Anyone else here interested in PC hardware and building? It's something that I've gotten back into over the last year or two. I'm personally waiting on AMD Ryzen and Intel Kaby Lake reviews to decide what platform to go with for my new build.
Anyone else here interested in PC hardware and building? It's something that I've gotten back into over the last year or two. I'm personally waiting on AMD Ryzen and Intel Kaby Lake reviews to decide what platform to go with for my new build.
I still build my own PC(s) and never buy one prebuild. However technology now moves pretty slowly so I rarely really need to do it. The most you end up changing is just maybe a RAM upgrade and graphics card.
My PC lasted me pretty much 6 years with only a graphics card and RAM upgrade along the way - It was still able to play all games at Max and the only real reason why I recently build a new PC, is because I wanted a smaller form factor for living room play.
It's certainly not like the mid 90s or pre-2010 when technology moved so fast that you needed to upgrade at least every couple of years.
Yeah, any Intel i7 4C 8T CPU from the 4790k onwards performs almost identically at the same clocks. Intel have been sitting on their ass for years. I'm really looking forward to Ryzen cause if AMD can truly deliver better than 6900K performance on their 8C 12T CPU that should scale well across the whole range including lower core count higher core clock parts that will be better for gaming.
Used to build my own until I got a Mac Pro in 2008. Still modding this one a bit, ram upgrades, adding USB 3 and non-supporter GPUs but my next machine may be a custo pc with an OSX86 hack in addition...
Oh BTW: here's what my ultimate build (2017 edition) is going to be. https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/dt7Ghq
The CPU and motherboard are purely placeholder, but the rest of it is either currently installed and in use if it's marked as purchased or I'm waiting for a good special on the part.
Life has been getting in the way, I think I'm going to go with a ARC Midi R2. case. it's a nice combination of price design and looks like it has well designed filters etc.
I was planning on a complete air cooled build but seeing a lot of case reviews I'm seeing a whole lot of closed loop water cooling setups. is it worth the effort?
I don't know if I'll ever get around to any form of overclocking. but are they noticeably cooler or quieter than a good noctua heat sink solution? it looks like they tend to blow into a case, presumably to provide the coolest air to the radiator. but this in turn blows warm air into the case which the graphics card then sees.
I get a feeling that unless I'm water cooling both the graphics card and CPU it's a bit of a waste of time. And I don't think I want to risk destroying a graphics card for the chance at a half decibel quieter system
AIOs/CLCs are not really any extra effort and they run nice and cool. I forget if you're going Intel or AMD but I do not recommend using an Intel CPU without a good 240 or 280mm AIO anymore because frankly Intel CPUs run incredibly hot. AMD CPUs run cooler, but with their XFR2 technology working very similar to Nvidia's GPU Boost the cooler your CPU is the faster it will run.
Just get an AIO with a 6th Gen Asetek pump. This particular AIO is the only 280mm with a 6th gen pump. https://www.corsair.com/ww/en/Catego.../CW-9060032-WW
This is the 360mm with the same pump. https://www.corsair.com/ww/en/Catego.../CW-9060031-WW
And here's the 120mm if you don't have room for the larger units, but you're probably better off buying a MASSIVE air cooler than a 120mm for CPUs in particular. https://www.corsair.com/ww/en/Catego.../CW-9060036-WW
The reason you want a 6th gen Asetek pump and not anything else is the big selling point on the 6th gen pump is reliability and so far only these products have a 6th gen pump.
Also don't bother putting an AIO on a GPU, GPUs run much cooler than CPUs thanks to their big massive heat syncs and better thermal conductivity.
reliability? how do we know they are reliable if they are just getting on to the market?
How unreliable is the older generation pumps and hardware? do you mean, spill fluid all over your motherboard unreliable, or stop pumping and cook your CPU unreliable?
this is kind of why I'm a bit shy of one of these, an air cooled system gives good temperatures as far as I'm aware and is much less likely to fail. even if the fan/s fail the heat sink will still promote convection.
As in the pump fails and while it doesn't cook your CPU because modern CPUs have temperature protection, it will trigger overtemp protection. My Kraken which uses the 5th gen pump died the other week, but I think it might be electronics related, not pump.
The new 6th gen pumps are designed to be much more reliable than the old pumps. In PC land manufactures products are tested before release and given a Mean Time Between Failure (which is not always published). Asetek would not be able to say their 6th gen pumps are more reliable if their testing did not show a higher MTBF.
Besides, teardowns of the 6th gen pump show it's been heavily redesigned and is much less fragile.