First Build Journey! Snowblind S 5800/3070

ExpiredPancake · March 7, 2021

Hello all! This has been quite a journey for me, but I appreciate the help I've received from just reading posts thus far! Anyway, if you're just interested in the end product, this is the final result of my labor:

Parts List:

CPU: AMD 5800X (450$)

GPU: PNY RTX 3070 (680$)

Motherboard: ASUS ROG B550-A Gaming (180$)

Memory: 32Gb of Crucial Ballistix 3600 CL16 Memory (4x8) (200$)

Storage: 1x crucial P5 250gb (OS) 1x Crucial P2 1tb (storage) 1x reused 2.5" laptop hard drive (personal files) (60$+104$)

Case: Ibuypower snowblind S (200$)

Power Supply: Corsair CX750F (104$)

Cooling: Corsair H100i RGB Platinum SE (170$)

Total, not counting peripherals, roughly 2,150$ (I got some on sale and paid slightly more for GPU)

Now if you'd also give me the time of day and allow me to chronicle my long journey, that'd be much appreciated too! This has been in the making for about 4 months (ever since ryzen 5000 was announced), but getting parts has obviously been a nightmare combined with my own misteps. It took quite awhile to gather the parts, particularly the CPU and GPU. I preordered the 5800X from B&H when it was first available, but it still took until December to arrive. The GPU was literally the first one I could get my hands on. I attempted to get the 3070, 6800XT and 6800 in any variant, but this was the first available. I'd just dipped my toes into the PC gaming world a few years ago when I purchased an ASUS FX502VM (gaming laptop with a 1060) but the hard drive was slow as he*ck, and I wanted to play more demanding VR games (also bought an HP reverb G2!)

My biggest complete failure during this build was using liquid metal in place of thermal paste. Espically considering the H100i came with some pre-applied. I KNOW i'm an idiot for trying it, but I'd heard it was really good for cooling and didn't know any better.

..So yeah. I spilled it on the motherboard. Whoops. I didn't know how much to apply and it slipped all over when I was trying to tighten the cooling block.

I attempted my best to clean it off with alcohol wipes, but when I attempted to power on the system, I got Dram LED on the motherboard. I can only assume I shorted it. I had to RMA the CPU and motherboard (thankfully warranty covered both) and with my lesson learned I redid the entire thing with the new parts and some regular old arctic MX4.

(look at all muh shiny rgbbbbb)

So yeah, that just about wraps up where I'm at! I'm currently having to deal with the Ryzen USB disconnect issue, which I'll have to solve.. I heard disabling PCIE gen 4 on the motherboard can help with that but I'll have to see. As well, I boot into safe mode whenever I enable XMP anywhere over 3000mhz on the ram (..which I think might have to do with the shorting issue. Not the end of the world, I'm just glad the ram didn't die lol) but other than that it's fantastic.

My whole setup. Set up in the basement under the stars. real cave dweller hours. I had to build the area under the stairs with pieces of drywall, as well as the desk using a wood countertop and some 2x4s.

Peripheral List for those inclined:

Odyssey G7

HP VH240A

Razer Tartarus Pro

Corsair K70 SE

Corsair Icue nexus companion

Razer Seiren Emote

Corsair MM800 Polaris

Roccat Kone AIMO mouse

JBL Quantam One