Thought I’d document my triumphs and failings of building a new PC (with photos)!
I’m currently rocking a 5950x and a 3090 in a Lian Li OD-XL case, which was the first PC I ever built myself, but I was never really ‘that’ satisfied with the setup. I used an NZXT Kraken AIO and I found using all the wiring and software for this a bit of a faff. The case itself was a little noisy, probably too many fans on the go but no dampening, plus lots of the knobs broke or didn’t fit together so well. So-so build quality etc…
That informs my new choices for a 9800X3D and (eventually a) 5090 build:
- less fans but good airflow
- no AIO… air cooling
- a nicer case with some sound proofing if possible.
This is what I’ve landed with (some parts still arriving):
- Be Quiet! Dark Base Pro 901
- 9800X3D cpu (obvs)
- Asrock 870E Nova motherboard
- Noctua NH-D15 G2 LBC cooler
- Gskill 6000 CL28 ram
- 6x Noctua 140mm NF-A14x25 G2s (!)
- WD SN850X 4TB M2 storage
- NZXT C1500 ATX 3.1 PSU (which has 2x native 12V-2x6 slots… just in case!)
… so that’s a whopping 8 fans… oh my! It might not be very colour coordinated with all the brown plus the purple / blue highlights of the motherboard, but we’ll see
Here’s my initial gathering of bits and assembly. Two fans already in place.
The case is absolute lovely - totally different league to the Lian Li. I have no doubts that this was the right choice (I’m even more sure of this now, @GordyR !).
At the top there is space for 3x 140 fans but I’m just going with one, leaving sound proofing in place:
At the front, there’s room for 3 x 140 fans… plus an additional one at the bottom. So that’s where the other 4 are going:
^I quite like that angled vent thing, which should help push the air towards the GPU.
The overall aim then is front/bottom intake with rear/top exhaust. I think this will work well.
It’s not been without faff though, just getting those two fans on… I wanted to go screwless if possible but unfortunately getting the rubber mounts to work was impossible because of the metal in the way of the right handed screws. I actually had to remove the motherboard tray, install the fan, then put the tray back in. Here’s the offending piece of metal:
The other fans are still out because I’ve ordered some ‘NA-IS1-14 Sx2’ mounts to help reduce the noise on the intakes - looking forward to seeing how these work.
No pretty photos yet because my desk is a dump, but I’ll update the thread as other bits land and the build continues next weekend… wish me luck
I’m currently rocking a 5950x and a 3090 in a Lian Li OD-XL case, which was the first PC I ever built myself, but I was never really ‘that’ satisfied with the setup. I used an NZXT Kraken AIO and I found using all the wiring and software for this a bit of a faff. The case itself was a little noisy, probably too many fans on the go but no dampening, plus lots of the knobs broke or didn’t fit together so well. So-so build quality etc…
That informs my new choices for a 9800X3D and (eventually a) 5090 build:
- less fans but good airflow
- no AIO… air cooling
- a nicer case with some sound proofing if possible.
This is what I’ve landed with (some parts still arriving):
- Be Quiet! Dark Base Pro 901
- 9800X3D cpu (obvs)
- Asrock 870E Nova motherboard
- Noctua NH-D15 G2 LBC cooler
- Gskill 6000 CL28 ram
- 6x Noctua 140mm NF-A14x25 G2s (!)
- WD SN850X 4TB M2 storage
- NZXT C1500 ATX 3.1 PSU (which has 2x native 12V-2x6 slots… just in case!)
… so that’s a whopping 8 fans… oh my! It might not be very colour coordinated with all the brown plus the purple / blue highlights of the motherboard, but we’ll see
Here’s my initial gathering of bits and assembly. Two fans already in place.
The case is absolute lovely - totally different league to the Lian Li. I have no doubts that this was the right choice (I’m even more sure of this now, @GordyR !).
At the top there is space for 3x 140 fans but I’m just going with one, leaving sound proofing in place:
At the front, there’s room for 3 x 140 fans… plus an additional one at the bottom. So that’s where the other 4 are going:
^I quite like that angled vent thing, which should help push the air towards the GPU.
The overall aim then is front/bottom intake with rear/top exhaust. I think this will work well.
It’s not been without faff though, just getting those two fans on… I wanted to go screwless if possible but unfortunately getting the rubber mounts to work was impossible because of the metal in the way of the right handed screws. I actually had to remove the motherboard tray, install the fan, then put the tray back in. Here’s the offending piece of metal:
The other fans are still out because I’ve ordered some ‘NA-IS1-14 Sx2’ mounts to help reduce the noise on the intakes - looking forward to seeing how these work.
No pretty photos yet because my desk is a dump, but I’ll update the thread as other bits land and the build continues next weekend… wish me luck
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or is it just on my end 
