FINALLY rebuilt my MM UFO Horizon - NOW WITH PICS!

[RX7boricua]

Hey guys,

I lost my Southbridge on my EVGA 680i AR back in mid-late July. I RMA'd the board for an A1, and decided what the hell, may as well redo the loops and toss in a Q6600 while it's all down. Well, after over 2 months of downtime due to EVGA dragging their feet on my 680i RMA as well as time/work constraints, I have finally completed the complete rebuild of my main rig. One or two of you may remember my build from: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=148403. While I was happy with the previous setup, I'm practically ecstatic with the quad core and the performance I've been able to squeeze out of it.

The changes I made were:

1. Replaced lapped E6600 with stock Q6600 (thinking of lapping it)
2. Bowed FuZion by installing o-ring between top and mid sections
3. Moved the CPU loop from the PA120.2 at bottom/rear of case being fed case air to PA120.3 getting fresh air at top/front
4. Added a second DDC2 to each loop for safety/redundancy/extra flow
5. Replaced both T-lines with Swiftech MicroRes's
6. Replaced 2x320gb RAID0 with 2x500gb RAID1
7. Replaced 700W Seasonic M-12 with Enermax Galaxy DXX 1000W
8. Sleeved all fan/lighting wires with black sleeving and heatshrink

I finally reached the sweet spot between speed/heat/voltage last night, and the CPU has been priming now for almost 13 hours now. (Assuming it hasn't failed; I'm at work.)

Right now it is running at 3.7ghz @1.425Vcore (in BIOS), which I was only able to do after pencil-modding my 680i. Before performing the Vdroop mod, I could not get above 3.3ghz @1.475V, as Vcore would drop from 1.46V to 1.40V under load as reported by Speedfan. After Vdroop mod, with Vcore set to 1.425 in BIOS, Speedfan shows 1.41 idle and 1.42 load.

My temperatures at this speed/voltage are 32-33degC idle and 48-49degC load. These are the same temps I was at with my lapped E6600 at the same speed! I've seen others getting about 10deg difference just from lapping their Q6600, and I'm debating on whether I want to lap mine or not. Also, Speedfan shows my 8800's running at 44-45degC idle.

EDIT: PICS! Also, my idle temps seem to have gone down a bit, probably due to cooler ambient temps... Now this thing idles at 29-30C!