EVGA NVIDIA 790i SLI Ultra / 9800GX2 1GB Review :: Building the Beast

Since we were so generously kicked down with the nice ESA components we decided to build a gaming and overclocked system based on ESA products and our shiny new e8500 CPU that Intel gave us for review. We also used the latest 2000MHz Crucial Ballistix DDR 3 that kicked this system into high gear allowing better overclocking results to be achieved.

Once again our house mod man Anthony "T2" Reynolds was on hand to get this project up and going and so his Saturday was spent in my kitchen and den building The Beast. The new CoolerMaster Cosmos S was fairly easy to work with; there were a few items of concern for the novice builders, but for old school lads like us it was just another hustle in the overall game.

Installation of the motherboard was simple and straightforward, and the only real issue was the lack of instructions as to where the power button was and the non user friendly drive bay locking plastic tabs, which had to be removed to install the hard drive. There were so many cables it was a bit of a cable cluster mess until we figured out where everything connected and began the arduous task of cable management.

The last thing to be done was to install the Aquagate Max liquid cooling system into the case. This takes a bit of time and is the most strenuous part of the installation process as coolant tubes have to be routed correctly as to not kink as well as assembly. Then actually filling and testing the system before you actually put your CPU at risk can be a bit tricky for the meek as well. The cooling tubes were very pliable, almost too pliable for our tests, but in the end the system was up and going fine and the Aquagate Max was able to safely cool our e8500 up to 4.4GHz overclock, which was very stabile in most tests. The system was completely stable throughout everything at 4.2GHz, and ran like a top.

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