Matrix Orbital Corp

I'm building a new PC next week (waiting for parts)

Intel Q6600
Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme
Asus Blitz Formula (chipset P35)
2GB Corsair Dominator 8500 with airflow
XFX 8800 Ultra
Coolermaster Cosmos 1000
WD Raptor 150 gig
WD 500 Gig SATA
Plextor DVD-RW
SB X-FI Fatality FPS
Klipsch Promedia 5.1 Ultra
Viewsonic 19" VP2030B
Ultra X3 1000 Power supply
Windows Vista 32 bits

i also bought a few extra fans : Scythe 120mm model E and F

I saw Matrix Orbital and these thing could look great on my new PC. But their is so many models and it is hard to find the difference between models.

I really think that this device could do what I want for my new PC. Here what I want to do:

I want to control all my fans in my case according some criteria.

FAN 1 is the CPU Fan
FAN 2 is HD FAN (on top of HD) with a thermal sensor
FAN 3 both fan on top of case with a thermal sensor for case temp
FAN 4 back fan

Can we control al these fans with different speed according to a temp limit ?

Lets say I want to keep my PC noise level at minimum so I want all my case fans to decrease in speed and only to increase when a temp limit is reach from the thermal sensor in the case. Then the fans will start to increase as the temp increase in the case up to the FAN 100% speed.

Can we do this witht this device ? Is it hard to program to do such a thing ?

What are the difference between models

MX2
MX3
Typhoon
etc....

Thanks

sylvainp wrote:I'm building a new PC next week (waiting for parts)

Intel Q6600
Thermalright Ultra 120 Extremep

Awesome selection. I recently built one with a Q6600 and a Scythe Ninja. Are you going to lapp the Thermalright cooler? Unfortunately I got stuck with a B3 stepping model. Hopefully you can get a G0 stepping model.

sylvainp wrote:2GB Corsair Dominator 8500 with airflow
XFX 8800 Ultra

(...)

Ultra X3 1000 Power supply

All of those are overkill. There's not a whole lot of difference in performance between an 8800 Ultra and an 8800 GTX to justify the price difference. Corsair is an awesome brand for memory, but the Dominator models are overpriced. You don't need to cool memory too much compared to processors and chipsets, so stick with their other XMS lines and save some money.

Also, the Coolermaster 1kW is overkill. You'll probably only pull 400W max from the wall AC, and with efficiency, your PSU will only need to supply may be 350W under load. The higher wattage PSUs are sold because 1.) marketing: they convince you that you'll need more power than you really do, and 2.) higher wattage PSUs are often better quality PSUs doe to the niche market. Just get a good brands (ie: Seasonic, Enermax, PC Power & Cooling, etc.), and you'll be fine with a 500+W PSU for that rig.

sylvainp wrote:WD Raptor 150 gig
WD 500 Gig SATA
Plextor DVD-RW

Good choice! I love Raptors, and it looks like you're doing a good job in separating your Windows/apps boot drive from your data/document storage drive. Also, Plextor is a an awesome brand - excellent reliability.

sylvainp wrote:Windows Vista 32 bits

Avoid Vista like the plague, unless you just have to play the latest DX10 games from Microsoft. Otherwise, there's no point. It will run slower, be less stable, have more hardware incompatibility, and offer nothing new compared to XP (except DX10). Everything you do on Vista can be duplicated on XP, from the "Aero" interface", to advanced security (ie: third party apps such as Nod32 will protect better than even Vista w/ any other AV/anti-malware software).

sylvainp wrote:i also bought a few extra fans : Scythe 120mm model E and F

Cool. I like Scythe fans, but I've only used the SFLEX ones (ie: 21F) which are super quiet.

sylvainp wrote:I saw Matrix Orbital and these thing could look great on my new PC. But their is so many models and it is hard to find the difference between models.

I really think that this device could do what I want for my new PC.

Go for the GX Typhoon with the optional internal USB header cable. This is the best choice for the newest LCD from Matrix Orbital that is geared towards PC hardware enthusiasts.

With LCDStudio, you'll be able to show system information.

sylvainp wrote: Here what I want to do:

I want to control all my fans in my case according some criteria.

FAN 1 is the CPU Fan
FAN 2 is HD FAN (on top of HD) with a thermal sensor
FAN 3 both fan on top of case with a thermal sensor for case temp
FAN 4 back fan

Can we control al these fans with different speed according to a temp limit ?

Lets say I want to keep my PC noise level at minimum so I want all my case fans to decrease in speed and only to increase when a temp limit is reach from the thermal sensor in the case. Then the fans will start to increase as the temp increase in the case up to the FAN 100% speed.

Can we do this witht this device ? Is it hard to program to do such a thing ?

You would need an MX model (ie: MX411) to control anything with the LCD, since the GX is just for displaying information. Even though I personally think the buttons are fairly ugly, they are easily mappable to commands on your PC through the ACDC software.

They don't control voltage to your fans or anything like that by default. You'd have to configure it do such tasks. And this is only provided that your fans are connected to your motherboard. If your fans are on their own standard fan controller, or just hooked up directly to the PC's power, there's no way for the PC to control them through software. Same goes for separate temperature sensors that are not built into the motherboard.

There is talk of future accessories for the GX (and may be other models?), such as fan controllers, etc., but nothing released yet.

The MX series is pretty cool if you can get past its unrefined looks. It doesn't have as nice of an LCD screen as the GX, but it does have buttons. Check out this review to find out more information about the MX, including screen caps of the ACDC software and uses for the buttons:

http://www.virtual-hideout.net/reviews/ ... ndex.shtml

I got the XFX Ultra for the price of an GTX so this is why I bought that video card.

Samething for the 8500 C5D I pay maybe $20 more than the 8500C5 memory.

I want to have a nice modular power supply and think about for the futur. I paid $240 for the PS which normally would be more in the $350. I plan to keep that PS for a long time because it is lifetime warranty too.

The Scythe I bought are the model SFLEX 21E & 21F

You would need an MX model (ie: MX411) to control anything with the LCD, since the GX is just for displaying information. Even though I personally think the buttons are fairly ugly, they are easily mappable to commands on your PC through the ACDC software.

They don't control voltage to your fans or anything like that by default. You'd have to configure it do such tasks. And this is only provided that your fans are connected to your motherboard. If your fans are on their own standard fan controller, or just hooked up directly to the PC's power, there's no way for the PC to control them through software. Same goes for separate temperature sensors that are not built into the motherboard.

There is talk of future accessories for the GX (and may be other models?), such as fan controllers, etc., but nothing released yet.

The MX series is pretty cool if you can get past its unrefined looks. It doesn't have as nice of an LCD screen as the GX, but it does have buttons. Check out this review to find out more information about the MX, including screen caps of the ACDC software and uses for the buttons:

I have something like 9 (3 pins) fan connector on my motherboard and according to the manual PDF I can control 4 of them in the BIOS in the power management. I also can put 2 thermal sensor on the Motherboard.

Maybe I can do all what I want with my fans just with the Motherboard BIOS...

Thanks

sylvainp wrote:I got the XFX Ultra for the price of an GTX so this is why I bought that video card.

Samething for the 8500 C5D I pay maybe $20 more than the 8500C5 memory.

Awesome!

I want to have a nice modular power supply and think about for the futur. I paid $240 for the PS which normally would be more in the $350. I plan to keep that PS for a long time because it is lifetime warranty too.

Not a bad price for such a large PSU. I've seen it everywhere (Directron, Tiger Direct, etc. for $249.99), so that's the street price. Some of the PC Power & Cooling models in that range are better bargains ($199 for the 750W Quad that will output 60A on the 12V rail), and still be overkill. But that Ultra X3 is a sweet PSU. Unfortunately, you'll be getting 70% efficiency or less because you'll be using only a third of the power it can supply (70A of 12V).

A PSU will age over time and lose both its total output and efficiency. 5 years is typically a PSU's average lifespan, and you'll upgrade before it has issues. Good thing for the lifetime warranty. Hopefully you'll be able to replace it with a newer model when it dies in the far future provided they stick to the warranty.

sylvainp wrote:I have something like 9 (3 pins) fan connector on my motherboard and according to the manual PDF I can control 4 of them in the BIOS in the power management. I also can put 2 thermal sensor on the Motherboard.

Maybe I can do all what I want with my fans just with the Motherboard BIOS...

Thanks

No problem. You should be able to control it all from software. With all of that top end hardware, it would be killer to slap an LCD on the front of it to display temps and such. Since you should be able to control it all from software, any of Matrix Orbital's LCDs would be fine.

Oh don't forget that I live in Canada so the price for the Ultra X3 1000 was $ 247 CAN !

Matrix Orbital are hard to find in Canada and I don't want to buy from the US because of Duty fees and on top of that Canadian sales taxes and also expensive shipping !

Maybe if you know a place in Canada or US (with cheap shipping).

Let's say I want to monitor all the cores with the Matrix Orbital does it do it directly from the LCDC program or I need to install the plugin and the software ?

I will probably use SpeedFan just to monitor my core temps when I will OC the CPU and make my test. I will not always run SpeedFan in the background.

If I want all the CPU core temp to display on the Matrix Orbital LCD do I need to install a program like Speedfan, Speedfan plugin and Run Speedfan in background or I can do that directly from LCDC program without having to use other program or plugin in the background ?

Why I ask this is because I don't like to have too much program running in the task bar.

So if I want to get all my core temps on the LCD do I need to run SpeedFan, Speedfan plugin, and LCDC just to see my CPU temps (4 cores) in the LCD ?

I know I need to run LCDC to display on the LCD but I don't want to run multiple program just to see it in the LCD display !

Am i right here ?

sylvainp wrote:Let's say I want to monitor all the cores with the Matrix Orbital does it do it directly from the LCDC program or I need to install the plugin and the software ?

I will probably use SpeedFan just to monitor my core temps when I will OC the CPU and make my test. I will not always run SpeedFan in the background.

The review I linked to (http://www.virtual-hideout.net/reviews/ ... ndex.shtml) in my first post in this thread talks about LCDC and its use with the MX series. For the GX series, you can use LCDStudio (a free application) which has a drag-and-drop interface that's easy to use. LCDStudio has a pre-made library for Speedfan, so it can grab temps and fan speeds directly from it (no coding needed by you; it just works). I assume LCDC would have this feature, but I've never used it so I don't know for sure. I use my GX with SpeedFan and other apps, but via my own software (which I'm still getting ready to release).

sylvainp wrote:If I want all the CPU core temp to display on the Matrix Orbital LCD do I need to install a program like Speedfan, Speedfan plugin and Run Speedfan in background or I can do that directly from LCDC program without having to use other program or plugin in the background ?

Yup, you'll still need a monitoring application such as SpeedFan to read from the motherboard's interfaces. Fortunately, SpeedFan is fairly standard, so many LCD control apps will have access to it.

sylvainp wrote:Why I ask this is because I don't like to have too much program running in the task bar.

So if I want to get all my core temps on the LCD do I need to run SpeedFan, Speedfan plugin, and LCDC just to see my CPU temps (4 cores) in the LCD ?

I know I need to run LCDC to display on the LCD but I don't want to run multiple program just to see it in the LCD display !

Am i right here ?

SpeedFan doesn't take a whole lot of resources. I'm pretty sure LCDC is pretty lightweight, but LCDStudio is a little bulkier by comparison. It's still small and won't slow down your system or take up much memory. I have noticed that LCDStudio does slow down Windows boot-up time since it loads each library on start, but you can tweak this in its configuration so it only loads the libraries you want (ie: SpeedFan).