PC Building Guide and Discussion #14

[Seedtype]

Yeah, I was looking at that board in particular.

The reduction of price of motherboard between now and what I was looking at earlier is making me considering just going ahead and getting a 3080 range video card instead. I really try not to get too wrapped up with future proofing, but I want to make sure I'll be good with VR for the life of the computer. I'll keep thinking about it.

 

[Osprey]

I'd definitely put an extra $200 into the GPU rather than into the motherboard. Higher-end motherboards are mostly for overclocking, which is kind of pointless with Ryzen 5000, to begin with.

Also, with Ryzen 5000, DDR4 over 3600MHz doesn't provide much benefit. In fact, you even start getting errors if you run it over 3800MHz, so 4000+MHz DDR4 kits are pretty much a waste of money.

 

[Osprey]

Yikes. The i9-13900K is really fast, but uses double the power of the 7700X and exceeds 100C in Cinebench.

 

[93LEAFS]

Yikes. The 13900K trades blows with the Ryzen 7700X in games, but uses DOUBLE the power and exceeds 100C in Cinebench.

Most of what I'm seeing from places like Linus, Gamers Nexus, and JayzTwoCents seem to be favoring Intel Raptor Lake over Ryzen 7000. Although Gamers Nexus was pretty down on the i9 for overall power consumption.

 

[Osprey]

Most of what I'm seeing from places like Linus, Gamers Nexus, and JayzTwoCents seem to be favoring Intel Raptor Lake over Ryzen 7000. Although Gamers Nexus was pretty down on the i9 for overall power consumption.

Yeah, I just watched the Gamers Nexus i5-13600K review and the power consumption was more reasonable, still a lot more than the comparable 7600X but nowhere near the i9-13900K's usage. I haven't seen an i7 review, but it seems like it may just be the i9 that's a bit bonkers and not all Raptor Lake CPUs.

 

[93LEAFS]

Yeah, I just watched the Gamers Nexus i5-13600K review and the power consumption was more reasonable, still a lot more than the comparable 7600X but nowhere near the i9-13900K's usage. I haven't seen an i7 review, but it seems like it may just be the i9 that's a bit bonkers and not all Raptor Lake CPUs.

Yeah, I'm starting to build a PC, I decided to go with i5-13600k over 7600x even though I entered in expecting to go Ryzen. But, while still going DDR5 on Ram, the ability to use z690's over the required new Ryzen motherboards and that 13600k seems to stack up very well led me to go Intel. Unless you are really trying to squeeze absolute peak performance and money be damned (and not using it for work in cpu intensive production tasks), it felt like it was overkill to even entertain the idea of going 7950x or i9-13900k.

 

[PeteWorrell]

The i9-12900KS was already insane so not surprised that the i9-13900K is an even bigger descent into madness with all the added cores. Intel has more energy efficient chips coming if the Gigabyte leak is to be believed so people should stay tuned for that.

The latest AMD platform just looks like a dud right now. The motherboard prices are absurd and there is very little reason to buy into it unless you are looking for an upgrade in productivity. The incoming X3D CPUs better deliver.

 

[93LEAFS]

So, I finally settled on what I'm doing for cooling. Ended up going Corsair iCUE H150i Elite Capellex AIO. Thanks to everyone here who gave me help. Have all the parts finally to build and will be assembling soon. Can't wait to get it running.

 

[mouser]

So, I finally settled on what I'm doing for cooling. Ended up going Corsair iCUE H150i Elite Capellex AIO. Thanks to everyone here who gave me help. Have all the parts finally to build and will be assembling soon. Can't wait to get it running.

If you’re still using the Corsair 4000D case I’d recommend a 280mm iCUE H115i mounted in the roof of the case rather than a 360mm H150i mounted in the front of the case. Unless your motherboard/memory doesn’t leave enough space for a 280mm AIO on the roof? I don’t think the 4000D has room on the roof for a 360mm AIO?


I think you get better heat mitigation with a AIO roof fan pushing radiator heat directly out the top of the case with Input air fans on the front of the case. Are you planning to have the H150i on the front of the case pushing air in or out of the case?


As a side note I recommend 140mm case fans when possible over 120mm, not just for AIOs. Especially when you have a PWM fan control or similar fan speed control like iCUE. The 140mm’s can push the same volume of air at lower RPMs leading to slightly lower fan noise from your PC when the GPU and CPU are running at heavy load.

 

[93LEAFS]

If you’re still using the Corsair 4000D case I’d recommend a 280mm iCUE H115i mounted in the roof of the case rather than a 360mm H150i mounted in the front of the case. Unless your motherboard/memory doesn’t leave enough space for a 280mm AIO on the roof? I don’t think the 4000D has room on the roof for a 360mm AIO?


I think you get better heat mitigation with a AIO roof fan pushing radiator heat directly out the top of the case with Input air fans on the front of the case. Are you planning to have the H150i on the front of the case pushing air in or out of the case?

I ended up going 5000d since the graphics card I got is pretty big (Zotac 3080TI Amp Holo and 317mm). I think I'm going to use it on the front to pull air in, and move the front fan that comes with the case to push air out the top, or maybe just spend the extra $70 CAD and get the matching Corsair Fans. I may be wrong, but isn't it generally advised to have more intake fans in than exhaust fans to avoid dust build up?

 

[mouser]

I ended up going 5000d since the graphics card I got is pretty big (Zotac 3080TI Amp Holo and 317mm). I think I'm going to use it on the front to pull air in, and move the front fan that comes with the case to push air out the top, or maybe just spend the extra $70 CAD and get the matching Corsair Fans. I may be wrong, but isn't it generally advised to have more intake fans in than exhaust fans to avoid dust build up?

Yes, more intake than exhaust fans is recommended. The thing to keep in mind when using a AIO radiator as an intake is you’re pulling that hot air from the AIO radiator into the PC case before it eventually exits via exhaust fans. If the AIO is mounted as intake on the front of the case then you’re probably blowing that hot CPU radiator air on the GPU.

Will it really make a difference if you have good airflow in the case? Probably not, but as an engineer I like more optimized heat flow designs where the hot CPU radiator air immediately exits the case.

If I were building my own PC in the 5000D case with iCUE I’d go with one of three layouts:

a) 280mm AIO exhaust on the roof (only swap to 360mm AIO if you can’t fit the 280mm), 2x 140mm intake fans on the front. Side mounted 120mm intake fan in the bottom side slot. That gives us a little more intake airflow over exhaust.

b) Same as above with a 2nd 120mm side intake fan in the middle slot. Extra intake over exhaust airflow. Note: this lets you repurpose the two 120mm fans that come with the case.

c) Same as above plus a 120mm exhaust fan on the top back of the case. This brings us to 7 total fans, the iCUE hub only supports 6 fans, so use a splitter cable on the two side intake fans to run them on one hub port. The back top fan is catching the hotter air at the top of the case while still keeping positive intake airflow.


The front fans on a case will usually be the loudest users hear, though it depends on where your case is located. I’d much rather have two 140mm stacked intake fans vs three 120mm fans on the front.

 

[93LEAFS]

Yes, more intake than exhaust fans is recommended. The thing to keep in mind when using a AIO radiator as an intake is you’re pulling that hot air from the AIO radiator into the PC case before it eventually exits via exhaust fans. If the AIO is mounted as intake on the front of the case then you’re probably blowing that hot CPU radiator air on the GPU.

Will it really make a difference if you have good airflow in the case? Probably not, but as an engineer I like more optimized heat flow designs where the hot CPU radiator air immediately exits the case.

If I were building my own PC in the 5000D case with iCUE I’d go with one of three layouts:

a) 280mm AIO exhaust on the roof (only swap to 360mm AIO if you can’t fit the 280mm), 2x 140mm intake fans on the front. Side mounted 120mm intake fan in the bottom side slot. That gives us a little more intake airflow over exhaust.

b) Same as above with a 2nd 120mm side intake fan in the middle slot. Extra intake over exhaust airflow. Note: this lets you repurpose the two 120mm fans that come with the case.

c) Same as above plus a 120mm exhaust fan on the top back of the case. This brings us to 7 total fans, the iCUE hub only supports 6 fans, so use a splitter cable on the two side intake fans to run them on one hub port. The back top fan is catching the hotter air at the top of the case while still keeping positive intake airflow.


The front fans on a case will usually be the loudest users hear, though it depends on where your case is located. I’d much rather have two 140mm stacked intake fans vs three 120mm fans on the front.

Okay, thinking this over. I'm pretty much locked in on the 360mm since I had to drive to the other side of Toronto to get it due to needing the special LGA screws to fit 13th gen Intel on the cooler (only store that had it). So, with your advice, I'm thinking I'll add 3 120mm Corsair Icue RGB fans. Then use the Radiator at the top as an exhaust, then put the 3 120mm RGB fans at the front as intake fans, and then repurpose the two fans that come with the case as intakes on the side. That would give me 5 intakes and 3 exhausts. Or would it be better to keep the exhaust fan at the back, and have a 4-4 set up?

I'm a newbie to building a PC, will pretty much any fan splitter cable work?

 

[mouser]

Okay, thinking this over. I'm pretty much locked in on the 360mm since I had to drive to the other side of Toronto to get it due to needing the special LGA screws to fit 13th gen Intel on the cooler (only store that had it). So, with your advice, I'm thinking I'll add 3 120mm Corsair Icue RGB fans. Then use the Radiator at the top as an exhaust, then put the 3 120mm RGB fans at the front as intake fans, and then repurpose the two fans that come with the case as intakes on the side. That would give me 5 intakes and 3 exhausts. Or would it be better to keep the exhaust fan at the back, and have a 4-4 set up?

I'm a newbie to building a PC, will pretty much any fan splitter cable work?

I'd recommend the 360mm AIO on the roof exchaust and two new intake 140mm iCUE RGB fans on the front. That's 5 fans. Use the two 120mm case fans on the side intake. You bought a case big enough for 140mm fans on the front, take advantage of that.

Corsair has their own proprietary plug for iCUE fans. The plug standard everyone else follows is PWM. Corsair sells splitter cables for both iCUE and PWM fans to connect multiple fans of either standard to a iCUE hub. Not sure what plugs the case fans have, but should be easy to sort out and get a compatible splitter cable after looking at them.

 

[93LEAFS]

I'd recommend the 360mm AIO on the roof exchaust and two new intake 140mm iCUE RGB fans on the front. That's 5 fans. Use the two 120mm case fans on the side intake. You bought a case big enough for 140mm fans on the front, take advantage of that.

Corsair has their own proprietary plug for iCUE fans. The plug standard everyone else follows is PWM. Corsair sells splitter cables for both iCUE and PWM fans to connect multiple fans of either standard to a iCUE hub. Not sure what plugs the case fans have, but should be easy to sort out and get a compatible splitter cable after looking at them.

Cool. This is what I'm going to do. Thanks again for all the help/insight. Can't wait to get it running. Opening the box of the case to find out what type of splitter I'll need for the case fans.

 

[Osprey]

AMD just had their RDNA3 launch.

Available December 13:

Radeon 7900 XTX 24GB - $999

Radeon 7900 XT 20GB - $899

Not bad. Their highest end card is under $1K, compared to Nvidia's at $1.6K. They didn't give a whole lot of performance numbers, though, so it's hard to know how it compares, but I remember hearing "1.5-1.7x" performance compared to RDNA2 at 4K. That and the lack of comparison to the 4090 probably means that it still falls short of the 4090, but that was expected and they can't compare it against the 4080 just yet because it's not out for them to benchmark. At least the pricing is reasonable (though I'm not sure of the XT's value at so close to the XTX's price) and makes it likely that we'll eventually see the 7800 XT for only $699-749.

They also announced FSR 3.0 and said that it gives up to 2x more fps vs FSR 2.x, but didn't give any details and said that it's coming in 2023. A new software feature that they introduced is called Hyper-RX and supposedly increases framerates and reduces latency, but it sounded like it just turns on existing features and is for people who want to toggle one setting instead of several.

Hardware Unboxed already has a video out with the details:

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Honestly, it's super tempting at that price.

 

[Osprey]

Some people have been estimating how the 7900 XTX stacks up to the 4090 by multiplying 6950 XT benchmarks by AMD's 1.5-1.7x claim. It works out to ~8.5% slower than the 4090 with ray tracing disabled, which is impressive, especially for being $600 cheaper. With ray tracing enabled, however, the 6950 XT was so far behind the 3090 that1.5x brings it only up to par with that. So, it seems like the 7900 XTX may provide nearly 4090 performance in rasterized titles and 3090 performance in ray traced titles. The latter probably explains the pricing.

 

[Commander Clueless]

RDNA3 looks so promising.

Can I also say I very much like the physical look of the reference cards.

 

[aleshemsky83]

RDNA3 looks so promising.

Can I also say I very much like the physical look of the reference cards.

For regular rasterization it looks pretty good but it's Ray tracing performance is horrible.

 

[Commander Clueless]

For regular rasterization it looks pretty good but it's Ray tracing performance is horrible.

They are definitely a couple of generations behind Nvidia when it comes to ray tracing, which is no doubt one of the reasons they are cheaper.

The price and power to performance looks very good here, which is where my personal interest lies.

We'll obviously need to see some real world benchmarks.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Hoping FSR 3.0 can help make up for some of the lost RT on these cards, because we know it won't compete with the 4090 beast in RT. But honestly, I like what I'm seeing anyways. And I think the price helps.

 

[PeteWorrell]

Happy that AMD decided to play the value angle vs Nvidia instead of selling at a premium like they decided to do against Intel. Don't care for ray tracing and i would rather pay less to get good general performances.

 

[93LEAFS]

Just a heads up to anyone here. I made a rookie mistake to an extent with my first build, and therefore had to take it to a local computer guy to fix (he could update the bios by using a 12th gen chip). If you are looking at a new build with Intel 13th gen, and you want to save some money by using a Z690 board, either make sure you have a 12th gen intel processor on hand, or MAKE SURE your motherboard has BIOS flashback. Despite buying a decently expensive board, my ASUS Tuf Gaming Z690 doesn't have Bios Flashback. I naively believed I would have been able to update the Bios, and couldn't figure out the issue for a couple of hours when it failed to POST showing a DRAM issue, which was insanely stressful (did I fry the Motherboard, CPU or the Ram somehow, etc was running through my head).

 

[Seedtype]

Just finished building my computer the other day, it turned out pretty well I think. I had to actually get a 550 motherboard because the 450 one I wanted to get was out of stock or overpriced.

Couple pieces of advice if you are considering the Corsair 5000D computer case:
1) Move the HDD cage from it's default position- you will not be able to fit your PSU at all because of the two thumbscrews holding it down. To me this is pretty bad especially since the thumbscrews are pretty tight and you have to do it all in a tight space.

2) Make sure you connect all the PSU cables you'll need before you install the PSU in the case. Trust me, you can only access the PSU compartment from one side and it's pretty tight(and I do think I have smallish hands too). Honestly an almost fatal flaw in my opinion.

I do think it's a good case, but I'll admit as a person who only builds a computer every 5-7 years I didn't realize some of the quirks I needed to figure out. I guess always think of what you're doing no matter the case or whatever. But adding a few fans and the air is flowing really well. Still need to do a proper test, but doing some gaming or some other major installs/downloads isn't really impacting temps.

Edit: Oh and cable management? It's looks okay, just don't look on the other side of the motherboard, heh.

 

[93LEAFS]

Just finished building my computer the other day, it turned out pretty well I think. I had to actually get a 550 motherboard because the 450 one I wanted to get was out of stock or overpriced.

Couple pieces of advice if you are considering the Corsair 5000D computer case:
1) Move the HDD default cage from it's default position- you will not be able to fit your PSU at all because of the two thumbscrews holding it down. To me this is pretty bad especially since the thumbscrews are pretty tight and you have to do it all in a tight space.

2) Make sure you connect all the PSU cables you'll need before you install the PSU in the case. Trust me, you can only access the PSU compartment from one side and it's pretty tight(and I do think I have smallish hands too). Honestly an almost fatal flaw in my opinion.

I do think it's a good case, but I'll admit as a person who only builds a computer every 5-7 years I didn't realize some of the quirks I needed to figure out. I guess always think of what you're doing no matter the case or whatever. But adding a few fans and the air is flowing really well. Still need to do a proper test, but doing some gaming or some other major installs/downloads isn't really impacting temps.

Edit: Oh and cable management? It's looks okay, just don't look on the other side of the motherboard, heh.

Haha, I went with the 5000d case and did my first build on it. Can't agree more about how the drive bay gets in the way of the PSU. I did the PSU from outside the case too. Really happy with how my build turned out (3080ti/13600k) outside of the Bios issue I had.