This is agony, but still fun

tenpinmark · 31 Jan 2020 at 13:50

I'm looking to build my new daily driver PC which must be able to do it all - gaming, photography, video, Virtual Machines - you name it, it must be able to do it.

My current machine is a very old Intel i7-980X which has served me very, very well and apart from a couple of GPU upgrades has never really missed a beat - until recently. It started to suffer from temperature issues which I managed to fathom out was due to the thermal paste being dried/worn out. I replaced the air cooler for an AIO and although the temps have remained stable, ever since then I get random machine lockups which is not great.

Anyhow, onto the replacement which is where I can do with some help.

For the time being, I will transplant my GTX980Ti and a couple of SAMSUNG 1TB SSDs I have from the old system to the new one. I will be looking to get at least a 2080Ti in the future and when that happens, I will go with water cooling. To be honest though, I like the lower maintenance of air cooling.

Where do I need help? Well, this will still need air cooling and not sure which cooler to go for - my default would be the Noctua range but open to suggestions – Maybe something like the NH-D15 dual rad?

Also, for case fans - OK, so RGB it is and I will put some 9 fans into this case to make it cool and glow, but I'm concerned that with this many it will be quite loud - any suggestions as to what I should be looking at here?

My basket without cooling at Overclockers UK:

1 x 8 Pack 3950X Bundle - AMD 3950X, Asus ROG HERO, Corsair 64GB 3600MHz Bundle= £1,373.94
1 x Lian-Li PC-O11 Dynamic Midi-Tower - White Window= £119.99
1 x Corsair Force MP600 series 1TB NVMe PCIe Gen4 M.2 Solid State Drive (CSSD-F1000GBMP600)= £229.99
1 x Seasonic Snow Silent 750W '80 Plus Platinum' Modular Power Supply - White= £169.99
1 x BitFenix Alchemy 2.0 PSU Cable Kit, SSC/XFX-Series - White= £74.99

Total: £1,983.60 (includes shipping: £14.70)

hominid · 31 Jan 2020 at 15:57

In modern bioses you can adjust the fan speeds so they idle at something like 200-300RPM then only ramp up when temps get hotter. You can also assign all the fans to one temperature sensor, for instance CPU temp, and only to speed up when that gets hot - so fan noise won't be an issue.

I'm not a fan of water cooling, I have a D15 on an old AMD 1700x an it's fine for that, but looking at your colour scheme take a look at this:
My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x Enermax LiqTech II 360 RGB CPU Water Cooler White Edition - 360mm= £149.99

Total: £158.69 (includes shipping: £8.70)

I don't endorse this cooler but it matches your white RGB look, and it'll fit in your case just fine - If it was me I'd still go D15 air cooler. You could also look at the BeQuiet Dark Rock 4 coolers, I have one on my old 2600k machine and it's never given me a problem, more stealthy, as much as a massive cooler can be given it's black, but they are about the same price as the noctuas these days..

tenpinmark · 31 Jan 2020 at 16:47

Thanks for the reply Hominid - food for thought there.

I was looking at a white and black colour scheme - even to the point that I was thinking of painting the fan cases white if needed. I'm not the biggest lover of AIOs with all that pipe hanging all over the place. The Noctua, although is brown and therefore not with the colour scheme comes wiht a long hertitage of being a decent cooler I think.

With regards to fans, I was thinking about using Thermaltake or Corsair fans (and seeing as I use Corsair keyboards maybe that is the better choice) but don't know how they are controlled.

tenpinmark · 31 Jan 2020 at 17:09

tenpinmark said:
With regards to fans, I was thinking about using Thermaltake or Corsair fans (and seeing as I use Corsair keyboards maybe that is the better choice) but don't know how they are controlled.

I've seen these fans from Corsair - any good?

3 x Corsair LL120 RGB, 120mm Dual Light Loop RGB LED PWM Fan, 3 Fan Pack with Lighting Node - White

Reasons for selecting are

They are white
They are from Corsiar and thus use the same RGB software as per my keyboard and mouse
They are white
I can just buy two of the packs and three additional singles to save a few pounds it seems.
They come in white

Zeonixx · 31 Jan 2020 at 22:42

I have heard good things about the LL120's on quality and performance. The only real downside for them is the higher price than other brands offer on white fans.