The HUMBLE Computer

Mr.Humble · July 22, 2019

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Not much about this is actually humble - I don't think I ever spent more on a PC in a single year

At last, I have come to a conclusion of the epic journey that was my series of topics centered on upgrade options, monitor and parts selection:

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This is the first time I actually build a PC, as I had the previous rig assembled for me, and only replaced the cooler, RAM, and GPU down the line.

I was not quite worried about actually physically assembling the components, as I watch waaaay too many build guides, and actually had one paused on my laptop next to the dining room table (the largest, cleanest, best-lit surface I could find in the house). No, what worried me were 2 things: my hard drives were set up in a BIOS RAID 1, so like, will I get all my media files?, and I had to transfer my Windows 10 Pro license (not the OS installation, I was too worried everything would go wrong transferring from Intel to AMD)

That feeling when the test run on top of the motherboard box successfully posted tho.

Both of those worries ended up completely fine as well, I just had to type in an old activation code and remove one of the drives (which I planned to before) because it would show up as offline due to conflicting hardware signature.

After completing the assembly and installing the OS, I had to tweak the BIOS. For some reason, ASUS thought it a good idea to give my CPU 1.45V on the Vcore, resulting in over 60°C while sitting at the desktop downloading games. So no, thank you, here's 1.3V and that's all you get (1.25V wouldn't boot). The performance penalty is marginal, under all-core load in AIDA64 or Cinebench R20 the CPU just sits on 4GHz the whole time, but the temperature is a good 6-7°C lower, at ~78°C. Idle is around 40, but do note the PC has been running for at least 48 hours nonstop now, downloading games using my crap internet connection.

Let's have a look at what I ended up with, shall we?

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PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor	Purchased For €328.00
CPU Cooler	Noctua - NH-U12A 60.09 CFM CPU Cooler	Purchased For €99.00
Thermal Compound	Noctua - NT-H2 3.5 g Thermal Paste	Purchased For €9.00
Motherboard	Asus - ROG Strix X570-E Gaming ATX AM4 Motherboard	Purchased For €280.00
Memory	Kingston - Predator 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3333 Memory	Purchased For €95.00
Storage	Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	Purchased For €0.00
Storage	Seagate - Barracuda 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	Purchased For €0.00
Video Card	Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1080 8 GB G1 Gaming Video Card	Purchased For €0.00
Case	Fractal Design - Define C ATX Mid Tower Case	Purchased For €128.00
Power Supply	Corsair - RMx (2018) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	Purchased For €105.00
Operating System	Microsoft - Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit
Case Fan	Noctua - NF-S12A PWM 120 mm Fan	Purchased For €0.00
Case Fan	Noctua - NF-A14 PWM chromax.black.swap 82.52 CFM 140 mm Fan	Purchased For €22.00
Case Fan	Noctua - NF-A14 PWM chromax.black.swap 82.52 CFM 140 mm Fan	Purchased For €22.00
Monitor	Acer - Predator X34P 34.0" 3440x1440 120 Hz Monitor	Purchased For €0.00
Keyboard	Corsair - STRAFE RGB Wired Gaming Keyboard	Purchased For €0.00
Mouse	Logitech - G502 Proteus Core Wired Optical Mouse	Purchased For €0.00
Custom	Kingston KC2000 1TB NVMe SSD	Purchased For €170.00
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	€1258.00
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-07-22 19:33 CEST+0200

Total cost of the system was a hair over the €1250 budget, €2150 including the new monitor.

I wanted something minimalistic, relatively small, and quiet, but also powerful, without compromising I/O and future expansion, and something that would be uniquely mine.

I achieved that by "modding" a Define C by getting a Meshify C front panel for it (they're the same case, but the Meshify doesn't have any sound dampening on side and top panels), and a blue mesh insert. I ended up paying a pretty premium for this, but I got a case that reflects my personality (quiet, blue and lazy ) and has improved utility due to the perforated front panel allowing more air inside, while still being very easy to accomplish.

So, without further ado, I present to you, The HUMBLE Computer:

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A reasonably clean backside goes a long way #nocontext

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The old system has now been stripped - the 2x8GB RAM kit went to my dad, as well as one of the HDDs - and mothballed in case of necessity (The sale cost would probably be around €100 - €150, but requiring similar level if investment into a new PSU and SSD, so I'm better off keeping it as a spare than selling it)

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One of the first pictures of my previous rig that I got in 2014, still with the Radeon R9 280.

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PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel - Core i5-4590 3.3 GHz Quad-Core Processor	Purchased For €0.00
Motherboard	Asus - Z97-P ATX LGA1150 Motherboard	Purchased For €0.00
Memory	Kingston - HyperX Fury Black 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR3-1866 Memory	Purchased For €0.00
Storage	Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	Purchased For €0.00
Storage	Seagate - Barracuda 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	Purchased For €0.00
Storage	Seagate - Barracuda 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	Purchased For €0.00
Video Card	Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1080 8 GB G1 Gaming Video Card	Purchased For €0.00
Case	Zalman - Z12 ATX Mid Tower Case	Purchased For €0.00
Power Supply	FSP Group - 750 W 80+ Silver Certified ATX Power Supply	Purchased For €0.00
Operating System	Microsoft - Windows 10 Pro Full 32/64-bit	Purchased For €0.00
Case Fan	Noctua - NF-S12A PWM 120 mm Fan	Purchased For €0.00
Case Fan	Noctua - NF-S12A PWM 120 mm Fan	Purchased For €0.00
Case Fan	Noctua - NF-S12A PWM 120 mm Fan	Purchased For €0.00
Keyboard	Corsair - STRAFE RGB Wired Gaming Keyboard	Purchased For €0.00
Mouse	Logitech - G502 Proteus Core Wired Optical Mouse	Purchased For €0.00
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	€0.00
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-07-22 19:31 CEST+0200

Component list of the previous PC

Future upgrade plans:

GPU: Maybe something like Nvidia 3080
RAM: depending on necessity, I will sooner or later populate the rest of the slots with 32GB of RAM
A storage solution: I kept the drives and the old 500GB SATA SSD, but haven't quite figured out what to do with them. In the future I will get some big hard drives (4 or 6TB, depending on price/capacity), and exploring either Storage Spaces or other solution for a mini tiered storage setup using the SSD. I will also likely get an extra 1TB SSD at some point for games and pictures and everything else that can benefit from faster storage but doesn't need NVMe.
Networking: short term I will need to figure out how to make our TP-Link and ASUS routers work in bridge mode, long term, if I'll be staying at my parents', I will be getting a pair of 10GbE cards for me and my father's PC, which will serve as the family NAS
Peripherals: maybe a new mouse since the 4 y.o. G502 is kinda getting hard to clean on the rubber surfaces by now. I'll probably get a new mousepad because the one I have is too long (and I should probably wash it )
painting my room
Maybe custom cables?