New Computer Build(s) #3

[2005]

After having watched about a dozen or more review videos, I'll say this:

I think Ryzen fell a bit short of the hype, but I think the platform has potential. At the very least, it's made AMD relevant again. If this means it will push Intel to work harder and offer more for the same dollar... well then great. I do feel in the future, after hardware vendors have had time to mature the BIOS and software developers (OS included) have time to mature their support... the performance of the Ryzen chips will improve. Having said all that, I don't think that is going to happen overnight, or even the next few months. This puts me easily at 1.5 to 2 years out, I think, at replacing this rig. That might sound a bit nuts, but in all honesty this system still does everything I want and need it to do, and does it very well.


I'm going to buy 3x4 GB DDR 3 memory to replace my 3x2GB DDR3 giving me 12GB of ram total. I'll be selling off all six sticks of the 2GB DDR3 ram I have now. Basically this upgrade isn't going to cost me anything. I'm more or less trading 6x2 GB for 3X4GB. I'm also going to be buying a new CPU cooler, the Cyroig H7 and a new GPU. I'm really debating on picking up a Xeon X5650. From everything I'm reading, my CPU will not bottleneck the card "range" I'm looking to purchase especially if my 930 can land around the 4.0ghz mark. It's a 35$ upgrade, but I don't know if the extra two cores and four threads will be meaningful to me. I don't really do much if anything that really benefits from the extra cores / threads. I'll probably stay with my 930. I am really thinking about buying a new power supply to replace this one. It's never shown any signs of it being anything less than healthy, but it is almost 7 years old and these x58 boards are expensive on the used market for some reason. It's not like the new power supply can't be "reused" when I rebuild.... and for the money I'd probably just buy another new one when I rebuild anyhow.


The TL;DR is:

I don't have a need to replace what I already own. If I beef up the memory, add a new cooler, and put a new power supply in... there is no reason this system can't last the time that Ryzen needs to mature. That's not saying my next build will 100% be Ryzen, but it will give the platform a chance to mature and Intel some time to get off their ass and answer. Exciting stuff for sure. Maybe by that time I might be interested in upgrading to 4K displays?

[2005]

Purchased the 3x4GB DDR3 1600 sticks, what a big difference. My system during what I consider to be fairly light, and my pretty normal workload wants to consume just beyond 5GB. Now I normally have at least 4 GB free just waiting around for when I do need it. I haven't gotten beyond 8GB in any normal use case so far.

The cyroig H7 won't fit in this case, or more specifically it's not compatible with the 1336 socket. I'll be replacing the stock intel cooler with a Hyper 212 (like my sig said I did XD) I never realized I didn't do that upgrade back when I made that graphic.

Deciding on what video card to go with. I don't want to pull the trigger on a 1060/1070 just yet. I'm curious to see what the new AMD offerings will be like in the coming months. There aren't any games I currently play that do not run just fine on what I have.. so no need.

I also plan to replace the 120mm fans in this system, they just don't have the gusto they once did. They seem close to failing.

[palmboy5]

lol RAM. http://i.imgur.com/nuHeCOk.png

I had settled with the Hyper 212 as a placeholder cooler before doing the watercooling aspect. It worked, but yeah my first choice was the Cyroig H7 but it doesn't support the enthusiast level sockets like yours or mine.

Neatest new-tech fan I've come across is the Corsair ML series:
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/ml120-pro- ... tation-fan

Though in my exploration to find the QUIETEST fan (at low RPM), I did not settle with this otherwise promising looking fan. Somehow, despite being "magnetic levitation" and should not have any friction/scratching noise... it still does make more noise than the Noctua's I settled with.

Either way, given more relaxed requirements, any of these fan brands are perfectly good choices:
Noctua NF-F12 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/product/B00650P2ZC
Gentle Typhoon 550-1850RPM - https://www.amazon.com/dp/product/B01M047NEV
Corsair ML120 - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01G5I6O4Q

[2005]

Passed on a $300 "flash sale" GTX 1070 GPU. Kinda kicking myself a bit on that one, but eh I guess deals will come back around.

I think in the vicinity of the Vega launch, Nvidia may cut the price of the 1070 just a bit more. $300 was a good price for a GPU that
would be 1080P capable for a long time IMO. I have seen a few GTX 1080's hovering around the $450 mark.. but that GPU is way
overkill for 1080P gaming.

[2005]

Today while playing hearthstone... my x58 system just up and died.

I spent about 30 to 45 min trying to get it posting again... but I have
it narrowed down to either a dead board, dead/dying power supply or
a faulty CPU. Bad CPU's are extremely rare. I even swapped out the
"new" ram sticks for the ones I've been running for most of these last
7 years and no dice.

I think it's a fair shot for it to be either the board or the power supply.
I know I want/need a new one for the new build when it happens so I
can just order one now and then use that to test this x58 board. If the
board is dead, I don't know what I want to do. If it's just a bad PSU then
that's no big deal. In the mean time, I can at least work from my ThinkPad.
Having one 15.6 screen as compared to two 24" screens really sucks. If
the board is dead, I might just order a dock for this thing so I can use my
two 24" displays. Well worth the $30.

I just REALLY wanna see what happens when the dust starts to settle in the
next few months. I don't wanna pop now and then wind up regretting it in
8 months or so.

[palmboy5]

Elephant in the room: you lost that Hearthstone match! D:

More seriously... maybe check all the capacitors on the motherboard and see if any of them are leaking or bulging:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... rboard.jpg

It's possible to make it live again if you replace those capacitors.

[2005]

I DID lose that match!

I was going to lose anyways.. going second as a paladin in this weeks tavern brawl is basically a recipe for disaster. The only classes that seemed OK at going second (and having some chance at winning) were warrior and priest. Their basic ability to heal for two health on most turns was a lot bigger than I think most people realized.


Anyways, this one doesn't use the type of caps that are in the picture... they are those surface mount, low profile capacitors. That still may be the issue, but I can EASILY swap out the type of cap that is in the pic.... these surface mount caps, I'm honestly not sure I can do it at all with the tools I have. It is an interesting idea though, a lot of the time a failing board like this is cap related.

[2005]

After looking at it, I guess it's not all that difficult looking to replace these.

BUT they aren't cheap and there is nearly 60 of them! I'd probably have about
two or three hours at least in soldering time, and probably around $100 spent
in buying these things!

[palmboy5]

I had attempted to repair my A8N32-SLI Deluxe by replacing all the capacitors and... it basically took a whole Saturday for me to get them all replaced, and the board still didn't work lol.

[2005]

I know what you mean PB.... I can only imagine spending three plus hours soldering all those caps and have it not work. I'd throw the board out the window!


So by now, I've passed on a $300 GTX 1070 and a $259 i7 7700K. All I can say is that Ryzen / Vega better not let me down...

[2005]

Some new BIOS updates released recently have made decent improvements in the Ryzen chips
performance.

I also just had to reformat my thinkpad.... for some reason the explorer process crashed fairly
often. I could easily kill it and restart it, but very annoying to be doing that at least once an hour.

I really need to try to get my x58 system up and running again

[2005]

Power supply ordered... I went with the EVGA SuperNOVA G3 550W.


According to EVGA's power supply calculator, I do not need more than
500W for either my current setup or the proposed new one(s). So I
ordered this bad boy to see if I can get my old system up and running
until Vega hits. I suspect I will do some ordering around / near black
Friday. But really I'll be watching the deals until then so I'll pop on things
if and when they show up. Kicking myself on passing on that $300 1070
right now. Then again, I do want to wait for Vega. Ryzen is doing a lot
better now that some of these boards are shipping BIOS updates.

I got the EVGA G3 for $85.... pretty good price and great reviews. Superflower
is a very respected OEM.

[2005]

The G3 550W came in the mail yesterday, and I spent about half an hour trying to get the old x58 system to post. It's just not gonna do it. I tried removing the ram and the CPU, tried it with just the CPU... tried clearing CMOS. It just won't post. Everything else is removed, so it has to be a bad board.

Oh well, the EVGA power supply is very nice. Even with the fan running I still can't hear it. It's 100% modular, and all the cables have capacitors in them. One thing I don't like is that all the wires are black. Came with a nice pouch to store all the rest of the non used cables in.

[palmboy5]

I hadn't heard of having capacitors in cables, interesting!

Although, the most respected PSU review site knocked half a point off for it.
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?na ... 6&reid=500

I have to pull that half point again for in cable capacitors. I don't like them... they make cable management challenging at times, as I found with my T2 850W unit. I really hope the T3 units, should they be coming, are able to lose those capacitors. Seasonic can pull down ripple numbers like this without the caps, so EVGA and Super Flower need to work on that.

[2005]

Eh, I get the point (and did read that review before I bought mine) but I don't see why it's
worth really feeling negative about the PSU. I guess they only docked it half a point, but
the only reason I'd have to not like the idea is that caps die eventually. Now, if they easily
last the 5 ish years I really plan to use the PSU... then fine.