First off hello New here, first post and definitely will have some redundant/noob questions. As the title says I have not built a desktop since 2003 but my background has been and always will be a tech head tinkerer. I would like to avoid as much trial and error as possible to reduce wasted expenses during this build and that, my friends, is why I am coming to this forum. As it is I have been watching as much YouTube (Optimum Tech is a great channel for SFF) and researching components, believe it or not I've narrowed down this list in only a few days of research (remember I haven't been in the computer scene since about '04).
Key Factors:
- Reasonable portability without sacrificing performance and OC ability (i.e no larger than an Ncase M1)
- Stay within a $2k budget
- Workstation and Gaming all-in-one (Fusion 360, Cura, Video Editing to accompany AAA titles along with a mix of Battle Royale style games)
Case:
- Sliger sm560
PSU:
- Corsair sf 750w 80+ Platinum Fully Modular
Motherboard:
- Asus ROG Strix x570-I Gaming
CPU:
- AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
CPU Cooler:
- Noctua L9A-AM4
GPU:
- Asus ROG Strix RTX 2080 Super Advanced OC
Memory:
- G.Skill Trident Z Neo 2x16 DDR4-3600 (F4-3600C16D-32GTZN)
Storage (NVMe):
- Sabrent Rocket 1TB PCIe 4.0
Monitor:
- Asus ROG PG279Q 1440p @ 144hz
As you can see from above I am not 100% set on how to approach the cooling situation with an SFF build and I am also not 100% set on the components, either due to cooling uncertainty or thermals vs performance. Now would be a good time to explain why I have not been able to settle on the core components to this build!
AIO vs Custom Loop vs Air Cooled:
I have done enough research on this to make me really want a 120mm AIO for both CPU/GPU to wondering if it is even worth dealing with. There are so many on the fence reviews that all basically state the same thing - The pumps are noise junk and in many cases did not offer much in terms of cooling. Then there are also many positive that exclaim the cooling is good but a con is the pump noise. So my question in regard to this is going with say a 120mm Corsair H75 or H80i (one for cpu, one for gpu) mounted to the large top hat of the S1 with 120x25mm fans would this be sufficient to cool a 3700 or 3800x and a 2080 Super both overclocked respectively.
In terms of a custom loop say using the Alpha Cool Eisbaer w/ 240mm rad to cool both CPU/GPU - I know this would cool efficiently but how much of a hassle are custom loops?! Every 6 months I need to drain, rinse and refill - If algae starts growing I need to disassemble and clean everything. Is there any fool proof method to preventing this amount of upkeep? Drain and refill every 3 months vs every 6 months or something.
As for air cooled - I still need to research what coolers this case can use and how well a stock cooled 2080 Super GPU can handle an overclock -I would consider the 2080 Super Founders Edition as I understand it is designed well to keep everything with-in 75-80 temps even with some light OC?
Storage:
As far as I can tell both the Corsair and Sabrent 1TB pcie 4.0 sticks aren't much higher in price than other premium pcie 3.0 sticks (typically $50-80 more) so it seems to me a no-brainer to go this route for the slightly higher cost but much higher speeds. Now keep in mind my younger days AGP was the standard and when I got out pcie and sli was just coming about - despite my cousin explaining this to me it is still hard to wrap my head around for some reason. So my question here is this - I want to run a total of 2TB via 2x 1TB NVMe in Raid 0 as both MB's will allow it, the only thing I am not certain on is will this hinder my pcie lanes for the GPU to 8x and does this drastically affect GPU performance?! I would also want to run a 2TB SSD as a backup drive in the event I ever lost an NVMe stick along with my data, if that is even possible while using the NVMe slots.
* Please feel free to criticize me as long as it is structural criticism I don't mind. I know a lot of this is easy knowledge to many of you long time builders so a knowledge bump in the right direction is much appreciated! Thank you in advance to any and all of you here, I hope to hang around for a good while and maybe even bring some of my own knowledge to the table some day.
Key Factors:
- Reasonable portability without sacrificing performance and OC ability (i.e no larger than an Ncase M1)
- Stay within a $2k budget
- Workstation and Gaming all-in-one (Fusion 360, Cura, Video Editing to accompany AAA titles along with a mix of Battle Royale style games)
Case:
- Sliger sm560
PSU:
- Corsair sf 750w 80+ Platinum Fully Modular
Motherboard:
- Asus ROG Strix x570-I Gaming
CPU:
- AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
CPU Cooler:
- Noctua L9A-AM4
GPU:
- Asus ROG Strix RTX 2080 Super Advanced OC
Memory:
- G.Skill Trident Z Neo 2x16 DDR4-3600 (F4-3600C16D-32GTZN)
Storage (NVMe):
- Sabrent Rocket 1TB PCIe 4.0
Monitor:
- Asus ROG PG279Q 1440p @ 144hz
I have done enough research on this to make me really want a 120mm AIO for both CPU/GPU to wondering if it is even worth dealing with. There are so many on the fence reviews that all basically state the same thing - The pumps are noise junk and in many cases did not offer much in terms of cooling. Then there are also many positive that exclaim the cooling is good but a con is the pump noise. So my question in regard to this is going with say a 120mm Corsair H75 or H80i (one for cpu, one for gpu) mounted to the large top hat of the S1 with 120x25mm fans would this be sufficient to cool a 3700 or 3800x and a 2080 Super both overclocked respectively.
In terms of a custom loop say using the Alpha Cool Eisbaer w/ 240mm rad to cool both CPU/GPU - I know this would cool efficiently but how much of a hassle are custom loops?! Every 6 months I need to drain, rinse and refill - If algae starts growing I need to disassemble and clean everything. Is there any fool proof method to preventing this amount of upkeep? Drain and refill every 3 months vs every 6 months or something.
As for air cooled - I still need to research what coolers this case can use and how well a stock cooled 2080 Super GPU can handle an overclock -
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