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The HUMBLE Computer

Mr.Humble
Spoiler

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:

Spoiler

 

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?

Spoiler

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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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20190719_144855.thumb.jpg.aa4796601a7a1c6708a4abda74523ffc.jpg

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20190719_144614.thumb.jpg.5a113415b0bb7a45464ee8a0f82d6cd3.jpg

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20190719_144651.thumb.jpg.3d9b947716eb0589be53a104b29ac5ab.jpg

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)

Spoiler

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

Spoiler
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?

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The HUMBLE Computer:

AMD Ryzen 7 3700X • Noctua NH-U12A • ASUS STRIX X570-F • Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3200MHz CL16 • GIGABYTE Nvidia GTX1080 G1 • FRACTAL DESIGN Define C w/ blue Meshify C front • Corsair RM750x (2018) • OS: Kingston KC2000 1TB GAMES: Intel 660p 1TB DATA: Seagate Desktop 2TB • Acer Predator X34P 34" 3440x1440p 120 Hz IPS curved Ultrawide • Corsair STRAFE RGB Cherry MX Brown • Logitech G502 HERO / Logitech MX Master 3

 

Notebook:  HP Spectre x360 13" late 2018

Core i7 8550U • 16GB DDR3 RAM • 512GB NVMe SSD • 13" 1920x1080p 120 Hz IPS touchscreen • dual Thunderbolt 3

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A gtx 1080 is still a Very powerfull card

 

My man rig from 2016 has a gtx 1080 and I have YET to lust for more

 

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  • 2 months later...

photo for F@H contest:

20190930_133806.jpg

Quote and/or tag people using @ otherwise they don't get notified of your response!

 

The HUMBLE Computer:

AMD Ryzen 7 3700X • Noctua NH-U12A • ASUS STRIX X570-F • Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3200MHz CL16 • GIGABYTE Nvidia GTX1080 G1 • FRACTAL DESIGN Define C w/ blue Meshify C front • Corsair RM750x (2018) • OS: Kingston KC2000 1TB GAMES: Intel 660p 1TB DATA: Seagate Desktop 2TB • Acer Predator X34P 34" 3440x1440p 120 Hz IPS curved Ultrawide • Corsair STRAFE RGB Cherry MX Brown • Logitech G502 HERO / Logitech MX Master 3

 

Notebook:  HP Spectre x360 13" late 2018

Core i7 8550U • 16GB DDR3 RAM • 512GB NVMe SSD • 13" 1920x1080p 120 Hz IPS touchscreen • dual Thunderbolt 3

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