of the budget ones only do x8 + x8 and you have to pay extra to have x16 + x16 (the Asus ROG motherboards for example) which is true SLI / Xfire as there are two cards producing normal speeds but together instead of two cards producing half speeds together.

For example: Its two cars driving at 30mph and two cars driving at 60mph, whos going to get their first?

Also I wasn't saying you were buying a Macbook because they are better for performance (because they arn't) I'm saying you are paying for a Label not a laptop, because it has a glowing alien head on the front means its worth £1000 more than a laptop that is exactly the same but with no flashing lights.

[ohms]

Look at the specs closely my friend. You will find out that yes there is "Xfire" and "SLI" but they are just there for marketing purposes and the cards actually run at either x8 + x8 or x16 + x4. in real terms you can get the same performance from a single card that is cooled and clocked better. If you look at all the motherboards that promote SLI and Xfire you will see that most of the budget ones only do x8 + x8 and you have to pay extra to have x16 + x16 (the Asus ROG motherboards for example) which is true SLI / Xfire as there are two cards producing normal speeds but together instead of two cards producing half speeds together.

For example: Its two cars driving at 30mph and two cars driving at 60mph, whos going to get their first?

Also I wasn't saying you were buying a Macbook because they are better for performance (because they arn't) I'm saying you are paying for a Label not a laptop, because it has a glowing alien head on the front means its worth £1000 more than a laptop that is exactly the same but with no flashing lights.

I hate to break it to you, but the x8 to x16 PCI-E speeds are not 50% -/+. You are applying straight up math and it doesn't work that way. And no, the fact that it is an Alienware doesn't factor in a whole lot into the pricing equation. Like I said in my previous post, if you configure a Clevo or Sager to the same specs, all 3 will be in the same ball park of cost.

What most ignorant prospective buyers don't realize is, companies like Dell/Alienware, Clevo and Sager get you is when people pay for 8/16GB ram upgrade or the hard drive upgrade through these companies who charge an insane mark-up. Whether it is because the buyer doesn't know how to do the installation themselves or laziness is a factor, the upgrades in most of the cases is what drives up the cost.


Anyway, enough of the bull.

ICK! The white on the cards throw my entire color scheme off!




I can't wait until EK finishes making blocks for these so I can ditch the huge ugly coolers.

Although, this can be the perfect opportunity to re-sleeve everything that is orange to white and replace all my orange/white LED fans to Gentle Typhoons for the performance gain and matching color and to remove the 2 thick 360 radiators in the other compartment and stuff more hard drives in there.

[ohms]

My 670 FTWs which will replace my ailing superclocks have arrived!

I thought the white on the heatsink for the SC was bad, the green lettering is even worse! At least I won't have to endure it too long as I can order the EVGA 680 Hydro block and back plate since it's designed on the 680 PCB and they will fit.

I also did some benches with the new cards at stock speeds.

3D Mark 11 Score : 9269
3D Mark 06 Score: 32149
3D Mark Vantage Score: 33394

[ScottALot]

I hate to break it to you, but the x8 to x16 PCI-E speeds are not 50% -/+. You are applying straight up math and it doesn't work that way.

Confirming this is true... there is almost no difference between the two. I'm not even sure how much of a benefit you get during extreme overclocking situations.

[ohms]

Some of the parts arrived so the water cooling porn can continue. I'm still waiting on a smaller package that has some Bitspower rotary fittings, which is holding me up!

Here are pictures of the XSPC Razor 680 GTX block, the SLI block and the EVGA 680 GTX back plates. I have to say that the XSPC block is pretty nice and wallet friendly, it's definitely a better option for me over the ugly EK circle of death blocks.

Hopefully the fittings will arrive today so I can mount the blocks and get my cards under water.

[Saltire]

2 x 670's with 680 backplates.

How does that work... Do they share the same PCB ?

I thought the PCB was really small once the stock cooler is removed.

[ohms]

2 x 670's with 680 backplates.

How does that work... Do they share the same PCB ?

I thought the PCB was really small once the stock cooler is removed.

The 670 FTW 2GB model uses the same PCB as the 680 GTX 2GB

[Saltire]

The 670 FTW 2GB model uses the same PCB as the 680 GTX 2GB

Ah ok, thanks.

[ohms]

I just finished everything in the rig and with the photos, so here comes more hardware porn.

The EVGA 680 GTX back plates went on with no problems using the XSPC Razor 680 GTX blocks, the screw heads were slightly larger then the holes but the screw itself was long enough so there was no issue.

I also got my nifty Koolance QDC's into the mix now, so draining my loop or changing tubing will be tons easier now.

[Church]

QDCs too large to screw them in from the side without 90deg angle fittings?

[ohms]

QDCs too large to screw them in from the side without 90deg angle fittings?

Nah, it just got in the way of the 6-pin molex power cables.

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Well, I finally finished my 670 FTW loop. I got the tubing routed the way I wanted and more importantly I got the correct size compression fittings this time. I also picked up a Samsung 830 Series 128GB SSD to replace my (2) Intel X-25M Raid 0.








And the last shot taken through the case window.