Feedback from Ivy Bridge Build

Ok, so I don't have All of my parts quite yet, but I have enough to consider it a fully functional rig that doesn't quite work for ultra play yet. Once the $$$ builds up and I can nab the GPU and extra fans, then I'll be complete! Here's the original build list.

I jumped ingame for a little bit and hung around PD for a graphics slider test. On the pre-Ultra settings I was getting about 30Fps with the builtin HD 4000 GPU. I allocated it 1Gb of my 16Gb of RAM and the mobo is somehow giving it another 768Mb so I'm assuming it had that much hiding somewhere on the chip? Nudging up to minimal Ultra halved the Fps, but movement was still fluid. Pushing my luck and going full Ultra the Fps dropped by half again and this time a marginal amount of movement lag existed. Something interesting about this was that I couldn't successfully alt/win-tab or win+D to the desktop. It did, however, drop the Fps to 5 because of my "-maxinactivefps 5" tag, but never left the game.

For the number crunchers, here's what the Windows Experience Index gave:

Component Old PC New PC
Processor 5.0 7.7
RAM 5.0 7.8
Graphics 4.7 6.6
3D Graphics 4.5 6.6
Hard Drive 5.2 4.5 (using a slow 5400rpm mechanical until the SSD gets here)

That's it for now, the test envirionment is a clean Win7 SP1 install that didn't like it at first because my partitioning software had for some reason formatted the HDD in the advanced format. There's only the drivers and software provided on the original CDs and no security software active, thus this should be pretty RAW data.

I'll update as things progress so if it smells like a Necro, then it's probably just an update. ;-)

Vista and Windows 7 can manage graphics texture memory independently of a game, it's a feature of Dx 10/11. Think of it like a texture swap file in system memory. Now since the HD 4000 also uses system memory it's kind of moot but it's really for discrete cards with games programmed to let Dx handle swapping textures on and off the graphics card instead of whatever homebrew method designed into whatever 3D engine being used. Of course this means the game engine needs to be designed to use this feature on Dx 10/11 systems.

One issue I came across with my test build was that the Windows 7 installation DVD didn't want to install on the new partitioning format (I forget the name). It seems that Paragon utility defaulted to it and I wasn't paying attention. To get windows to run properly I had to wipe the drive again, not hard, but annoying. I'm kinda wondering if that functionaltiy is built into the SP1 build versions of 7.

I'm looking into slipstreaming a Windows 7 disc right now (like I did for my last laptop due to XP's original SATA limitation) to include SP1 and IE9. Any help there would be great too.

My SSD will be on the doorstep tomorrow and I've still gotta look into activating Trim and SATA hotswapping. I haven't successfully managed the latter as of yet even though the Mobo is configured accordingly, but since 7 was installed before the change what little I have read mentions that Windows only activates hotswap during installation.

Anything else I should look into/know about with Windows 7 and an SSD? Well, besides NOT defraging the drive. :-p

No need to slipstream SP1, just download the official Windows 7 ISO from Digital River.

Slipstreaming IE9 into the Windows 7 SP1 installation media.

EDIT: Slipstreaming Service Packs isn't as easy as it was in the XP days. There are some third party tools that allow you to slipstream Service Packs, Updates and more, but IMO it's simpler just to download the official installation files.

So with the Digital River download all I need is my product key?

Yep.

k, what about my hotswap delema?

The last test I did was to make sure the BIOS was set correctly, cables all the way they're supposed to be, popped in a SATA HDD in the Drive Dock, shows up as Internal drive, and no way to quick remove like a jump drive. :-/


Edit: I found this, but some seem to think it only works most the time. Others point to finding specific Intel/MSFT drivers or avoiding those same ones all together. *is confused*