{"id":36,"date":"2009-12-28T21:40:57","date_gmt":"2009-12-29T02:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/2009\/12\/new-gaming-pc\/"},"modified":"2009-12-28T21:40:57","modified_gmt":"2009-12-29T02:40:57","slug":"new-gaming-pc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/2009\/12\/new-gaming-pc\/","title":{"rendered":"New Gaming PC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s been a long, long, long time since I\u2019ve bought a new gaming PC, but I finally took the plunge a month and a half ago. Every previous gaming machine I\u2019ve bought, except one Alienware, have been built by me from components. I\u2019m too busy for that now and, honestly, I\u2019ve got enough money that the couple hundred more for a professionally built system is well worth it for the quality. So, on November 9, 2009, I ordered a Mainear Shift windows 7 gaming monster: <a title=\"http:\/\/maingear.com\/custom\/desktops\/shift\/\" href=\"http:\/\/maingear.com\/custom\/desktops\/shift\/\">http:\/\/maingear.com\/custom\/desktops\/shift\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I specced it out thusly:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1.2KW Silverstone Zeus Modular Power Supply (so far I\u2019ve only played some Dragon Age on it, but it hasn\u2019t exceeded 450W that I\u2019ve noticed on my Kill-A-Watt, but this should give me room for more expandability)<\/li>\n<li>2x ATI HD 5870 2GB <\/li>\n<li>EVGA X58 SLI Classified Mobo<\/li>\n<li>Intel Core i7-960 3.2GHz proc, oc\u2019d (by Maingear) to 3.78<\/li>\n<li>Asetek X120 Liquid Cooling<\/li>\n<li>12GB Kingston HyperX Triple-Channel DDR3-1600 RAM<\/li>\n<li>128GB Kingston V-Series SSD for C:<\/li>\n<li>2x 2TB Western Digital RE4-GP, 2TB drives in RAID-0 for D:<\/li>\n<li>All-in-One integrated USB 2.0 Flash Card Reader<\/li>\n<li>8x Lite-On Blu-ray Reader \/ DVD Lightscribe Combo Drive<\/li>\n<li>Dual On-board Gigabit Ethernet<\/li>\n<li>8-channel high definition surround sound<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It was a long wait, but finally on Christmas Eve, I received it.&#160; I\u2019ve been toodling around with it as much as I have been able to since then.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, here are my thoughts:<\/p>\n<p>Unboxing went smoothly, though the computer is big and heavy (and so therefore is the box it comes in). Seriously, though.&#160; The thing is gigantic.&#160; Here\u2019s a picture of it next to a normal computer so you get an idea. It\u2019s just really large and imposing.<\/p>\n<p>The first thing that\u2019s interesting about the Shift case is that the motherboard is rotated 90 degrees so that the ports (usb, DVI, ethernet, etc.) are all located on the top of the case.&#160; This way, the hot components (such as the graphics cards) can all have air flow along them and out the top, using convection for some assistance with cooling.&#160; One thing I thought was slightly suboptimal about the case construction was that to access these ports, you have to unscrew a cage on top of the case, but Maingear did not use thumbscrews for the screws, nor did they indicate in the manual that you are expected to unscrew anything. So I wasted a few minutes trying to find some way to pop the top open without unscrewing, to no avail. The manual, by the way, still says to plug things in to the back.&#160; I don\u2019t think it\u2019s been updated for the Shift just yet. The screws also make it a pain to get to the USB ports. I\u2019m going to add a hub on my desk so I don\u2019t have to deal with that.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, that all done, I got everything set up and booted into Windows 7 Ultimate.&#160; It was a nice, relatively stock install with just two crapware icons on the desktop \u2013 a nondescript FreeAntivirus and a FreeOfficeSuite.&#160; I don\u2019t know what either of these were, and deleted them without delay. It would have been nice to either have these be more identifiable, or not have them there at all.<\/p>\n<p>My username was set to John as an Administrator, with no password. I added a password so I could feel better about enabling remote desktop, etc.<\/p>\n<p>There were 31.8GB used on C:.&#160; 10GB of it is a hiberfil.sys and 13GB is a pagefile.sys. So in that sense, 23GB of it is wasted. I don\u2019t expect with 12GB of physical memory I\u2019ll be paging too much, so I\u2019m planning to move the page file to my D:.&#160; Also, I never hibernate, so I\u2019ll move that to D: as well. This will free up a good bit of space. It would be nice for maingear to have done this, or offered to do it, for me, but that is a good bit of trouble to go to, I understand.<\/p>\n<p>The thing takes about 38s to cold boot \u2013 16s of these are in the bios and hard disk \/ RAID config stuff waiting to get to Windows, so Windows is only taking about 22s to start, which is pretty great imo.<\/p>\n<p>The thing is definitely audible. It\u2019s about 41dB at my ear level from under my desk when doing some light web surfing. I haven\u2019t measured it when playing a game, but it\u2019s not onerous by any means. Right by the box under the same circumstances it\u2019s about 48dB. Under heavy cpu only load (primes) that only goes up to about 50dB. I live in New York. This might be more noticeable if you live somewhere quieter. <\/p>\n<p>The cpu runs at about 52C when not under load, but gets up to nearly 70 when playing Dragon Age (the only game I\u2019ve installed so far \u2013 putting City of Heroes and Champions Online on it as I type this). This definitely seems hot to me, but I guess that\u2019s what you get for overclocking.<\/p>\n<p>My overall reaction is that this is the best computer I\u2019ve ever bought.&#160; It\u2019s fast as hell, plays games fluidly and without breaking a sweat, even hooked to my 30\u201d monitor at full res, and is well and solidly built.<\/p>\n<p>The 128GB I got for C: is too small, I think. I\u2019m going to buy another 128, RAID-0 them up, and see how that goes.<\/p>\n<p>More soon, including pics!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s been a long, long, long time since I\u2019ve bought a new gaming PC, but I finally took the plunge a month and a half ago. Every previous gaming machine I\u2019ve bought, except one Alienware, have been built by me from components. I\u2019m too busy for that now and, honestly, I\u2019ve got enough money that &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/2009\/12\/new-gaming-pc\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">New Gaming PC<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,9],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gaming","tag-windows"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3ictG-A","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":212,"url":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/2012\/02\/new-gaming-setup-so-powa\/","url_meta":{"origin":36,"position":0},"title":"New Gaming Setup So Powa~","author":"john","date":"February 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Ordered a new Maingear gaming PC with 3x 7970s and a SandyBridge-E 3960X to drive 3x 30\" panels in portrait from NEC...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Computers and Internet&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Computers and Internet","link":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/category\/computers-and-internet\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":198,"url":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/2011\/11\/crashplan-saves-the-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":36,"position":1},"title":"CrashPlan Saves The Day","author":"john","date":"November 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"My RAID was corrupted, my Dropbox picked up stale changes and screwed up all my machines, my Windows gaming PC wouldn't boot, my home server didn't cooperate, but CrashPlan saved the day.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Computers and Internet&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Computers and Internet","link":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/category\/computers-and-internet\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":85,"url":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/2004\/12\/getting-back-into-the-stock-game\/","url_meta":{"origin":36,"position":2},"title":"Getting back into the stock game","author":"john","date":"December 31, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I was thinking yesterday and decided to get back into the stock market. I've got my 401k set up and participate in Microsoft's employee stock purchase program and I get MSFT stock for bonuses, etc. But I don't really have a diverse portfolio. About half my investments (everything not in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hobbies&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hobbies","link":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/category\/hobbies\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":194,"url":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/2011\/09\/where-do-you-keep-your-files\/","url_meta":{"origin":36,"position":3},"title":"Where Do You Keep Your Files?","author":"john","date":"September 18, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I describe where I keep important files and how I ensure they're backed up safely.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Computers and Internet&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Computers and Internet","link":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/category\/computers-and-internet\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":120,"url":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/2006\/12\/macbook-1-month-later\/","url_meta":{"origin":36,"position":4},"title":"MacBook &#8211; 1 month later","author":"john","date":"December 24, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I've lived with my Mac for about a month now. It's had its ups and downs. I'll start with the high level summary, then delve into details. Pros: Sexy Hardware Built in iSight, great feeling keyboard, magnetic power cord MacOS is fun Can run both Mac & Windows apps (and\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/2006\/12\/macbook-1-month-later\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":114,"url":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/2006\/10\/oh-boy-oh-boy\/","url_meta":{"origin":36,"position":5},"title":"Oh Boy Oh Boy","author":"john","date":"October 31, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The new MacBook Pros with Core 2 Duo chips came out last week. I've been wanting one since God knows when, so I bought one. I ordered it last Thursday for something like $2600. 2.33GHz of dual core goodness, an ATI Radeon 1600 mobility graphics card with 256MB video ram\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.forawesome.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}