Associate
Hi All,
It's been 6 years since I built my last PC, so I figured now was the time to update it.
To be honest, the main impetus was the release of Half Life: Alyx, which my current rig struggles with combined with being in lockdown. I also do quite a bit of video work, which was taking forever with my lowly 4790K and 980Ti setup.
I've spent the last couple of weeks researching where both Intel and AMD are at currently, and decided to build my first team red PC for about 22 years (last was a K6-2 system).
At the moment, I'm just waiting for various components to arrive, but the manifest looks like this:
Ryzen 3950X
ASUS X570 Crosshair VIII Hero (WiFi) - did consider the Aorus Master, but a) couldn't find any stock and b) wanted more USB.
4x8GB 8-Pack DDR4-3600
Gigabyte RTX 2080 OC Gaming
Fractal Define 7 XL case
Fractal S36 AIO (with Noctua NF-A12x25 fans) - I plan to repurpose the Fractal fans in other areas of the case.
Seasonic Prime TX-1000 PSU
Sabrent Rocket 1TB NVMe 4 SSD (with Sabrent heatsink)
Sabrent Rocket 2TB NVMe SSD
2 x 1TB Samsung 960 Evo SATA SSD (RAID 0)
Crucial 1TB BX500 SATA SSD
LG WH16NS60 Blu-Ray writer
Some sort of large capacity spinning rust drive (just waiting for a deal on a 12 or 14TB)
The main reason for going with the Define 7 XL was to be able to include an optical drive and a 360mm radiator.
I've always loved the Fractal cases, as I like the minimalist approach and don't care too much about RGB lighting.
Right now, I'm just trying to work out the best layout for the cooling. There seems to be a huge amount of discussion concerning push/pull, top mounted/front mounted, if your GPU is a blower style or open case fan design etc., etc.
I think the only way I'll know which is best is to try it out. Currently, I'm favouring front mounted radiator with fans in push, 2 x 140mm pull fans in the top, 1 x 140mm pull in the rear and 2 x 120mm push fans in the base. Postitive (or at least neutral) pressure is my current goal. Would appreciate people's thoughts on this, though.
Once all the components have arrived (come on OCUK, I'm looking at you
), I'll post another update with some pics.
Andy.
It's been 6 years since I built my last PC, so I figured now was the time to update it.
To be honest, the main impetus was the release of Half Life: Alyx, which my current rig struggles with combined with being in lockdown. I also do quite a bit of video work, which was taking forever with my lowly 4790K and 980Ti setup.
I've spent the last couple of weeks researching where both Intel and AMD are at currently, and decided to build my first team red PC for about 22 years (last was a K6-2 system).
At the moment, I'm just waiting for various components to arrive, but the manifest looks like this:
Ryzen 3950X
ASUS X570 Crosshair VIII Hero (WiFi) - did consider the Aorus Master, but a) couldn't find any stock and b) wanted more USB.
4x8GB 8-Pack DDR4-3600
Gigabyte RTX 2080 OC Gaming
Fractal Define 7 XL case
Fractal S36 AIO (with Noctua NF-A12x25 fans) - I plan to repurpose the Fractal fans in other areas of the case.
Seasonic Prime TX-1000 PSU
Sabrent Rocket 1TB NVMe 4 SSD (with Sabrent heatsink)
Sabrent Rocket 2TB NVMe SSD
2 x 1TB Samsung 960 Evo SATA SSD (RAID 0)
Crucial 1TB BX500 SATA SSD
LG WH16NS60 Blu-Ray writer
Some sort of large capacity spinning rust drive (just waiting for a deal on a 12 or 14TB)
The main reason for going with the Define 7 XL was to be able to include an optical drive and a 360mm radiator.
I've always loved the Fractal cases, as I like the minimalist approach and don't care too much about RGB lighting.
Right now, I'm just trying to work out the best layout for the cooling. There seems to be a huge amount of discussion concerning push/pull, top mounted/front mounted, if your GPU is a blower style or open case fan design etc., etc.
I think the only way I'll know which is best is to try it out. Currently, I'm favouring front mounted radiator with fans in push, 2 x 140mm pull fans in the top, 1 x 140mm pull in the rear and 2 x 120mm push fans in the base. Postitive (or at least neutral) pressure is my current goal. Would appreciate people's thoughts on this, though.
Once all the components have arrived (come on OCUK, I'm looking at you
), I'll post another update with some pics. Andy.
