Getting to the age where...

I’m finally able to put together rigs without too much angst or worry over cost or attaining the best value. Those days happened in my early teens begging my dad for a 3DFX , or saving my salary for weeks or months at a time in my early 20s to get my hands on an Athlon 3000+ (couldn’t afford the sweet spot 3200+ - my budget was strictly best bang for the buck in those days).
I am in a long phase of using Mac (both for work and general all round usage) and have only occasionally dipped my toes back into PC gaming since the days of a 7800GT, dual 17” AOC LCDs, a Lian Li PC-V1000 and a launch day 20GB PS3.
This all changed last year at the beginning of the Covid outbreak when it appeared I’d be stuck without travel, business or leisure, for a long time. I started off with a 3600X, an ASRock X570 TB3 (thinking I’d pair it with an Akitio TB3 Pro dock) and a Phanteks Evolv Shift Air. Despite being billed as an ITX (and my first ever) case, it blatantly wasn’t and I went for a Streacom Open Benchtable Mini to satisfy the tinkerer in me. I’m And then I discovered Optimum Tech and here I am now - the proud owner of a 3090 FE, a 3080 FE (both price-gouged from eBay but they’re near impossible to find in Hong Kong and always marked up on a good day anyway) and an AMD Reference 6900XT. I’ve finally managed to snag a 5900X to go with the 5600X I already had after selling the 3600X. I have almost all the components I need save 1-2 small pieces (custom PSU sleeves being one).
The plan is to build two hybrid gaming / mining rigs and one ultra SFF hybrid media server / gaming rig attached to the NAS in the living room. I’m waiting on the NCase M1 and Thor Mjolnir cases to arrive in the meantime. I’ll make careful posts about each to seek advice or provide build progress to those interested.
As no doubt a few others can sympathise with, my wife knows almost nothing. And she certainly better not look under my side of the bed or in the lower back portion of my wardrobe or she’ll find an array of M.2 drives, obscenely priced GPUs and an unhealthy obsession with Noctua fans of all different shapes and sizes...

 

[ignsvn]

Welcome to the forum, we hope you enjoy your stay here!

In the mean time let me take a screenshot of your intro post above for forensic evidence purpose in case your wife need it

 

[PixelatedScraps]

PS: although I have almost three decades experience building PCs (I started young), I am completely, shamelessly a complete noob when it comes to SFF and am looking for inspiration and wise advice from those with much more experience in SFF (and smaller!) builds.

Hope everyone is staying safe!

 

[MrJvr]

PS: although I have almost three decades experience building PCs (I started young), I am completely, shamelessly a complete noob when it comes to SFF and am looking for inspiration and wise advice from those with much more experience in SFF (and smaller!) builds.

Hope everyone is staying safe!

For something ultra small/nazzy, have a look into the DeskMini x300. They are becoming more readily available and I've just sold off my two ITX builds and am settling for a 4650G/4750g because whilst the are a whopping 1.9 litre capacity cases, they sure can yield some performance.
Absurdly efficient as well with the 4650G burning maybe 15 watts with multiple code editors open/database windows/teams etc and you can even limit the CPU TDP (35/45/65w) which is appears to do my undervolting heavily, keeping temps down without impacting performance to much!
This move is purely because I enjoy tinkering with hardware far more than either my day job or side gig, so once these are together there isnt much diddling/fiddling I can really do heh.

 

[jaeparku]

surprised you stuck with AMD the entire time.

Intel was definitely the better choice during AMD's FX days, and I would even argue during Intel's early gen days. AMD was the better choice before that, during its Phenom II days.

Ryzen 5000s > Intel > Ryzen 3000 > Zen Plus > OG Zen

I never understood all the rave about Ryzen chips until Zen 2 (Ryzen 3000) hit the market. It finally came close, but in my opinion, was still behind Intel apart from multi-core tasks. It was not until Ryzen 5000s came out and hit a home run that I could say AMD took the crown.

 

[PixelatedScraps]

Growing up in the 80-90s, the home PC was always a gift from an IT specialist uncle who’d bring over the latest parts. Our first PC was a 286, we had a Cyrix 586, a Pentium II 233 and possible a Pentium 3 before I started buying and building my own rigs. Right off the bat, I always prefer the underdog to be honest, but there were a couple of times I switched to Intel - I remember owning both a Q6600 and an E2200 and overclocking the hell out of them on Tuniq Towers if memory serves me right. There have been plenty of bad Intel and AMD chips (along with NVIDIA and ATI and previously, 3DFX) over the years but for the everyday consumer experience these days, it’s hard pressed not to find decent value in either brand.

Happy to be here at last and thanks for the warm welcomes so far!

 

[rfarmer]

I started with AMD, Athlon 2600+, 3000+, 3800+(first dual core) and finally a 6400+. The 6400 was a really good CPU but damn I wanted that Q6600, just couldn't convince myself to pay the money.

 

[PixelatedScraps]

For something ultra small/nazzy, have a look into the DeskMini x300. They are becoming more readily available and I've just sold off my two ITX builds and am settling for a 4650G/4750g because whilst the are a whopping 1.9 litre capacity cases, they sure can yield some performance.
Absurdly efficient as well with the 4650G burning maybe 15 watts with multiple code editors open/database windows/teams etc and you can even limit the CPU TDP (35/45/65w) which is appears to do my undervolting heavily, keeping temps down without impacting performance to much!
This move is purely because I enjoy tinkering with hardware far more than either my day job or side gig, so once these are together there isnt much diddling/fiddling I can really do heh.

Great little case - and insane at 1.9L I'm very tempted by the passive cases from Streacom and HDPlex (just think there isn't much on the market as beautiful or able to sit under a TV or slot beside / on top of a nice piece of high end audio equipment. Something like the Skyreach 4 Mini would also mean the ability to use a SFF GPU.

Decisions, decisions for sure - and I have a Powercolor 5700 ITX, an AMD 4750G Pro and ASRock A520M AC/ITX board that can lead to an ultra-SFF build one day soon. Soon!