advertisement


Speccing a new gaming PC

firestorm said:
Yep, love to spec and shop for PC builds. Haven't done it for a long time. I noticed many components seem to have RGB leds - very fast and furious.
Click to expand...

Yes, that has become a bit of a thing whether you want it or not! My be quiet Pure Base 500 case has a couple of strips in the front panel plus one more inside and the mobo and GPU both have some lit-up highlights, as does the Deep Cool anti-sag gpu support bracket. Luckily the case has a built in RBG controller allowing them all to be synced to whatever the Gigabyte mobo is doing, or turned off altogether.

One frequent complaint is that many manufacturers RBG features do not interact with other makers so it can be annoyingly difficult to get them all to behave as desired, or link them all to one specific controller. My CPU cooler and mouse are from Corsair and they can't be controlled from the case or mobo, only from the makers dedicated icue software. My Ducky keyboard doesn't have any software at all and is controlled from various combinations of the function keys.
Fortunately once you have set them all up to your liking (or found the 'Off' setting!) they should stay that way. I generally have them all set to a dim cool blue, although for high days and holidays the 'Colour Wave' from Corsair and Gigabyte both seem to do the same thing at the same time, morphing slowly between colours without any garish flashing on and off.
 
Graham B said:
See how you go in-use before worrying about aftermarket water cooling for the GPU. I reckon that even with a cpu of your AMD's calibre, the gpu will still not be running near 100% for long periods so you may find it isn't too intrusive. The noctua cooler and be quiet! case fans will ensure that any other fan noise is minimised, so you'll soon know if the gpu is an issue or not.

My Gigabyte gpu audibly ramps up when starting a flight, at low altitude in complex scenery areas or at busy large airports like EGLL and KLAX, but as all the other fans are effectively silent it isn't a problem. At other times in flight it's still audible but much quieter, sounding more like an ordinary fan as opposed to a Concorde performing a go-around.

It certainly doesn't hurt to have another SSD for Windows, as long as you have the M2 with MSFS on the fastest PCIe socket. I have a 1TB M2 NVMe for the game which I thought would be massive overkill, but it's almost half full currently and there's plenty more I'd like to add. Some of the add-on aircraft can be 5 - 8GB or more, so it soon fills up.
Click to expand...

I'm wary of introducing water inside my new PC and will run it dry first to see what it's like.

Mid-range CPU comparison with Cray II from 1985

EPFL_CRAY-II_2.jpg


Cray II - 1.9 Mflops
RTX 3090 - 35 TFlops
5800x3D - 380-5000 Mflops depending on benchmark

Why the Cray II? It water cooled ISTR, plus was very well regarded at the time
 
firestorm said:
I'm wary of introducing water inside my new PC and will run it dry first to see what it's like.

Cray II - 1.9 Mflops
RTX 3090 - 35 TFlops
5800x3D - 380-5000 Mflops depending on benchmark

Why the Cray II? It water cooled ISTR, plus was very well regarded at the time
Click to expand...

Whoa!! The wiring in there! That looks like inside the back panel of my pc, the bit you can't see! Incredible progress over time though - my GPU contains 76,300 million transistors and runs 82.5 TFlops apparently, although until I change CPU, mobo and ram later this year it's only idling.

I think your approach makes sense - you can always add cooling if required. My Corsair CPU cooler has been absolutely trouble and leak free, the only attention it has required was replacing the stock fans with be quiet! ones. I would personally be more wary of self building a custom water cooling loop than a solid manufacturers AIO, but maybe that's just me and poor past experiences with DIY plumbing.

When will you be assembling the beast?
 
I've started assembly. The be quiet! fans, psu are in. Sorting out the cabling and motherboard next.
I may even get it running this evening. I'll be putting Windows 11 Pro on it.
 
Hmm, Cray relies on the exact length of connection cables?
So they're twisted-pairs. I'd thought with cables in such proximity, capacitance and inductance could be an issue.Coax would provide better consistency.
Having said that I wouldn't thought it would be clocked that quickly, nothing like what we have in today.
 
Just worked out I don't have enough PWM fan outlets.
So splitter for £5.99 or a £59.99 controller? hmm?

I've just ordered a couple of splitters.
 
firestorm said:
Just worked out I don't have enough PWM fan outlets.
So splitter for £5.99 or a £59.99 controller? hmm?

I've just ordered a couple of splitters.
Click to expand...

Ah, that’s annoying! We found the same problem with my son’s pc, using an Asus mobo. A splitter did the job fine, and it’s been reliable and never gets over hot in there. For future reference, look at Gigabyte mobos - my Aorus Z590 board runs 4 case fans, a 280mm cpu cooler with 2 fans plus the pump and still has 2 headers free.
 
firestorm said:
I've started assembly. The be quiet! fans, psu are in. Sorting out the cabling and motherboard next.
I may even get it running this evening. I'll be putting Windows 11 Pro on it.
Click to expand...

One further thought occurs - once it’s up and running, I recommend you’ve disable hyperthreading / virtualisation or whatever the AMD equivalent is. The benchmarks might look worse, but MSFS only uses 1 or 2 cores for the majority of the tasks, and so cutting down the available cores / threads allows it to focus better with very significant improvements in-game.
 
Graham B said:
Ah, that’s annoying! We found the same problem with my son’s pc, using an Asus mobo. A splitter did the job fine, and it’s been reliable and never gets over hot in there. For future reference, look at Gigabyte mobos - my Aorus Z590 board runs 4 case fans, a 280mm cpu cooler with 2 fans plus the pump and still has 2 headers free.
Click to expand...

running an Asus Crosshair Hero 8 DARK with no problems with fan connections! ;)
 
I blame my new prescription glasses - there are plenty of PWM fan outlets, combination of ageing eyes and light coloured lettering on a black MB. I don't need the splitters.
What I have found is that my fancy modular Corsair 1KW psu doesn't come with a square 4 pin power plug for the CPU. Ive looked it up, it appears that I can run it on the 8 pin rectangular outlet. My cross the I's and dot the T's (sic) means that I'd rather find a means of connecting it up.


 
garyi said:
Yes it will. There will be two in the box and both split in half just use one half of the other one.

On your power supply the sockets are top right.
Click to expand...

Just went to check - you're right - need to push out 2 tiny barbs and it separates :)
 
Noctua NH-D15 and NH-U12A differences



In the tests and reviews I've seen, there is hardly any difference between them in real use. Plus the D15 is so gigantic, I see it impeding case airflow.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top