5150 III - Time for a new computer

I have an ASROCK X570 that has been pretty solid. The only issue I've had is that I needed to manually set the chipset fan to kick in at a higher temperature.

I'd go for the Noctua. It's quiet and you have one less thing to worry about maintenance wise.
 
My MSI mobo has been fine. I have also been told by someone who deals with weird shit for a living that you should just buy the Gigabyte Mobo that has the features you want. UEFI will be fine, especially if you will be doing little overclocking. I have already presented my preference for air cooling.
 
 
Yeah I've been watching Linus, GN, Jayztwocents, and the like since I made the decision to build a new system awhile ago. Apparently that Steam credit offer from MSI doesn't apply to the US, it's not listed on the page for it at the very least, so I'll just keep biding my time to see how things shake out.

I've seen the rumor that the next gen Nvidia and AMD cards could be hitting shelves as early as September, and once again I see two paths I could take. Say fuck it and just take the plunge now, assuming I can actually get my hands on parts, because I REALLY want to play Fallout 4 or bide my time and see how things shake out with prices when the new hardware comes out.

I do not want to spend much more than $300 on a gfx card, but if AMD has something that can really compete and it's in the $400 range I might be able to justify it. I wish I had a crystal ball so I knew exactly what is going to happen.
 
How about an update?

I've more or less finalized the parts list after all this time.

3700X
Noctua NH D15 Black
Asus B550 ROG Strix
2x8 gig 3600mhz G Skill Ripjaws V
1TB WD SN750 SSD
AMD 5700 XT*
650w Corsair Power Supply*

If I mentioned this on a previous page, blame it on me having a senior moment, but it turns out there's a Micro Center here in town. And I didn't know that they used CPU's and motherboards as loss leaders to get you into the store. They sell the 3700X for $20 less than you can get it anywhere online and you can save another $20 if you bundle it with a mobo, or at least that's how I'm reading things. So yay.

As for the GPU, all of the cheap 5700's have vanished, currently they're priced just as high or higher than the XT version. So as I said before I may just have to sit on things and see what Nvidia and AMD trot out next month. I had hoped maybe the 2080's would become reasonable but they've already been taken out of production and I don't trust used hardware. I'm hoping AMD doesn't do the same before they launch Big Navi, this expecting people to pay $500-1200 for a GPU is fucking insanity.

Power supplies are easier to find than they were a few months ago but still on the rare and expensive side, I've got alerts for Corsair and EVGA ones. If I wind up going with a next gen GPU it's possible 650w won't cut it and I'll have to get something even bigger.
 
Parts have been ordered and they're slowly trickling in, I'll take pictures when the pile of goodies is bigger, I've actually been sitting on the new case since the first week of June.
 
The GPU got here a few days ago, I wound up going with the MSI EVOKE OC version of the 5700XT. I know these had issues with their thermals when first released last year but MSI did a revision that added more thermal pads that helped get them under control. If need be I can mount another fan inside the case to have ti blow more air directly on the card.


I went with this variant because it was actually cheaper than most non XT versions are right now, no matter the brand. It also came with two free games, Godfall and some WoW expansion, neither of which I plan to use, so I'll give them away if I can, I think these require hardware verification these days though. I really wish I had been able to get this a few months ago when they were including copies of the Resident Evil 3 remake.

I'm planning to hit up Micro Center this weekend, assuming St. Louis doesn't go into lockdown again (WHICH THEY REALLY FUCKING SHOULD BECAUSE HOLY SHIT), but even then the earliest I could put this together is Monday because the power supply won't be here until then. However the Noctua cooler is out of stock until the middle of the month anyway, so I'll probably resist the urge to assemble everything until then. It will also give me more time to do the case mods I want to do, which might include bringing my old Zalman fan controller out of mothballs (it's still sitting in 5150), it depends on how frisky I'm feeling.
 
I felt the need to talk bit more about the fan controller.

The new case actually has a 6 port fan hub built right into it, but the instructions are a little confusing. If I read them right if I supply it with a single PWM signal off the motherboard, it will then ramp everything plugged into it up or down as its told. In theory that would mean they would speed up when I'm gaming and then slow down if I'm just looking at youtube for example. Basically it will control 3 pin fans as if they were 4 pin.

I'm still planning to have the same number and size of intake and exhaust fans, dual 200's and 140's so the same amount of air goes in and out. But if I can use the fan controller, a big if considering it's a 15+ year old design, then I could just set the intakes to a higher speed vs the exhaust giving me positive pressure and helping to keep the dust out. The downside would be having to literally turn dials every time I wanted to ramp things up for a high demand workload.

The middle ground would be to simply buy PWM fans and plug them directly into the mobo and control things that way, but it's cost prohibitive.
 
The middle ground would be to simply buy PWM fans and plug them directly into the mobo and control things that way, but it's cost prohibitive.

That's what I do. You can gradually replace the fans over time.
 
Well piss.

The Micro Center trip isn't happening this weekend, they're closed so they can deep clean the place because someone there tested positive for covid.
 
Parts have been ordered and they're slowly trickling in, I'll take pictures when the pile of goodies is bigger, I've actually been sitting on the new case since the first week of June.
Congrats on pulling the trigger!
 
After it's up running and stable, we need to break it in good and proper with something other than L4D2.

Bring it to its knees with 500 instances of Progress Quest!
 
Still not exactly a modern Crysis but I’d recommend The Outer Worlds if you’re into that kind of thing. The settings certainly go higher than my machine can handle at UHD resolution.

Available on Xbox PC Game Pass which is itself has a free trial, I played for two months for only £4, almost a shame considering how good the game is.
 
Back when I built 5150, the main gaming benchmarks were Half Life 2, FEAR, and I think Oblivion. If your system could run those maxed out, basically you had built something pretty damn good. There's always 3DMark but I've always felt that's more to be part of a giant dick measuring contest instead of seeing if your tweaks had any appreciable gains.

I do plan to see if I can get some more performance with Ryzen Master and Afterburner, but I'm not going to push it to the redline in the quest for bragging rights. Shadow Of The Tomb Raider seems to be one of the modern game benchmarks a lot of people use along with Far Cry 5, the latter of which I bought last month in preparation for 5150 III.
 
With the exception of the CPU and motherboard, I have everything I need either on hand or it will be here within the next few days. The Noctua NHD15 came back in stock early and it's already shipped so I won't have to postpone things as long as I originally feared.

I haven't had time to start fabricating the aluminum panels yet, I've had a few other repair projects take priority, but I do have the sheet metal on hand. I really miss Walmart not being open 24-7 because I need poster board to make templates and the only way you're getting out of there in any reasonable amount of time is if you go when they first open at 7.

I'm not sure exactly when I'll be able to get to Micro Center, between covid shutting things down every couple of days and human stupidity getting worse the further west of the river you travel.
 
So I just got my first ever in person view of an M.2 SSD and holy jumping fucking shitballs, I knew they were tiny but I had no idea they were THIS tiny. I was expecting something to have the footprint of like a couple 9v batteries, not a stick of gum. God damn technology has come a long way.
 
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I had the same feeling when I grabbed an SSD and realized it weighs nothing.
 
I'm being forced to abandon the whole custom aluminum panel mod I wanted to do. If I had more time and patience, along with thinner metal, I could build exactly what I want. But as is, it's just biting off more than I can chew right now. So I'm switching to Plan B which is painting it instead. I've got a lot more experience painting than I do with metal fab, so worst case scenario if this doesn't turn out how I like I just strip it and start over.
 
It doesn't show in the pictures, but I was able to preserve the fake brushed metal texture the plastic bezels have, I was worried I'd have to spray on so many coats to hide the black that all the detail would be filled in. Also they may look like an arctic blue but in reality they're very much a silver/aluminum color, the camera in my phone sucks donkey balls.

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Tomorrow I'll hit them with a coat or two of flat clear for protection and then let them bake in the sun for a few days which will in theory help the solvents evaporate and speed up the off gassing. If anyone is curious I used Krylon Fusion, I'd recommend Krylon over Rustoleum if you can find it.

I did some research on my Zalman fan controller and it's going to be a no go, it's maximum rated power draw is 7w. The 200mm fans I bought draw 2.4w each and I think the 140's draw 1.9w. I may pick up a new one when i go to Micro Center, I may see if I can just control them through software, I may just plug them into the fan hub, dunno yet.

I pulled the 120mm exhaust fan out of 5150 and it will be mounted in 5150 III to the hard drive cage so it can blow over the GPU and SSD, assuming they line up right. I also yanked out a few other things like fan extension cables, SATA to Molex, just anything I might need when setting up the new case.
 
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