Seadog.... who had the deal on that particular Chaintec card? I see some relatively inexpensive 8600GT's out there, but all the 512MB ones have GDDR2 RAM. Sounds like you got a heckuva deal! And thanks much for your earlier heads-up on the abit IP35 Pro deal at the Egg. I snatched one up, just before the rebate expired!

The Chaintec deal has expired, sorry to say. :-roll It was also at NewEgg. Just keep watching. Glad to hear you, too, saved big bucks on the "Snake."-Seadog

This is just a footnote on the RAM pricing movement comments embedded in this thread. It seems to have been a real phenomenon I observed, but without the staying power I was worried about.http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20070816PR207.html-Seadog

Hi Seadog..... In case you're not aware, there's a huge flap on the hardocp forums regarding that $40 abit rebate. Turns out the pdf form says "IP35Pro," but the UPC code beneath it is for the cheaper IP35-E. Abit says they won't honor the rebate for IP35Pro purchasers. It looks as though Newegg is refunding the $40 to purchasers, if you're persistent enough about the screw-up. Look in the "HotDeals" section of the hardforums for more info. And if you'll indulge me for another question (or two)... Was the Chaintech 8600 a 256mb model or a 512mb? Most of the 256mb models appear to come with GDDR3, while the majority of 512mb's use GDDR2. I'm not sure whether the memory speed or total video ram capacity has more of an effect at the 1680 x 1050 resolution I use for FSX. Any thoughts about this? FYI, I really like your strategy of buying a relatively inexpensive 8600 card now, while waiting for SP2/DX10 to come out before buying a higher-end video card. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for another deal as good as the one you just got! :-) I hope you'll post about your actual performance results once you've completed your build, because it would be interesting to compare notes. Thanks!

Ahhhh, that Poof! you just heard was my souffle falling. Well, Persistent is my middle name, so we'll see what we see. I sure appreciate the heads up, although I was unable to find much discussion of the topic at the Hard OCP forums. Perhaps you have a particular thread title I should look for?I checked, and the rebate form is still on NewEgg's servers, by the way. Now, who would know what UPC code was on a box that hadn't been bought and received yet? You have to go by the product named on the form, and it clearly states in bold letters, Universal abit IP35Pro.I like the board a lot, not least for the micro guru overclocking tool and for that tool's ability to control all the fan speeds. I'm going to keep the board, and I've had good experience before with NewEgg customer service in dicey situations like this. I'll report when and if there's something to report.Here's a link about the GDDR2 vs. 3 versions of the 256 MB Chaintec card. I don't believe it comes with 512, but I don't know for sure. Anyway, everything I know about the memory issue I learned from the one relevant sentence on this page:http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/08/06/the...oney/page2.htmlI run at the same resolution, so I sure hope it works okay.-Seadog

Two other things - doggone editing period expired before I could get back to it.The credit for the idea of getting a modest card for the next six months or so is all due to Sam. Without the information, gentle nudging and suggestions he supplied, I doubt if I'd have thought of it on my own. As we have seen, there are varying opinions about what constitutes a placeholder card. I've explained my choice.Second, unlike my good friend Vic Baron, I am not seeking the upper reaches of overclocking, nor will I be using water cooling. My goal is to get a liveable, safe, overclock on stock air cooling. I'm not going to lap anything and I'm not going to put two kilos of Tuniq Tower in there, either. I'll be as happy as a clam in soft mud to get anything beyond 3.2 GHz, and expect to get that with the equipment I've bought, but we'll see when we see. Results will follow when they can because I'm not in a hurry, and I have tons of other things I have to do that, frankly, have a good deal higher time constraint priority. While this is just a hobby, it's a fun one, and I do look forward to reporting when I can. It's not going to be real soon, though.-Seadog

Seadog.... here's the direct link to the hardforum thread: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1216800The thread title is "OMG IP35Pro for $140 AR + SH" Scroll down to the post on 08-07-2007 at 9:20 PM by "trombe" which reports that Abit won't honor the rebate. In the subsequent 3 pages of discussion, people say: (1) Newegg admits the screw-up and promises to honor the deal, even if Abit rejects your rebate; (2) Newegg's reps may want you to submit the rebate form and have it denied by Abit FIRST -- which will take weeks if not months -- which is why you may need to be persistent; and (3) sometimes Newegg will try to offer a refund of less than $40, which you should absolutely not accept. By 17 August, people are reporting that Newegg "supervisors" are approving an immediate $40 refund to your account. At least the Egg isn't trying to duck responsibility for this. My board is due to arrive via the little brown truck on Monday. As soon as I've got it, I'll immediately call Newegg customer service. I'll let you know what happens, but I can't imagine that Newegg would offer some of its customers a $40 refund, while telling others in the same situation to go suck eggs. (No pun intended!) Even with the extra hassle, it looks like we'll be getting a great deal on a very nice motherboard. I'd like to continue the discussion of video cards and overclocking, but I'll do so in a separate post. P.S. Real men eat Quiche, not Souffle! :-D

Thanks very much for that link. Looks like it will work out reasonably well with a little effort. I look forward to hearing your experience after you get the board and make the contact with NewEgg.-Seadog

Seadog..... My IP35 Pro motherboard arrived via the brown truck yesterday. I haven't got it installed yet, but I really love the features of this board, it's solid build quality, and even its great appearance. :-) Anyway, I called Newegg today regarding the rebate screw-up, and after asking a few questions about why I thought the rebate wouldn't be honored, the CSR came back on the line to say that Newegg would issue a $40 credit to my card, in lieu of the rebate. (Said it would take 3-5 business days to process, which is no problem.) It's the first time I've had to use the Egg's customer support, and they definitely lived up to expectations. Please let me know if you've had a similar experience. I feel like like I just got a steal on a great motherboard! (Thanks in no small part to your earlier post in this thread.) At this point I'm a happy camper. Now, if only the board will overclock as nicely as it's supposed to....:-D - Lee

Much to my great surprise, Lee, when I called NewEgg today, the Rep said - and insisted - they would have to look into it and email me back in 4 or 5 business days. Nothing I said could budge the Rep from that position. So, I will wait and see what develops.So far, I've mounted the CPU and heat sink fan assembly, replacing the existing thermal paste with AS5. Goodness gracious, it took a lot of force to lock that heat sink into place. I feared for the board while I was doing it. Put the memory in and installed it in the case, put in the floppy and the 3 Seagate 160 SATA's and put in the Chaintec 8600GT. Wired the front panel connectors and the power connectors to everything, installed the two 120 fans, front and back, and quit for the day. Tomorrow arrives the new Samsung SATA DVD-R. So tomorrow I may actually get it up and running on a minimal basis to install the OS and drivers.On August 19, PC Stats recounted overclocking an E6750 on stock Intel air cooling from the base 2.66GHz at 1.25V all the way to a stable 3.8 GHz at 1.45V. I was just astounded. Arctic Silver says it takes 200 hours of on-off-on operation for the goop to really break in, so I'll be taking it slowly.I'll let you know what develops further with NewEgg. Don't want to jump to any conclusions yet. Glad you had a more immediate and satisfying resolution.-Seadog

Seadog..... I'm really disappointed to hear that Newegg didn't authorize your refund right away. Did you happen to notice that the thread in the hardocp forums has suddenly disappeared? (Newegg is one of hardocp's largest advertisers and I wonder if Newegg has gone into "damage-control" mode and is trying to limit its losses.) I'd better confirm that the promised refund has been credited to my account. It makes me a bit nervous that I've got nothing in writing, and I didn't send in the rebate form after Newegg promised me a refund. I'll let you know what happens on my end -- surely they can't treat some customers one way (promising a refund) and other customers differently. Anyway, I'm glad you got your HSF installed successfully. Did you decide to stick with the "stock" cooler assembly that Intel provides with the CPU? As you know, I'm planning to overclock but the size and weight of some of the best-performing "cooling towers" makes me nervous. So I went with the just-released Thermalright Ultima-90 with two Scythe S-Flex 120mm fans. Anandtech says it gives nearly the same performance as the Ultra-120 Extreme at about half the size and weight. (And it "only" cost $46.) If I didn't already mention it, I decided to purchase a similar video card to yours. Mine's an XFX 8600GT which comes factory overclocked to 620MHz (core) and 1600MHz (memory), with good potential for even further overclocking. The card was just reviewed very positively on Hardocp, including good FSX performance (albeit with AA turned off). While it's certainly not the "ideal" card for FSX, I'm confident that it will be good enough for now. Following Sam's strategy, I plan to upgrade after the SP2/DX10 release, and then the 8600GT will either go into a non-gaming machine or into the second PCI-E slot of my FSX rig for multi-monitor support. (Incidentally, the XFX card cost $119 at ZipZoomFly with free shipping, and a free DX10 game included as a bonus. Not a bad deal.) By the end of this week, I'll have all my major components in hand except for the CPU. I'm still trying to convince my wallet that the E6850 is the way to go! ;-) Good luck with your final assembly. I've also got a SATA DVD burner waiting to be installed (although mine's a Lite-On), so I'll be interested to hear what your experience is like. Have you built your own PC before, and are you using any particular installation guide? Now I'm off to take advantage of a cheap deal on Vista Home Premium OEM at a local computer store.... good timing on their part! Take care, - Lee

Lee - Yes, I stayed with the stock heatsink for now, in light of the outstanding results obtained by the PC Stats folks I referred to. I've also read that report about the Ultima-90, and it would be my first choice if I were to upgrade the cooler, but I don't think I'll have to.After my dissatisfying encounter with NewEgg CS, I went to check the Hard Forum thread and also found it has gone to the great Bit Heaven in the sky. But, and this is a big But after I too first thought it less than random - that forum is missing a full two weeks' worth of threads, not just that one. I was able to find the first two pages cached on Google, and printed them out.I installed the DVD and booted the machine to see if there would be any white smoke. Nope, ran like a charm.It's about the 12th or 13th PC I've hand built - assembled, really. It's been a long time since I needed or looked at an assembly guide. All I can say is that patience, triple checking everything, and judicious use of a grounding strap should see you through well. Things are more tolerant of ElectroStatic Discharge than the guides would have you believe, but with so many dollars invested in such small parts, using a grounding strap is a small and valuable precaution. Also, try not to touch the contacts on RAM or expansion cards, as that is the cleanest pathway for ESD.I was all set to install XP Pro today, but just read on the Ars Technica front page that the Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage servers are completely trashed, and are falsely reporting everyone's software to be illegitimate, refusing to activate and refusing to permit updates. It seems this may take a few days to sort out, perhaps mid-week. I've waited this long; I can wait a few days more. :-roll -Seadog

Seadog..... I'll let you know how I fare with the Ultima-90. While I'm not 100% convinced that Anandtech's (highly enthusiastic) conclusions about this HSF were supported by his data, I still believe the Ultima-90 is a good value-choice for my objectives. If I were not so irrationally exuberant about my new build, I'd probably have stuck with the stock heatsink until I could see what my results were. What the heck, if I'm serious about overclocking I might as well get both feet wet! Glad to hear you printed out and saved the entire hardforum thread. I'll call to confirm my refund next week, which you may be able to use in your "negotiations" with them. ("Hey, if my friend got a refund, why are you giving ME a runaround about YOUR screw-up???") Question about your SATA DVD: Was it entirely plug-and-play from the git-go? (In re-reading your message, I guess you haven't actually installed your OS as yet.) I seem to recall that in the early days of SATA you had to install WinXP drivers before SATA would be recognized. However, in my current ASUS motherboard I had no such issues -- I simply plugged in my first SATA-150 drive (it was an addition to the PATA drive that came with the HP machine), formatted it easily, and I was off to the races. No drivers needed, and no problems whatsoever. (This was nearly 3 years ago.) But I have had zero experience with (1) using SATA for anything but a HDD, and (2) installing Windows myself. So I was curious whether you could simply plug in the DVD-SATA connection, put the Windows installation disk into the tray, and be off and running. This is my first experience building a PC entirely from scratch. I've messed around a lot with the innards of my various machines, though, and have installed everything except the motherboard and OS myself. As you suggest, I am good at double- and triple-checking everything, so it should go OK. Seems I should invest in a wrist-strap, although static discharge is virtually nil in the humid conditions we have right now in Virginia. My main concerns are the "fiddly bits" such as getting the firewire, USB, and HDD lights properly connected on the front of my P182 case, and also correctly setting up the motherboard-controlled fans. I really want to spend more time actually simming on my new computer, than fooling around with all the various adjustments, options, settings, etc. I ain't doing this for the g33k-factor. That really sucks about the MS servers!!! Their whole "Genuine (Dis)advantage" authentication scheme simply penalizes their good customers, IMHO. I spent my afternoon driving around in 100-degree heat, but the $89 deal I got on Vista Home Premium should be worth it. :-) Good luck getting "Advantaged".... can't wait to hear about your FSX performance, once you've gotten everything installed. - Lee

>Glad to hear you printed out and saved the entire hardforum>thread. I'll call to confirm my refund next week, which you>may be able to use in your "negotiations" with them. ("Hey,>if my friend got a refund, why are you giving ME a runaround>about YOUR screw-up???") That was my "hole card" Lee. When I played it, the dealer ignored me just like she was standing on a royal flush. Ah, well. I only got the first two pages of four of that thread, but it should be enough if push comes to shove.The SATA DVD was instantly recognized by the BIOS, which I reset so that is the drive that boots first. (I have three SATA hard drives, so I plugged the DVD into SATA connector 4.) Once I load XP, I'll set it back so that hard disk 1 boots first. No need for any drivers. Those days are long gone, and if I recall correctly, only applied to RAID drivers actually. So it's plug, play, insert Windows disk and install, period.Front panel connectors are everyone's bane. Usually, every connector has a wire of the same color, e.g., all connectors have a white wire, or all have a black wire. That would be negative. The odd colored wire to the opposite end of the connector would be positive. Check your case documentation to be sure, going online if necessary. Wiring the power switch incorrectly can do harm sometimes; all others are pretty much, oh well, just reverse it. On the IP35 Pro, with the connectors at the bottom of the board, positive is to the left and negative is to the right. This is one of the best motherboard manuals I have ever seen, by the way. USB and Firewire are keyed, so no sweat. Fans are controlled if and only if they have three or four pin connectors that can plug directly into the fan connectors on the motherboard, not the old style PATA power connector. You know the ones - the kind that are purely next to impossible to disconnect.Re ESD - Humidity or not, you can generate 20,000 volts just walking ten feet across the carpet. No amps, mind you, but that ain't what commits the crime.There's a new wrinkle in motherboard installations, I found out with my new case. In the old days, you had a flat surface in the case into which you screwed brass stand-offs to hold the back circuitry of the board up and away from the case structure to keep it from shorting out. The nine screws went into the stand-offs and you were off to the races. My new case has raised dimples, precluding the use of stand-offs. You just set the board on the nine dimples and screw it in. I was wary, but the construction leaves no choice if it's to align with the rear connectors. So I went along with the program and it worked fine. Have fun. :-wave -Seadog

Seadog.... I hate to rub salt into any wounds, but I thought you should know that newegg just notified me that $40 has been credited back to my card. Hope you get a similar result shortly! Have you heard anything further from the Newegg CSR's? On to other things -- SATA. Thanks a lot for the info about your SATA DVD. I was having nightmares about getting a Windows error to "install SATA driver" but having no way for my PC to read a disc! Seems my concerns are unfounded. CONNECTORS. Purely from reading the manuals for my Abit mobo and my Antec P182 case, it appears that I may be in luck... both appear to follow the "Intel standard" for front-panel connectors which should make my life a LOT easier!!! I also agree with you that the Abit manual is remarkably thorough and well-written -- a BIG help to a n00b like me! ESD. Advice well taken about the wrist strap. Coincidentally, newegg just advertised a $10 Rosewill tool kit (after MIR, free s/h) which includes a wrist strap. Just what the doctor ordered! I can certainly use the tools, and the wrist strap alone would have cost six or seven bucks at my local computer store. MOBO STANDOFFS. It appears that the designers of the P182 are "old-school," since I have a bunch of brass standoffs to use with my motherboard. No dimples anywhere in sight! =) Some interesting add-ons -- ABIT GP-02 "UGURU PANEL": Google for this, it's a hoot! The panel gives you a display of fan speeds, temps, time, and overclock settings (which you can apparently change on the fly), along with a very intimidating-looking CMOS reset switch. It's an absolute gimmick, but for $25 it could be a lot of fun. Although designed for an earlier generation of abit mobos, it appears to be fully compatible with the IP35 Pro. I realize it's not something you're likely to buy, but it might give you a chuckle or two. EXTRA USB CONNECTORS: One of the few things that bugs me about the IP35 Pro is its comparatively sparse approach to connectivity. Not wanting to let the onboard USB headers go to waste, I found a neat PCI bracket that adds 4 more USB ports that connect directly to the mobo headers. I bought 2 brackets for less than $13.50 at FrozenCPU, shipped. A lot cheaper than adding an external USB hub! (I have a lot of USB stuff for my FSX setup, so the extra ports will come in handy for me.) eSATA ENCLOSURE: Not wanting to let the rear eSATA ports go to waste, I found a very attractive enclosure, Thermaltake model EA3006, that I can use with one of my spare SATA drives. Newegg has a good description of its capabilities (which conveniently includes a power connection), but I bought it from ZipZoomFly which had a slightly better price ($29.99 shipped for free). Anyway, my 8600GT is due to arrive on Friday (the price has already dropped $10 and I haven't even received mine, yet!) and I'm about 2 weeks away from having everything I need to start assembly. Hope all is going smoothly with your new machine. - Lee