PC Desktop Build

octatonic

Not sure where else to put this so here will do- this might not be particularly interesting to anyone but me...

After a couple of days of playing with my Mac Pro running Windows 10 I've decided to build myself a PC desktop workstation.
Although I've been Mac based for most of the last 20 years I actually started using PC's, I think my first desktop was a Pentium 133.

I've got a bit of a desire to get back into the Windows world when it comes to audio and also into doing a bit of gaming.
When I've built beige boxes in the past they have been very much function over form.
Going to play about a bit with the design of this- I wanted something fairly minimal in terms of aesthetics but I am also going to have a bit of (A)RGB lighting in there, for fun.

I'm doing a self build too- I already have loads of M.2/SSD's so have storage covered.
Here is the spec I have come up with- most of the parts have been bought, some have arrived.

Case: NZXT 710 in white. This has arrived and looks excellent.
Motherboard: Asus ROG STRIX X570-F GAMING AM4.
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5700G. Might seem like a strange choice but I decided to ride out the 'no fucking graphics cards anywhere' problem by going with an APU for now. Once I can get a 3080ti for a reasonable price I'll move this processor to a micro itx system I am planning later, and put in a beefier CPU.
RAM: 2x32GB Corsair Vengeance 3200
Power Supply: Corsair RMx Series RM850x
Cooling: Corsair Hydro H100 x 240 mm
Storage: I need to dig out what I have but I have 1 or 2 spare 1TB M.2's and 3-4 x 1-2 TB SSD's.
I have various RGB fans incoming too- Coolmaster MF120's.

Most of the bits are arriving tomorrow and Thursday and I should have it built within a day or so (I hope).

octatonic

Oh and for (recording) audio I'll have a Focusrite Rednet PCIER card for 128 channels of Dante in and out.

octatonic

Having issues with Microsoft and Onedrive and speaking (via webchat) to their support.

All I will say- there is a reason why people buy Macs.

susbemol

There certainly is but it is definitely not for the lack of issues.

Interested in seeing how your build pans out. I'm going to need a new Windows workstation in the near future.

Musicwolf

octatonic said:

Having issues with Microsoft and Onedrive

I wish that OneDrive would manifest itself in physical form as a large, metalic, pointy object that could be rammed sideways up Bill Gates' back passage.

octatonic

susbemol said:

There certainly is but it is definitely not for the lack of issues.

Interested in seeing how your build pans out. I'm going to need a new Windows workstation in the near future.

I don't want this thread to turn into the PC Wars but Apple certainly wouldn't do this:
When One Drive locks after a year  of not using it you are able to unfreeze it.
Except mine hasn't after 5 days when you log in I still get this.:




OK so just log a support call right?
Well the issue is in order to log One Drive support calls you have to do it within One Drive.
You can't log it any other way.

I spoke to (typed with) 3 different Microsoft support engineers who constantly kept pushing me to One Drive to log the call saying 'we can't help... do it here' and providing a link.
Which points me back to OneDrive.live.com where I see this page that locks me from doing anything at all.

You can't call them.

Eventually on the 4th go I was able to get through to someone by insisting on escalating it beyond T1 support.

Now the Tier 2 support are saying I need to wait 24 hours for it to unlock and then it should work.
Er... no, it has been doing this since Friday.

Quite annoying.

Habanero

I’ve never used One Drive, but I do listen to the PCPro podcast each week and they were really slating it this week. Personally, I use iCloud but also find that flakey recently.

octatonic

Habanero said:

I’ve never used One Drive, but I do listen to the PCPro podcast each week and they were really slating it this week. Personally, I use iCloud but also find that flakey recently.

I get 1TB as part of an Office 365 subscription that my wife needs for her work (family plan).
I also have iCloud, which I use for the Macs.

octatonic

So it is built, but not completed.

The install was actually pretty easy.
I've decided I hate integrated graphics so have a speedy and awesome Gigabyte Radeon 6900XT Master incoming tomorrow.

Spec is mostly as listed above although I have some new RGB fans going in tomorrow.

I've got a pair of 1TB M.2 and a 2TB SSD.
I have some built pics that I need to upload but here is one of the system as it is right now.

Tomorrow the fan controller, 3 more RGB fans and the graphics card will go in.
I will also put in a bit more storage at some point too, and I will upgrade to a Ryzen 9 as and when.

octatonic

Build pics:

Habanero

octatonic said:

Habanero said:

I’ve never used One Drive, but I do listen to the PCPro podcast each week and they were really slating it this week. Personally, I use iCloud but also find that flakey recently.

I get 1TB as part of an Office 365 subscription that my wife needs for her work (family plan).
I also have iCloud, which I use for the Macs.

I think they said that some people were having their documents and photos on One Drive and it makes startup very slow.

octatonic

Habanero said:

octatonic said:

Habanero said:

I’ve never used One Drive, but I do listen to the PCPro podcast each week and they were really slating it this week. Personally, I use iCloud but also find that flakey recently.

I get 1TB as part of an Office 365 subscription that my wife needs for her work (family plan).
I also have iCloud, which I use for the Macs.

I think they said that some people were having their documents and photos on One Drive and it makes startup very slow.

You don't have to have it set to auto login.

octatonic

Graphics card is in- it is an absolute monster.
I am getting 100+ fps in Destiny 2 at full resolution with quality up to maximum.

I've jumped on a processor upgrade though- found a 5900X for a great price so that will go in tomorrow.
Then this system will be done and I can get working on my mini itx system with the 5700G chip.

This has been a thoroughly enjoyable exercise.
Compared to the last time I built a PC it was so much easier.

Habanero

octatonic said:

Graphics card is in- it is an absolute monster.
I am getting 100+ fps in Destiny 2 at full resolution with quality up to maximum.

I've jumped on a processor upgrade though- found a 5900X for a great price so that will go in tomorrow.
Then this system will be done and I can get working on my mini itx system with the 5700G chip.

This has been a thoroughly enjoyable exercise.
Compared to the last time I built a PC it was so much easier.

I use one of the mini itx systems in my daily work. I'm typing this reply on it! It took me about an hour from opening the boxes to logging in.

I compare that to the first DOS/Windows 3.1 90MHz Pentium I built that took about 2 weeks to get everything working, and most games needed custom settings in the 'config.sys' and 'autoexec.bat' files.

Philtre

I think a good quality case makes all the difference when building a PC. My recent build used this case:

https://phanteks.com/Eclipse-P600s.html

BTW - did you take out a 2nd mortgage to afford the graphics card?

octatonic

Philtre said:

I think a good quality case makes all the difference when building a PC. My recent build used this case:

https://phanteks.com/Eclipse-P600s.html

BTW - did you take out a 2nd mortgage to afford the graphics card?

I've been really impressed with the NZXT H710- it is an excellent case.

Yes the graphics card was fucking spendy- but there is just nothing else about.

Heartfeltdawn

octatonic said:

This has been a thoroughly enjoyable exercise.
Compared to the last time I built a PC it was so much easier.

It really isn't difficult to set up a self-built PC now. The cases are better designed, things like modular power supplies make everything tidier, mounting NVMe drives on motherboards means less cables. Rebuilding the ITX that I'm selling and building the BeQuiet 5600X system was loads of fun.

And then overclocking: piss easy on the new boards and, credit to the board manufacturers, even older stuff like my MSI B450 board is very easy to overclock. Getting a Ryzen system running at low latency for audio is not like setting up a system in the past. 

Strangefan

I love a good pc build, you probably know already but ryzen loves fast ram, and actually runs quicker when the equivalent of xmp is enabled (I forget the name)
I went from 2800 ddr4 to 3600 and honestly I got an extra 12/18 fps, you don't get those gains with Intel. How'ver the downside is ryzen can also be reeeeeaaaally picky about ram, they have to be matched pairs where as Intel will use anything  

Heartfeltdawn

Strangefan said:

I love a good pc build, you probably know already but ryzen loves fast ram, and actually runs quicker when the equivalent of xmp is enabled (I forget the name)
I went from 2800 ddr4 to 3600 and honestly I got an extra 12/18 fps, you don't get those gains with Intel. How'ver the downside is ryzen can also be reeeeeaaaally picky about ram, they have to be matched pairs where as Intel will use anything  

Over the last three months, I've had an R5 33600, R5 5600G, R7 5700G, and R5 5600X at my disposal with a laptop running an R7 4700U for comparison. B450, B550, and A520 motherboards and a variety of DDR4 ram sticks. I've not found it to be picky on the ram front with regard to brands or speeds and XMP works really well. The R5 5600X and 32GB 3200Mhz DDR4 PC I'm typing on now is lightly overclocked to 4.5Ghz on the processor and 3600Mhz on the ram and it's all done by the board automatically. 

I use Assetto Corsa Competizione as my performance indicator as it's the most intensive modern game I play. Going from 16GB to 32gb memory without overclocking and sticking at 3200Mhz, I was getting 15-20 extra fps with graphics at epic level. Matched Corsair pair. 

I did however have an odd one when I sold the 5700G to a chap who couldn't get dual channel RAM working with his motherboard. It would only go with single channel. I tried to replicate the issue at home as he was on an MSI B450 board like me but no joy. CPU came back, absolutely nothing wrong with it. Despite trying dual channels of mismatched ram (different brands and different speeds), I couldn't get it to conk out like his system.  

Heartfeltdawn

AS I've wittered on about it before, the rock-solid nature of this system now is the best bit. I love that I can put Latency Mon on for seven hours and nothing trips it up, or leave LM running, have a 20 lap race around Silverstone in ACC, come back and there's still nowt wrong with it.