Review/validate my work PC build
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I removed the washers and I think the side panels will fit now.
I installed the cooler and radiator before installing the PSU, but when installing the PSU I realised that the CPU power header was behind the radiator. There was enough room for the cable, but not much room for my hands; this made it very difficult to connect, but I eventually managed to do it.
When I went to connect a monitor to test it, I realised that the part of the IO shield meant to brush against the side of the HDMI port to align it was actually sitting inside the port, preventing a cable from being connected to it. I tried bending it out of the way with a small screwdriver and a cable tie, but I didn't have any luck.
It's looking like I may have to take most of the computer apart to reseat the motherboard correctly.
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@Choonster Ah, the joys of home builds. BTDT, multiple times.
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@dcon
Your build isn't complete until you've added at least 3 drops of blood, extracted fresh from your hands.
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@Choonster said in Review/validate my work PC build:
How much does RAM speed matter? I've switched to a Z390 motherboard that supports RAM speeds of up to DDR4 4300, but there's a pretty big price difference between this DDR4 3600 kit (AU$700) and this DDR4 2666 kit (AU$329). Should I stick with the DDR4 2666 kit, or get something slightly better? I don't think the DDR4 3600 kit is within my budget.
It matters, but...
For a long time, the amount of RAM you had was the major constraint. It always made sense to get more RAM instead of spending more for faster RAM. Because if you hit swap or otherwise ran out of RAM, your computer basically stopped.
And I think that it still does make sense to prefer more RAM.
The faster ram might make your system 4% faster or whatever, but per core speeds have sort of plateaued for most worklaods, and even a 5 year old machine can be faster than you need (with half the ram speed). Like my 16 core Xeon with 96GB of ram.
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@Choonster said in Review/validate my work PC build:
It's looking like I may have to take most of the computer apart to reseat the motherboard correctly.
That's how putting together my current machine went. The hole in the back of the case where you are supposed to access the back side of the cooler setup doesn't match where the CPU is on my motherboard, so I had to take everything back out and do the cooler setup with the motherboard loose on the table. Add in some cable routing issues and it was a very frustrating build.
Once it was all done, though, it made an awesome computer. It's still a very good one thanks to a few upgrades. When it comes time to go to a new CPU+MB, though, I think I'll get a new case too.
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@Choonster Ah, yes, the IO shield. I was overcome with joy when I found that you can actually get boards that come with that built-in.
Looking back at the photo you had posted before, I think I can see the issue. If you can get your hands on some needle nose pliers you should be able to extract it. If not, you could always go full cave man and just break it off. As long as the HDMI port lines up correctly it'll be fine.
If you do end up having to take the board out, the only thing that should removing is the motherboard itself, with all the components still attached. That is if you can access all of its screws.
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@izzion said in Review/validate my work PC build:
@dcon
Your build isn't complete until you've added at least 3 drops of blood, extracted fresh from your hands.I still have a scar on my knuckle from when I accidentally punched my RAM (the GPU retention clip wouldn't open and my finger slipped). It was a real blood, sweet and tears situation, although the sweat came first.
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@Deadfast said in Review/validate my work PC build:
@Choonster Ah, yes, the IO shield. I was overcome with joy when I found that you can actually get boards that come with that built-in.
Looking back at the photo you had posted before, I think I can see the issue. If you can get your hands on some needle nose pliers you should be able to extract it. If not, you could always go full cave man and just break it off. As long as the HDMI port lines up correctly it'll be fine.
If you do end up having to take the board out, the only thing that should removing is the motherboard itself, with all the components still attached. That is if you can access all of its screws.
I ended up removing the radiator block from the case and then moving the motherboard with everything else (including the cooler itself) attached. I haven't had a chance to reinstall the radiator yet.
It was probably a good thing I removed the radiator, since the CPU power cable I struggled to install yesterday wasn't fully seated in the header.
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Corsair support got back to me and told me to use the flat-headed long screws that came with the case instead of the round-headed long screws that came with the cooler. I've already used those to install a second fan on the front of the case (the one that came installed on the rear), but I may end up switching the screws around.
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Topics like this makes me wanna buy a new computer already! But I also want to wait for Ryzen 3000, and the full announcement is slated for end of may for that. Rrgh.
And yeah, blood, sweat and tears are mandatory for computer assembly. My last home PC build had plenty of it. And my work PC builds also came with it. Funtimes!
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@Atazhaia said in Review/validate my work PC build:
And yeah, blood, sweat and tears are mandatory for computer assembly. My last home PC build had plenty of it.
I'm somewhat interested in a coolant comparison between the three. I doubt blood will be very efficient...
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@Deadfast said in Review/validate my work PC build:
I accidentally punched my RAM
As a software person, I'd like to quote this out of context. It sounds funny to me.
Don't get me wrong, I am sorry for your injury, both to your hand and your hardware.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Review/validate my work PC build:
I'm somewhat interested in a coolant comparison between the three. I doubt blood will be very efficient...
All of them are highly water-based (with blood being the least, about ~4/5). And water has very good specific heat. The problem will be galvanic corrosion and various sorts of contamination. Sweat and tears contain salt. Blood... well, it's a non-Newtonian solution of blood plasma, cells and stuff. Perhaps if some sort of anticoagulant was added and temperature kept low enough... it could work, but not very long (so you'd need lots of fresh blood
ahaha-ahahaha). It would react with metal surfaces, gunk up everything rendering heat transfer difficult (while maintaining efficiency as such).
Antifreeze solutions have quite poor heat capacity (if compared to water), but they work well, because they don't react with aluminum and copper, and do not bind to surfaces.
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@Captain said in Review/validate my work PC build:
@Choonster said in Review/validate my work PC build:
How much does RAM speed matter? I've switched to a Z390 motherboard that supports RAM speeds of up to DDR4 4300, but there's a pretty big price difference between this DDR4 3600 kit (AU$700) and this DDR4 2666 kit (AU$329). Should I stick with the DDR4 2666 kit, or get something slightly better? I don't think the DDR4 3600 kit is within my budget.
It matters, but...
For a long time, the amount of RAM you had was the major constraint. It always made sense to get more RAM instead of spending more for faster RAM. Because if you hit swap or otherwise ran out of RAM, your computer basically stopped.
And I think that it still does make sense to prefer more RAM.
The faster ram might make your system 4% faster or whatever, but per core speeds have sort of plateaued for most worklaods, and even a 5 year old machine can be faster than you need (with half the ram speed). Like my 16 core Xeon with 96GB of ram.
The platform matters too, Ryzen's architecture means RAM speed is much, much more important than it is to Intel. Ryzen's Infinity Fabric crossbar is constrained to the RAM speed. It can make a massive difference:
We record a 24.77% increase in average frame rates going from DDR4-1866 to DDR4-2400
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@Cursorkeys good to know. Now I need to re-read benchmarks and see whether they're using slow or fast RAMs.
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@Parody said in Review/validate my work PC build:
so I had to take everything back out and do the cooler setup with the motherboard loose on the table.
AIUI this is the way you're supposed to do it anyway, install the CPU and cooler before putting the MB in the case.
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in Review/validate my work PC build:
@Tsaukpaetra said in Review/validate my work PC build:
I'm somewhat interested in a coolant comparison between the three. I doubt blood will be very efficient...
All of them are highly water-based (with blood being the least, about ~4/5). And water has very good specific heat. The problem will be galvanic corrosion and various sorts of contamination. Sweat and tears contain salt. Blood... well, it's a non-Newtonian solution of blood plasma, cells and stuff. Perhaps if some sort of anticoagulant was added and temperature kept low enough... it could work, but not very long (so you'd need lots of fresh blood
ahaha-ahahaha). It would react with metal surfaces, gunk up everything rendering heat transfer difficult (while maintaining efficiency as such).
Antifreeze solutions have quite poor heat capacity (if compared to water), but they work well, because they don't react with aluminum and copper, and do not bind to surfaces.I think you may be overthinking it. What if you just put some of each liquid near the intake fan and allowed it to atomize the coolant all over the inside of the case?
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@Cursorkeys said in Review/validate my work PC build:
The platform matters too, Ryzen's architecture means RAM speed is much, much more important than it is to Intel.
Though Intel CPUs do value faster RAM up to a point. Each CPU has native memory type (such as DDR4-2666 on the latest and greatest i7), below which you lose out on possible memory bandwidth and performance. But any RAM that's faster than that will effectively get "down-stepped" because it's bottlenecked by the CPU's connectivity.
They just generally wind up with a fairly conservative native memory speed in relation to what winds up becoming available for the memory technology, especially on the iterations of Intel CPUs that start using a new type (e.g. the very first DDR4 Intels used the lowest possible DDR4 speed as their native type and thus anything faster didn't do diddly).
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@hungrier said in Review/validate my work PC build:
@Parody said in Review/validate my work PC build:
so I had to take everything back out and do the cooler setup with the motherboard loose on the table.
AIUI this is the way you're supposed to do it anyway, install the CPU and cooler before putting the MB in the case.
That's easier with some coolers than others - which is why cases often have access to both sides of the CPU part of the motherboard.
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@hungrier said in Review/validate my work PC build:
@Parody said in Review/validate my work PC build:
so I had to take everything back out and do the cooler setup with the motherboard loose on the table.
AIUI this is the way you're supposed to do it anyway, install the CPU and cooler before putting the MB in the case.
It depends on the cooler and how careful you are at installing it. If it's a cooler that relies on insertion force to "snap in" to the mounting holes on the motherboard, you're much better off to have the motherboard securely mounted in the case BEFORE attaching the cooler, as it's quite possible to bend the motherboard if you try to affix those coolers while the motherboard isn't anchored to anything.
On the other hand, if the cooler mount involves screws, it's usually easier to attach that while you can freely move the motherboard around, rather than cussing at the screws while you try to fiddle around with the little window in the back of the motherboard tray from your case. (Especially if you've mounted the motherboard on the tray without removing the tray from the case; removing the MB tray obviously leaves it nearly as free-maneuverable as just having the unmounted motherboard in your hands.)
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@hungrier said in Review/validate my work PC build:
@Parody said in Review/validate my work PC build:
so I had to take everything back out and do the cooler setup with the motherboard loose on the table.
AIUI this is the way you're supposed to do it anyway, install the CPU and cooler before putting the MB in the case.
None of my other builds have required this, and it's a lot more likely you'll do something stupid if the motherboard isn't attached to the tray (if your case has a removable one) or case. It's one of the reasons I miss the cases I used for my LAN pit as they had removable trays, removable drive mounts, rounded edges, and plenty of space for cable routing and such in an era where those things weren't widely available. (Put together in 1999; I got rid of most of it around 2009.)
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reasons why you might want to do it in the case
Fair enough. I haven't done very many computer builds, and never with any non-stock cooler so I don't really know what's out there, but the one time I tried installing stuff while in the case it was harder and more awkward than outside.
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@Parody said in Review/validate my work PC build:
removable drive mounts
These are even more of a pre now that your only thing that goes into a drive bay tends to be a single SSD, since you can just leave the superfluous drive bays out entirely and give yourself more room in the case.
I do still recommend using spinning rust for bulk storage, but I recommend putting it in a NAS device rather than a PC. Installing a HD 'so I can install more games' is
.
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@PleegWat said in Review/validate my work PC build:
Installing a HD 'so I can install more games' is .
I used to have a pair of HDDs in RAID0 for games, but got an NVMe SSD in an Amazon sale which now holds all my installed games. The HDDs are still there as overflow. Windows itself boots from a pair of SATA SSDs in RAID0.
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@hungrier said in Review/validate my work PC build:
I think you may be overthinking it.
What if you just put some of each liquid near the intake fan and allowed it to atomize the coolant all over the inside of the case?
I'd say Asrock Fatality then lives up to its name.
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@PleegWat said in Review/validate my work PC build:
I do still recommend using spinning rust for bulk storage, but I recommend putting it in a NAS device rather than a PC. Installing a HD 'so I can install more games' is
.Meh. Our machines are all small boot SSD+large storage HD; my personal machine (used for both work and gaming) has a couple of internal HDs for ~4.5 TB of storage plus its boot SSD. My games are all on spinning rust.
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I did eventually get this built and set up, though I never got around to posting the pictures here. I've been using it for a few months or so now and it's been working quite well.
Unfortunately the same can't be said for my home PC, which died on me last night. It seems the power supply has died, since nothing even tries to power on when I press the power button and the front USB ports aren't providing any power (they normally do even when the computer is off). Switching the power cable and the power point didn't help.
Since it's a few years old now, I thought it might be a good opportunity to upgrade it. I'd like to be able to handle similar workloads to the work PC as well as being able to run modern games on decent settings.
I was thinking of starting with a copy of the work PC as a base and reusing some existing parts (assuming they all still work):
- A GTX 970
- An internal HDD I bought relatively recently (in addition to the M.2 SSD)
- A PCIe USB card
- An optical drive
- A BenQ monitor
Does this sound like a good idea?
In the work PC, I had to remove the 3.5" drive cage to install extra front fans; since I'll be using a 3.5" drive in the home PC, are there any cases that support both front fans and 3.5" drives?
Here's a parts list on PCPartPicker:
https://pcpartpicker.com/user/ChoonsterTwo/saved/8F4QqsThe GPU is a slightly different model to what I have, but they both have the same dimensions. It looks like the case doesn't support GPUs this long with 3.5" drives, so this is another reason to get a different case.
I'm also thinking of getting a new 5-button mouse with this, since my current one doesn't work that well any more. Suggestions for this would be welcome.
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@Choonster said in Review/validate my work PC build:
are there any cases that support both front fans and 3.5" drives?
Loads.
The one I have (Corsair 330R) isn't available any more but there are plenty of options.
Something like the Corsair 270R should be plenty big enough - 370mm GPU length (way longer than that 970) and space for 2/3 fans at the front with the 3.5mm and 2.5mm drives out of the way. Space for a H100 or H110 cooler too.
FAKE EDIT (I just remembered you said about an optical drive) in which case the 200R has plenty of space. Or the 450D.
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@Choonster
Unless you are the librarian of Congress for porn,
is using a 3.5” drive in a current build.
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@izzion said in Review/validate my work PC build:
a 3.5” drive
Well, one comes in damn handy if you're still working with legacy equipment that was last upgraded in the '90s because the company is too cheap to replace them since they're still working and still have acceptable performance.
Let's not mention that they're ticking time bomb what with the dying capacitors just waiting to explode, the leaky RTC batteries, and of course the complete inability to source reliable replacement parts.... they're still working for now.
So the presence of the drive is explicable, even if the situation that requires it is undesireable.
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I've had a look through Corsair's cases and I'm leaning towards the 500D, since it has rear-mounted HDDs, a dust filter for the top exhaust and sensibly-positioned front IO. The one downside is the lack of optical drive bays, but I could probably live without them.
The 650D has a top dust filter and optical drive bays, but the front IO ports are behind a flip-down cover. I have a small Bluetooth dongle plugged into one of my front USB ports at all times so I can use my headphones (it didn't work as well plugged into a rear port); I'm not sure whether or not this would fit (and work well) with the cover closed.
None of the other cases I shortlisted had top dust filters, which is a drawback as my computer and desk tend to get quite dusty.
I didn't particularly want any of the super-flashy LED cases or any of the fat high-airflow cases (I only have room for a standard mid-tower).
I'm probably going to buy this all fairly soon so I have a proper computer once more.
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@Choonster said in Review/validate my work PC build:
behind a flip-down cover.
You can always break that off...
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@dcon said in Review/validate my work PC build:
@Choonster said in Review/validate my work PC build:
behind a flip-down cover.
You
canalways break that off...ftfy.
if not on purpose then eventually by accident.
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@Choonster said in Review/validate my work PC build:
None of the other cases I shortlisted had top dust filters, which is a drawback as my computer and desk tend to get quite dusty.
It'd need to get super dusty for the lack of a filter on the exhaust to be an issue IMO.
edit: the 500D and 650D are both good cases though so guess it's
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I'm trying to buy this now, but the PSU I chose before isn't in stock. Of these PSUs (excluding the 420W one), which would you guys recommend?
I'm looking at the AU$139 - AU$149 range. I'm leaning towards SilverStone or Antec.
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These are the parts I've decided on. I'm going to place the order in the morning (a few hours from now).
I decided to buy 2x 140mm and 3x 120mm (technically 4x, they come in pairs) Corsair fans for the top and front of the case, respectively. This required a different motherboard as the ASRock one didn't have enough case fan connectors; the MSI one is the next cheapest one and has exactly enough (the cooler fans occupying the rear slot use the CPU fan connector).
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@Choonster Why not get the Corsair H100i which has a 240mm radiator and have it at the top?
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@loopback0 Thanks, I switched out the H80i and the two 140mm fans for the H100i.
I was trying to avoid LED-lit parts, but the only H100i model in stock at Mwave was the PLATINUM RGB (which has RGB LEDs), so I went with that.
This is the final parts list, I've now placed the order. I'm having someone pick it up later today, so I should be building it tonight.
Thanks for the help.
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I've spent a big chunk of the weekend building the PC and I've now got pretty much everything in place and connected.
Everything seemed to work when I hooked it up to the power and turned it on (see video below), though I didn't have a spare monitor to test with and didn't feel like moving my main monitor from my desk.
The only problem I have now is trying to fit all of the cables into the case's cable management tube:
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I managed to fit the cables into the cable management tube today (though I had to push down on it a bit to get it in place) and close both side panels once again.
When I went to plug in a USB keyboard and mouse, it looked like I'd managed to get the IO shield's alignment pins inside the USB ports, much like I did for the HDMI port on my work PC build (though I was still able to plug in the keyboard and mouse).
Thinking I'd messed up, I removed the three expansion cards (which luckily didn't involve any rewiring), unscrewed the motherboard from the case and moved it over a bit to try and reseat it. It was then that I realised those weren't pins from the IO shield, they were actually part of the USB ports (and I'd wasted a bunch of time).
I then put the motherboard back in place and screwed it in (though the top left screw was quite annoying to replace as it was partially obscured by the CPU cooler's water tubes and the CPU power cable). While reinstalling the graphics card, I managed to drop one of the thumbscrews inside it about 5 times.
The case fans were very loud initially, but I managed to find the fan settings in UEFI and enable PWM and smart mode (fan speed depends on CPU temperature); after which they quieted down a lot.
I've installed Windows on the new M.2 SSD and I'm currently copying everything off my old SSD so I can wipe it and only have one Windows install.
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The new computer is up and running and it's working well, except that the graphics card might be dying, which means that I'm in the market for a new one.
I'd probably buy from Mwave again (unless there's another site with a better deal) and I'd be looking to spend about AU$500 or so max.
I'm currently using a slightly different model of this Asus GeForce GTX 970.
Would you guys recommend Nvidia or AMD? Are there any brands in particular that you'd recommend (ASUS, MSI, etc.)?
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@Choonster said in Review/validate my work PC build:
Would you guys recommend Nvidia or AMD? Are there any brands in particular that you'd recommend (ASUS, MSI, etc.)?
I've been sticking with nVidia for a while, When we had a LAN pit I bought a mix of cards, but I had really bad luck with the Radeon cards/drivers leading up to and throughout the Catalyst era. Without the pit we weren't upgrading computers that often, so I just dropped them. Hopefully things have improved in the last few years.
As far as brands go I've had good luck with eVGA cards. I would have gotten another one of theirs when I moved up to the 10xx series, but I need two dual link DVI connectors for my unusual monitors and the only one I could find was a Gigabyte 1060. So far it's been fine compared to my 570, but I'm not looking forward to having to get new monitors the next time I want a new video card. :(
I used to buy parts from the US version of MWave, back before NewEgg came in and outdid everyone for a long time.
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@Parody said in Review/validate my work PC build:
I'm not looking forward to having to get new monitors the next time I want a new video card. :(
Adapters are things.
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@loopback0 said in Review/validate my work PC build:
@Parody said in Review/validate my work PC build:
I'm not looking forward to having to get new monitors the next time I want a new video card. :(
Adapters are things.
...that historically have been expensive enough when trying to go HDMI->Dual-Link DVI that I might as well get new monitors. Poking around it looks like DisplayPort->Dual-Link DVI prices may have come down finally (if they're not just lying about supported resolutions). It doesn't help that video card prices have been so crazy the last few years. :(
We'll see in, oh, 2021 or so. Maybe we'll have a couple more standards by then.
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I've decided to up my budget a bit and I'm looking at either the EVGA RTX 2060 SUPER XC ULTRA ($800 from Mwave) or the EVGA RTX 2070 XC ULTRA (non-Super, $875 with delivery from Amazon).
It looks like the non-Super 2070 has better specs than the Super 2060. Does this seem accurate?
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@Choonster said in Review/validate my work PC build:
It looks like the non-Super 2070 has better specs than the Super 2060. Does this seem accurate?
Yes. Looking at the reference card models, it looks like NVidia has basically further stratified their chipset model numbers so there's more breakpoints depending on how much of the chip tests as functional.
Of course, they're all basically the same chip underneath the hood, but hey
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I've been building a spreadsheet of prices all day today, I'm thinking I'll go with the RTX 2070 Super FTW3 Ultra ($978 from PBTech); but I've still got a couple of stores to look at.
I've only included the top-end EVGA XC/FTW models starting with the 2060 Super.
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@Choonster said in Review/validate my work PC build:
I've been building a spreadsheet of prices all day today, I'm thinking I'll go with the RTX 2070 Super FTW3 Ultra ($978 from PBTech); but I've still got a couple of stores to look at.
I've only included the top-end EVGA XC/FTW models starting with the 2060 Super.
I ended up buying the RTX 2070 FTW3 Ulra. The Ulra+ version was only available from Newegg in the US, none of the Australian stores I looked at had it yet. It also would have cost about $100 more.
I saw some bad reviews for PBTech online and it looks like they probably ship from New Zealand despite having an Australian store, so I decided to go with Centre Com (the second cheapest option for this model). Once I got to the Centre Com checkout, I saw that they were going to charge $20 for shipping, $10 for freight insurance and $12 for paying with PayPal; which all seemed a bit much.
I then decided to go with the third cheapest option, which turned out to be Mwave. They only charged $13 for shipping (probably because they're in Sydney rather than Melbourne like Centre Com), $6 for freight insurance and $10 for paying with PayPal. I had just over $6 of credit earned from my previous order, so that paid for the freight insurance.
I chose express courier shipping, so it should hopefully arrive on Monday or Tuesday.
