XPS 730x - Asrock Build

System Owner: eduncan911
3DMark Fire Strike: 7,737
3DMark 11: 21,467
Community Score: 8
3DMark Vantage: 54,884
3DMark 06: 0
SuperPi 32M:

ELIGIBLE

System Details

Component Type Brand Product

Motherboard ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Professional LGA2011

CPU Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E

Frequency: 4.6 GHz FSB / QPI: 100 MHz Multiplier: 46 x Stepping: Default
VCore: 1.32 v VTT Voltage: 1.129 v PLL Voltage: 1.811 v

RAM Mushkin 4x Enhanced Redline 16GB (4 x 4GB)

Frequency: 2133 MHz Timing: 9-11-10-28 Voltage: 1.65 v

Graphics Card EVGA 3x GTX 670 SC+ 4 GB

GPU Frequency: 1176 MHz Shader Frequency: Default Memory Frequency: 6010 MHz SLI: Yes

Case

Dell

XPS 730X Black Edition w/X-Panel

Cooling

Dell (Modified)

H2C TEC Hybrid, heavily modified for 450W of cooling.

PhysX Card

EVGA

GTX 460 SC 1GB EE

Monitor

Planar

SA2311W 120Hz 3D Vision Ready

Monitor

Planar

SA2311W 120Hz 3D Vision Ready

Monitor

Planar

SA2311W 120Hz 3D Vision Ready

Solid State Drive

OCZ

Vertex 3 LT 240 GB in RAID 0

Solid State Drive

OCZ

Vertex 3 LT 240 GB in RAID 0

Power Supply

Corsair

AX1200

Notes

This was machine #3 I built in my quest has been trying to get my Tri-Monitor gameplay nice and smooth. Previous systems were:

X58 PCIe 2.0 w/3-way EVGA 580 3GB HCs (2010)
X58 PCIe 2.0 w/2-way EVGA 470s (2008)

For this system, I went with an X79 setup using the Sandy Bridge-E 3930k in a spare black chassis I had laying around. That was way more than my budget alone; so, I ended up cheaping out with the Red&Black Asrock X79 Fatal1ty Professional board (before the Champion was announced). It looked damned awesome.

System Theory:

With the Sandy-Bridge-E, Intel moved the PCH onto the CPU die itself. In theory, this would reduce the PCIe latency that I was experiencing with my X58 Tri-SLI 580 setup.

In addition, the Asrock X79 had plastered all over it, "PCIe 3.0 compatible." I thought for sure I was hitting the bandwidth limits of PCIe 2.0 transferring over 6 Megapixels across the PCIe 2.0 lanes of the previous X58 system.

Lastly, I was hitting the 3 GB limit of the EVGA GTX 580 HydroCopper2s. So, the 4 GB in the EVGA GTX 670s had to help there!

Results:

Continued to experience "micro-stutter", aka "choppiness" @ 6000x1080 with this setup. Really ticked me off. It wasn't one of the GTX 670s stopped working (RMA) that i was forced to use only 2-way SLI due to Nvidia's 3-way limitations.

As for PCIe 3.0 - Asrock failed here, horribly. You can read my review in the forums.

Comments

Posted By Date Text

eduncan911
04/24/2013
07:59 PM

Seems I join the crowd with others that have a very poor FireStrike score - when everything else is working fine. Considering 3DMark went the "pay to not wait" route in FireStrike at the very end of the free version, I won't be doing much "tuning" for firestrike, thank you.

6dracing
04/06/2013
07:07 PM

Nice and clean my man! +1

buggyruth
03/13/2013
06:01 PM

Nice Rig clean and tidy! +1

eduncan911
10/29/2012
01:24 PM

Update: I've been trying to get back on this TEC project, but really been busy with my new company I have started. So late at night, after the family is asleep, when I decide to spend an hour or two at 1 AM on some game, thee current system really is pretty decent. Except for MWO - I need a 2nd card for that.

eduncan911
09/18/2012
11:06 AM

I really like the red-n-black color scheme of the motherboard and matching memory.

Total Comments 5

XPS 730x - Asrock Build

System Details

Component Type Brand Product

Notes

Comments

Posted By Date Text

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