Old Gamer - New Rig

[Amayacitta]

Hey guys, I'm an old gamer from around 20 years ago, way out of touch now! I'm hoping those with more experience can offer some input on a new rig. I'm wanting something pretty small as I'd ideally like to be able to move it about a bit. The plan will be to have it run Half-life Alyx.

Here is what I'm thinking, there is not a lot of room in one of these cases. I'm aware an upgrade in the future may not be possible without changing the case, I don't think a RTX 3090 for example would fit. My plan is to get a NVIDIA RTX 3070 Founders Edition as I believe its 242 mm which should fit.

Not 100% sure about the PSU, I think the case takes a standard ATX power supply, having a modular ones makes things a little neater. I think 650w is what's recommended from NVIDIA.

I think the only compromise with such a tiny motherboard is the memory is 2666mhz but I'm not sure if its going to make that much difference vs 3200Mhz which is what I was looking at with a Micro ATX case.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Asus ROG STRIX B460-I GAMING (Socket LGA 1200) DDR4 Mini-ITX Motherboard= £154.99
• 1 x Intel Core i7-10700K 3.8GHz (Comet Lake) Socket LGA1200 Processor - Retail= £349.99
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-21300C16 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK32GX4M2A2= £119.99
• 1 x be quiet! Dark Rock TF CPU Cooler - 135/135mm= £79.99
• 1 x Jonsbo UMX1+ Black/Window ITX Case= £82.99
• 1 x Bitfenix Whisper M Series 650W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply= £89.99
• 1 x Samsung 980 Pro 250GB M.2 2280 PCI-e 4.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive= £99.95

Total: £990.19 (includes shipping: £12.30)​

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[Amayacitta]

Have you considered one of the new ryzen 5000 CPUs? with a b550i board as these will run cooler and more efficiently and the boards come with full memory overclocking support and will support pcie Gen 4.0 for the samsung 980.

Nice one for the pointer, I had no idea how much AMD had advanced over the years.. ahem decades. The 5600X seems like the way to go. Will take a look at the board and memory suggested.

Ah... 2 rails are 25A, 2 are 30A... still think single 60A+ rail will be belt and braces.

Cheers, will take another look.

 

[Amayacitta]

OK here is my refined kit list based on your feedback, thanks guys.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Six Core 4.6GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £319.99
• 1 x Patriot Viper Steel 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C18 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVS432G360C8K)= £149.99
• 1 x Asrock B550M-ITX/AC (AMD AM4) B550 Mini-ITX Motherboard= £129.95
• 1 x Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive= £158.99
• 1 x be quiet! Dark Rock TF CPU Cooler - 135/135mm= £79.99
• 1 x Jonsbo UMX1+ Black/Window ITX Case= £82.99
• 1 x Corsair RMx Series RMx650 650W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply (CP-9020178-UK)= £104.99

Total: £1,039.19 (includes shipping: £12.30)​

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[Amayacitta]

ok so may go with this, slightly higher than I wanted to pay but its probably worth it. Again cheers for feedback guys.

The case looks pretty cool, has more room than the previous one - ERA-Manual.pdf (fractal-design.com)

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Six Core 4.6GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £319.99
• 1 x Patriot Viper Steel 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C18 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVS432G360C8K)= £149.99
• 1 x Corsair RMx Series RMx650 650W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply (CP-9020178-UK)= £104.99
• 1 x Noctua NH-L9a Chromax Pure Black CPU Cooler - 92mm= £49.99
• 1 x Fractal Design Era Mini-ITX Case - Carbon Tempered Glass= £144.95
• 1 x MSI MPG B550I Gaming Edge WiFi (AMD AM4) B550 Mini-ITX Motherboard= £179.99
• 1 x Corsair Force MP600 series 1TB NVMe PCIe Gen4 M.2 Solid State Drive (CSSD-F1000GBMP600)= £179.99

Total: £1,142.19 (includes shipping: £12.30)​

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[Amayacitta]

Not yet, I'm waiting to be able to order order either a 3070 or 3080.

 

[Amayacitta]

Ta, I hear the 3070 is fine with 650w. If I end up with a 3080 then yep, looks like I really should follow advice and upgrade to 750. Ta again.

Might be a while before I can get hold of one, the prices on eBay are often too bloated.

I’ll also be using the rig for a complex lab environment running many virtual machines etc so want the best possible storage performance.

 

[Amayacitta]

Yeah more cores is definitely better, especially when you poke in lots of nested VM’s - I’ll make do with the 5600x. It should give be plenty of options, only thing I may need more of is RAM. Upping to 64Gb may be required - but that gets pretty pricey!

I’ve got access to some meaty Cisco UCS Blades at work for labs but I tend to also prefer local stuff for convenience.

 

[Amayacitta]

Good shout, looks like the full length GPU blocks the use of the lower 140mm fans. I should be ok to use 2 x 120mm fans on top though.

 

[Amayacitta]

Managed to get a pre-order of a RTX 3070, but the card is too big to fit the case! Back to the drawing board haha, probably gonna have to go Micro-ATX instead, can't find a decent Mini-ITX that will support a 32.3cm card

 

[Amayacitta]

Not sure, my heart was set on a Mini-ITX - just found this https://www.overclockers.co.uk/lian...um-mini-itx-case-silver-window-ca-77m-ll.html

However it lists 320mm where as the card is 323mm.. hmm not sure if it would fit anyway. Have sent a pre-sales request but I imagine it will come back as a no :-/

This is the card I went for, was looking on stock checker website and some came in today for pre-order (not at OCUK unfortunately)

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-...ddr6-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-36g-ms.html

 

[Amayacitta]

Doesn't sing to me on the design front, this one looks alright...

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/silv...itx-htpc-case-black-sst-rvz03b-ca-43x-sv.html

Says it will fit a dual slot 330mm, however for some reason the MSI card doesn't list as compatible here. Never used part picker before so no idea how reliable their data is.

https://************.com/products/video-card/?compatible_with=RgVBD3#c=494

 

[Amayacitta]

Cheers, I think it should be ok as there are 2 x 120mm fans for the GPU and 1 x 120mm fan for the CPU.. seems pretty well designed for air flow given its tiny size. Having to go for Silverstone's own PSU (SST-ST75F-PT V1.1) which is 140mm to allow proper cable management, otherwise the manual says you have to install the cables then the PSU after and it all gets a bit squashed.

Here is a review of the case:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebFfH7LoiwE

 

[Amayacitta]

I've gone for it... cheers for help everyone. Other than changing the case and the PSU everything remained the same.