Thanks to Impulse and Stardock for this awesome gaming machine! Just wanted to post an update for anyone interested in knowing about the gaming rig that Stardock/Impulse gave away. I received a call from Alexandra of Stardock with important news, and initially i was thinking uhoh my credit card was compromised only to be told that I was the millionth user and had won a loaded $4000 computer. I was shocked to say the least and even suspicious as it was the day before April Fools
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I received the custom made cyberpowerpc, keyboard, mouse, and Logitech speakers at the end of April. The specs are:
Ikonik RAX10 full tower
Intel Core i7 965 Extreme edition 3.2GHz
12 GB DDR3/1600 MHZ Corsair
2xATI Radeon 4870x2 in Crossfire
24" LCD Monitior by ASUS
Creative Labs SoundBLaster XFi Fatality Pro
Logitech Z5500 5.1 Surround sound
Vista Ultimate 64bit
2 TB Raid-0
Upon arrival, one of the two hard drives had become dislodged in the 6 slot bay that holds them. I thought i had it secured again but because the bays were bent it fell again and when trying to turn on the computer fried the hard drive. Talk about angst. I was so excited but now had to remove the RAID configuration at bootup and reinstall everything onto the one hard drive. Stardock and Cyberpowerpc were kind enough to replace the burned hard drive, and I was able to remove the bent 6 bay hard drive holder and fix it on my own. I'm still running off of one hard drive instead of RAID-0 for now. Interestingly, the 965 processor was running at 2.6 GHz instead of 3.2. The multiplier was set at 20 instead of 24, so i've since placed it where its supposed to be at 24 and haven't had any stability or heat issues. The processor has been verified by Intel's ID program and EVGA ELEET's program for overclocking (CPUID-CPUZ) because everyone asks me if its really a 965 Extreme Edition.
The machine really rocks and those speakers are awesome! I'm playing Supreme Commander, Sacred 2, AOE III, Warhammer Online, Dawn of War, and just downloaded Demigod. In fact, I won my first game on setons in SC the other night on this machine...but i'm still terrible and long for the days of Total Annihilation. SC is a game that seems to take every bit of hardware you can throw at it. Haven't had a chance to play Demigod yet but its a game that I've been looking forward to.
Thanks again to Stardock/Impulse for this wonderful computer. I'll be getting some pictures up in a couple of weeks.