Gathering parts for new build

[Grogan]

I might as well start a thread for this.

Well, it looks like the Rocket Lake (11th gen i9) plan is bust, due to the availability of Z590 boards. I know if I look, I'd find one, but I'm unwilling to trust unknown retailers. Currently I'll shop at Amazon (still have Prime) or Canada Computers. I won't buy from Newegg, their reputation is in the mud.

I was really hoping to predate that stupid "performance core/efficiency core" bullshit but it's looking like Z690 gives me a lot of options. I think the Z790 is viable too, as it supports 12th and 13th gen (LGA-1700)

For the CPU then, something like this:

Intel Core i9-12900K (alder lake)
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B09FXDLX95

16 cores, 8 performance, 8 efficiency. Oh well, I have 4 now, and faking another 4 with SMT so whatever lol

I'm not fixated on that CPU, still could improve. I looked at higher ones, like 24 core where 8 are performance and 16 are efficiency. Umm, they can blow that out their asses.

[Zema Bus]

They seem to have worked out the kinks in those. I got an i5 13400F last summer to play around with, games run really well on it. Also have an i7-12700KF for a project.

[Grogan]

I'm probably going to go with that i9-12900K then, it should be enough CPU. I am still undecided on motherboard.

[Zema Bus]

I've had good luck with MSI motherboards, most of the ones I have now are MSI. The one I got for my Intel system was an MSI Pro Z690-P, not one of their higher end models but it's been good: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09GL ... UTF8&psc=1

[Grogan]

Yeah, my nephew has a good MSI board. He's done a few builds pretty much exactly like his with his friends, too.

Though, my record with Gigabyte has been very good. They use good capacitors and shit.

No way I'm buying that one though, "Warning! Choking Hazard -- Small Parts. Not for children under 3 yrs."

(stupid boiler plate... who would let a 3 year old handle a motherboard)

I had to go find it on the Canadian site, but that MSI PRO Z690-P DDR4 ProSeries looks like the ticket for $264 CAD.

How are those for bios settings? For example is it possible to disable the TPM entirely? I hate those things, they are adversarial. (and Windows is never going near it so I don't need to have a TPM)

[Zema Bus]

It has all the usual settings. I couldn't find where the secure boot setting is but I read that it is disabled by default, and since Arch (EndeavourOS) boots just fine it would have to be disabled. I got some screen shots showing where the setting is to disable TPM. It has a nice dark mode BIOS theme, I've been used to the red and black theme of the AMD versions.

Go into "Security":

bios1.jpg (132.55 KiB) Viewed 1112 times

bios3.jpg (137.03 KiB) Viewed 1112 times

Toggle "Security Device Support" to 'Disable"

bios2.jpg (107.78 KiB) Viewed 1112 times

[Grogan]

Thanks man, that looks pretty good. I didn't mean for you to spend all that time. I wasn't sure if the TPM was something they let you disable anymore since it's for "security" against you.

I think that's the board I'm going for then.

I'm just sitting here thinking about all the shit I'm going to have to buy.

CPU
Cooler
Motherboard
RAM (4x16G I think, for now... probably Corsair)
2 TB NVME (just 1 for now)
Video Card (might have to take the 570 card out of this one for now depending on how much funding I can pull out of my ass)
Display (if I upgrade video card, else keep this one for now)
Case (probably Corsair)
Power Supply (probably Corsair 800W)

[Zema Bus]

You're very welcome! If you end up getting a new display, A few months ago I needed a new display downstairs so thought I'd upgrade the primary display on my upstairs gaming machine and use it's old display downstairs. I got my first 27" display, I've always only bought 22" - 24" displays previously due to costs, but I found a number of them in the same price range. I got a Sceptre gaming monitor. It has 3 HDMI ports and 1 DisplayPort port so something else could share the display without swapping cables, like a Raspberry Pi. Anymore I only buy displays that include a DisplayPort because everything is moving in that direction (most video cards now have multiple DisplayPort ports and only one HDMI port) since it's an open standard vs proprietary HDMI with expensive licensing, and because of a common bug with HDMI in Linux where the screen can't go to sleep - it happens with displays that cycle through checking all the inputs before going into sleep mode and a Linux machine is connected via HDMI. This is the one I got: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08G3 ... UTF8&psc=1. For coolers I used to buy Cooler Master tower coolers, but lately I've been buy ID-Cooling tower coolers, they're cheap and work really well. They have models which include two fans but I've only been getting ones with only 1 included fan since I use my own fans so no need to pay extra for a fan I'm not going to use (I keep the included fans as backups) they come with two sets of metal clips to install two fans. Here's the one I have: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BC1 ... =UTF8&th=1. And I like this fan: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BKG ... UTF8&psc=1, I have a number of them.

[Grogan]

Oh wow, look at the price on that monitor. That would almost put me off, thinking it would be too crappy. I would have never considered that, but if that's what you're using it's got to be pretty good. That just incentivized me (probably half the cost I would have considered for a display with fast enough pixel rate)

I should secure at least CPU, motherboard, RAM, NVME and Video card right away, as those are the things likely to become more scarce and expensive.

[Zema Bus]

It's been great so far, and I like having the extra gaming real estate When looking at cases one thing you'll find is that most of them these days have glass side panels, and an enclosure over the power supply. I hate both of those. The glass adds a lot of unnecessary weight and then there's always the concern of it shattering. Whenever looking for cases I look for ones that still have either an acrylic side panel, a mesh side panel, or just a plain non-windowed panel. Four years ago I got a case with a glass side panel, I might eventually get an acrylic replacement panel made for it. It also has a power supply cover - it was a struggle to get the power supply inside and the cables routed up from it. I know that's aimed at people who are really into cable management, but I can't be bothered with that. The Corsair cases I have are older, before the glass trend, so I don't know if they offer a non-glass case now. I also have a few Fractal Focus G cases, they come in different colors and have a really nice finish. They don't have a lot of bays for drives though, but they do have two 5 1/4" bays in addition to the 3 1/2" bays. I'm mostly running just SSD's these days so the minimal number of drive bays hasn't been a problem, sata SSD's can be stuff in wherever they'll fit lol! Here's what the Fractal Focus G cases look like: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074P ... UTF8&psc=1 and the Corsair cases: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00I6 ... UTF8&psc=1 And then there's the system speakers - most motherboards these days don't supply one (and cases stopped coming with speakers ages ago) but I like to hear the boot beep codes. So I buy a package of speakers on Amazon and keep them on hand for whenever I might need one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MR ... UTF8&psc=1 My current video card is an RX 6750 with 12 GB memory. Anything more powerful was out of my price range but this one has been good. Depending on prices you might want to look at the 7000 series cards.

[Grogan]

Cable management to me means having them loose, so they are easy to get at without having to remove hardware from the case. When I hooked everything up in this one, I took a picture of it so you all could laugh at me. Ugly floppy ribbon cable draped from top to bottom too. I have a plexi side pane, but it's turned towards the wall on the left where it can't be easily seen.

I'm going to be having NVME only, so that will be less cabling, from the power supply too. I'll buy a 2 Tb, and take the 2Tb gaming drive out of this computer so I don't have to redo all my games. Both Steam and Lutris are there as well as standalone native games. I won't be gaming on this computer anymore after that.

I noticed that about the Corsair case, the power supply enclosure and it was a bit of a pain when it had to come out for troubleshooting. Those cases aren't like they used to be. However, the method to my madness is to get the very same case that my nephew has. If I get him to help me, he'd have the hardware in the case in minutes instead of me literally screwing around (I'm not that good at that part, fumbling with screws etc.). He's had lots of practice with that case.

That Fractal Design case looks good too though.

That old, solid black Corsair tower you showed me looks like something from the good old days. Those had really nice drive bays too.

I haven't had a PC speaker in a long time, the motherboards have lights now instead of that shit. The beeps were no better, most of the time it was invalid sequences of beeps and you had to guess what was wrong by trying this and that anyway.

[Grogan]

Well, I'm a master of procrastination (doesn't help that I still love my current computer) but there's no turning back now

One stop shopping:

amazonpartsbuy.jpg (249.67 KiB) Viewed 1096 times

Next is going to be the video card, as that's also potentially volatile. (anything with memory and especially video cards for GPU processing)

[Grogan]

Oops, I fucked up... motherboard not shipping from Amazon. Oh well, I guess I'll just see what happens instead of trying to go back and cancel and re-order that one thing. Damn, I wondered why it was a few bucks cheaper than the item I looked at the other day. (but who looks a gift horse in the mouth lol)

Shipping time doesn't matter so much, as I still have more to order (next week probably) and if it doesn't come, or comes busted, I'll still have time to do something about it.

[Zema Bus]

Nice! I noticed it was from a 3rd party, at least it'll still be covered by Amazon if anything goes wrong. I like to bench test the board as soon as I have the minimum needed to boot, and go straight into the BIOS and check the temps, set the time and date, & tweak settings while I'm at it. That'll also give it enough running time for the temps to settle. Then when I install it in the case I already know it boots. Sure beats not finding out until after it is built and having to tear it all apart, I learned that lesson the hard way. Even when beep codes aren't useful for diagnosing issues I still prefer hearing them, guess I'm old school. Oh, and front panel connections - that's one of the less fun parts. Sometimes it'll be hard to tell the polarity for things like drive activity and the power on light so it'll be a matter of trial and error. I use a little magnetic adjustable light for that, you'll want to have a lot of light when plugging those leads in. Or just have your nephew do that part

[Grogan]

I also see my NVME drive is sold by a third party, but "fulfilled" by Amazon. That sounds like they initiate cross shipping, rather than "shipped by Amazon" or letting the seller handle it. I really have to pay more attention to that instead of being all gimme gimme when ordering lol

Indeed, I've never been fond of panel connections and USB headers and shit.

[Grogan]

Everything is shipped. I should have the first 5 items tomorrow (CPU, screws, RAM, NVME) but the motherboard is shipping from dog knows where and I have a shipping date of March 7 - March 13. That doesn't make a lot of sense, it's Purolator courier and it wouldn't take that long from anywhere in the U.S. or Canada. I'd expect it next week which would be fine because I still have to get case, PSU, cooler, video card, display etc. If it does look like it's going to hold me up, I'll order another and return that one. One of the return options is "took too long to arrive".

I'll be seeing my nephew tomorrow and I'll order the Corsair case he has, and a Corsair PSU.

I probably should have waited until today to order so nothing would come on the weekend. I'll be out on Saturday and this burdens my parents for watching for my packages. I don't want $800 of hardware sitting on the steps for hours. (in unstable weather too this time of year)

Amazon tracking has gotten kind of shitty. All they show now is a bar and they don't put location info anymore and they don't link to the courier's tracking anymore. So all I know is that it's half an inch past "Shipped".

P.S. Oh, the tracking number worked at Purolator's tracking site (it didn't look like one of theirs). The shipping info at Amazon is bollocks. The motherboard is actually coming from Mississauga Ontario and delivery is Monday (March 4) lol

[Zema Bus]

I've noticed that when I've ordered stuff from 3rd parties on Amazon. Maybe you'll get lucky and they'll deliver it before you leave tomorrow.

[Zema Bus]

If you ever need to install more NVME drives they have these 4 NVME port PCIe cards. A few of these would be good for a server. Link

[Grogan]

The courier did come just as I was about to pull out of the driveway today, with a very small box. I didn't even open it, it felt like just the box of screws I ordered. So when I got home tonight, I found that it had the CPU (very small packaging when there's no stock cooler), the 2 RAM kits, the NVME and the box of screws lol

I've got two M.2 slots, and that PCI-E adapter that can go in an (always) unused PCI-E slot. Unless you blow an onboard NIC or something, there's nothing that's ever going in those PCI-E slots. I'm not planning on any mechanical drives, so I might need more than 2 eventually. I might get a cheaper NVME just for doing builds and shit on.

[Grogan]

So it's looking like the Corsair cases are impractical. What I didn't realize was that there are no places to access optical drives. Nothing but fan bays in the front panel. I assumed that would open up or something, but he said no. He couldn't have an optical drive if he wanted to.

I'm looking at cases and they are all yuck! I want a full tower case.

I might do this. It's an expensive case ($300 CAD) but it's full tower and here's a deal with a kick ass 1000W power supply included with the case for $499

https://www.amazon.ca/CORSAIR-7000D-Air ... KWR7/?th=1

(downgrade to 850W PSU = $464)

Actually that's not really that much of a saving over buying the case and PSU separately but it's convenient. Whatever case I buy, that is going to be the PSU I'm buying (850W would do, but it's not really that much more for the 1000)

Still no optical drive bays (no Corsair cases), so I may cut a hole and do something if I can't get along without one. It's a full tower case so there will be lots of room for MacGyvering.

I'm really undecided, one part of me says fuck Corsair for their design arrogance. I'm not keen on their boasts about cable management either, I will never tuck cables in behind the motherboard and with the exception of power connections, there won't be any cabling unless I install an optical SATA. I don't even think there are front USB ports on that case. However, I'm left with a lot of unknowns when choosing a case.

I have to be careful... look at what Corsair says about their PSU's:

Case Compatibility:

The PSU and cables will fit in any PC case that supports ATX PSU format and is at least 210mm (8.3") wide. The PSU must also be accessible from the side when mounted in the case.

So it doesn't fit in any ATX case, only ones that mount the PSU where the cables can run up the side.

[Grogan]

It looks like the video card is bust for now. I'm not paying $600 for a mid range card that won't be that much better than my RX 570 that cost $250'ish. They can ALL fuck off. We're talking $1200 CAD (or $1000 if I buy an off brand like "power color") for anything that would be a serious upgrade. I'm hoping to avoid the 7000 series, I don't want any trouble, but the 6700XT's are all really expensive.

So, if I take video card out of the old computer anyway, I might as well just use my case and existing 1000W PSU and put the hardware in it. All I'd need is a CPU cooler and I could get started, if I go that route.

[Grogan]

The cooler I was going to buy is "mechanically incompatible" with my motherboard. Good thing Noctua has specific motherboard compatibility listings, I almost ordered that today. That means the bolt holes won't jibe. There's no backing plate on the model I was going to buy, it just bolts on from the rear of the board.

I really liked this one:

Noctua NH-L9i-17xx chromax.Black, Premium Low-Profile CPU Cooler for Intel LGA1700
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B09HCHYMJM

I do not want a big, cumbersome, weighty tower cooler. Hell, the stock coolers work... I went 14 years of compiling with all cores blazing, for hours every day with the stock cooler. (The CPU I bought didn't come with one this time)

[Zema Bus]

Using your existing case would be a good option if you can't find a suitable full tower case. Check and see if you can find a 'Corsair Obsidian Series 750D Performance Full Tower Case', I have two of these and they've been great over the years. Amazon doesn't seem to have them anymore, the last one I bought was in 2017. Here's the Amazon link to them: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EB ... UTF8&psc=1

I thought you probably wouldn't like the case choices we have today anymore than I do, the choices were so much better 10 years ago. And your post reminded me about the new side port power supplies that started showing up in response to most cases having power supply covers. Those would be more difficult to use in a traditional case but the way things are going I wouldn't be surprised if they'll all be that way in the future.

I'm using ID-Cooling tower coolers (link further up in this thread) including in my socket 1700 machine. They're cheap, about $30, light weight and work as well as the old Coolermasters I used to use. Once installed it's a breeze anytime you need to remove the cooler from the mounting base, just unscrew it, do what you need to do, then replace the paste and screw it back on.

[Zema Bus]

Here's a Reddit post from someone searching for that case or an alternative that still has optical drive bays. One place you could for sure find one is on E-bay

[Grogan]

Maybe I don't actually need a full tower case anymore. I'm not going to have hard drives and a bunch of cabling. If anything I think video cards aren't as long as they were when I bought this Antec case (which I chose because it had the largest clearance for video cards of all the cases I looked at). That opens options for some of those Fractal Design cases if I do mid tower.

I think this is the one you showed me and it would be perfect. Only issue is that it's sold and shipped by third parties
https://www.amazon.ca/Fractal-Design-FD ... B074PTN1KR

But I think I feel better than I did a minute ago, at least I have viable case, I just have to decide on a buying option.

I'll just pass on the Corsair PSUs and get one with a more standard design so I don't have to second guess mounting compatibility. Or maybe Corsair has ones with normal form, too.

[Grogan]

OK, so the ID-COOLING it is then.
https://www.amazon.ca/ID-COOLING-SE-224 ... 0BC13DSJZ/

Unfortunately from Amazon, they are all "Extended delivery time" because they are fullfilled from outside Canada. So I'll have to see if I can do better from another source. It's not a big ticket item, so it's not much risk.

[Zema Bus]

I switched to mid towers after I hurt my back 4 years ago, figuring that they'd be a bit easier to move around, which they are. Up to then though I was all in on full towers going back to the 90's, it was just the thing to do for me. I still have my beige Inwin full tower case from 2001, it's kind of obsolete now, it's too narrow for modern tower coolers, it can only take 80 mm case fans, and some of the front panel connectors are incompatible with modern motherboards. But it holds some sentimental value. I haven't had any problem with video card clearance in either my Fractal or Corsair mid towers.

[Zema Bus]

My Fractal G cases:

Ryzen 7 5800X3D

Ryzen_7_5800X3D.jpg (153.1 KiB) Viewed 859 times

And i7 12700KF

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My red case when I first unboxed it

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I would have liked to have gotten a black one, or the gunmetal gray, but I do like the ones I have.

[Grogan]

Thanks for the pictures, that helps a lot so see the case with the stuff in it. It shows me that one of those new Corsair power supplies isn't going to work out, there isn't much clearance on the sides. That's going to have the octopus of modular connections and they are all going to have to bend to the side. You've got older Corsair PSUs in there that have them in front.

There are some lower models like 550W that are normal design with connections at the front, but all their high end ones have them on the side.

There was a Corsair employee that commented in a reddit thread where people were upset about no 5.25 inch bays for optical drives and he said "The team doesn't like front drive bays, they are ugly and you don't need them". Another arrogant assfuck telling me what I don't need. It was Corsair's company reddit. That prompted people to post links to other vendors like... "here, buy this one instead" lol.

[Grogan]

I guess Corsair has gotten too silly with their designs of cases and PSU's to match. That's a shame, because they make some of the best stuff.

I've had good times with the 3 Antec PSU's that I've had (still have 2 computers with 14 y/o Antec TruePower, had another computer but I sold it to a friend) and this one looks "normal"
https://www.amazon.ca/Gold-HCG1000-Full ... 09FYQMWRY/