Alphabear1978

Rule number 1: you don’t want speed, you want stability.  It’s better to wait five more minutes And get things done reliable then have to retry five times

How did this build go.  I'm having a 7313p arriving tomorrow for my workstation.  This will replace my 1950X as that becomes solely a NAS.  Specs are very similar only using a RX 6800XT as graphics card and have 128 Gigs in quad channel configuration (only 2666Mhz though). Can't wait to see the performance uplift this hopefully brings as Threadripper Pro is just becoming too expensive and out of reach for me.

+1 look at my signature 😂

Not sure who saw one of the latest videos LTT uploaded around RDNA2 's performance but I have been toying with the same idea myself to see what is the max I can get out my RTX 3090 and RX 6800XT (without the use of any magic button LOL).  Yes I know they are both living in different systems and the whole system will afffect the scores in benchmarks (so it is not 100% scientific LOL, I did not feel like building a different system for this) but 3DMark Timespy (Extreme) and Shadow of the Tombraider do allow for GPU only frame rates so in a way that would take the CPU and system out of the equation (somehow).  There is so much that should play an advantage for my 12900k + RTX 3090 combo.  It is watercooled and it runs on DDR5, but when it comes to gaming, my 5800X with my 6800XT is keeping up very nicely and spoiler alert, even beats my Intel/NVidia combination on multiple occasions.
 
Systems
 
System one is a AMD 5800X with RX 6800XT (recovered of an Alienware Aurora) with smart access memory enabled, 48Gig of 3200Mhz DDR4 memory and runs a 240 AIO from Corsair and the GPU runs on air.
 
Graphics settings for benchmarking: 
Clockspeed allowed up to 2650 Mhz (more than that it runs unstable) Voltage set to 990 mV (absolute minimum I can go here) Memory maxed out (+150Mhz) Allowed power maxed out Fancurve set to 100%  
System two is a Intel 12900k with RTX 3090 (recovered of an Alienware Aurora but runs on EKWB front and back waterblock), 32 Gig of 5600Mhz DDR5 memory and runs on an open loop with 2 * 360 Rad.
Clockspeed curve set that 1935Mhz asks for 843 mV, anything higher it crashes or I start to lose speed as the GPU gets warmer.  In this setting the GPU runs the majority of the tests at 1920 to 1935Mhz and 46 degrees.  You see the speed tumble down as we get warmer Memory: +1500Mhz Power draw maxed out Pump and fans run at 100% Results
 
RT On: There is no match for NVidia right now, unless AMD has found the magic sauce in their upcomming cards, I believe that NVidia will stay king in this area, although I have to say that 
In F1 22 the 3090 gives me a Average of 81 FPS without DLSS and 131 FPS with DLSS enabled.  The 6800XT gives me an average of 55 FPS without FSR and 104 with FSR enabled. In Shadow of the Tombraider we see similar story.  Average of 159 FPS for the RTX 3090 and 107 FPS  for the 6800XT.  Both have DLSS or FSR disabled. Port Royal at the end confirms the story.  14021 for the RTX 3090 and 10288 for the 6800XT RTX Off:  Here is where my 6800XT shines and keeps up and sometimes crushes my RTX 3090
In F1 22 the 3090 gives me 198 FPS .  The 6800XT gives me an average of  220 FPS  In Shadow of the Tombraider we see similar story.  Average of  193 FPS (GPU) for the RTX 3090 and  197 FPS (GPU)  for the 6800XT.  TimeSpy gives me 21053 (GPU) for the RTX 3090 and 21657 (GPU) for the RX 6800XT TimeSpy Extreme is the only test where the RTX 3090 shines (but barely).  10640 (GPU) for the RTX 3090 and 10027 (GPU) for the 6800XT Conclusion
 
Now NVidia 4000 series and 7000 AMD cards are hitting the market, 2nd hand websites will be flooded with older cards so give AMD 6000 series a chance 🙂
 
 

Not sure who saw one of the latest videos LTT uploaded around RDNA2 's performance but I have been toying with the same idea myself to see what is the max I can get out my RTX 3090 and RX 6800XT (without the use of any magic button LOL).  Yes I know they are both living in different systems and the whole system will afffect the scores in benchmarks (so it is not 100% scientific LOL, I did not feel like building a different system for this) but 3DMark Timespy (Extreme) and Shadow of the Tombraider do allow for GPU only frame rates so in a way that would take the CPU and system out of the equation (somehow).  There is so much that should play an advantage for my 12900k + RTX 3090 combo.  It is watercooled and it runs on DDR5, but when it comes to gaming, my 5800X with my 6800XT is keeping up very nicely and spoiler alert, even beats my Intel/NVidia combination on multiple occasions.
 
Systems
 
System one is a AMD 5800X with RX 6800XT (recovered of an Alienware Aurora) with smart access memory enabled, 48Gig of 3200Mhz DDR4 memory and runs a 240 AIO from Corsair and the GPU runs on air.
 
Graphics settings for benchmarking: 
Clockspeed allowed up to 2650 Mhz (more than that it runs unstable) Voltage set to 990 mV (absolute minimum I can go here) Memory maxed out (+150Mhz) Allowed power maxed out Fancurve set to 100%  
System two is a Intel 12900k with RTX 3090 (recovered of an Alienware Aurora but runs on EKWB front and back waterblock), 32 Gig of 5600Mhz DDR5 memory and runs on an open loop with 2 * 360 Rad.
Clockspeed curve set that 1935Mhz asks for 843 mV, anything higher it crashes or I start to lose speed as the GPU gets warmer.  In this setting the GPU runs the majority of the tests at 1920 to 1935Mhz and 46 degrees.  You see the speed tumble down as we get warmer Memory: +1500Mhz Power draw maxed out Pump and fans run at 100% Results
 
RT On: There is no match for NVidia right now, unless AMD has found the magic sauce in their upcomming cards, I believe that NVidia will stay king in this area, although I have to say that 
In F1 22 the 3090 gives me a Average of 81 FPS without DLSS and 131 FPS with DLSS enabled.  The 6800XT gives me an average of 55 FPS without FSR and 104 with FSR enabled. In Shadow of the Tombraider we see similar story.  Average of 159 FPS for the RTX 3090 and 107 FPS  for the 6800XT.  Both have DLSS or FSR disabled. Port Royal at the end confirms the story.  14021 for the RTX 3090 and 10288 for the 6800XT RTX Off:  Here is where my 6800XT shines and keeps up and sometimes crushes my RTX 3090
In F1 22 the 3090 gives me 198 FPS .  The 6800XT gives me an average of  220 FPS  In Shadow of the Tombraider we see similar story.  Average of  193 FPS (GPU) for the RTX 3090 and  197 FPS (GPU)  for the 6800XT.  TimeSpy gives me 21053 (GPU) for the RTX 3090 and 21657 (GPU) for the RX 6800XT TimeSpy Extreme is the only test where the RTX 3090 shines (but barely).  10640 (GPU) for the RTX 3090 and 10027 (GPU) for the 6800XT Conclusion
 
Now NVidia 4000 series and 7000 AMD cards are hitting the market, 2nd hand websites will be flooded with older cards so give AMD 6000 series a chance 🙂
 
 

Not sure who saw one of the latest videos LTT uploaded around RDNA2 's performance but I have been toying with the same idea myself to see what is the max I can get out my RTX 3090 and RX 6800XT (without the use of any magic button LOL).  Yes I know they are both living in different systems and the whole system will afffect the scores in benchmarks (so it is not 100% scientific LOL, I did not feel like building a different system for this) but 3DMark Timespy (Extreme) and Shadow of the Tombraider do allow for GPU only frame rates so in a way that would take the CPU and system out of the equation (somehow).  There is so much that should play an advantage for my 12900k + RTX 3090 combo.  It is watercooled and it runs on DDR5, but when it comes to gaming, my 5800X with my 6800XT is keeping up very nicely and spoiler alert, even beats my Intel/NVidia combination on multiple occasions.
 
Systems
 
System one is a AMD 5800X with RX 6800XT (recovered of an Alienware Aurora) with smart access memory enabled, 48Gig of 3200Mhz DDR4 memory and runs a 240 AIO from Corsair and the GPU runs on air.
 
Graphics settings for benchmarking: 
Clockspeed allowed up to 2650 Mhz (more than that it runs unstable) Voltage set to 990 mV (absolute minimum I can go here) Memory maxed out (+150Mhz) Allowed power maxed out Fancurve set to 100%  
System two is a Intel 12900k with RTX 3090 (recovered of an Alienware Aurora but runs on EKWB front and back waterblock), 32 Gig of 5600Mhz DDR5 memory and runs on an open loop with 2 * 360 Rad.
Clockspeed curve set that 1935Mhz asks for 843 mV, anything higher it crashes or I start to lose speed as the GPU gets warmer.  In this setting the GPU runs the majority of the tests at 1920 to 1935Mhz and 46 degrees.  You see the speed tumble down as we get warmer Memory: +1500Mhz Power draw maxed out Pump and fans run at 100% Results
 
RT On: There is no match for NVidia right now, unless AMD has found the magic sauce in their upcomming cards, I believe that NVidia will stay king in this area, although I have to say that 
In F1 22 the 3090 gives me a Average of 81 FPS without DLSS and 131 FPS with DLSS enabled.  The 6800XT gives me an average of 55 FPS without FSR and 104 with FSR enabled. In Shadow of the Tombraider we see similar story.  Average of 159 FPS for the RTX 3090 and 107 FPS  for the 6800XT.  Both have DLSS or FSR disabled. Port Royal at the end confirms the story.  14021 for the RTX 3090 and 10288 for the 6800XT RTX Off:  Here is where my 6800XT shines and keeps up and sometimes crushes my RTX 3090
In F1 22 the 3090 gives me 198 FPS .  The 6800XT gives me an average of  220 FPS  In Shadow of the Tombraider we see similar story.  Average of  193 FPS (GPU) for the RTX 3090 and  197 FPS (GPU)  for the 6800XT.  TimeSpy gives me 21053 (GPU) for the RTX 3090 and 21657 (GPU) for the RX 6800XT TimeSpy Extreme is the only test where the RTX 3090 shines (but barely).  10640 (GPU) for the RTX 3090 and 10027 (GPU) for the 6800XT Conclusion
 
Now NVidia 4000 series and 7000 AMD cards are hitting the market, 2nd hand websites will be flooded with older cards so give AMD 6000 series a chance 🙂
 
 

Not sure who saw one of the latest videos LTT uploaded around RDNA2 's performance but I have been toying with the same idea myself to see what is the max I can get out my RTX 3090 and RX 6800XT (without the use of any magic button LOL).  Yes I know they are both living in different systems and the whole system will afffect the scores in benchmarks (so it is not 100% scientific LOL, I did not feel like building a different system for this) but 3DMark Timespy (Extreme) and Shadow of the Tombraider do allow for GPU only frame rates so in a way that would take the CPU and system out of the equation (somehow).  There is so much that should play an advantage for my 12900k + RTX 3090 combo.  It is watercooled and it runs on DDR5, but when it comes to gaming, my 5800X with my 6800XT is keeping up very nicely and spoiler alert, even beats my Intel/NVidia combination on multiple occasions.
 
Systems
 
System one is a AMD 5800X with RX 6800XT (recovered of an Alienware Aurora) with smart access memory enabled, 48Gig of 3200Mhz DDR4 memory and runs a 240 AIO from Corsair and the GPU runs on air.
 
Graphics settings for benchmarking: 
Clockspeed allowed up to 2650 Mhz (more than that it runs unstable) Voltage set to 990 mV (absolute minimum I can go here) Memory maxed out (+150Mhz) Allowed power maxed out Fancurve set to 100%  
System two is a Intel 12900k with RTX 3090 (recovered of an Alienware Aurora but runs on EKWB front and back waterblock), 32 Gig of 5600Mhz DDR5 memory and runs on an open loop with 2 * 360 Rad.
Clockspeed curve set that 1935Mhz asks for 843 mV, anything higher it crashes or I start to lose speed as the GPU gets warmer.  In this setting the GPU runs the majority of the tests at 1920 to 1935Mhz and 46 degrees.  You see the speed tumble down as we get warmer Memory: +1500Mhz Power draw maxed out Pump and fans run at 100% Results
 
RT On: There is no match for NVidia right now, unless AMD has found the magic sauce in their upcomming cards, I believe that NVidia will stay king in this area, although I have to say that 
In F1 22 the 3090 gives me a Average of 81 FPS without DLSS and 131 FPS with DLSS enabled.  The 6800XT gives me an average of 55 FPS without FSR and 104 with FSR enabled. In Shadow of the Tombraider we see similar story.  Average of 159 FPS for the RTX 3090 and 107 FPS  for the 6800XT.  Both have DLSS or FSR disabled. Port Royal at the end confirms the story.  14021 for the RTX 3090 and 10288 for the 6800XT RTX Off:  Here is where my 6800XT shines and keeps up and sometimes crushes my RTX 3090
In F1 22 the 3090 gives me 198 FPS .  The 6800XT gives me an average of  220 FPS  In Shadow of the Tombraider we see similar story.  Average of  193 FPS (GPU) for the RTX 3090 and  197 FPS (GPU)  for the 6800XT.  TimeSpy gives me 21053 (GPU) for the RTX 3090 and 21657 (GPU) for the RX 6800XT TimeSpy Extreme is the only test where the RTX 3090 shines (but barely).  10640 (GPU) for the RTX 3090 and 10027 (GPU) for the 6800XT Conclusion
 
Now NVidia 4000 series and 7000 AMD cards are hitting the market, 2nd hand websites will be flooded with older cards so give AMD 6000 series a chance 🙂
 
 

Finally had some time to finish up my build.
 
Meet Thunderbolt.
 
Lian Li O11 Dynamic
Intel 12900K with Corsair XC8 RGB Pro JayzTwoCents edition
Asus ROG MAXIMUS Z690 FORMULA
RTX 3090 with EKWB water block + active back plate
32 Gig G. Skill DDR5 5600 MHz
Corsair XD3 Pump - Reservoir Combo
2 X Corsair XR 5 360 radiators
3 X Corsair LL120
3 X Corsair SP120
1 Chunky Pikachu 25th anniversary edition.
 
 
 

Finally had some time to finish up my build.
 
Meet Thunderbolt.
 
Lian Li O11 Dynamic
Intel 12900K with Corsair XC8 RGB Pro JayzTwoCents edition
Asus ROG MAXIMUS Z690 FORMULA
RTX 3090 with EKWB water block + active back plate
32 Gig G. Skill DDR5 5600 MHz
Corsair XD3 Pump - Reservoir Combo
2 X Corsair XR 5 360 radiators
3 X Corsair LL120
3 X Corsair SP120
1 Chunky Pikachu 25th anniversary edition.
 
 
 

When Santa comes and he brings the requested upgrades for your pc.  First of all, I know I'm very lucky to have the parts and was able to build my dream pc, although for full disclosure some parts come out of an earlier Alienware build that I used for a year and now stripped for parts. (RTX 3090, 5800X, disk).
 
1st build I call the Power House, industrial looking yet strong.  Not a lot of bling but don't let that fool ya.
 
 
Case : Phanteks Enthoo 719
Memory: 32 Gb of Corsair LPX 3600 Mhz C16
Motherboard: MSI MEG Ace X570
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X cooled by EKWB Velocity block (Non RGB)
GPU: NVidia RTX 3090 with EKWB waterblock with active backplate cooling (Non RGB)
Disk 1 TB Samsung 980 PRO: 
Disk 2: 2TB Samsung 870 EVO
Cooling: 480 Radiator in the front and a 360 Radiator on top, EK-Quantum Kinetic FLT 120 D5 PWM D-RGB, EKWB & Bitspower fittings, soft tubing.
Fans: 4 Corsair QL 120 + 3 Noctua NF-F12 fans.
Screen: LG C1 55"
Keyboard: Logitech G Pro KTL keyboard
Mouse: Logitech G Pro wireless mouse with charging pad
 
2nd build I call the Cameleon.  Recuperation of some older parts into a new jacket.

Case : InWin 309 Gaming Edition
Memory: 32 Gb of G-Skill Trident Z Neo 3600 Mhz C18
Motherboard: X570 I AORUS PRO WIFI 
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5800X cooled by EKWB Velocity block
GPU: GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 2080 Xtreme WATERFORCE WB
Disk 1 TB Samsung Drive (model unknows as it came out of the Alienware PC): 
Disk 2: 2TB Samsung 870 EVO
Cooling: 240 Radiator on top and a 240 Radiator on the bottom, Bitspower Touchaqua Sedna 303C (pump,reservoir distro combo) , Bitspower fittings, hard tubing.
Fans: 6 4 InWin Saturn ASN120 Fans
Screen: Alienware 34 inch curved monitor
Keyboard: Corsair K55 RGB Wireless
Mouse: Corsair IRONCLAW RGB WIRELESS Gaming 

When Santa comes and he brings the requested upgrades for your pc.  First of all, I know I'm very lucky to have the parts and was able to build my dream pc, although for full disclosure some parts come out of an earlier Alienware build that I used for a year and now stripped for parts. (RTX 3090, 5800X, disk).
 
1st build I call the Power House, industrial looking yet strong.  Not a lot of bling but don't let that fool ya.
 
 
Case : Phanteks Enthoo 719
Memory: 32 Gb of Corsair LPX 3600 Mhz C16
Motherboard: MSI MEG Ace X570
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X cooled by EKWB Velocity block (Non RGB)
GPU: NVidia RTX 3090 with EKWB waterblock with active backplate cooling (Non RGB)
Disk 1 TB Samsung 980 PRO: 
Disk 2: 2TB Samsung 870 EVO
Cooling: 480 Radiator in the front and a 360 Radiator on top, EK-Quantum Kinetic FLT 120 D5 PWM D-RGB, EKWB & Bitspower fittings, soft tubing.
Fans: 4 Corsair QL 120 + 3 Noctua NF-F12 fans.
Screen: LG C1 55"
Keyboard: Logitech G Pro KTL keyboard
Mouse: Logitech G Pro wireless mouse with charging pad
 
2nd build I call the Cameleon.  Recuperation of some older parts into a new jacket.

Case : InWin 309 Gaming Edition
Memory: 32 Gb of G-Skill Trident Z Neo 3600 Mhz C18
Motherboard: X570 I AORUS PRO WIFI 
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5800X cooled by EKWB Velocity block
GPU: GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 2080 Xtreme WATERFORCE WB
Disk 1 TB Samsung Drive (model unknows as it came out of the Alienware PC): 
Disk 2: 2TB Samsung 870 EVO
Cooling: 240 Radiator on top and a 240 Radiator on the bottom, Bitspower Touchaqua Sedna 303C (pump,reservoir distro combo) , Bitspower fittings, hard tubing.
Fans: 6 4 InWin Saturn ASN120 Fans
Screen: Alienware 34 inch curved monitor
Keyboard: Corsair K55 RGB Wireless
Mouse: Corsair IRONCLAW RGB WIRELESS Gaming 

I've started upgrading an old pc to make it more modern. This is how it looks so far. Also I'm using the old threadripper parts from it and building a watercooled server from them.
So far it has a temp cpu in it until new cpu's come out to replace the 5950x. (Currently 5700g)
6900xt
64gb 3600mhz ram
Asus Crosshair VIII extreme
1tb Seagate 530 ssd (Another 2tb one ordered for my game drive)
480mm rad in the top, dual 360mm rads in the bottom. Dual d5 pumps. Tonnes of bitspower fittings and ek blocks
1200 watt psu
 

I figured as I was posting my own pc's on here I would update a picture of my sons I built him for christmas. I haven't fitted the UV lights yet and I've braided cables ordered but other than that it was complete for Christmas plus some upgrades for his backup pc.
3950x, 32gb 3600mhz ram, 2080 ti, 32" curved 1440p monitor, 1tb m.2, other ssds/drives in the bottom, 27" curved 1440p monitor, Phanteks Evolv X, Phanteks 1000 watt psu.

And it’s finally done.
 
22

I've used most of the components before but by working from home all the time, and I spend most of the time switching between my work pc and my gaming pc, it made sense to rebuild my systems.  There are still some flaws with the build and I took an other gamble with the fluid (Primochill Vue) but this is my current setup.
 
PC1
 
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950x
ASROCK X399 Taichi
48 GB of Ballistix 2400 Mhz CL 16 (will be 64 soon when the defective memory has been replaced)
NVidia GTX 1660 Super
1 TB Samsung EVO 970 Plus
250 GB Samsung generic SSD
Corsair XR5 240 Radiator
Corsair XC9 Water block
Corsair XD5 Reservoir/Pump combo
 
 
PC2
 
AMD Ryzen 3950x
Gigabyte X570 Aorus Pro WIFI Mini-ITX
32 GB G-Skill Trident Z Neo 3600 Mhz CL 16
NVidia RTX 2080
500 GB Samsung EVO 970
1 TB Samsung EVO 860
Corsair XR5 360 Radiator
Corsair XR5 120 Radiator
Corsair XC7 Water block
Corsair XD5 Reservoir/Pump combo
 
Phanteks Entho 719
4 Corsair 120 LL fans
5 Noctua NF-F12 fans
Corsair Commander Pro
Phanteks Revolt X 1200W 80 plus Platinum 
 

And it’s finally done.
 
22

If you haven't seen my 2 in 1 build (The Beast), it is out there but I'll add one pic here.  I just need to take some more pics and should keep a log while building.  Anyway that aside.  When spouses see all that fancy tech, they keep asking for an upgrade of their system.  With some very convincing arguments, I gave in and took the weekend to upgrade the system. 
Meet The Beauty.  Pictures are a bit rough but you'll get the idea.
This PC is solely used for gaming and some office tasks and still for that it is overkill.  Most components are spare parts though, so I better use them instead of stack them in the closet. 
 
Lian-Li O11 Dynamic (my old case.  Still by far the best case to build in.)
Motherboard - MSI X570 Meg ACE (my old motherboard, went mini-ITX for my 3950X build and was the obvious choice to reuse.)
CPU - AMD Ryzen 3900X (Open Box at Micro Center for the price of a 3700X, I would have been stupid to let that one slide)
Memory - 32GB of CORSAIR Vengeance RGB PRO 3600Mhz. (3600MhZ is the sweet spot for Ryzen)
500GB + 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus 
AMD Radeon 5700 + waterblock from Corsair (will be replace by the PowerColor Liquid Devil 5700 XT as I need this card back for myself)
5 Corsair SP120 Fans + 2 Corsair SP140.  All creating negative pressure situation.  Best way to keep dust and cat hair out of the system.
Bitspower Distro plate + pump
Bitspower fittings.
850W Phanteks Revolt PRO 80 Plus Gold
 
Last pic in the series is from The Beast (Ryzen 3950X and TR1950X cramped in one case).



 

If you haven't seen my 2 in 1 build (The Beast), it is out there but I'll add one pic here.  I just need to take some more pics and should keep a log while building.  Anyway that aside.  When spouses see all that fancy tech, they keep asking for an upgrade of their system.  With some very convincing arguments, I gave in and took the weekend to upgrade the system. 
Meet The Beauty.  Pictures are a bit rough but you'll get the idea.
This PC is solely used for gaming and some office tasks and still for that it is overkill.  Most components are spare parts though, so I better use them instead of stack them in the closet. 
 
Lian-Li O11 Dynamic (my old case.  Still by far the best case to build in.)
Motherboard - MSI X570 Meg ACE (my old motherboard, went mini-ITX for my 3950X build and was the obvious choice to reuse.)
CPU - AMD Ryzen 3900X (Open Box at Micro Center for the price of a 3700X, I would have been stupid to let that one slide)
Memory - 32GB of CORSAIR Vengeance RGB PRO 3600Mhz. (3600MhZ is the sweet spot for Ryzen)
500GB + 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus 
AMD Radeon 5700 + waterblock from Corsair (will be replace by the PowerColor Liquid Devil 5700 XT as I need this card back for myself)
5 Corsair SP120 Fans + 2 Corsair SP140.  All creating negative pressure situation.  Best way to keep dust and cat hair out of the system.
Bitspower Distro plate + pump
Bitspower fittings.
850W Phanteks Revolt PRO 80 Plus Gold
 
Last pic in the series is from The Beast (Ryzen 3950X and TR1950X cramped in one case).



 

If you haven't seen my 2 in 1 build (The Beast), it is out there but I'll add one pic here.  I just need to take some more pics and should keep a log while building.  Anyway that aside.  When spouses see all that fancy tech, they keep asking for an upgrade of their system.  With some very convincing arguments, I gave in and took the weekend to upgrade the system. 
Meet The Beauty.  Pictures are a bit rough but you'll get the idea.
This PC is solely used for gaming and some office tasks and still for that it is overkill.  Most components are spare parts though, so I better use them instead of stack them in the closet. 
 
Lian-Li O11 Dynamic (my old case.  Still by far the best case to build in.)
Motherboard - MSI X570 Meg ACE (my old motherboard, went mini-ITX for my 3950X build and was the obvious choice to reuse.)
CPU - AMD Ryzen 3900X (Open Box at Micro Center for the price of a 3700X, I would have been stupid to let that one slide)
Memory - 32GB of CORSAIR Vengeance RGB PRO 3600Mhz. (3600MhZ is the sweet spot for Ryzen)
500GB + 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus 
AMD Radeon 5700 + waterblock from Corsair (will be replace by the PowerColor Liquid Devil 5700 XT as I need this card back for myself)
5 Corsair SP120 Fans + 2 Corsair SP140.  All creating negative pressure situation.  Best way to keep dust and cat hair out of the system.
Bitspower Distro plate + pump
Bitspower fittings.
850W Phanteks Revolt PRO 80 Plus Gold
 
Last pic in the series is from The Beast (Ryzen 3950X and TR1950X cramped in one case).



 

If you haven't seen my 2 in 1 build (The Beast), it is out there but I'll add one pic here.  I just need to take some more pics and should keep a log while building.  Anyway that aside.  When spouses see all that fancy tech, they keep asking for an upgrade of their system.  With some very convincing arguments, I gave in and took the weekend to upgrade the system. 
Meet The Beauty.  Pictures are a bit rough but you'll get the idea.
This PC is solely used for gaming and some office tasks and still for that it is overkill.  Most components are spare parts though, so I better use them instead of stack them in the closet. 
 
Lian-Li O11 Dynamic (my old case.  Still by far the best case to build in.)
Motherboard - MSI X570 Meg ACE (my old motherboard, went mini-ITX for my 3950X build and was the obvious choice to reuse.)
CPU - AMD Ryzen 3900X (Open Box at Micro Center for the price of a 3700X, I would have been stupid to let that one slide)
Memory - 32GB of CORSAIR Vengeance RGB PRO 3600Mhz. (3600MhZ is the sweet spot for Ryzen)
500GB + 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus 
AMD Radeon 5700 + waterblock from Corsair (will be replace by the PowerColor Liquid Devil 5700 XT as I need this card back for myself)
5 Corsair SP120 Fans + 2 Corsair SP140.  All creating negative pressure situation.  Best way to keep dust and cat hair out of the system.
Bitspower Distro plate + pump
Bitspower fittings.
850W Phanteks Revolt PRO 80 Plus Gold
 
Last pic in the series is from The Beast (Ryzen 3950X and TR1950X cramped in one case).



 

I'm a fulltime assistant professor teaching in an Information Systems department.  Part of my job is research and for this I need a computer that is adaptable to the needs of the day.  One day I'm doing some data crunching and I use all 16 cores together with the cuda cores of the 1660 to solve some problems.  The next day I'll be spinning up multiple VM's to create a lab environment so I can design labs for my students.  The students themselves will work in the cloud but due to cost savings I create all the VM's offline and port them over to Hyper-V in the cloud later.  For my second job, freelance Enterprise Architect, I try to have an environment that can mimic the clients environment and see if the proposed solution will work and give the proposed advantages.  This again requires some VM's to spin up.
As the 1950X runs VM's and memory management and CPU allocation  is much better on a Threadripper, it's for me a no brainer to keep using this machine.  In many of the situations I don't require raw speed, just flexibility.  If needed I can still upgrade this to a 32 core 2990wx, but prices for these are still extremely insane.  
And this is where the 3950x comes into play.  Sometimes I need more cores, there has been instances I'm allocating 26 cores or more for a project, and now it is easy to have them all in the same case.  I could have gone with 2 * 1950x or 2nd gen Threadripper, but if I want to game on it also, a 3950x was the logic choice.
My former setup in this case was a 3950x and a 9900k, with the 1950x in a different case but I realized that I was using the 1950x and 3950x constantly and hardly used the 9900k.  Now the 9900k will be in his own case and will be used by others in the house as gaming pc.
While I understand your remark about going Intel, they are so far behind in offering versatility that it does not make sense for most people to invest in Intel CPU's (and before anyone says something, nope I'm not an AMD fanboy).  For example, most people are running a 1080p or 1440p monitor at 60Hz.  Most CPU's with a very good GPU will hit those frames without any problem.  Many game developers are gearing towards more threats as are programs like photo editing or decompression software, so maybe 3700x is slower than a 9700k (and yes I compare 3rd gen Ryzen with 9th gen Intel because that is what came out around the same time), in cases where multi threating becomes more important, it outshines the 9700k every time.
Not sure if this answers your question.

Hi!
 
I have been thinking of building a NAS/renderserver for a few years and with COVID making me work more from home since march/april I finally got an excuse to do so! This build has been done for more than a month but I still wanted to share my journey and experience. One of the reasons I've never really gotten around to assembling a NAS has been the endless search for a compact case that still allows me to expand in future. Another factor was the overall look and size of the case as I live in a quite small apartment where I can't really hide the server anywhere. So I decided to build my own case!
 
Server requirements and budget:
Storage expandability (4 - 6 bays), my initial storage requirement was only 4tb but my storage delta is increasing each year VM Capable CPU to run rendering nodes in the future Decent cooling to handle summer temps and rendering workload Silence, as silent as reasonable for the price Use as little floor space as possible UPS as I do have 2 - 4 major powerouts each year Preferably less than 1000€  
Initially I wanted to go for an ITX build but the lack of SATA ports and only having one PCI-e on ITX made me choose an M-ATX board instead.
During the initial planning phase, a friend of mine mentioned the idea of theming the entire case around the IronWolf HDDs that I was looking at buying for the build. Things kinda snowballed from there, leading me to spend more time than I should have on making a mockup in blender for the entire case. Including lighting and material properties...xP

 

 
I should mention that one of the reasons I even had the idea to build this case is that I have access to a complete maker space at uni with wood, metal and rapid prototyping tools. The primary tools used for this build was the laser cutter and most parts are made out of PMMA with only the backplate/wall mount and brackets being made out of 2.5mm/1mm steel. All of the parts were drawn in CAD and then exported to either paper for the metal parts or vector graphics for the laser cut parts.
 
Having the layout and dimensions of the case I finally settled on the following components:
 - Ryzen 3 3200G
 - Asus Prime-B450-A
 - 2x HyperX 4gb ddr4 3200MHz
 - 2x Seagate IronWolf 4tb
 - Corsair SF450 (bought prior to recall but RMA was painless)
 - Noctua NH-L9a
 - Noctua A20 FLX
 - Kingston 64gb SSD (random ssd I had lying around from an older build, to be used as cache drive)
 
While waiting on shipping I started lasercutting some of the parts to build some physical mockups out of plywood. Once the parts arrived I assembled them onto the plywood parts to double check my spacing and parts placement.
 

 
I'm really glad that I did this as a few of the cable slots were a bit too small and kind akwardly placed. Those were ofc tweaked before the final manufacture.
I also tried to "blue" the metal brackets a bit as they looked kinda boring before but because I used mild steel instead of stainless they kinda look a bit meh but I mostly did it to learn as they really aren't visible in the end anyway.
 
        
 
Being nervous as f*** I started cutting the final parts out of PMMA and started soldering the RGB strips. Putting RGB on a Noctua might not be the most "correct" thing to do but in the end I think it worked quite well. I threw some more RGB into the GPU slot as I had not decided on a card at that point (I just bought a used RTX 2080 that's probably gonna end up in here, yes RTX 3000 is coming but honestly I don't think this build has the power or cooling to support those cards) and I think it looks quite alright in the end. RGB is handled by an Arduino running the FastLED library and in the end I settled for a super slow, very slight pulsing between white and slightly blue as the unicorn puke I had programmed earlier was distracting AF.
 
Build wise that's it!
Regarding software I ended up using Unraid after being very impressed by it during the trial and so far I've had no problems.
 
Costs :
Hardware : ~700€ (300€ for the Ironwolf disks alone) Material cost : ~100€ (I used mostly left overs, only the coverplate and baseplate were bought for this project) UPS : ~100€ Total : ~900€
 
I hope this was interesting to read and see and if nothing else inspires you to build a case yourself!
 
 
 

On the bottom we have my work rig 1 (teaching, research, writing papers,...) : 
Intel 9900k (Overclocked to 5.0 Ghz on all cores) Asrock Z390 Phantom Gaming ITX/AC 16 GB of Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR4-3600  EK Waterblock for Intel CPU's AMD RX 5700 with Corsair XG7 Corsair XD5 (Reservoir and pump) Corsair XR7 240 Rad Samsung 970 EVO 500GB On the top we have my work rig 2 (data science, virtualization, gaming):
AMD Ryzen 3950X  MSI MEG X570 ACE  32 GB of Ballistix Sport LT DDR4-3200 (overclocked to 3600Ghz) NZXT Krakken Z63 Gigabyte Aorus Geforce RTX 2080 XTREME WATERFORCE Corsair XD5 (Reservoir and pump) EK CoolStream PE 360 Samsung 970 EVO 500GB Samsung 860 EVO 1TB To power the systems: Phanteks Revolt X 1200W Platinum
To cool the systems: 5 Corsair LL120 RGB + 3 NZXT Aer RGB 120mm + 2 NZXT Aer RGB 140mm

On the bottom we have my work rig 1 (teaching, research, writing papers,...) : 
Intel 9900k (Overclocked to 5.0 Ghz on all cores) Asrock Z390 Phantom Gaming ITX/AC 16 GB of Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR4-3600  EK Waterblock for Intel CPU's AMD RX 5700 with Corsair XG7 Corsair XD5 (Reservoir and pump) Corsair XR7 240 Rad Samsung 970 EVO 500GB On the top we have my work rig 2 (data science, virtualization, gaming):
AMD Ryzen 3950X  MSI MEG X570 ACE  32 GB of Ballistix Sport LT DDR4-3200 (overclocked to 3600Ghz) NZXT Krakken Z63 Gigabyte Aorus Geforce RTX 2080 XTREME WATERFORCE Corsair XD5 (Reservoir and pump) EK CoolStream PE 360 Samsung 970 EVO 500GB Samsung 860 EVO 1TB To power the systems: Phanteks Revolt X 1200W Platinum
To cool the systems: 5 Corsair LL120 RGB + 3 NZXT Aer RGB 120mm + 2 NZXT Aer RGB 140mm

Because I don't daily drive this part, it's a server and runs without monitor.  This allows me to see the temps of both my GPU and CPU without having to go into the system.  It runs stock at 27C, under load never goes above 50 and when I tried to overclock it, I can easily hit 4.4 Ghz on all cores at 1.28v and stay within limits with a Cinebench R20 of 10228, I probably can push it further but there is no reason to do so.
It was for me more important to give the cooling to my GPU as this will be under load a lot.  CUDA cores are very good at calculating data science problems but this produces a lot of heat, hence the 360 RAD.  Also NZXT has one of the best coolers on the market, yes it's an Asetek cooler but for one or other reason they work better.