The Question Mark Build

maxtch · July 11, 2022

Budget (including currency): $200. This build is mostly a collection of parts that came out of other builds in the process of troubleshooting.

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Backup unit, no specific workload planned.

I was having weird thermal and USB compatibility issues among my main workstations. In the process of troubleshooting, I generated enough parts removed from those systems to be put together into a build. Since most parts are either rejects or bought used, I am calling this build The Question Mark Build, as the reliability of almost all important part here has question marks on it. This is actually my first ever build with either a transparent side panel or any significant amount of RGB.

Parts list:

CPU: Intel Core i9-11900K. This CPU may have a weak memory controller, as it seems to have reliability trouble with DDR4-3200 memory.
MoBo: MSI Z590-A Pro. This motherboard seems to have signal integrity issues with its USB 3.2 ports.
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML120L v2 RGB. This is bought used.
RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3000 clocked at DDR4-2933. This RAM set is otherwise fine, but the motherboard doesn't want to run it at 3000MHz without an BCLK overclock.
GPU: Sapphire RX 580 Nitro 8GB. This GPU actually physically conflicts with the reinforce bar in my 4U rack cases. The case can live without that reinforce bar but operating it like that was suboptimal.
SSD: Samsung PM981A 960GB M.2 22110 NVMe drive. This is bought used. This drive looks like server-grade SSDs, since it has ridiculous number of electrolytic capacitors on it.
PSU: Corsair CX750M.
NIC: nVidia Mellanox ConnectX-3 EN CX311A. This is bought used. (I do have an all-fiber 10Gbps home network and most of my computers have CX311A or CX312A cards. That can lead to interesting things as those cards have RDMA.)
NIC: Intel AX200 Wi-Fi + Bluetooth card.
Case + Fans: Corsair iCUE 220T.

maxtch · July 11, 2022

50 minutes ago, 8tg said:

Immediately spend that 200$ on a much better cooler.

I speak as an 11900k user, a 120mm aio is not so much a cooler as it is a cooker on an 11900k even at stock.

I feel that chip just got glanced over as “lol bad and hot” by everyone and nobody really seems to notice that it’s power problem is on par with the FX9590, it will kill low end boards and it puts out more heat than anyone would reasonably expect.

That 120mm AIO was not intended for the current case at all. It is too a reject from the troubleshooting process.

I have three 4U industrial rack mount cases. Those cases are too small to work with traditional tower air coolers like Hyper 212. The best hope of putting a 11900K (or 10700K, or 9700K) in there was a 120mm liquid cooler in the only place where the whole case accepts a 120mm fan. In that mounting scheme the radiator is directly at the cool air inlet, which makes things slightly more workable.

That cooler was taken out of one of such cases once I gave up on that 11900K platform and put the dual socket Xeon E5-2696v2 system back in.