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My 2nd DS PC - Quick Review

Post Date: 2013-12-15
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david5182 View Drop Down
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Posts: 215 		  Quote david5182 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Topic: My 2nd DS PC - Quick Review
    Posted: 15 Dec 2013 at 4:49pm
Ordered my 1st DS PC in 2008 and had nothing but problems with it during the first few months. Had to send it back to DS 3 times for repairs until they finally got it right. Long story short, I decided not to buy from DS ever again.

Well, my PC still works quite well, but it was time to upgrade. I decided to purchase on Black Friday. I've looked at all custom gaming PC builders and DS had the best sale, so I decided to give them a second chance and I am glad that I did!

Ordered:

Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Digital Storm VIRTUE
Processor: Intel Core i7 4770K 3.50 GHz (Unlocked CPU) (Quad Core)
Motherboard: ASUS Gryphon Z87 (Intel Z87 Chipset) (Features Thermal Radar) (MATX)
System Memory: 16GB DDR3 1866MHz Corsair Vengeance Pro (High-Performance)
Power Supply: 850W Corsair RM
Optical Drive: DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 24x / CD-Writer 48x)
Storage Set 1: 1x (256GB Solid State (By: Samsung) (Model: 840 Pro Series)
Storage Set 2: 1x (3TB Seagate (7200 RPM) (SATA 6Gbps)
Graphics Card(s): 1x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 3GB (EVGA Superclocked ACX Cooler Edition)
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
Extreme Cooling: H20: Stage 2: Corsair H100i 240mm Radiator Liquid CPU Cooler (Extreme-Performance Edition)
Chassis Fans: Upgrade All Fans to Corsair Airflow Performance Edition (Up to 6 Fans)
Internal Lighting: Internal Chassis Lighting System (White)
CPU Boost: Standard Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 Automatic Overclocking
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 8 (64-Bit Edition)
Recovery Tools: Advanced Recovery Kit (40GB Hard Drive Partition of Image With OS & Drivers

PC arrived on Friday. The box was not damaged and neither was the PC. The cabling is immaculate. Hooked up and pressed the power button. First thing that struck me was how quiet it was. It is virtually silent! I was actually concerned that fans were not spinning, but sure enough, they were.

The PC is super fast and actually draws half as much power at idle as my old DS PC. New PC 40W vs. old PC 100W. Not quite sure why this is though. Did not play any games yet, so can't comment on GPU performance, but I am planning to install BF4 tomorrow...

Observations/questions:

1. I ordered "Advanced Recovery Kit (40GB Hard Drive Partition of Image With OS & Drivers" however there is zero information about this in the DS binder. I mean where is this kit and how do I use it?

2. DS installed CorsairLINK2 which reports temps and detailed PC info. Mobo/CPU/GPU/HD temps do not rise above 30C, which is awesome! However, in CorsairLINK2, under Options tab, in the devices pane, under the mobo info, it says that that the RAM speed is 1333MHz. How can this be if my RAM is 1866MHz Corsair Vengeance Pro? Is CorsairLINK2 reading it incorrectly, or did DS set it up improperly?

Hope Alex can comment on the above. Thanks DS for an awesome and trouble-free PC!

-David

Edited by david5182 - 16 Dec 2013 at 10:49am
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Alex View Drop Down
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Posts: 16314 		  Quote Alex Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 15 Dec 2013 at 5:42pm
David,

Thanks for choosing Digital Storm.

1. For the recovery kit, I will have to ask the team and I will email you back about it on Monday.

I know there are some bugs with Windows 8 and the recovery software working together. We actually removed it from the site for now... we have a list of customers that ordered it that the team is trying to create images for. I do see your order as one of them. It would be an image disc we would send to you soon, but if we cannot get it to work, we will have to credit you for the recovery partition.

Windows built in backup tools are really good now, especially with Windows 8, so this is actually great for all customers.

2. Your memory modules are the correct ones, but it appears that your BIOS may have reverted to default fail-safe settings. It's quite easy to fix:

Get into BIOS -> Advanced Mode -> A.I. Tweaker -> DRAM Frequency -> Change to 1866MHz.

Feel free to call us as well for help!
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david5182 View Drop Down
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Posts: 215 		  Quote david5182 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 15 Dec 2013 at 8:20pm
Alex, I just went into the BIOS -> Advanced Mode -> A.I. Tweaker -> DRAM Frequency and it shows that the DRAM frequency is set to 1866MHz. However, CorsairLINK2 and the Windows Task Manager both report 1333MHz speed.

What gives?
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Alex View Drop Down
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Posts: 16314 		  Quote Alex Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 15 Dec 2013 at 8:42pm
Those software tools are reporting the correct speed. DDR3 works as dual data rate memory, you have to multiply the speed the software sees by a factor of two.
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david5182 View Drop Down
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Posts: 215 		  Quote david5182 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 16 Dec 2013 at 9:37am
Really? 1333 x 2 = 2666. My RAM is 1866.

Something is clearly not right.
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bprat22 View Drop Down
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Posts: 20391 		  Quote bprat22 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 16 Dec 2013 at 10:23am
Hi david5182....  As of the end of October, Win 8 was displaying the wrong ram speed in Task manager.  Not sure about recently.  It seems to default to 1333.
 
Corsair Link has had issues displaying the right info for some and others have no issues.  Not very reliable for some. 
 
Use CPU-Z to check the speed.  Once running, go to the memory tab and next to DRAM Frequency, the value should be half of your actual speed.   Its because , like Alex said, this program reads the true speed, realizing that DDR is double data rate, so for you, should read 933.
 
Hope this works and helps.  Big%20Smile
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david5182 View Drop Down
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Posts: 215 		  Quote david5182 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 16 Dec 2013 at 10:47am
Originally posted by bprat22

Hi david5182....  As of the end of October, Win 8 was displaying the wrong ram speed in Task manager.  Not sure about recently.  It seems to default to 1333.
 

Corsair Link has had issues displaying the right info for some and others have no issues.  Not very reliable for some. 

 

Use CPU-Z to check the speed.  Once running, go to the memory tab and next to DRAM Frequency, the value should be half of your actual speed.   Its because , like Alex said, this program reads the true speed, realizing that DDR is double data rate, so for you, should read 933.

 

Hope this works and helps.  Big%20Smile

Hi bprat22,

Thanks. I have taken screenshots of CPU-Z: http://imgur.com/a/4dYAn

Is this the correct report for my 1866MHz RAM? Why does the SPD tab report "Max Bandwidth 667Mhz"?

Thanks!

Edited by david5182 - 16 Dec 2013 at 10:49am
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bprat22 View Drop Down
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Posts: 20391 		  Quote bprat22 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 16 Dec 2013 at 10:56am
Strong  You are good to go.    I believe the Max bandwidth is just the default set by the manufacturer but can't say 100%.   Probably the manuf,  just didn't set up the info or tables right. 
 
 
If CPU-Z speed is right, you are good.  Big%20Smile
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bprat22 View Drop Down
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Posts: 20391 		  Quote bprat22 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 16 Dec 2013 at 11:03am
You had me curious.... just checked my Max Bandwidth and it too was at 667.  My Corsair vengeance is set to 1600 with CPU-Z showing the correct 800 DRAM Freq.
 
Have fun. Big%20Smile
 
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Posts: 2551 		  Quote fstcvc Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 16 Dec 2013 at 9:02pm
Congrats on the new rig!
HailStorm II
i7 4770K @ 4.5GHz
Asus Maximus VI Extreme
16GB Corsair Dominator Platinum
3xSLI EVGA SuperClocked GTX TITAN
Samsung 840Pro SSD 256GB+512GB
HydroLux+XSPC CPU/MoBo/GPU Liquid Cooling
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Posts: 20391 		  Quote bprat22 Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 17 Dec 2013 at 2:40am
   I got so wrapped up in your concerns, forgot to say........

Congrats. Real nice rig.
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