My next computer build: Part 7 (She Screams!)

Well, I slapped her together with loving care and she's responding just as I expected. I was able to use the 4-Way Optimizer in AI Suite III, that came on the drivers and utilities disk with the Maximus VI Hero, to automatically overclock to 4.6 GHz on all four cores and set up an XMP of 2.4GHz on the 16GB of G.Skill Trident X series RAM.

 

 

 

(Click on the images to enlarge)

 

The RealBench test is a relatively new benchmarking program designed by ASUS ROG gurus to more accurately reflect real world rather than synthetic conditions and is quickly gaining popularity among enthusiasts. My score (720), BTW, put me in 11th place on the 4 core rankings (see image) of Team RealBench enthusiasts on the ROG forums...for now. Not too shabby for a novice.
EDIT: I've since been able to eek out a score of 735...looking for 800.

 

Note on the boot time: This boot time is as recorded by Glary Utilities which, as best as I can tell, doesn't set until after I've logged in. I haven't bothered seeing how fast it would be if I used an automatic login rather than taking the extra few seconds to click and type in my longish password then click again, but I have waited a few times to login just to see if this affects it and it absolutely does.
EDIT: After configuring automatic login, boot time averages about 10-12 seconds. Handy when mucking about in the BIOS and testing for overclocked system stability.

I have to say there are lots of things I hate about Windows 8 and Microsoft in general but I've got to give credit where credit is due. This OS is fast, stable and does a pretty good job of managing resources.

 

The 840 Pro SSD is insanely fast compared to what I and most normal people have been used to.

  

A winsat mem test returned a 37,000 plus MB/s result, but I think that was an anomaly. Subsequent tests have put it right at the 30K mark.

Most programs open nearly instantaneously. I'm loving it so far. Temps at idle are running 28-33 C and a 10 iteration Intel Burn Test at standard load topped out the temps at 88 C. The Noctua NH-D14 is performing flawlessly along with everything else. The set of 4X4GB G.Skill Trident X series 2400's look to be perfectly compatible even though they weren't listed as such by ASUS. I did have to remove the heat spreaders to accommodate the NH-D14, however.

Man, this thing is quiet. It's not dead silent, but I have it setting on top of a component table less than arm's length from my head and I can't hear it at all unless I turn off the room's ceiling fan. I disconnected all 3 of the 3 pin case fans from the low/high fan controller that came with P280 and connected them to the motherboard. That allows me to leave the two top chassis fans turned off until the motherboard hits 35 C at which time they spin up slowly to the minimum RPMs and automatically increase speed with increased temps if needed, but, so far, they rarely come on at all even while overclocked.

After I spend a couple of days playing around with it and beating Windows 8 into submission, maybe I'll post some more details and impressions. On second thought, probably not. For now, "buttery" pretty much sums it up.

I did have a problem with Windows 8 Updates killing my mouse and keyboard, but a wipedisk reset fixed it...for now. All my drivers, OS and software are up to date now and working great, so no worries.

As an aside, I had another small victory this week as well.

My 46" 3D Samsung television was going out and the warranty had expired. It started with losing the wireless network connectivity. Then, in 3D mode, the picture began to flicker like a strobe light. Then the flickering picture eventually spread to being constant in all modes and on all channels.

I broke out my Google-Fu and found a guy who had a similar problem. He said he had paid attention to what his repair man did to fix his problem. It turns out, on this particular model and possibly some others there is a tiny jumper wire on the circuit board that was used for quality control testing and was supposed to have been removed at the factory, but wasn't.

This guy said to cut it and it would cure all my problems. I thought he might be a crank, but what the hell. I could always solder it back together, right? Right? Well, I took the thing apart, found the jumper wire, cut it and presto...good as new! Thanks, random guy on the internet who saved me a lot of time and money.

It's been a good week.

UPDATE: I've decided I'm done writing about this erstwhile gratifying little computer project. I'll just add new stuff to this post, as I encounter it, that I think is relevant and suitable.

I think I'll start a series on the existence of God in the next couple of days.

UPDATE (January 13, 2014): Okay. I'm a little more than 6 months into using this machine and I don't have a single regret as to my component choices. I did end up delidding and lapping my CPU with a less risky method that I developed. That reduced the temperatures by about 20 C on average. Now, stress testing with 100% load on all cores with a 4.6 GHz overclock yields temperatures in the 70 C range. I am perfectly content with zero stress over cooking my overclocked CPU "on air" during heavy multitasking everyday uses or even benchmarking. This baby doesn't even blink.