New Build is up and running! Initial thoughts :

[Enmity]

Howsit TPU

Well my new rig is finally all built up (although still running my old gpus for now) and initial thoughts are yes, i'm well impressed with how this system runs. I had a few issues initially getting this up and running but that was because my SSD needed secure erasing, but got that sorted by using a user made bootable ocz toolbox burnt to cd

I haven't played with it much yet (only got it up and running last night) haven't touched the bios yet, haven't installed games yet but I have installed vantage and heaven...so will do a comparison with my old PII machine over the next few days as I ran some benchies just before I built this machine up. both will be using the same drivers (cat 12.9beta w/ 12.9cap1) both on win 7 ultimate x64...so stay tuned

So here's some pics i've uploaded of the finished product .

its priming as we speak:

the Auto OC via TurboV EVO:

the rig:

 

[Hood]

Sweeet!

They say great minds think alike, and your new build is very similar to my new build. Asus P8Z77-V, i5-3570K, H100. Well, your case is certainly better than mine. I love the look of the white inside & out, and the window is perfect. I almost bought a Storm Trooper, but settled on the Corsair Carbide 400R. Now I wish I'd got something bigger, because the H100 is tight against my motherboard even with 2 fans, and no way 4 fans are gonna fit, unless I mount them outside (which I'll probably do eventually) with a shroud and grills. If the Storm Stryker had been out, I'd have bought it instead of the Corsair. It just looks right, not too flashy but it shows off your rig to good advantage. I give it two thumbs up!

 

[Enmity]

Thanks man! Much appreciated. Still not sure what ill do for a gpu upgrade yet, depends on how soon i get the funds thinking either 7950 crossfire or 660ti sli at this stage with current pricing. Ideally? If i could id got for 670 sli so lets hope theres more price cuts

 

[Crap Daddy]

Nice! But I wouldn't touch the bus speed (BCLK). Leave it at 100 and increase only the multi. Also the voltage shown in CPU-z is a bit high. Might want to tweak the overclock manually.

 

[Enmity]

the tweaking has started ive gone to bios and changed the voltage to manual ( i was told to put it on manual while im sussing out my max oc and then once im satisfied change it to offset)

so here i am at roughly the same oc, but this was achieved via the bios where i haven't moved the bclk from 100, and only disabled the power saving states etc, applied 1.275V and turbo multi @ x45.

also, worth noting...before tweaking manually i decided to run asus extreme auto oc, this resulted in a clockspeed of 4733Mhz but volts were over 1.4v.

Also, someone pointed out to me I was using an old version of prime95, so i now have the latest one which has the avx instuction and thus produces even more heat...so my temps were'nt quite as good as I had hoped.

currently my manual 4.5Ghz@1.275v oc is priming and the highest its reached is 75C.
tried 1.25v first but the pc rebooted after 30sec of prime.

 

[Hood]

75c is good for that overclock on Ivy, that about where mine was running, but some of my programs didn't like the clock that high and would crash, even though it was a totally stable OC as tested. So now I run 4.3 GHz and my temps are never above 65c. Truthfully, Prime and IBT and others are great for comparison purposes, but in real-world use the temps almost never get that high, even playing newer games. Playing Dirt 3, for example, my temps never pass the mid 50s, and it's using 90 to 100% of my 550 Ti, 75 to 95% CPU, and 40% of RAM.

 

[Enmity]

Ok so here's my update.

currently have 4.6Ghz stable @1.320v I tried to get 4.7Ghz but it wasn't stable even with 1.360v so thought i'd hold off on that one for now. but 4.6 is stable at 1.320v

One thing I did notice when trying to get 4.7 stable was that the voltage in cpu-z was dropping down (vdroop?) but also applying slightly higher volts whilst priming sometimes.

but with the x46 multi set, and voltage of 1.320v set in bios theres been no fluctuation at all. under prime95 w/avx i've seen a max temp of 82c and an average temp across the board of 74c.

Since I don't want a 24/7 OC voltage over 1.35v looks like I may have to settle for 4.6ghz.

 

[Enmity]

got a couple of comparison benchies for ya from my old system. All of the below 3570k runs were done at 4.6Ghz

AMD@3.6 3dmark11

3570K@4.6 3dmark11

also, broke 28K in vantage P score, still havent upped the gpus yet

AMD run with a default heaven run

3570K run - not really a change in fps with this one, too gpu bound I suppose.

AMD running street fighter vs tekken

3570k

amd running RE5 Bench

3570K RE5

Also did some min/max/avg benchmarks using Fraps for the first levels of Battlefield 3 and Max Payne 3.

BF3 Operation swordbreaker : Max settings but no variable aa, 1080p

AMD : Min Max Avg
42 61 58.372

Intel : Min Max Avg
53 159 88.855


Max Payne 3 : All max settings except no tessellation and no aa (FXAA enabled ingame) 1080p

AMD : Min Max Avg
37 64 59.228

Intel : Min Max Avg
48 155 100.704

 

[Hood]

Nice!- Intel is worth the money, if you can afford it, why settle for second best? Never had an AMD system, but the ones I've used seemed pretty slow. What saved them from bankruptcy is the fact that gamers don't need the fastest CPUs, just the fastest video cards, so buying ATI was a good move, and gamers on a budget can save a few hundred by building with AMD. All of which means that those of us with Intel systems have an edge - every nanosecond counts in some games! Decent overclock, and probably more than you really need for most programs, but bragging rights are important too. I had mine at 4.8 for a while. After the applause died down, though, I decided that 4.3 GHz was enough and better for longevity and stability.

 

[Enmity]

heres my latest Vantage run with gpus now clocked at 950/1175

Funny thing tho, I used to run these clocks with the amd system and have no issue what so ever.

While this is benching fine and sees so far stable, while browsing, or even the desktop...when moving the mouse or just every 10-20sec I'm getting slight flickers and black horizontal lines coming up on screen lol...

It's only when the voltage is adjusted in msi afterburner. If I bump the voltage up to say 1.1v it'll produce these black line flickers regardless of what clock I select, even stock clocks.

Kinda weird.

 

[Enmity]

and heres the latest 3dmark 11

 

[Enmity]

RE5 saw a reasonable boost also

 

[Enmity]

heres my latest Vantage run with gpus now clocked at 950/1175
http://i46.tinypic.com/2yy76m8.jpg

Funny thing tho, I used to run these clocks with the amd system and have no issue what so ever.

While this is benching fine and sees so far stable, while browsing, or even the desktop...when moving the mouse or just every 10-20sec I'm getting slight flickers and black horizontal lines coming up on screen lol...

It's only when the voltage is adjusted in msi afterburner. If I bump the voltage up to say 1.1v it'll produce these black line flickers regardless of what clock I select, even stock clocks.

Kinda weird.

regarding this, heres a quick video showing what these lines look like. hitting "reset" in MSI AB doesn't stop this behaviour, neither does closing MSI AB completely...yet a restart will clear the issue. I can then open MSI AB and browse the net no problem, but as soon as Iapply my OC profile, or change the voltage even in the slightest...theres no way to stop this behaviour without restarting.

Things i've tried :
turning GPU rendering off - nope
uninstalling MSI AB 2.2.4 (completely removing it, leaving no profiles or traces) then installed 2.2.0 - this nets the exact same behaviour.

heres the vid :
Internet Browser Sketching out after using MSI Aft...