Review for 3 way SLI Digital Storm SystemPost Date: 2009-07-15 |
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eastor 
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 Topic: Review for 3 way SLI Digital Storm SystemPosted: 15 Jul 2009 at 9:58am |
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Ok, so I have finally hooked up my system and run a couple of games on it briefly. Below are my system specs: Chassis Model: Cooler Master HAF 932 I will post some more detailed specs later today with pictures but overall, I give the system very high marks so far. The only minus was the power cord was missing from delivery...but I talked to DS and within a couple of hours of leaving a message with them; they are sending me the missing power cord. I would recommend going with the free shipping that they are offering, the box was well secured and I don't think it would get messed up, even if it was dropped. I had an extra power cord from an older computer that DS James said would work and it did. Overall, the system looks great, the dual loop cooling system looks very well built...I would recommend the standard factory finish, as the system looks awesome. I loaded some of the games Sarah hooked me up with, Far Cry 2 and GRID, which is a racing game. Far Cry 2 worked flawlessly at 2560X1200 and very high details for the 15 minutes I played it, which I was surprised at given that resolution...although I did not get a chance to see the fps but it was definitely playable with those settings. I played Crysis Warhead for around 45 minutes...but I did not attempt 2560X1600 yet....I stuck with 1920X1200...I set all detail to enthusiast and AA X8. All I can say is wow....the game looked great with those settings, I had to average around 59-60fps outside with the lowest fps being 45, but that would only last a few seconds. I looked at my temps with the monitor tool DST recommended and the GPUs did not get above 58C and that is after playing Crysis for 45 minutes and the CPUs temps were around the same if not lower. I have screen shots at home, but once I get back from work, I will post what I had at idle and after playing Crysis. I am interested to see what performance gains that I can get if I over clock the GPUs, although I haven't done that in years and will need to review the Rivatuner manual. One thing that I might need help with is optimizing the SSD and seeing what my hard drive I/O is performing at, as I am not sure if DS did that and I am still learning this. It seems like the writes are a little slower then I thought they would be and the reads are fast but I thought it would be a little quicker. If the performance stays the same and no tweaks are required, I would recommend getting two velicoraptors in RAID 0 instead of an SSD, as my older system has those and it seems to load games and windows almost as fast as the Intel 160 GB, but you will have 600GB instead of 160...and that is with an older quad core processor. The game loads have to be within a couple of seconds of each other from what I have noticed so far. So overall, I would recommend DS, as their product is by far greater then anything I have experienced from Dell or other PC companies to date. I have to get back to work but will post more observations as I get to play around more with the system in the coming days.
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Alex
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Digital Storm Supervisor 
Joined: 04 Jun 2012 Online Status: Offline Posts: 16314 |
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Posted: 15 Jul 2009 at 3:55pm |
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Post pictures!
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eastor
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Posted: 15 Jul 2009 at 4:37pm |
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First round of pictures....let me know if you have any special requests. uploads/2512/127PC.JPG Edited to show picture in post directly - Alex:  Edited by Alex - 15 Jul 2009 at 4:49pm |
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Alex
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Posted: 15 Jul 2009 at 4:49pm |
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Amazing!
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Zardoz8719
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Posted: 15 Jul 2009 at 5:08pm |
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Very nice... |
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DST4ME
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Joined: 14 Apr 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 36758 |
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Posted: 15 Jul 2009 at 5:13pm |
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looking good
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eastor
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Posted: 15 Jul 2009 at 8:04pm |
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Ok guys, might not be able to get the the night time pictures tonight...but here are my screen shots of the specs:
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eastor
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Posted: 15 Jul 2009 at 8:06pm |
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The previous is before playing Crysis, the below is after playing Crysis for 45 min:
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eastor
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Posted: 15 Jul 2009 at 8:08pm |
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Additional specs:  |
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eastor
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Posted: 15 Jul 2009 at 8:10pm |
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Other pics:
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eastor
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Posted: 15 Jul 2009 at 8:11pm |
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DST4ME
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Posted: 15 Jul 2009 at 8:21pm |
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thank got I got a wide screen 24" otherwise those pics would be a pain to look at
resize your hw, its window does not need to be that big. hey eastor can you run hw and realtemp sice by side and give us a screen shot please? under load ofcourse, TIA Edited by DST4ME - 15 Jul 2009 at 8:22pm |
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busdriver01
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Joined: 25 Apr 2009 Online Status: Offline Posts: 33 |
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Posted: 17 Jul 2009 at 5:08pm |
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how quiet is your system?
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eastor
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Posted: 18 Jul 2009 at 7:22am |
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Overall the system is fairly quiet with the upgraded fans...it is not dead silent of course but quieter then I expected....as it is not louder then my previous gaming systems. My work has been killing me, so I haven't had time to play around with it for more then a few hours but I like everything about it so far. By the way, I decided to look at my old system with the RAID 0 Velicoraptors and after relooking, the SSD loads everything significantly faster. I guess I was hoping for a greater performance increase orginially but I would have to say that I would not go back now to the slower hard drives...lol
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eastor
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Posted: 18 Jul 2009 at 10:09am |
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Hey DST, here are my load temps...I played Crysis Warhead for over an hour along with Far Cry 2...Far Cry 2 I can set everything to max settings at 2560X1600 and play for hours at a steady 60 fps, which was awesome. What impressed me was Crysis Warhead, I finally tried 2560X1600, I set it to gamer settings and left everything else alone. I was able to maintain around 45-50 average fps with it jumping up to high 50s in spots and high 30s in some battle intensive scenes which is pretty good for Crysis as I understand at that resolution and was easily playable...my wife was like what game is that, that is awesome....and she has seen me play this game before, several times in fact. lol
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eastor
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Posted: 18 Jul 2009 at 10:24am |
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Ok I was just tried max settings with no AA on Crysis Warhead, still averaging around 45 fps...awesome graphics, I also noticed that it was using around 1.2 GB of my GPU memory which makes a huge difference when viewing objects in a distance. I think getting the 2GB addition might help with games like this, as I have never seen such clear graphics at a distance. It looks like I am really there, looking over a huge island valley and can see items clearly a mile or two away.
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DST4ME
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Posted: 18 Jul 2009 at 10:56am |
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1GB version, or 2GB version would have made no difference.
crysis 275 vs 285, 2x AA: 
crysis 275 896GB vs 275 1792GB vs 285 1GB, 2x aa: 
crysis 285 1GB vs 285 2GB, on high settings: 
no difference Edited by DST4ME - 18 Jul 2009 at 10:57am |
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eastor
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Posted: 18 Jul 2009 at 1:59pm |
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DST....lovely graphs...it really shows the power of TRI SLI as my average FPS is way above anything those charts are showing, even at higher settings. Still getting around 45 fps average with max enthusist settings, 8X AA. You are probably correct in that VRAM does not translate to higher FPS, I am not an expert...but I have noticed that items at a distance are not blurred out as much during gameplay, when I have used more VRAM. In fact now, nothing seems blurry even miles away. So I think it is possible that with higher VRAM, you have better visuals from a distance in games like Crysis, GTA4 and others that utilize more then 1GB of VRAM...which is what I have read. How do my temps look given my settings on crysis and playing more then an hour? They seem to be a lot lower then previous air cooled cards I have had...around 15C lower under load. Everything has run super stable so far...by far the best computer I have ever owned. |
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MyNameisBrian
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Posted: 19 Jul 2009 at 2:02am |
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Uh oh, is that an air bubble I see?
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DST4ME
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Posted: 19 Jul 2009 at 2:18am |
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not sure if you are correct there estor, blurry has to do with frame rates and if you are getting 60 fps then the image should be clear and without lag also. and those charts are showing just one GPUs performance not sli. if it makes little difference in single then it makes even less difference in sli.
some parts of the game are more clear and some are not as clear. also crysis is not a good game to compare this to, its a CPU intensive, try them with a GPU intensive, are you setting a limit of how much Vram the GPUs uses? Cause unless you can limit the GPU to 1GB thru a certain part of the game and then go back and have the GPU use 2GB thru the same section and then noticed a difference, I don't see how we can the the clarity is due to more vram. Edited by DST4ME - 19 Jul 2009 at 3:05am |
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titusmckieus
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Posted: 19 Jul 2009 at 3:34am |
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could you post some screen shots
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Zardoz8719
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Posted: 19 Jul 2009 at 8:15am |
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(I) noticed that too... Acutally, it looks like one big bubble...and in the 2nd line directly below (in one of the pics you can see) a much smaller bubble. How hard is it to bleed those lines...or will the pump/circulation take care of that on it's own??  OOps, just looked again...and there's a third bubble in the line to the right also...they're everywhere, they're everywhere  Not laughing at you--rather with you...it can't be that big a problem me thinks.  Edited by Zardoz8719 - 19 Jul 2009 at 8:19am |
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eastor
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Posted: 19 Jul 2009 at 9:04am |
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Just posting what I have heard on the internet and noticed during gameplay....as I said, not an expert. It just makes sense to me that if the game is using more then 1GB of VRAM, that I would want a card that was able to match, certain parts of the game used almost1.4 GB of VRAM. So what is up with the air bubbles, as I a new to liquid cooling? Keep in mind, the pictures were taken just out of the box and before I turned on the PC for the first time. Thanks for all the info guys!
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eastor
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Posted: 19 Jul 2009 at 9:17am |
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Also, I tried 3dmark Vantage trail edition am getting lower GPU scores then I think I should....I saw the highest pc was around 42000 for performance total score. My CPU score was really high, around 52000 which was higher then the other top PCs cpu score but my graphics score was really low compared to the other PCs, and they had lesser graphics solutions....as I understand 3 SLI 285 should beat 295 quad or 280 tri SLI which were the pcs that had higher graphics scores. My graphics score was around 28000-29000, where others are getting around 38000....with the 280 tri. I am sure they are overclocked but I would think it would not make that big of a gap. I have ran it twice and got just over 32200 both times for my overall score, any thoughts on what could be driving the lower graphics score? Thanks for your help in advance. Edited by eastor - 19 Jul 2009 at 9:18am |
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e.fruman
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Posted: 19 Jul 2009 at 10:04am |
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those are highly overclocked gpus.
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eastor
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Posted: 19 Jul 2009 at 10:23am |
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So my score is about what it should be then, given no overclock...also, it recorded my processor as th 975 extreme edition, which I thought was interesting.
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justin.kerr
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Posted: 19 Jul 2009 at 12:58pm |
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42000 was set with (2) 295's so quad sli. You had Physx on, turn ppu off in options, it is considered an illegal score if ppu was on. That is why you cpu score was so much higher than the others.
OC the GPU's can gain big in performance, 2 285's highly OCed will beat 3 285's stock.
Edited by justin.kerr - 19 Jul 2009 at 1:45pm |
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justin.kerr
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Posted: 19 Jul 2009 at 1:56pm |
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eastor
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Posted: 19 Jul 2009 at 3:52pm |
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Interesting...I wonder if most people leave physics on then...did not see any disclaimers....lol. So with my temps, around 70-75C under load, do you think I will be able to overclock the video cards much? It might not be worth messing with, if I am not going to get a 5-10 percent performance increase, |
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justin.kerr
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Posted: 19 Jul 2009 at 4:16pm |
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just disable ppu in 3d mark vantage to get a "legal" score, so you can compare to others. 70-75c on the GPU does not leave much room to OC for 24/7 operation. for short benchmarking runs you will not be able to OC very high. because heat may cause instability when pushing the cards.
10% gains are very easy with a mild-mid GPU OC, but you are already running fairly hot.
My water cooled GPU's never get above 45C, when OCed to the nuts. lol
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eastor
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Posted: 19 Jul 2009 at 4:54pm |
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Mine does when I am running them at stock and getting around 70C while playing crysis for an hour +. I get 45C at while doing normal web browsing. That is with the specialized frostbite system for my cards. Although it stays in the 50-60C range with other games at 2560X1600, As enthuist settings with 2560X1600 8XAA settings in Crysis tax the system quite a bit and bring it up to 70C. :) Are you running tri? Also, what resolution are you gaming at, as that will make a difference for sure. Edited by eastor - 19 Jul 2009 at 4:59pm |
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justin.kerr
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Posted: 19 Jul 2009 at 5:03pm |
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My system has a lot more cooling than yours, running tri sli.
You have enough cooling headroom to OC the cards a bit, never hurts to try. lol picking up 5% should be no problem, and not raise temps much at all.
Did you try Vantage with ppu disabled, it is in the options
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eastor
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Posted: 19 Jul 2009 at 5:42pm |
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Yeah, but it wouldn't give me my score, as I have already run it a couple of times and it is now expired...not sure if it is worth paying $20 for the advanced edition or not. If I remember correctly, I would need to have that to test my overclocks...do you have any good resources for overclocking 285s in tri? Thanks in advance...what other added cooling do you have? The only other options I had was to put another rad on the outside of the case...DS recommended against getting the upgarded waterblock, as they say there is no significant increase in cooling performance.
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eastor
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Posted: 19 Jul 2009 at 5:44pm |
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Sounds like I should have gotten the faster RAM if I wanted to benchmark! lol
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justin.kerr
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Posted: 19 Jul 2009 at 5:53pm |
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The computer I am referring to is not from DSO. My DSO computer is getting old, but still running perfect lol Vantage is only $6.95 for the basic edition.
You can run 3d mark 06, 05, 03 they are free. Vantage is more realistic on game performance, the others can have inflated numbers with high CPU OC's. But still fun to compare to others Edited by justin.kerr - 19 Jul 2009 at 6:32pm |
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