Post Your Computer Build

Maybe I should give up on this software engineering thing and mow more lawns.

 

L33t pwnage knows no age boundaries

 

Finally scored a Nvidia 30 series. EVGA website.

 

Looks like my processor (i5-4690) won't officially be supported by Windows 11, so I have thought about building a new computer (I wanted to prior, but this kind of seals the deal). I am thinking about the following as the guts:

CPU: I7-11700K
Mobo: Asus Prime Z590M-PLUS
RAM: Patriot Viper Steel DDR4 32GB 3200
Everything else will be recycled from my current build for now .

I think in general the CPU and Mobo should be good for several years since they are current gen and have all the updated features (Pcie 4, multiple M2 slots, Thunderbolt, etc.).

RAM is iffier, as I would like performance ram to get the most out of games, but since I am going to be doing 4K video production, I should really get at least 32GB ram. This means slower RAM, though 3200 is the max native speed for the CPU and Mobo chipset. Hopefully this means smooth performance straight from the get go.

Any thoughts or caveats? I haven't really paid attention outside of GPUs for the last several years.

 

Better performance and much better efficiency to be had on the AMD side of things these days. Also intel has been hammered by security flaw after security flaw for the past several years. Next gen things might shake things up but for now AMD is where it’s at.

Something like a B550 or X570S mobo if you need more pci-e 4.0 lanes and then 5800X if you just want 8 cores but you can go up to 16 on their desktop platform.

 

Could just wait for Alder Lake at this point. Either you get that and enjoy better performance and more future-proofing, or the stuff you’re looking at now gets cheaper because it’s then last-gen.

You can also get lots of 32GB memory kits that are rated at faster than 3200 MT/s if you need, especially Micron E-die kits from Crucial or Samsung B-die kits from G.Skill and the like. I’ve seen DDR4-3600 CL16 kits for $170 and DDR4-4000 CL16 kits for $250.

I’m piecing together a small (~4L) AMD 5600G APU build and just picked up a 16x2 GB DDR4-3600 CL16 Crucial Ballistix kit with dual rank Micron E-die for $170-180. (I need the dual rank kit as I’m using mini ITX with two DIMM slots; looks like you do 4x8 GB single rank sticks if you wanted.)

 

A few recent builds:



Sanjūni - 3970X + 3090 FTW3 + MO-RA3



Owari - 5700G in the Skyreach 4 (Tiny S4T)




[ b l a n k ] - 5950X + 6900XT + Openbenchtable

 

Can you share more about the power supply hardware you used in the S4T build? I've looking into something similar with an Inwin Chopin, but the HDplex stuff was always out of stock and I don't think it would have fit well anyway.

 

So I have two S4T builds.

In one I'm using an HDPlex 200W DC-ATX + 400W


The second I'm using a J-Hack kit with a Meanwell RPS 200W.




Edit: Just realized it removed all of the links, but everything should be relatively googleable.

 

Love all these open builds! Mine isn't nearly as tidy-- especially the cabling, I was going for some twisty swoops-- but I'll chalk that up to inexperience. First PC build!



Case is the Yuel Beast Mobius, with 3700X + EVGA 3080 Hybrid. CPU cooler runs passively during most non-gaming, and doesn't hit 100% fan until around 80C (which I only really hit with a constant 16 thread load). Still tweaking it at the moment, but it runs almost completely silently when we don't push the GPU. Bit of pump noise audible at the desk, but I can't hear it from where I sit 8 feet back to listen to the Maggies.

Fun story: as you can see, I have to take off the cooler to access anything on the board at all, so I went through a bunch of paste as I iterated on things. Was pretty shocked week or two ago when I switched from NT-H1 to Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut and the core temps dropped by about 10 C.



The cat doesn't normally get to hang out in this room so he's having a great, chill time playing Civ VI with me.

Next project: turn my old PC into a NAS. I was thinking ZFS RaidZ1 with 3 6ish TB drives sounds nice, but I'm not really a BSD guy and would prefer a regular linux environment. Anyone with experience using Proxmox or something similar to accomplish this?

 

I know that feeling! lol

You can try OpenMediaVault w/ ZFS plugin.

 

Hats off to Noctua.

I had one of their lovely coolers on my old AMD processor for a decade. Having upgraded to to a Ryzen processor and motherboard, the cooler no longer fits. On application, Noctua supply hardware to use the cooler on the new sockets. Free! And, although they warn that it can take a while to reach you, mine arrived very promptly.

For a ten-year-old item this is exceptional; extraordinary.

(I haven't actually used it. So far. The AMD cooler is neat and quiet. But I still love that Noctua have given me this just-buy-once service.)

 

Noctua has premium engineering and quality service. It's fascinating how products as simple as computer fans have bifurcated into the cheap (99% market share at a guess) and premium (99x the cheap price). Similar to DACs.

 

Yeah, some time last year I had a discontinued fan break. They searched for a few weeks, found one somewhere and sent to to me so that I wouldn't have mismatched fans in my MO-RA3 setup.

 

With all due respect to the creative, I want my PC to be just a box.

All the open-cage cases, for instance, may look impressive, but the thing would be dead in a week in my house. Too much dust, too much cat hair, and too many cats.

My PC cabinet is ten years old now, and has just had a new-generation internals transplant. I hope that it will still be compatible with the next one! (and that I'll still be around to see it).

The only thing that might tempt me otherwise, onto the fancier side of things, would be ... a completely silent system with no moving parts. But that is on hold as a just-a-dream project.

 

Indeed. As much as I'd love to have a science project on my desk, I need some degree of predictability.

 

Might it be, though, that we want something that just works, at the best power and speeds we can get, but without tweaking, clocking and producing a super gaming machine, that looks like a super gaming machine?

Super-gamers, on the other hand...

Each to their own

 

This is not all that creative, but at least it's different.



More pics: https://adobe.ly/3ise04Y

Specs:

- XTIA X-Proto-N chassis
- Corsair SF600 power supply
- ASRock Z590M-ITX/ax motherboard
- Intel i5-11600K processor
- Noctua NH-P1 passive CPU cooler
- Corsair VENGEANCE LPX 2 x 8GB
- Samsung 500GB SSD
- Ubuntu Desktop 21.04

 

Super. But, as I said, it would be full of dust and dead cats here.

Love that cooler. It's been a while, and I was not aware that Noctua made passive coolers. I'm gad to know that they do.