PC Building Guide and Discussion #14

[Osprey]

CPU Cooler: TBD (Wraith Stealth for now)

I'm happy with my Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition on my 5600X. Idle temp is 42C and peak temp during stress testing is 82C (with power limits set to "Motherboard" and utilizing Curve Optimizer). Even when it's running full bore (which isn't often), it's not obnoxiously loud or anything, maybe like a desk fan on medium. I recommend it, especially for the price (~$40).

 

[Drake1588]

It has taken months, but I finally have the final part to add to my new gaming rig.

• Gigabyte x570 AORUS Elite mobo
• 32GB 3600MHz G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series (4 x 8GB)
• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X Zen3 CPU
  
• ZOTAC nVidia 3080 TI AMP Holo 12GB OC GPU
• Corsair iCUE H100i RGB Pro XT AIO, with a top-mounted 240mm radiator and 2 x 120mm ML series exhaust fans
  
• 850W Corsair RM850X 80 Plus Gold PSU
  
• Sound Blaster Zx with desktop audio control module
  
• 2TB Samsung 980 Pro M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen4 SSD
  
• 2TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen3 SSD
  
• 2 x 6TB WD Black 3.5" hard drives
• Phanteks Enthoo Pro M case (white interior)
• 2 x be quiet! BL040 Pure Wings 2 140mm PWM Case Fans (front-mounted intakes)
  
• LG Super Multi Blue 16x Blu-ray Disc Rewriter
• As little RGB as possible

I just managed to source a Zotac 3080 TI AMP Holo 12GB card. It's not cheap, but I got one directly from the Zotac store for MSRP, which was important to me as I didn't want to support scalpers/resellers.

 

[Tobias Kahun]

Just picked up a 3080.

Might just do a complete new build, memoryexpress has 5800x on for a pretty good price right now.

 

[Leafs at Knight]

Just ordered the rest of my build - got half the parts last year and have been using them, except a GPU. Should be fun looking for a new GPU countless times a day..

 

[PK Cronin]

Not quite PC building, but what desks do you guys use? I'm looking for a new setup and am really struggling to find what I want (might need to have it custom made).

 

[mouser]

Not quite PC building, but what desks do you guys use? I'm looking for a new setup and am really struggling to find what I want (might need to have it custom made).

Are you looking for a simple 3-4' computer desk, or something more complex? e.g. In my home office I have a bunch of Bush modular desk units that work out to a 7' by 8' L shaped working area.

Looks something like this:
84"W x 84"D Corner Desk with Assembled 3 Drawer Mobile File Cabinet SRA041HCSU by Bush Furniture - 1-800-508-2890 - Free Shipping - Bush Furniture 2go.com

 

[PK Cronin]

Are you looking for a simple 3-4' computer desk, or something more complex? e.g. In my home office I have a bunch of Bush modular desk units that work out to a 7' by 8' L shaped working area.

Looks something like this:
84"W x 84"D Corner Desk with Assembled 3 Drawer Mobile File Cabinet SRA041HCSU by Bush Furniture - 1-800-508-2890 - Free Shipping - Bush Furniture 2go.com

Ikea's Idasen model desk is pretty much what I'm looking for, but much longer. The problem is when it gets too long there is sag in the middle so every desk I look at has legs there that would get in the way. I don't really want any cabinets or drawers, just open. It even looks like I could take the legs and re-use them for something longer if I did make it myself but I don't see anywhere to buy just them.

I have three 24" monitors in my setup and am looking to set up another station directly next to me on the same desk.

 

[mouser]

Ikea's Idasen model desk is pretty much what I'm looking for, but much longer. The problem is when it gets too long there is sag in the middle so every desk I look at has legs there that would get in the way. I don't really want any cabinets or drawers, just open. It even looks like I could take the legs and re-use them for something longer if I did make it myself but I don't see anywhere to buy just them.

I have three 24" monitors in my setup and am looking to set up another station directly next to me on the same desk.

I assume you're going to have a difficult time finding anything over 72", that seems to be about the max standard size most companies make.

There are definitely some companies out there making larger stuff. For example here's one company local to me that does up to 12' desks with what are supposedly heavy duty supports. I don't have any experience with their products though.

Shop Executive Desks and Office Furniture in Custom Sizes and Styles, Unique to your Workspace. — Northern Spy

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

The Idasen is what I'm using right now and I love it. Absolutely amazing desk.

 

[Osprey]

Ikea's Idasen model desk is pretty much what I'm looking for, but much longer.

The Idasen is what I'm using right now and I love it. Absolutely amazing desk.

Height-adjustable desks? Mind blown. What will those crazy Swedes think of next?

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

It's height adjustable in terms of manually moving screws up and down (at least for mine), but it's nice.

 

[PK Cronin]

I assume you're going to have a difficult time finding anything over 72", that seems to be about the max standard size most companies make.

There are definitely some companies out there making larger stuff. For example here's one company local to me that does up to 12' desks with what are supposedly heavy duty supports. I don't have any experience with their products though.

Shop Executive Desks and Office Furniture in Custom Sizes and Styles, Unique to your Workspace. — Northern Spy

Thanks for that link, the T shaped one is really interesting and not something I considered for my space before but will now.

The Idasen is what I'm using right now and I love it. Absolutely amazing desk.

The build quality is good and it's not wobbly? Some Ikea stuff is pretty meh so I'm always hesitant. I love the way it looks though.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Thanks for that link, the T shaped one is really interesting and not something I considered for my space before but will now.



The build quality is good and it's not wobbly? Some Ikea stuff is pretty meh so I'm always hesitant. I love the way it looks though.

No wobble of any kind. Heavy duty steel legs and frame with a solid wood desk top (or at least as solid as you would want it).

 

[Osprey]

Creator of the Verge's infamous PC building video revisits where it all went wrong



I recall us having a few chuckles at the original video a few years ago. Credit to the guy for re-visiting the build with Linus and owning his mistakes. I found it funny that Linus made his fair share of mistakes in this video, as well, proving that we all make them.

 

[aleshemsky83]

I finally replaced my MX anywhere 2S mouse with a gaming mouse. It's an amazing productivity mouse but it's only like 1000 dpi on the normal setting, the manual claims you can turn it up to 6000 but when I do that it just blasts up the cursor speed forcing me to manually slow the cursor speed in Windows, even then I doubt it's really what it claims.

Anyways I'm rambling, my point. I bought the razer deathadder v2 from best buy. It feels a thousand times better much easier not to overshoot the target in fpses. The only problem: it feels like a cheap piece of plastic crap. I feel like I'm the antithesis of gamers when it comes to mice. I like hefty feeling mice and I like gloss plastic. Something that like no gaming mice do.

 

[aleshemsky83]

For those interested you can install the valley of the ancient tech demo that they showed recently (as in like a year ago) for PS5.

Valley of the Ancient Sample

Keep in mind, you need 32 GB of ram and an 8 GB graphics card or it will crash and you'll have downloaded 200GB of data for nothing. Not talking from experience at all.

 

[guinness]

For those interested you can install the valley of the ancient tech demo that they showed recently (as in like a year ago) for PS5.

Valley of the Ancient Sample

Keep in mind, you need 32 GB of ram and an 8 GB graphics card or it will crash and you'll have downloaded 200GB of data for nothing. Not talking from experience at all.

Don't have a modern PC like that, but it's also a bit weird, where I can go "wow, that's some complex looking light effects/rendering!", but also "it's a bunch of rocks".

And in half a decade, my phone or tablet will run this.

 

[Hammettf2b]

I'm looking for a particular splitter.
My setup is as follows...
Series X
PS5
LG CX
Gigabyte M32U.
I'm looking for a splitter that will be able to connect both systems to the tv and monitor but also still be able to run at 4k 120hz. Is this even possible? I've done this in the past with previous systems with 1080p and it worked great. Both screens were able to be turned on at the same time showing the same feed. I'm very new to all this. Anyone have any experience with this?

 

[Legionnaire]

Gearing up for my black Friday cyber Monday build. 5950x yay or nay? All purpose workstation. Mostly for work and audio. VMs, coding, security, nix, apache. High cpu use vsts like Diva. Daws.

 

[God King Fudge]

Can someone tell me what temps are acceptable for idle/load?

I bit the bullet and bought myself a beefy PC (for me at least. 3080 and I9-10900K) as a divorce present and I feel like it's running pretty hot. The CPU is OCed to 4.9GHZ.

It idles around 50 and under load for like WoW and REVillage, it hits mid-high 70s but for Control at max with max RT settings it pushes mid to high 80's. Should I be concerned about these temps or is it reasonable?

 

[SniperHF]

Can someone tell me what temps are acceptable for idle/load?

I bit the bullet and bought myself a beefy PC (for me at least. 3080 and I9-10900K) as a divorce present and I feel like it's running pretty hot. The CPU is OCed to 4.9GHZ.

It idles around 50 and under load for like WoW and REVillage, it hits mid-high 70s but for Control at max with max RT settings it pushes mid to high 80's. Should I be concerned about these temps or is it reasonable?

Doesn't seem that high.

If you're coming from old gen tech, particularly anything prior to DDR4, the new stuff just runs hotter.

 

[guinness]

Gearing up for my black Friday cyber Monday build. 5950x yay or nay? All purpose workstation. Mostly for work and audio. VMs, coding, security, nix, apache. High cpu use vsts like Diva. Daws.

CPU seems fine. I'm assuming you'll be doing at least 16/32 GB RAM, SSD/NVMe whatevers as well.

GPU needs don't sound that important.

 

[Legionnaire]

CPU seems fine. I'm assuming you'll be doing at least 16/32 GB RAM, SSD/NVMe whatevers as well.

GPU needs don't sound that important.

Thank you.

Yep. Low noise. 64 probably.

Some graphics. Guis and such. No harcore gaming. FPS not a big deal. Needs to run at least three monitors. That's been the hardest to find.

Temp is main query at that point. Aio vs heatsink.

 

[Osprey]

Can someone tell me what temps are acceptable for idle/load?

I bit the bullet and bought myself a beefy PC (for me at least. 3080 and I9-10900K) as a divorce present and I feel like it's running pretty hot. The CPU is OCed to 4.9GHZ.

It idles around 50 and under load for like WoW and REVillage, it hits mid-high 70s but for Control at max with max RT settings it pushes mid to high 80's. Should I be concerned about these temps or is it reasonable?

Are you talking about CPU or GPU temps? Either way, that's a bit too high during gaming. While doing CPU-intensive stuff, it could get that high, as the above graph suggests, but games aren't CPU intensive because the GPU does the heavy lifting. The CPU shouldn't be getting that hot during gaming.

If you're talking about the GPU, that can be expected to reach 80C, but I wouldn't want it going much higher. I'm not sure about the 3080, but the 3070 FE (which I have) starts to throttle at 83C. If Nvidia, itself, thinks that the card shouldn't go above 83C, then I'd say that anything higher is not good. Have you overclocked that any (including increasing the power limit)? If so, I would undo it and test again. You could always undervolt it to make it run cooler, but, like the CPU, if it's running that hot, there could be a problem.

Something also to try is to take the side or cover off of the case and test again. If it runs much cooler, then the problem could be with the airflow in the case. Whoever built it for you may've screwed up by using a poorly designed case or not connecting the case fans or something. If you take the sides off, run the CPU and GPU at stock (non-OCed) settings and you're still seeing the high temps, then whichever component is overheating may not have been assembled or installed properly (ex. a problem with the thermal paste/pads).

 

[guinness]

Thank you.

Yep. Low noise. 64 probably.

Some graphics. Guis and such. No harcore gaming. FPS not a big deal. Needs to run at least three monitors. That's been the hardest to find.

Temp is main query at that point. Aio vs heatsink.

I have a Noctua NH-U12S on my i5-6600k - I've used it on my old i5-750 as well. I think it's good, does handle overclocking temps well, but spendy for a heatsink/fan. I think the Cooler Master Hyper 212 is also very popular with builds.

For the rest of the cooling, it may depend on the case. I have a Phanteks Enthoo, and it has a 200 mm fan in the front, but I've seen many cases that just have all fans in the front, because many people don't use optical drives anymore.