SFF Modular Senior Project

[craigbru]

Did you check ATI's site for GPU demo's?  It's been a while since I ran an ATI card in my main rig, but they used to have some pretty sweet demo's to showcase what their cards could do.

[Doomzilla]

I thought about that, but they really don't utilize the CPU enough in my opinion.  Graphically, they look great, but they aren't taking advantage of all the power in my system.

[craigbru]

That's true, they aren't that CPU intensive.  A question though, do you think a loop of 3DMark06 is what you want to demo?  You may get a great benchmark, but when you are running a couple of those tests at only a few frames per second, is anyone beyond an enthusiast going to understand why they are running 'slowly'?  I think most people are going to associate pretty graphics with power....

[Doomzilla]

Well, I am running it as Professional so I can choose which tests to run.  I want to run the "skyship and monster" test on loop.  I never go below 20FPS with that and it looks kind of cool.  The average audience member will know barely anything about computers and they wont stick around long enough to analyze charts or benchmarks.  I figure a demo like 3DMark06 will catch their attention and they'll listen to what I did to my project.  The people that actually know anything about hardware will stick around or come back later and I'll let them play a little and go more in-depth about the hardware.

I wanted to get a real-time demo of a newer or yet-to-be-released game, but no company wanted to supply me with something like that.

[craigbru]

It sounds like you should be set, as the skyship demo does look great.  While it would be great to have a new demo, I can understand why companies would be a little hesitant to hand something like out...   ;-)

[Doomzilla]

I just got my new case today... WOW! That's all I can really say right now.  I'll try to post some pics by the end of the weekend to show you this glorious hunk of steel.

By the way,  I just won a Core 2 Duo E6300 for $96 shipped.  From what I can tell I saved a ton of money.  Let's hope it works.  

Any suggestions on a great mATX board that plays friendly with Vista?

[hugh]

that fatality ati abit board?

[Doomzilla]

You mean this?

I think I just pooped a little.  That board looks amazing and the reviews don't seem bad either.  I guess I know what I am ordering tomorrow.   :ahhh:

Sorry, the project demonstration, thesis paper, tests, and other work is really wearing on my sanity right now.  Only a week and a half more...

[EDIT]  I ordered that Abit motherboard and a cheap CPU cooler.  I was very tempted to pick up an Ageia PhysX card just to be "that guy", but I wasn't going to spend $200 on one.  I would like one to run Warmonger.

[Conan257]

I've got that mobo, overclocks to 360 happily, seen it at 374 (all on air). Only problem i've had is some gfx cards blocking the sata ports (mainly cards like 8800, my x800 doesn't have that issue).

[Doomzilla]

Thanks for letting me know that.  I was curious at how well that overclocked.  Is it pretty liberal with memory acceptance?

[Conan257]

I've used PNY  DDR2-667 with no problems, Corsair Value Select DDR2-667 again with no problems. Got some cheapo ram that didn't work at all... Although that might have been bad ram.

[Doomzilla]

My demonstration was today from 1:30 to 4:00.  It wasn't really as bad as I thought it would be.  I met some guys from industry (Motorola, HSBC, Intel), but many of them were more mechanical engineering instead of computer tech.  A couple of them were really interested in my project and the implications of a fully modular design and gave me tons of positive feedback on multiple aspects of my project.  I was told that mine was one of the best especially since I obtained sponsorship and got free advertisement for the school.  Anyway, here are a couple pics of the setup I displayed.  At least now I can tear everything apart and put it in my new case.  Hooray!