I would recommend people not adding big signatures either - There is (was) a general rule that sigs should be 700 wide x 100 high and not be too big in size - adding 8 badges is a bit silly. Maybe just as the 2 most recent ones. We are not going to be too strict about sigs as long as people don't overly abuse it. There is nothing worse than seeing a one-word post with massive sigs at the end of each one. Other than that a good job on the Rig of the Month! I see the forum rules are empty for some time - will look at updating these again. I think linking the images is also a step in the right direction! Thanx

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The opinions expressed above do not represent those of Advanced Micro Devices or any of their affiliates.

Thank you. There is a lot of work that I put into the ROTM thread, so that every ones Rigs show up in all browsers. There seems to be some issues with this site breaking the thread if there is to much data tied to a post. Then some peoples rigs could be seen but many would simply be a black spot in the thread, like the picture would fail to load. Limiting everyone to 10 Pics and having a separate post for each entry seems to be the perfect solution to that problem.

As to linking pics ........... hummmmmm maybe. lets see what others think about that.

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hmm, to reduce long page loading times for slow connections, (e.g mobiles, wireless internet, etc..)
probably 2-4 pictures could be displayed and the rest could be linked if people want to see more,
(possibly: the person who submits the rig, could chose the pics they want displayed and what to be linked to)
and a standard sig size could help with that problem too.

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Hit it with a Hammer.
CPU: AMD Phenom II 955 @ 3.8 ~ 4 Ghz (Cooler Master V8 Heatsink)
Graphics: 2 x HD 5770
RAM: 8 GB (standard clock: PC3-1333)
Motherboard: ASUS M4A78T-E (790GX)
Sound: ASUS Xonar DX
Case: CM 690 (with custom paint and a 800W PSU)

That is a good thing since if we had half the number it would seem pointless. Perhaps we should allow 2 months for voting. There seems to be no one on
here whenever I log onto the Forum and there are few Rigs and Votes. A 2 month long contest would confuse few and allow more time for a 'better Vote'
(less winning by one Vote and fewer multiple 2nd Place ties). We could still have "Monthly Winners", or wait two months for double the Prize.



It the Pictures don't turn out (almost all black with a few dim lights) can you ask them to take a better Photo. Perhaps a few Links to Tutorial on taking great
Photographs would help. A minimum of 6 Photos with three at the "Usual Angles" and the rest as the Photographer determines would set a Standard for entry.



"runner up his." what?

There may be three 2nd place winners this time the way the Votes are today.



I think there should be "Entry Criteria" but not "Judging Criteria". The OP mentions "dust off them Rigs" but some did not even do that.

Some Rigs are half neat and half cobbled together, make up your mind do you want to be judged on neatness or the Spider that actually lives in your Rig (and
an otherwise great Rig)? A few Links to really great Systems (and Contests) would show people a few tips on preparing for a Contest. Has no one here seen a
Contest elsewhere on the Net. You don't need to spend a million just have some pride (and not foolish pride).

I'm not trying to cut you down I'm trying to help you up. Let us have really great Rigs and more time to vote.

Maybe AMD would offer the Winner a "Chip Trade Up" Prize. A bigger Prize would help draw better Entries.

A 2 month voting time-frame would allow a 'better Vote' for those that took so many months (possibly over a year) to perfect their most wonderful Entry.


An "Entry Criteria":

- 3 "Standard Beauty Positions" (with fill lighting) and 3 "Freestyle Photos" for a minimum of 6 Photos (of at least a certain size and resolution).
- No Junk or Ads in the background. "Clean your Room" or hang a white (or black) Sheet behind your Shot.
- Wiring at least half neat, no spiderwebs (except from live Spiders). We want to see your Stuff.
- Real Rabbits (honestly) or other small animals are OK but no dust Bunnies. The "Habitrail Rig" is cool, I don't want to stifle creativity nor support laziness.
- A complete BOM, if you don't know what it is don't expect us to guess. An estimate of hours spent building would be OK along with cost.

I'm open to a discussion on entry criteria, we don't have to have the above proposed Rules just have some Rules that will improve the Standards. We don't want
the AMD Site's ROTM to be entered in a ROTF Contest. A bigger Prize (like an AMD uP Upgrade or a Motherboard from a Sponser) would make this a better Contest.

On Point one:

There are about 30 members that are on this forum on a regular basis. We see between 22 to 26 Votes a month. Waiting two months will not net anymore votes, but instead end up with a stale thread and no interest. (I will address the ties in a moment) I also want to give as many different members entered into the Rig of the year thread as I can. Ideally we should have 12 members with 12 Rigs in the ROTY thread in December. (Sorry guys but I blew it this year with February not running.)

On Point Two:

I work with each contestant who asks to try to encourage the best pictures, and what angles work best. They send full size files to an email that I have set up just for this, and I do my best to re-size the pictures for the thread with out getting "Grainy" Pictures. I am however limited to the quality of pictures that they send. To the best of my knowledge this is just the third year that this contest has been running and everyone is still learning how to present their rigs and how to "Dress" their Rigs. I feel that the contestants want to learn how to make their rig better and Your votes (or lack of them) and the contestants ability to look at their rigs compared to others in the thread, shows them what they need to do to better themselves.

Point three:

We award badges for Winner and Runner-Up. There are tie-breakers in the event of ties. In the first post of every month's thread I state what will happen in the event of a tie.

Point four:

The "Entry Criteria", or apparent lack of one, is my fault. I am focusing on getting people to enter, and trying out this method of entry. Before, members were posting their own pics into an entry thread, and then the Contest Moderator, would start a separate voting thread with a few of the pics submitted by each member, with a link the the first thread for more pics of each rig. IMO this did not work for two reasons.

1) Depending on the browser you were using, you may or may not see all the rigs in the Voting thread.

2) due to the discussions going on in the entry thread there may be several post or even pages between Rig pictures. This made it difficult to compare one rig to another because you were having to hunt for all the Rigs.

I felt these reasons were hurting the overall participation, so we made a change to the method we are using today. Since then we have in fact doubled the average of votes that this thread gets every month. Yes this is a lot of work for me, nor I am not trying to brag here. I do get a lot of positive feedback on how this competition looks from other members of the Forum, so I feel I am on the right track in this respect. This is the first Rig contest that I have ever moderated over, so I too am learning. I am open minded, and willing to chew on new ideas that will make this better. (Thus the reason for this thread.)

I have in fact been kicking around an idea to "Standardize" each entrant. The best idea I can come up with is to make a Text file that has all the necessary questions on it to make the Rig specs, and a list of the "Money shots" I would like to see. Getting the file to the new contestants is posing a problem. I also fear that some will see that is just another thing I am trying to impose on people and they will stop participating.

I am doing my best to provide a place for the members to show off their rigs, as well as help each other out in improving each others building skills. But at the end of the day is it up to the contestants, and the Voters, as to the success or failure of AMD Forum Rig Of the Month.

I hope one day we will get sponsors and prizes................

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That is something that concerns me also, I hope I did not come off as sounding negative but instead I wanted to make a call for improvement on all fronts.
It doesn't have to be today, just something we can all discuss and work towards.

At the bottom of this Page (at this moment) it says "3 users logged in" (that is the most I have seen in the past month). On 'other Forums' I see hundreds
(sometimes thousands) of users online at the same time. Anything we can do to make things better would be great for everyone (except for those paying
the bandwidth and moderating ).



Thank you. Yes, I remember that grainy one megapixel Photo entry (or was that somewhere else I saw it). A short list of Links with some tips and a few
shots of great Rigs would help both the owner and the Contest. It can be simple and cheap to make a really great setup, see this homemade hack:



It is not the best (it took me one minute of Googling) but it does show how cheap, easy, and simple it can be. Obviously the person cobbled it together over a
period of many weeks or months. I had a tough time voting this month due to workmanship, but I did vote (for a Computer that I would have in my Home).



The "Award Badges" are nice but "Cold Hard Cash" or a Prize would really work out well, I would be willing to field complaints on that suggestion. Places that do
Reviews seem to have no end of Sponsors. Perhaps we could get a List of Companies willing to sponsor (or ask a Review Site for their leftovers).



No problem. Just a few simple Rules to get nice Entries that can be readily compared. If one person only sent 'close-ups' and others only sent 'across-the-room' shots
it would be tough on the Judges. Like a Beauty Contest where one was naked and the other wore a Garbage Bag, some would vote on the face and others not.



Yes, the "me too'ers".



+2 , Good stuff.




It is a fine balancing act. A little criticism and some will bail. Simple Rules that anyone (except an idiot) could follow would be a start and if those simple Rules
were too tough then perhaps the rest of us could do without them. I've been in Apartments with few Rules, the Police visited often .


Why do we have "Rules", see here:

How To Screw Up Your Brand New $70 Case with only $5 of Spray Foam | Overclockers
http://www.overclockers.com/ho...-only-5-of-spray-foam/



What does "Cool Rebellion" look like, see here: District 9 Prawn PC.


Un-modded:
Starting (still not much):




Going NUTS, (doing crazy things):




BUT, with "Workmanship":




Lets just smash a hole in the side:




BUT, position those expensive Handles carefully:




Just spray bomb everything ! :




BUT do so neatly:




Pay attention to detail:




ESPECIALLY when adding Green Slime:




Paint carefully:




When you want it to look like it was kicked across the room:




A LOT of work and effort later:









The Prize ?




The LAST Comment before the Thread was CLOSED:

"Mnpctech, you are a mod king... that's all I got to say..."



I would not have this in my Home but I appreciate the time, effort and Workmanship (capital "W" for that Guy) he took to make a "Concept Case".

Another idea I have been kicking around is trying a thread with larger pictures. I may first try the Rig Of The Year thread as a trial. Right now I have everything set to an 800 Pixel width. I have thought maybe trying for 1024 Pixels. This would cause the thread to load slower for people with lower bandwidth, but is that really a problem anymore? Do we still have people using Dial-up connection? Or connections < 1Mb/psec. My Mom and Dad have the cheapest DSL available and still get 1.5Mb/Per Sec.

Thoughts or comments?????

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That does sound interesting XD. We should just create two identical threads with the different pic sizes in them and ask people their opinions on load time/is it worth it.

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The opinions expressed above do not represent those of Advanced Micro Devices or any of their affiliates.

We could have "mouseover-panable-popups (that are right-click downloadable)" or "click-on to open in a new Tab (a really big image)". A '1024' might be too small for some really great Pics and does not allow for the decent Cameras that we already have (my Cell Phone does 5MP).

That would allow fast Thread loading and if the Picture was really great we could click on it on a Case-by-Case (pun intended) basis.

It would also save having two Threads on the same Topic and save you (and a smaller number of us) the Bandwidth Charges.

hahaha furby XD i might post mine up, its in an old case, but she's a beast :L its in my first ever pc case, holds a sentimental value to me, soon to be faster too, new asrock extreme4 board and ddr3 ram and ill be giggling like a mad man on speed XD

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AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition OC@ 4.00GHZ 1.45VCore.
8GB Corsair XMS2
ASUS HD6770 GDDR5 1GB 850/2000/???
ASRock A790GXH/128M
Antec 650W
Seagate barracuda IV SATA-II (AHCI)


^^^ Ze Dragon. ^^^

Amd is a good product. i used this 2 years.