Out With The Old, In With The New

Alright, it’s a brand new day and I’m all psyched to build my new rig, but I’m in need of some space to set it all up.

However, at the time being, my space (read: roommates bed) is currently unavailable. So for the time being, I’ve decided to go through everything the DHL package had.

First Up; The brains of our Outfit… The AMD X4 Phenom 9950 125W @ 2.6 GHZ BLACK EDITION.

A month ago, this was the flagship product of AMD processors, till their latest release of the Phenom II 940’s. However, it was a rather sad state of affair that the flagship AMD Quad core could not beat or even challenge the Entry-Level Intel Core 2 Quad, the Q6600. Recently, with the release of Intel’s Core i7, the 9950 was further pushed into the shroud.

Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition. The Black Edition indicates that this processor comes with it’s multiplier unlocked, which is very useful for overclockers.

The Phenom X4 9950 in all her glory.

One of the reasons I go AMD…Made at Home!

So, the 9950 came with the stock heatsink. Compared to my previous Opteron 170, one would notice the addition of heatpipes. While welcome, the stock cpu heatsink of the 9950 isn’t exactly known for being excellent. It’s good, but not great.

Heatpipes, a great addition. Heatpipes have liquid flowing in them, that help transfer heat from the hot core of the processor closer to the heat sink fan to help disperse it. It’s mechanism of action is interesting, with capillary action and all that shit, if you’re interested, go hit up wikipedia.

Here’s the problem with these stock heatsinks, you can see it in build quality. Notice the chipped paint job on the heatsink.

The stock heatsink and it’s fan goes back into the box in which it came from.

The replacement? The Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme Black, or TRUE Black. As you’ll come to see, this thing is humongous. Contrary to popular belief, this item, is indeed larger than my left nut.

Simple packaging, you’ve no idea what you buy.

Installation Instructions…Thrown away.

The TRUE and some silly box with QC passed stamped on it.

The QC stamped package contains the assembly package with all sorts of shiny stuff.

Closer look at the mounting tools.

The TRUE Black in all her glory.

A rough idea of how big she really is.

Holy Batman! The Sandman agrees.

The Motheboard Packaging. DFI LP UT 790FX-M2R

Inside, the transpiper, manual, and the motherboard. The manual was eaten by Anu in due time.

The motherboard is an amazing work of art. UV reactive PCI-E slots, Sata Slot, Ram slots, you name it. Too bad there aren’t any UV CCFLs left here. Maybe a friend who is back at home now would consider bringing back a couple of sticks.

Ok, here we have the backplate of the PCB. Take a look at that cheap plastic retention bracket. Many Tier1 motherboard manufacturers have gone down to this level to save on costs as AMD processors have been sucking big time in the market. However, in my case, this silly plastic retention bracket won’t be able to hold the humongous TRUE BLACK.

The solution is found in this card board packaging.

The TRUE 120 Retention Brackets for AM2+

A proper retention backplate made out of steel.

Another shot at the retention brackets.

Ok, so the TRUE Black will be placed on the retention bracket and theoretically heat from the processor will travel through the 12 heatpipes and spread it over the aluminium fins. All these heat needs to be dispersed, but right now, all that happens is the aluminium fins heating up, and they start radiating the heat to the components nearby. For this reason, the TRUE Black can be fitted with 2 120mm fans, which would enable you to make up a push-pull config.

A false perception on fans is that the more expensive they are the better, however this is wrong. You’ll notice fancier looking fans with LED lighting, UV Reactive Coats and of the sort have ridiculously low CFM and produce an attrociously loud noise. In this case, I opted to buy a pair of 4 dollar fans by Yate Loon High Speed Fans.

Yate Loon’s in bubble wrap.

Nothing Fancy, a simple 12cm ball bearing fan.

The fan comes with a controller pin, allowing you to control the speed of the fan.

And for that reason, I bought this 5 25′ drive bay fan controller. When gaming, or benching, It would allow me to ramp up the RPM’s of up to 4 fans which in turn allows better cooling and ventillation, albeit at a cost of increased noise from the fans.

The Phenom features a memory controller compatible to DDR2. Unfortunately, my previous rig was of DDR1, so the rams can’t be carried forward, and I had to get some new RAM. Overclockers fail to understand one simple thing. You can crank up your FSB as high as you’d like, but if your memory can’t keep up with feeding your processor information, baby you ain’t gonna boot. Rams are as important to an overclocker, as how talking is to Anu or Drifting is to VK.

For this rig, I have decided to go with the OCZ DDR 2 PC6400 4GB Kit.

One of the wonders of OCZ is their Lifetime Warranty tag. Warranty is very important, and nobody knows this more than me!

Those of you who have followed my blog previously know what these are.

Artic Clean is a 2 part solution that helps clean and prepare your hardware for thermal grease application. It clears the surface from outside products, such as dust, dirt, etc and ensures the thermal grease contacts the heatsink and processor with very minimal distruption.

I was initially going to wait for my supply of Artic Silver 5 (thermal grease) to arrive, but I figured I can’t wait any longer! However, I am unable to build at the time being as my roommate is sleeping on what appears to be my work bench. Alas, the life of an artist.

~ by hypoglossal on January 24, 2009.