GeekRichieUK

If you can feel the heat off the devices, the heatspreader/sinks are working. Hot to the touch is 40+ and therefor is only the sign of a working heatsink and nothing more. Heating the room isn't a measurment either - especially in the summer. You truly need to trust your PC readouts from HWMonitor software.

History I've wanted a good looking rig for years. My last build was 8 years ago was intended to be a looker, but the delivery guy had other ideas. My Bitfenix case came with most of its plastic bits smashed, but in my desperation to have a working PC, I built in the chassis anyway. For years I battled with dust ingress and degrading finish on the outside (soft-touch finish turns to sticky mush after a few years). Safe to say, the build wasn't a bad runner, but it looked like shit. So about 6 months ago, I decided it was time to switch out. There were a handful of games beginning to struggle on my RX480, and the motherboard was officially holding me back. After 8 years, I decided to upgrade. One thing about me, I frugal as fuck. I like to get the most for my money - but for this build I allowed myself some concessions. 1) If I could make a picture-worthy build, i'll allow myself to splurge. If I'm getting another 8 years out of this build, I'm going to enjoy looking at it instead of hiding it away. 2) I'm going to make sure it's upgradable in the future. The reason for this was because when I picked up my last build, it had Socket LGA1155, PCI-Express 2.0 and DDR3 and within a couple of years, all of those were old news. No thanks, I'm just looking There's a thread about 6 months ago, where I threw together a very nicely budgeted, well rounded build based on the Ryzen 2700X and compared it to . I was literally moments away from actually buying it when I stumbled across an article mentioning Ryzen 3000, 7nm process and a hint that Ryzen release is usually around March/April. I would've kicked myself, so I hung fire and did some more thinking. Ryzen 3000 came with PCI-Express 4.0, a trick I missed last time. DDR5 isn't coming for another year, and another 2 before it becomes cheap or mainstream enough. And the socket? AM4 - It's on its last legs - yeah, but we've got another couple of years even there hopefully. Well... I can't wait 2 years. Seven - What a wonderful number. So while I was waiting for Ryzen 7nm to come out, I was deciding on parts of my build. Do I go Mini-ITX like I've always wanted, or do I remain practical and stick to a bigger form factor? If I'm going to beauty, do I finally go watercooling or stick to air? Well - my decision was made when I saw Corsairs white component line. White cases are nice, but an all white computer? Yeah - thats for me. So I started playing around with those parts and came up with VII - The AMD/Corsair Build. The problem was that it was just too expensive for me - not long before this I'd proposed to my girlfriend of 6 years, and we need to save for the wedding. She's always blessed the idea of buying a new PC because I practically live on it, and while we have a couple of years til our date - I've decided on a hard cap for now, one that I know I can pay off soon with the hope that I can pick up a second hand Radeon VII in the future. So begins the story of White Sails. The lower spec version of the VII. The Buying Begins Stage one is to start picking up the parts. I head over to Scan - the only UK retailer with alot of this gear and get to buying. I'd already begun planning the build so theres a couple of gimmies here. 1) I skipped the white frontpanel extensions and the PCI-E riser. I wasn't 100% on those, so I left them out. The cables from the RM750x are already white - and while not braided, I feel are good enough for now. So sticking with the White gear and the LED setup was good for now. I picked up an extra filter for the back, because we're going with triple input, dual output for positive pressure, and the bottom of the front panel is going to have my slack cables in. Next step was the graphics card, and since my budget for it was slashed, I began looking at Vega 64 and NVidia 2070. The Vega popped up in a sale for £300 with 3 free games. So it was a no brainer. But the problem... It blows hard. Fixing the Vega The blower style Vega was black. And there were some rough reviews about its heat. So undervolting it may be a solution, but that doesn't fix its aesthetics. I love the look of a blower but its just the wrong color. Yup, I ripped open a brand new Vega and repasted it with Kyronaut, then took out the masking tape and spray paint and absolutely butchered the spray job. The masking tape peeled mid application, the paint went on really blotchy, then before it was completely dry I put it on some kitchen roll. Welp. It was RUINED. 2 days of sanding (which I also screwed up with too heavy grit, gouging the metal, and was unable to properly clean the edges) got me back to somewhere to start again. This time, I was more careful. It's far from perfect. But unless you look for its defects, the overall look holds up pretty well. And that ladies and gentlemen is the end for now. Next week I'll update it with the final build, when I finally pick up the X570 board and 3700X. I'll also show you the new setup with a white monitor in its new room. We've bought a new table and moved my setup into my fiances old hobby room (and she's moved into the old computer room). This gave me enough space for a new long table so she can have my old PC for some multiplayer/streaming setup, also giving me space to set up my Vive properly. So we'll show how that will work out with the final setup photos.

Ah no cheer tho lol - I'm not hardcore enough to delid I barely overclock

That's £40 cheaper than CEX second hand. You can also swap out strange brigade for Resident Evil 2 if you wish too (which is what I did). Overlockers Link Here It's no Sapphire - which I would have loved, but its not worth £90 more.

What should that matter? I'm not delidding or anything.

4 Degrees delta between Old Stock and New Kyronaut. Ambient measures within 0.5 degrees (shaded room, insulated house) Tested with Small FFTs on Non-overlooked CPU, 2 passes - Delta would be higher OCed but I didn’t get baselines for that. I’ll be testing again on a brand new Corsair AIO when Ryzen 3 drops. (On mobile - sorry about wrong forum - can a mod drop this into air cooling please?)

See now 2-3 degrees is meh- but I’ve seen benchmarks upto like 10

I’m already planning a couple of build videos - might have to do that too ?

Title - Should i swap out the on board thermal paste or leave it be?

All of the boards shown at Computex show support upto 4400 as a minimum. Is there going to be a shift in availability of cheaper higher frequency RAM, or will it remain as a high-premium, low-availability item? Currently, the only part before the huge jump (£100-£150) is a Corsair Vengeance 3600Mhz Kit. Is there any news about July available, 4000+ budget RAM?

I believe we've seen all of the ASUS Offerings that will be available for release and the Prime Pro is the only one - and I will be ordering on Pre-order date July 1st, so that doesn't leave me much wiggle to do my research etc.

VII Image borrowed from Without15 on PCPartpicker PCPartPicker Part List CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 3700X 3.8 GHz 8-Core Processor (£329 @ July 7th) CPU Cooler:Corsair - H100i RGB PLATINUM SE 63 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£129.98) Motherboard: Asus - ROG Crosshair VII Hero (Wi-Fi) ATX AM4 Motherboard (£267.98) Memory: Corsair - Vengeance RGB Pro 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£219.49) Storage: Corsair - MP510 960 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£134.39) Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 6 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive (£140.15) Video Card: Sapphire - Radeon VII 16 GB Video Card (£629.99) Case: Corsair - Carbide Series 275R ATX Mid Tower Case (£79.99) Power Supply: Corsair - RMx White 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£98.99) Case Fan: Corsair - LL120 RGB White with Lighting Node PRO 63 CFM 120 mm Fans (£69.98) Total: £2164.90 Prices do not include shipping, Prices from a single UK vendor I get free shipping from Scan and also they're the only UK vendor with some of the White Corsair kit - I'm not being paid to shill, I promise! The theme is VII. The design is White Ryzen VII 7nm, Crosshair VII, Radeon VII Corsair do a really nice set of white parts (which go really nice with a vertically mounted Radeon VII from Sapphire). I love brand cohesion and this has it in boatloads Cause Corsair logo is boats - get it? There's white tubing, rads and fans on the CPU cooler, a white case and cables on the PSU, LL Fans in white in a kit. One bad thing about this build is the lack of PCIe 4.0 Support as it uses the Crosshair VII instead of the new X570 Chipset boards - However the aesthetic would work perfectly well without the VII theme. I've got just over a month to talk myself into buying this before the pre-order date on the 1st of July when the processor is released, although realisticly I more than likely go for a significantly trimmed down build to save on the budget as I'm meant to also be saving for a wedding If I do go for this myself, it would much more likely be with the Asus Prime X570 Pro board as I've always uses Asus XXX Pro boards in the past, and it's whiter. I'd also probably drop to 16GB of RAM, drop the 6TB for a 3TB drive for Practicality. If anyone else wants to make this however, give me a shout - you'll probably want the links for white case header extensions, white silverstone fan filter for the unused back fan slot and 90 degree PCIe riser card to finish off the build My pictures below are from my 'working out' phases

My plan for my next build is to put fan inputs on any filtered surface I can find. That way all the unfiltered gaps become exhaust and so dust should only ingress via filters. If you can find a spot to mount the fan on another filter - do that! (Prioritise bottom to top for inputs so it pulls cooler ambient air) Looking specifically at the Carbide, you have 2 fans included, so one can sit up front with your H100i on the filtered front. Good start, but the PSU shroud means there will unlikely be any bottom side fan mounts or filters. This leaves the fan near the rear IO or the top. I'd be tempted to try mounting the rear IO one as input too, but I'd like to see a little mesh or filter between the fan and the grill if I did that. Then, all hot air should exhaust up as long as your machine isn't under a table. I say 'try' because if the fans begin to fight each other because of airflow, then you may find reversing the rear IO fan is necessary.

Quick question for those hanging on - Freesync on my current RX480 is a bit of a godsend. Would Vega 64 still not have price/performance against the 1080 Ti because of its two benefits (Price is 150 cheaper and Freesync) Also RE: 2x M.2 NVMe - I cant find anywhere that says you can’t have 2 on the Mobo - only that one runs at PCIe 2.0. Is it a lanes issue, a hard limit or a just that it’s slower? @Taf the Ghost

PLEASE NOTE - CUSTOM PRICES ARE DUE TO AVAILABLE DISCOUNTS I CAN GET PERSONALLY. Use case: Gaming and occasional video editing. Budget: £1000-£1500 All In (note £400 of bits coming from existing system, remove this amount from Totals below) Note: Monitor is 75Hz Freesync Note: May delid and overclock 8600K if it looks worthwhile as airflow is issue Note: Any case replacement requires front intake, rear exhaust. Filtered preferred. Location: Wolverhampton, UK (Less than 1hr from OCUK) Intel PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant Type Item Price CPU Intel - Core i5-8600K 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor £170.00 CPU Cooler Cooler Master - Hyper 212 RGB Black Edition 57.3 CFM CPU Cooler £39.97 @ Amazon UK Thermal Compound Thermal Grizzly - Conductonaut 1 g Thermal Paste £7.65 @ Amazon UK Motherboard Gigabyte - H370 AORUS Gaming 3 WIFI ATX LGA1151 Motherboard £126.14 @ More Computers Memory Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory £104.88 @ Amazon UK Storage Samsung - PM961 256 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive Purchased For £80.00 Storage Corsair - MP510 960 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive £153.65 @ Aria PC Storage Seagate - Barracuda 3 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive Purchased For £80.00 Video Card Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB AORUS Xtreme Edition 11G Video Card £470.00 Case NZXT - H500 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case £69.98 @ Amazon UK Power Supply Corsair - RMx (2018) 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply £76.22 @ CCL Computers Operating System Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit £83.99 @ Amazon UK Case Fan ARCTIC - F12 PWM 53 CFM 120mm Fan £5.48 @ AWD-IT Case Fan ARCTIC - F12 PWM 53 CFM 120mm Fan £5.48 @ AWD-IT Monitor Samsung - U28H750 27.9" 3840x2160 60 Hz Monitor Purchased For £240.00 Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts Total £1713.44 Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-03-21 01:29 GMT+0000 AMD PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant Type Item Price CPU AMD - Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7 GHz 8-Core Processor £215.00 Thermal Compound Thermal Grizzly - Kryonaut 1g 1 g Thermal Paste £5.99 @ AWD-IT Motherboard Gigabyte - X470 AORUS ULTRA GAMING ATX AM4 Motherboard £130.76 @ CCL Computers Memory Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory £104.88 @ Amazon UK Storage Samsung - PM961 256 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive Purchased For £80.00 Storage Corsair - MP510 960 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive £153.65 @ Aria PC Storage Seagate - Barracuda 3 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive Purchased For £80.00 Video Card Gigabyte - Radeon RX VEGA 64 8 GB Video Card £315.00 Case NZXT - H500 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case £69.98 @ Amazon UK Power Supply Corsair - RMx (2018) 550 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply £76.22 @ CCL Computers Operating System Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit £83.99 @ Amazon UK Case Fan ARCTIC - F12 PWM 53 CFM 120mm Fan £5.48 @ AWD-IT Case Fan ARCTIC - F12 PWM 53 CFM 120mm Fan £5.48 @ AWD-IT Monitor Samsung - U28H750 27.9" 3840x2160 60 Hz Monitor Purchased For £240.00 Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts Total £1566.43 Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-03-21 01:29 GMT+0000 *Note - I know someone told me Gigabyte isn't great for AMD - but getting 2x M.2 slots ain't cheap.

All of this is completely counter to my instincts based on info from 8 years ago! I don't suppose you have a good reference site/channel for this info? Not saying you're wrong, I just need to wrap my head around this! Also, I'm with you, I wouldn't feel safe without with VRM sinks on, I get funny about power as its a pretty dangerous thing to cheap out on but I don't know enough to actually understand who is using the good components in that area. Plus - I prefer VRMs covered for aesthetics

You got anything in the Coffee Lake or Ryzen 7 generations for Mobos or CPUs that I should avoid from your 'bad pick' list?

Is there a reliable database for price to performance ratio for popular components?

Hi Guys, I'm interested in seeing some methods people use to rate/qualify build choices. Scoring/Pricing/Rating methods that help narrow down a build would be super welcome but how do you rate your personal desire for Mini-ITX vs the tradeoffs? (Cost, East of Use, Expandability etc). I keep getting stuck in some really gnarly cycles of indecision that are crippling my ability to pull the trigger. I'm looking for a serious upgrade as my machine is 8 year old in May, but as soon as I get to a build I like my frugal side rears its ugly head to the point I will drop specs due to side by side comparisons and end up sacrificing alot. An example of the rabbitholes I go through are in the quote below - but ignore it if you think it'll distract from my original question If that isn't mental gymnastics, I don't know what is Help me out guys - how do I get to a point where I can justify every decision without getting distracted?