More pics of the latest revision

Latest revision is complete. I moved the lighting up top, which I think I like a little better. I positively love the look of the Tygon tubing. It's clear as glass, which looks much better than the cloudy Clearflex tubing I've used in the past.

Big Red

I got as far as I could last night on a customer's PC (need to make a trip to the hardware store today), and got to work re-pimping my old rig. I improved the loop a little, dusted everything out, and added red lighting and coolant.

Temperatures have improved yet again. Between shortening the loop and dusting, my GPU now idles at 39°, and my processor is at 36/36/32/30°. I haven't stress tested (still getting the bubbles out of the loop, which takes forever when you use a fillport), but those are the lowest idle temperatures I've ever seen.

UPDATE: GPU load is just 53°!

In the pic, I've got the lighting mounted on the side by the fan. Not 100% sure if I'm going to keep it there.

More to come

I'm building a couple of rigs for other people right now, one of them a liquid system. Doing so has given me a bit of an itch, and I've decided I'm going to redo my loop. Nothing drastic from an engineering standpoint, but I'm getting a little bored with the white-on-blue. So I'm gonna retool some things and hopefully improve performance a little.

It's not just aesthetics though; my temps have crept up a bit, and I had to downclock my graphics card slightly. It's probably just dust, but I want to make sure there's nothing funky growing in my loop. From here on out, I'm going to be using a slightly different coolant solution. I've always used Primochill stuff, but they have a new dye bomb line that has anti-microbial stuff in it – it's called "Liquid Utopia". So I'm going to use a clear Primochill liquid with the liquid utopia dye bombs. I'm also switching to Tygon tubing instead of the Clearflex, as the Tygon is a lot clearer. It's also more expensive, but oh well. You want the best, you gotta pony up the dough!

Oh, and the lighting... it's going to be UV red lighting with UV red dye. Should look pretty bitchin'!

The Mirage OMNI S8 Subwoofer

I purchased this nifty sub today, and holy crap is this an amazing sub and a top-notch value. The reviews and the guy at Best Buy (who was surprisingly knowledgeable) indicated that the sub was easily one of the best subs in this price range. I didn't need something uber-powerful, just accurate and detailed with enough bass to fill my apartment and compliment my Boston Acoustics CR85s.

Well, the OMNI S8 knocked my face off. It's very detailed and clear, but it has room-shaking power. I'd gone shopping with a good buddy of mine, and he was blown away by the sound. We watched some scenes from Batman Begins to test it out and situate the speakers, and he said, "Dude, I feel like I'm back in that home theater room at Best Buy!" I may not have surround sound, but I'll be damned if I don't have some freakin' awesome speakers.

Incidentally, I listened to some much more expensive speakers. I listen to some Definitives, some Mirage OMNIv2s, and some electrostatic speakers. None left me overwhelmingly impressed, though I thought the definitives were very good. I was especially unimpressed by the OMNI v2, which is a pricey speaker but sounded remarkably thin, flat and shallow compared to the other speakers on hand.

Anyway, getting my speakers set up and nabbing this sub has been the best upgrade I've made yet. Movies, games and music sound totally cinematic. It's the icing on the cake for my well-heeled PC.

PC meets home theater sound

I've always been pretty pleased with my Logitech Z-2300 speakers, which if reviews are any indication are among the better PC speakers you can buy. But, PC speakers are not on the level of home theater speakers. I've owned a pair of some excellent Boston Acoustic CR85 bookshelf speakers for about six years now, and I've loved them. I bought them at Ultimate Electronic, and picked them from a huge speaker setup that included Klipsh, Definitive, Infinity, Bose, and many others. (Unfortunately, I recently visited Ultimate Electronics again to find their home audio section a shadow of what it used to be.)

I had never realized that you could hook your PC up to a regular A/V receiver until recently, so since my Bostons had been collecting dust (I'd primarily used them for movies and games with my old TV, but now my PC is my home entertainment centerpiece) I decided to hook them up. Turns out all you need is a 3.5" to RCA stereo cable. Couldn't be easier!

So, I got them hooked up, and let me tell you, do not underestimate the power of great audio in your PC gaming experience. Crysis came alive like never before, full of sounds I hadn't even realized were in the game. Everything just sounds vastly more lifelike and detailed.

The only problem now is that I don't have a good subwoofer to match, so the low end is a little thin even though these are good sized bookshelves (I don't care for the bass boost sound). I have been narrowing my options however, and I should be picking one up this weekend – probably the Mirage S8.