[Dragon-RD]

Right so as my last build went funky and decided it was no longer willing to let me game on it, or in fact switch it on, I decided it was time to replace and send back a couple of components from it.

Long story cut short...6 months and my Corsair H50 and BFG 295 were both dead. The 295 was running at 90c idle and the cpu was at 50c idle. I contacted Corsair who instantly said: "It sounds like the pump has failed in your unit. Have you checked that its plugged into a 3 pin fan header. If so we will be happy to RMA it". Superb service from Corsair and it was RMA'ed. I also finally got the RMA through the post from OCZ over a power supply I had of theirs went funky. Because of the long wait time they sent me a OCZ Z series 1000W PSU, which to be honest is a massive improvement so credit goes to them for quality customer support.

The next was BFG, again superb service and they were more than happy to RMA the 295 in fact setting the RMA up on a Saturday as well.

Its so nice when companies admit to a fault and you don't have to battle with 'em to prove that the problem lies with them and not you. I handed out the rest of the components to friends and family and settled on my new build:

CPU: 920 d0 2.66Ghz @ 4Ghz - for a budget cooler I can't rate the H50 enough even though one of 'em died on me I still bothered to get another.)

Motherboard: Gigabyte EX58-UD5 - Can't fault Gigabyte, I know many people who swear by Asus (>.>) and Foxconn (<3) but out of all the recent builds I've done Gigabyte have come through.

RAM: Corsair XMS3 6GB @ 8-8-8-24 - decent ram might replace it with me old dominator stuff but I've been trying to stick with the: "don't fix it if it aint broken" method here.

Graphics Cards: Two ATi Sapphire 5850s (I was sneaky and gave the other free DIRT 2 game as a Christmas gift )

Case: Coolermaster Storm Sniper - I love large cases and this one fits the job perfectly. I brought it for its design more than anything I like that military feel. Used this for about a year now amazing case.

Over all the system is unbelievably stable having got the final 5850 yesterday. Fair play to all three companies listed they have given me a good Christmas this year I expected there to be a ton of issues given the financial problems and the UK's postal service the royal mail going on strike.

[rabb1t]

Yea new system bits.

[Fozzik]

That is great to hear. Gives me hope for the future of the industry, despite the current overall slowdown in tech. Customer service is definitely where it's at.

[Slide]

Nice setup, i'm really enjoying my 920 build. Not sure you really need 2*5xxx's mind (My 4890 runs everything on full)

It saddens me to say this but if your in the UK, BFG should be avoided now - they have shut down their operations here, and RMA's now take 2 months from the US and many many folk have stated they are getting a non working refab as a replacement. Corsair are still pretty good here.

[Slide]

Wow this board is dead isn't it?

[Fozzik]

Um yeah.

[rabb1t]

Originally Posted by Slide

Not sure you really need 2*5xxx's mind

Actually it would be a better idea to go with a single ATi 5xxx (ideally a 5870) and go with Eyefinity. Eyefinity currently doesn't work with Crossfire, but it's been referenced it works just fine with the one card.

[mmorpeegee]

Corsair were good when I bought my PC too (about 3 years ago now).

It was actually a bit of a nightmare build because almost everything had a problem. The CPU was running too hot, even after about 50 reinstalls, the graphics card was faulty and got replaced with yet another faulty one...., the motherboard and RAM weren't getting along, and the monitor simply sucked. I got it all sorted out in the end though, but I wasted countless entire days sorting it out The whole thing was such a nightmare for me it's really put me off building PC's which used to be a hobby.

Most of the companies were pretty poor, the worst being NEC who were absolute scum bags. But Corsair were great, and Gigabyte were pretty good too.