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Making Sure This Works

MrJr

Budget (including currency): $2,200 (over $3000 USD eventually) 

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Gaming, VMs, storing media

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

When I graduated college in 2017, I used my graduation money to buy a PC. After 4 years and 2 more degrees, I felt that it was time to upgrade. My father put it perfectly when he said that I was building my electronic brain. The fundamentals of this PC will likely last me my entire life so I want to make sure everything is going to work together. My build is slightly unusual so I'd like to make sure I'm not gonna run into any issues with drivers, airflow, space, connections, etc.

Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro

MBD: Asus TUF Gaming X570 Plus WiFi

CPU: Ryzen 5 5600X

GPU: EVGA RTX 3080FTW3

RAM: Gskill 2x16GB 3200 RAM

Boot Drive: HP EX900 120GB

Main Drive: Corsair MP600 1TB

PSU: Seasonic 850W (plan on upgrading to an EVGA 1000W in the future)

Those were the standard pats for a PC. My questions don't lie there. They lie in the accessories and all the hoops I need to jump through to get everything working. This is a "future-proof" PC or as much of one as you can make it. So I got a lot of storage CAPABILITY. This particular case has 6 3.5" drive bays and mounts for 3 2.5" drive clips. Well there are clips sold by Phanteks that let you stack 2 drives per slot. So that means 12 drives I need to be able to plan for. Which means 12 SATA cables. And 12 SATA ports. Problem is that this motherboard only has 8. So there is a manufacturer that makes M.2 drives with 5 SATA ports on them. The issue is that all the slots on my MBD are taken up. So I have to use a PCIE card to provide more slots. I chose one that's a 16x slot and adds 4 more 4th gen slots. the SATA M.2 will be placed on here for 5 of the 6 3.5" drives. The case's IO comes with a USBC port and USB 3.0 ports. This means there's a 20-pin cable and a cable for USBC. My MBD does not have a port for the USBC cable. I also will be adding more front panel IO which requires another 19-pin connector. I found a PCIE card that provides 2 extra 19-pin ports. And luckily, a 19-pin adapter exists for the USBC cable. Finally, I also plan on adding a combo 5.25" and 3.5" floppy drive in addition to an optical drive. So with all these drives, cables, adapters, and components, I fear the heat generated will be too much for the system and there might be compatibility issues. If someone could give me advice, that would be much appreciated. A list of all the extra parts will be listed below. All are found on Amazon.

Optical Drive: Pioneer BDR-212V

Extra IO: Kingwin Powered USB Hub

Floppy Drive: Too little info for a specific model

NVME PCIE Multiplier: JEYI M.2 X16 PCIe 4.0 X4 Expansion Card

M.2 SATA Expansion: IO CREST Internal 5 Port Non-RAID SATA III 6GB/s M.2 B+M Key Adapter Card

19-pin PCIE: PCI-E X1 to 2 Ports 19 Pin

USBC Extension: Internal IDC 20 Pin Motherboard Header to A-Key (Type-E) 20 Pin Female Converter for Type C

 

(EDIT): I'm not asking for hardware advice. I'm asking if cooling actually will become an issue with this setup, and if there are gonna need to be any software workarounds. Hope this clears things up 🙂

PXL_20211126_230120087.jpg

PXL_20211028_031147046.jpg

Edited by MrJr
More clearly specify question and other statements.
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front side,cable management and the cooler proc is the main problem. that all make bad heat IMO

 

replace case with the pretty big one, like inwin 103 and great cooler proc, like dark rock pro 3/nzxt x63

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Instead of planning for 12 drives, just upgrade to larger drives as needed. If you fill the case cooling will become an issue. Besides, it's silly to have a card that adds more m.2 connections while using a motherboard m.2 connector for additional SATA ports.

 

The motherboard has a 16x16 PCIe 4.0 slot that uses cpu lanes. Presumably that will continue to be used for the GPU. 

 

The motherboard also supports a 16x4 PCIe 4.0 slot using chipset lanes. I doubt this slot would be suitable for an expansion card that supports 4 x NVMe m.2 drives.

 

There is no such thing as future proof! 

 

The case is already out of date. Just look at newer case designs to see why.

 

80+ ratings certify electrical efficiency. Not quality.

 

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45 minutes ago, brob said:

Instead of planning for 12 drives, just upgrade to larger drives as needed. If you fill the case cooling will become an issue. Besides, it's silly to have a card that adds more m.2 connections while using a motherboard m.2 connector for additional SATA ports.

 

The motherboard has a 16x16 PCIe 4.0 slot that uses cpu lanes. Presumably that will continue to be used for the GPU. 

 

The motherboard also supports a 16x4 PCIe 4.0 slot using chipset lanes. I doubt this slot would be suitable for an expansion card that supports 4 x NVMe m.2 drives.

 

There is no such thing as future proof! 

 

The case is already out of date. Just look at newer case designs to see why.

 

The M.2 that adds the ports will be on the PCIE card that adds NVME slots. I neglected to specify that.

 

I also think you don't really understand just how much information I plan on storing. I have a very poor memory. So I take lots of videos and photos. Back in 2010, I recorded just a simple breakfast conversation with my great great aunt. I still have it and I cry because she passed away, but I still have the video to ground my memory. Plus, I record the audio of any event I feel will be significant or a good memory. My memories over the decades will be stored here. And after I bought a 2TB drive thinking I'll never run out of space, I learned that I'm going to need a LOT of space if I want to store the things I want to store.

 

I'm buying the readers, optical drive capable of playing/ripping 4K UHD 3D disks for a reason. Think of this PC as a Plex server tacked onto a gaming PC. In fact, I would make one. But I don't want to build an entirely new computer and I like the idea of having a computer that can essentially do it all. Plus, I like the case because of those drive bays.

 

The "future proof" is mainly in the case. I'll eventually change out nearly every piece of electronics in the thing, but I should easily be able to keep the current components for 6-7 years because the games I play will be maxed out completely. And even if another newer game I like comes out, a 3080 will be overkill for quite a while. 

 

I'm not necessarily asking for build advice like what to buy as much as I am asking IF the setup will work. And if it will work, then will heat become an issue with what I describe? And IF it will, then what type of fans do I need, where do I need them, and what configuration should they be in?

 

I am in no way trying to be rude, I'm just saying that these components are literally the only way I can get what I want so hardware is non-negotiable in a sense.

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1 hour ago, ahmad13610 said:

front side,cable management and the cooler proc is the main problem. that all make bad heat IMO

 

replace case with the pretty big one, like inwin 103 and great cooler proc, like dark rock pro 3/nzxt x63

Appreciate the advice. Unfortunately, this is the case I'm stuck with since modern manufacturers don't like putting 5.25" drive bays in their towers. I've had my Aurora R7 since 2017 and I have been kicking myself ever since for not getting an internal optical drive. As someone who fondly remembers loading Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 into a disc drive on my Win 98 machine in 2004, those drive bays are non-negotiable. I literally spent weeks with multiple friends searching for cases

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31 minutes ago, MrJr said:

Appreciate the advice. Unfortunately, this is the case I'm stuck with since modern manufacturers don't like putting 5.25" drive bays in their towers. I've had my Aurora R7 since 2017 and I have been kicking myself ever since for not getting an internal optical drive. As someone who fondly remembers loading Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 into a disc drive on my Win 98 machine in 2004, those drive bays are non-negotiable. I literally spent weeks with multiple friends searching for cases

welcome back old player,

we all in new Z generation right now

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1 minute ago, ahmad13610 said:

welcome back old player,

we all in new Z generation right now

Much appreciated. Glad to be able to run "retro" hardware again without exclusively using emulators. My VHS rewinder that is shaped like a red car with working lights still gets regular use lol

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3 hours ago, MrJr said:

As someone who fondly remembers loading Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 into a disc drive on my Win 98 machine in 2004, those drive bays are non-negotiable.

An external optical drive isn't an option for you? That's what I use in the (increasingly rare) cases I still need some of my old CDs/DVDs. It sits mostly idle on my desk, but it's there and it works. 😉

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5 hours ago, MrJr said:

 

I also think you don't really understand just how much information I plan on storing.

 

Of course I don't know how much data you plan on storing since you haven't bothered to indicate such. Saying lots of is meaningless. That could be anywhere from 10TB to 1,000JB.

 

The reason you are "stuck" with the case is because you have fixated on a particular approach too the problem. Did you ever consider using NAS?

 

Regardless, maintaining unimpeded airflow through the case is going to be quite difficult. So I repeat my advice, get larger capacity storage devices rather than more.

 

Also, you will have to replace the motherboard before going beyond 8 SATA devices. The additional hardware you outlined will not work with the current motherboard. 

 

 

 

80+ ratings certify electrical efficiency. Not quality.

 

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2 hours ago, brob said:

 

Of course I don't know how much data you plan on storing since you haven't bothered to indicate such. Saying lots of is meaningless. That could be anywhere from 10TB to 1,000JB.

 

The reason you are "stuck" with the case is because you have fixated on a particular approach too the problem. Did you ever consider using NAS?

 

Regardless, maintaining unimpeded airflow through the case is going to be quite difficult. So I repeat my advice, get larger capacity storage devices rather than more.

 

Also, you will have to replace the motherboard before going beyond 8 SATA devices. The additional hardware you outlined will not work with the current motherboard. 

 

 

 

The truth is I really don't know how much. What I want to do is give myself as much headroom as possible. Because I very well could have 6x20TB HDDs in 2054 so I don't want to limit my drive capacity. I'm not gonna spend multiple hundreds of dollars on a single drive right now. I'll definitely fill up a 4TB drive before the prices of larger drives come down to a similar price, so I'll keep buying that size.

 

As I mentioned, I have considered a separate computer for the storage, but that would be multiple hundreds of dollars more and it would be another gigantic box on my desk rather than one.

 

I literally spent WEEKS with friends over Discord searching for possible case candidates. There are larger cases, but they don't have the 5.25" bays. There are cases with more bays, but they are enterprise cases I would need to order 100k of. This is the case I would like to use.

 

So will the M.2 drive with more SATA ports not work with the card that provides extra M.2 slots? I'm just wondering if this is a software compatibility issue.

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4 hours ago, Kronion said:

An external optical drive isn't an option for you? That's what I use in the (increasingly rare) cases I still need some of my old CDs/DVDs. It sits mostly idle on my desk, but it's there and it works. 😉

No. It is not an option for me. I've lived the life of adapters and external components for almost half a decade now. Plus, I will be using the $64 drive to put Blu-Ray and 3D movies I own onto my hard drives so it will see extensive use on top of playing my library of older titles. I'm spending over 2 grand USD here and the goal is everything in one big box.

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11 hours ago, MrJr said:

Budget (including currency): $2,200 (over $3000 USD eventually) 

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Gaming, VMs, storing media

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

When I graduated college in 2017, I used my graduation money to buy a PC. After 4 years and 2 more degrees, I felt that it was time to upgrade. My father put it perfectly when he said that I was building my electronic brain. The fundamentals of this PC will likely last me my entire life so I want to make sure everything is going to work together. My build is slightly unusual so I'd like to make sure I'm not gonna run into any issues with drivers, airflow, space, connections, etc.

Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro

MBD: Asus TUF Gaming X570 Plus WiFi

CPU: Ryzen 5 5600X

GPU: EVGA RTX 3080FTW3

RAM: Gskill 2x16GB 3200 RAM

Boot Drive: HP EX900 120GB

Main Drive: Corsair MP600 1TB

PSU: Seasonic 850W (plan on upgrading to an EVGA 1000W in the future)

Those were the standard pats for a PC. My questions don't lie there. They lie in the accessories and all the hoops I need to jump through to get everything working. This is a "future-proof" PC or as much of one as you can make it. So I got a lot of storage CAPABILITY. This particular case has 6 3.5" drive bays and mounts for 3 2.5" drive clips. Well there are clips sold by Phanteks that let you stack 2 drives per slot. So that means 12 drives I need to be able to plan for. Which means 12 SATA cables. And 12 SATA ports. Problem is that this motherboard only has 8. So there is a manufacturer that makes M.2 drives with 5 SATA ports on them. The issue is that all the slots on my MBD are taken up. So I have to use a PCIE card to provide more slots. I chose one that's a 16x slot and adds 4 more 4th gen slots. the SATA M.2 will be placed on here for 5 of the 6 3.5" drives. The case's IO comes with a USBC port and USB 3.0 ports. This means there's a 20-pin cable and a cable for USBC. My MBD does not have a port for the USBC cable. I also will be adding more front panel IO which requires another 19-pin connector. I found a PCIE card that provides 2 extra 19-pin ports. And luckily, a 19-pin adapter exists for the USBC cable. Finally, I also plan on adding a combo 5.25" and 3.5" floppy drive in addition to an optical drive. So with all these drives, cables, adapters, and components, I fear the heat generated will be too much for the system and there might be compatibility issues. If someone could give me advice, that would be much appreciated. A list of all the extra parts will be listed below. All are found on Amazon.

Optical Drive: Pioneer BDR-212V

Extra IO: Kingwin Powered USB Hub

Floppy Drive: Too little info for a specific model

NVME PCIE Multiplier: JEYI M.2 X16 PCIe 4.0 X4 Expansion Card

M.2 SATA Expansion: IO CREST Internal 5 Port Non-RAID SATA III 6GB/s M.2 B+M Key Adapter Card

19-pin PCIE: PCI-E X1 to 2 Ports 19 Pin

USBC Extension: Internal IDC 20 Pin Motherboard Header to A-Key (Type-E) 20 Pin Female Converter for Type C

 

(EDIT): I'm not asking for hardware advice. I'm asking if cooling actually will become an issue with this setup, and if there are gonna need to be any software workarounds. Hope this clears things up 🙂

PXL_20211126_230120087.jpg

PXL_20211028_031147046.jpg

If you are building another PC with that $2200, look at the one below, and as for thermals, anything above an NH-D15 could be considered "overkill"

 

if you want to "future proof" the PC, you need to have temporarily worse performance and go with DDR5

░█▀▀█ ▒█░░░ ▒█▀▀▄ ▒█▀▀▀ ▒█▀▀█   ▒█░░░ ░█▀▀█ ▒█░▄▀ ▒█▀▀▀ 
▒█▄▄█ ▒█░░░ ▒█░▒█ ▒█▀▀▀ ▒█▄▄▀   ▒█░░░ ▒█▄▄█ ▒█▀▄░ ▒█▀▀▀ 
▒█░▒█ ▒█▄▄█ ▒█▄▄▀ ▒█▄▄▄ ▒█░▒█   ▒█▄▄█ ▒█░▒█ ▒█░▒█ ▒█▄▄▄

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7 minutes ago, Alder Lake said:

If you are building another PC with that $2200, look at the one below, and as for thermals, anything above an NH-D15 could be considered "overkill"

 

if you want to "future proof" the PC, you need to have temporarily worse performance and go with DDR5

Thank you for the advice. Since the CPU's performance is related to heat, what point will the stock cooler no longer be sufficient to prevent thermal throttling in this particular setup?

 

I'm absolutely willing to upgrade RAM, MBD, etc when the technology necessitates it (probably in 4-5 years). The real "future proof" aspect comes from the case having enough headroom and space in general to house enough drives and future components.

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1 minute ago, MrJr said:

Thank you for the advice. Since the CPU's performance is related to heat, what point will the stock cooler no longer be sufficient to prevent thermal throttling in this particular setup?

 

I'm absolutely willing to upgrade RAM, MBD, etc when the technology necessitates it (probably in 4-5 years). The real "future proof" aspect comes from the case having enough headroom and space in general to house enough drives and future components.

oh, I see

 

can you just tell me how many 2.5", 3.5", and 5.25" bays you need to make it easy on me? lol

░█▀▀█ ▒█░░░ ▒█▀▀▄ ▒█▀▀▀ ▒█▀▀█   ▒█░░░ ░█▀▀█ ▒█░▄▀ ▒█▀▀▀ 
▒█▄▄█ ▒█░░░ ▒█░▒█ ▒█▀▀▀ ▒█▄▄▀   ▒█░░░ ▒█▄▄█ ▒█▀▄░ ▒█▀▀▀ 
▒█░▒█ ▒█▄▄█ ▒█▄▄▀ ▒█▄▄▄ ▒█░▒█   ▒█▄▄█ ▒█░▒█ ▒█░▒█ ▒█▄▄▄

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3 minutes ago, Alder Lake said:

oh, I see

 

can you just tell me how many 2.5", 3.5", and 5.25" bays you need to make it easy on me? lol

This case has 6x3.5" bays, clips for 6x2.5" drives (likely going to be SATA SDDs), and 3x5.25" bays. Not all of these spots will be filled immediately. As I need more space for certain projects, I'll buy more drives. But I want to make sure I don't add in one drive too many and suddenly my performance tanks.

 

I'm absolutely willing to buy more fans and place them where needed. My setup allows for more fans on the top and one on the bottom.

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2 hours ago, MrJr said:

So will the M.2 drive with more SATA ports not work with the card that provides extra M.2 slots? I'm just wondering if this is a software compatibility issue.

 

I have no idea if the m.2 SATA port expander would work with the PCIe m.2 expansion card.

 

What I was trying to point out, not knowing the specifics of the PCIe m.2 expansion card being contemplated, was that it likely would not work with the motherboard.

 

You might consider instead a SATA or SAS controller card.

80+ ratings certify electrical efficiency. Not quality.

 

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41 minutes ago, brob said:

 

I have no idea if the m.2 SATA port expander would work with the PCIe m.2 expansion card.

 

What I was trying to point out, not knowing the specifics of the PCIe m.2 expansion card being contemplated, was that it likely would not work with the motherboard.

 

You might consider instead a SATA or SAS controller card.

Do you mind enlightening me on those last 2? More room for actual storage drives on that expansion cars would be appreciated.

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A SATA controller card would use an expansion slot on the motherboard and provide additional SATA III ports. There are numerous examples available, some use a single PCIe lane to support multiple data devices. Others use 4, 8, or 16 lanes supporting various numbers is drives. 

 

80+ ratings certify electrical efficiency. Not quality.

 

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37 minutes ago, brob said:

A SATA controller card would use an expansion slot on the motherboard and provide additional SATA III ports. There are numerous examples available, some use a single PCIe lane to support multiple data devices. Others use 4, 8, or 16 lanes supporting various numbers is drives. 

 

Alright. Since everything is from Amazon, I'll be able to return items for free. So if my setup doesn't work, I'll try to use that.

 

Do you have any advice for system cooling? This case does allow for airflow over the drives, but idk if the case will end up being too crowded. The cable management in the pics is just to get the system to post. I'll try to clean it up as much as possible, but idk if heat is gonna be an issue.

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I'd be tempted to replace the front 200mm fan with 2x140mm or 2x120mm fans. At some point you will want to add two HDD cage fans.

 

Cables are always an issue. Try to keep them bundled together using twist ties or velcro straps. Once you are satisfied you can use the case tiedowns to move as many as possible out of the way.

 

 

80+ ratings certify electrical efficiency. Not quality.

 

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1 minute ago, brob said:

I'd be tempted to replace the front 200mm fan with 2x140mm or 2x120mm fans. At some point you will want to add two HDD cage fans.

 

Cables are always an issue. Try to keep them bundled together using twist ties or velcro straps. Once you are satisfied you can use the case tiedowns to move as many as possible out of the way.

 

 

Where can I mount HDD cage fans in this case? because the front fan already blows directly into the drives. I'm thinking about going all 140mm fans just so it can run quieter.

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The manual and web page indicate 2x120mm HDD fans are possible. Sadly the manual does not explicitly show the mounting position. Perhaps there are mount points on the cages themselves. I'm thinking on the case-interior side.

80+ ratings certify electrical efficiency. Not quality.

 

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3 hours ago, brob said:

The manual and web page indicate 2x120mm HDD fans are possible. Sadly the manual does not explicitly show the mounting position. Perhaps there are mount points on the cages themselves. I'm thinking on the case-interior side.

So what exactly is the advantage of 2x120 fans instead of one 200? would those alongside the single fan at the back be enough to cool the system?

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16 hours ago, brob said:

The manual and web page indicate 2x120mm HDD fans are possible. Sadly the manual does not explicitly show the mounting position. Perhaps there are mount points on the cages themselves. I'm thinking on the case-interior side.

I am an idiot. I just realized that USB 5Ghz WiFi adapters exist. ASUS has a non-WiFi version of this board that includes an extra x1 PCIE slot. So instead of sacrificing a precious Gen 4 NVME slot on the expansion card, I can use the extra x1 slot to include a SATA expansion card. Which is fine because those will only be used by the 3.5" HDDs. So the very next hardware upgrade will be to switch to the non-WiFi version of this board.

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12 hours ago, MrJr said:

So what exactly is the advantage of 2x120 fans instead of one 200? would those alongside the single fan at the back be enough to cool the system?

 

200mm fans are reasonably uncommon so not much research has gone into developing better ones. High static pressure 120 mm fans are available for situations where airflow is constricted. In the case of drive cages, I believe stacked 120mm fans cover more of the drive area that needs cooling.

80+ ratings certify electrical efficiency. Not quality.

 

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