Sim Rig PC - The never ending upgrade

mikehhhhhhh

mikehhhhhhh

mikehhhhhhh

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19 Dec 2017
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This started back in May of last year when my ageing 4690k was failing to keep up with the demands on VR on sim racing.

It was a bit early to be upgrading with Zen 3 coming up, but I wanted to at least improve performance a bit. I decided on the 3600, an x570 board and some new ram with the intention of going Zen3 when it was released.

I hoped my trusty 1080 would keep me going for a while.

Untitled by mikehhhhhhh, on Flickr

Along the way I decided to upgrade the Rift S with an Index and we were back to fairly poor performance again, even in unchallenging titles like iRacing. It was usable, but frame drops from 80Hz were becoming frustrating.

This kind of put me off sim racing for a while, until the opporunity came up to go triple screen - a couple of matching PG279Qs to match my existing one. This set the need to ugprade off again, as there was no way my 1080 was going to let me play newer titles at 3 x 1440p.

The 5800x had dropped in price a little, so I picked one up along with a new AIO as I wasn't sure the OEM cooler from the 3600 would be man enough.

Untitled by mikehhhhhhh, on Flickr

Untitled by mikehhhhhhh, on Flickr

This clearly go my brain ticking, as I started looking around for graphics cards. I really wanted a 3080, but we all know how likely that is any time soon. I found myself starting to get tempted by scalpers at which point, I realised it wasnt a huge jump to a 3090, which wasn't nearly as difficult to find.

3090 by mikehhhhhhh, on Flickr

I'd also need a PSU as my 600w card wouldn't have been man enough for the 1080.

Untitled by mikehhhhhhh, on Flickr

Untitled by mikehhhhhhh, on Flickr

And all done!

Untitled by mikehhhhhhh, on Flickr

I'll post some more about the simrig once the extra monitors are here

Untitled by mikehhhhhhh, on Flickr
 
Thank you for the kind comments!

Well it's finally all togther, I think I can stop tinkering and just play for a long old while now.

The final spec...

PC;
Ryzen 5800x
32gb Corsair Vengeance 3600Mhz RAM
Nvidia 3090 Founders Edition
Corsair H100i Platinum AIO
Asrock Phantom Gaming 4 Mobo
Corsair RM850 PSU
Fractal Define C Case
Samsung C34 100Hz 1440p Ultrawide

Simrig;
Simlab P1X Chassis
Fanatec DD1 Wheel Base
Fanatec Podium R300 wheel with Porsche Endurance Button Box
Fanatec Shifter
Heusinkveld Sprint Pedals
3x Asus PG297Q 1440p 165Hz Monitors

Untitled by mikehhhhhhh, on Flickr

Untitled by mikehhhhhhh, on Flickr

Untitled by mikehhhhhhh, on Flickr

Untitled by mikehhhhhhh, on Flickr

Untitled by mikehhhhhhh, on Flickr

Untitled by mikehhhhhhh, on Flickr
 
I was getting a little concerned by the amount of heat coming out of the 3090 and staying around the case. You could feel and smell the heat!

I figured I could add a couple of extra fans to my existing case, but something with a bit more room would be better and a good excuse to find something a bit prettier.

Untitled by mikehhhhhhh, on Flickr

Instantly found nearly 400 points on Timespy GPU score and GPU temp never goes above 69-70c while running the benchmark.

That's with 2x bottom, 3x side and 2x AIO fans all configured as intake.

Next step is to try configuring the AIO as an exhaust to reduce the amount of heat being introduced into the case, as I think the CPU probably has more headroom than the GPU.
 
Since getting the O11D, the fact that I couldn't get USB-C to work was bugging me - I connect to the usb hub on my monitor via usb-c as well as pretty much all my accessories.

I also disliked having a PCI-e wifi card as it looks terrible, blocks airflow to the graphics card and would prevent me going vertical mount for the GPU if I ever fancied it.

I opted to resolve those concerns with an MSI Tomahawk X570 board which seems to be a bit of an upgrade over my Asrock.

What started as a simple CPU upgrade has ended up as a complete PC replacement - the only thing remaining from before are my SSDs and even my main boot drive is being replaced as while I'm able to boot to it, being pre-nvme pci-e m.2 it doesn't show up in the bios for some reason and there's a decent jump in performance to be had there anyway.

The new motherboard gave me some slightly better cable management opportunities, too :)

Just need to sort a few more fans now.

Untitled by mikehhhhhhh, on Flickr

Untitled by mikehhhhhhh, on Flickr
 
Another little upgrade in this never ending upgrade :D

Untitled by mikehhhhhhh, on Flickr

When I ordered new RAM, I only did so because I wanted to jump to 32GB for development work, so just picked a reasonably priced 2x16gb kit.

I've since learnt that 4 sticks may perform better on Zen 3 and also about the ability to potentially run 2000 IF. So I grabbed some 4000Mhz RGB tat. 4000/2000 wasn't quite stable, so I've backed it off to 3800/1900 with the timings tightened up to CL16.

That netted nearly 1000 points on Timespy CPU score!
 
Zeeflyboy said:
Funny, most seem to struggle with a lot of WHEA errors at 1900 on anything prior to 1.2.0.0 - good it's working for you though!

Yeah sounds like 1.2.0.0 brings some big improvements so you may want to try again at 2000/4000 when that drops for you.
Click to expand...

Interesting, I've not really put it through it's paces. I had a quick look in Event Viewer after the benchmarks and didn't see anything, but, I've spent most of the day in Linux since doing it.
 
Zeeflyboy said:
Funny, most seem to struggle with a lot of WHEA errors at 1900 on anything prior to 1.2.0.0 - good it's working for you though!

Yeah sounds like 1.2.0.0 brings some big improvements so you may want to try again at 2000/4000 when that drops for you.
Click to expand...

Decided to check stability today.

My tighter timings were creating occasional errors in memtest. I had to losen them up to CL18 but I don't have any WHEA errors at 3800/1900, even after all sorts of benchmark runs.
 
Jasseh said:
Didn't know this was a thing but now that I do, I need it... I hate the bezel between my screens, even if it is only about 1cm in total.

Wish I could justify a racing setup like yours, it looks great.
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The only thing I would say about them is that they are only any good for game play.

You wouldn't want them on a triple screen setup you do desktop work on, as it can distort text at the side of your screen.
 
They slide in and out of their mounts with the press of a button, so should be easy to remove one mount per side and put them aside.

The only concern is that I read one guy had issues with microcracks in them from adjusting them. It could just be user error, but if it's a more common issue then maybe constantly removing and replacing them could accelerate the issue?

I've had no issue with mine, though.
 
Unable to leave things alone, I made some more changes.

I'm building a second PC so the Sim can have a dedicated machine. This means a 5900x on the way, a potential need for a better CPU cooler, but I need another one anyway.

I opted for the Lian-Li Galahad 360 as it seemed to be one the better rated coolers you can actually get ahold of at the moment. It's pretty impressive, having brought idle temps down from around 30-32 to 25-26c (not tested under heavy load yet) I'm a bit disappointed by the brightless of the LEDs on the pump, though!

I also managed to get hold of some Corsair QL120s to replace my side fans.

Edit:

Just realised my mistake on the bottom fans. I'm a bit gutted - looks like I'm going to need to order another three QL120s :(
 
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Hacxx101 said:
is iracing worth getting? got a basic sim setup but not really used it much
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If you like the idea of some kind of skill based match making and leagues for online racing, then iRacing is perfect.

Unmatched in fact, but it costs money. Once you move beyond the rookie MX5s then you have to start buying cars and tracks.
 
Jasseh said:
Looking at this has me thinking "why did I put my Galahad the other way round?". Might have to turn it around when the rest of my fans turn up as it looks much cleaner the way you have it.
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The rotating "head" on the Galahad was part of the reason why I chose it to replace my Corsair unit - I always hated the pipes draped across the case.
 
All the time I've been building this, I've been upgrading items with the possibility of having a dedicated machine for the Sim Rig in mind.

I'll soon be moving and I'll want to put the rig in a different location to my main PC.

I'd collected my Asrock x570 board, 5800x, 32GB RAM, Corsair AIO and my old Fractal case and had just been looking out for a graphics card.

I managed to get hold of a Powercolor 6900XT at close to MSRP yesterday. I didn't want to go so big after already overspending on a 3090 but who knows when we'll be able to get these good value 3080s and 6800xts again.

I got started on the "new" build in anticipation of the card arriving early next week which ironically, is something close to the build I displayed at the beginning of this thread :D

I just hope the 6900xt fits!
 
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