PC Build Advice/Review II: 3090 or Bust.

[Tyche]

Found another Poweredge 110 II for cheaper than the last one.

Bought that 500gb ssd, an adapter to convert the two 5.25" bays to three 3.5" bays. Also bought an LSI HBA card. The tower should hold 7 drives comfortably with 32gb of ram and a xeon processor. Excluding the drives, I've spent under $250 for a 7 drive NAS more powerful than any synology or qnap. Also has an esata port, so I could add a DAS for more storage if need be. Gonna run Unraid so I can mix any SAS or SATA drives.

[Boyiee]

Recently I posted that I bought a laptop for school and a little gaming, full steam library backlog like Witcher 3 but mostly for world of Warcraft and rocket League.

It was an absolute steal, MSI alpha 15 144 Hz 1080p with a 4800h and 5600m. The processor is better than the 10th gen until 10870 and the GPU is a 2060 equivalent. It was $400 off along with a 10% off as well as $100 mail on rebate making it $799, Best deal under $1,000 really as it's a 1299 laptop.

I was having issues with it such a screen flickering and the screen not turning on after closing the lid, you'd have to either put it to sleep and wake it up or shut it down The screen just would not come back on after a lid close.

The whole purpose of this laptop was to get something cheap for school that I could also gain a little on cuz I have a real gaming PC at home that's not getting much use.

Today I said fuck it up'd to my budget and bought something for $1,600 instead initiating return while I'm still in the 30-day window.

I went back and forth on like 20 models, 2070/2070s, 3060/3070. Settled for a 3060 14-in with a ryzen9. Pretty sure I'll be happiest with this being 3 lb and a 14-in as mobility and battery life for huge for me.

I was considering the 1800-2500 range but the 14-in is a huge selling point.

[Prothescar]

Got around to doing my thermal mod.

Spoiler: show

Painstaking, but worth it. Before I'd ride between 102C and 110C on memory junction when mining at 80% PL, - 500mhz memory clock, and core sitting at 1125mhz @ 700mv with fans at 75%. This was about 95-100mh/s.

Now I'm sitting pretty between 90-98C on memory junction, 85% PL, +500mhz mem clock, 40% fan speed, and 110-120mh/s.

[Gredival]

I heard that the default 3000 series paste was super thick and dry and that people were reporting that re-pasting yields were significant but would degrade quickly so that there was probably a reason for the viscosity of the OEM paste. Was googling to see if it was worth it to consider an aftermarket cooler mod for the Dell 3080

[Prothescar]

I've been using phobya extreme grease for years, discovered it initially when I did my first laptop mod. It performs as well as Gelid Extreme but lasts 2-3 times as long. Very thick stuff, actually recommend sticking the sealed tube in a cup of warm water to help it out.

Hasn't failed me yet and works just as well on a desktop gpu, if not better due to the significantly better mounting pressure.

[Boyiee]

I was going to do my laptop but I've only done gpu and CPUs before. Is it a fucking cluster?

[Krandor]

It depends on the laptop, but generally it's not that bad. The most complicated part is that you're doing the CPU and GPU at the same time since for nearly every laptop it's all one solid cooling solution.

Look for a disassembly guide or video and it should get you going.

[Prothescar]

Most important thing in any laptop when rebuilding is to pay attention to mounting pressure. It's extremely important for pushing out air and properly spreading TIM. Laptop thermal solutions tend to have very uneven surfaces, too, which can be mitigated by mounting pressure and thicker paste(Phobya).

If the pressure is limp you can risk it and cut a spiral or two off of the tension springs on the screws. You'll have to be very careful when screwing back down to make sure you go diagonal to diagonal and keep it slow and level, cause more pressure introduces the risk of cracking a die.

[Tyche]

This NAS build has been weird. First, someone on ebay sent me the wrong server, then refunded me and told me to keep it.

I ordered 4x8gb of ecc UDIMM ram from ebay. They're about $50 a stick. The guy sent me 8 sticks lol. So, I got an extra $200 in ram free.

This NAS gonna be next to free after I finish it lol.

[Boyiee]

It depends on the laptop, but generally it's not that bad. The most complicated part is that you're doing the CPU and GPU at the same time since for nearly every laptop it's all one solid cooling solution.

Look for a disassembly guide or video and it should get you going.

Most important thing in any laptop when rebuilding is to pay attention to mounting pressure. It's extremely important for pushing out air and properly spreading TIM. Laptop thermal solutions tend to have very uneven surfaces, too, which can be mitigated by mounting pressure and thicker paste(Phobya).

If the pressure is limp you can risk it and cut a spiral or two off of the tension springs on the screws. You'll have to be very careful when screwing back down to make sure you go diagonal to diagonal and keep it slow and level, cause more pressure introduces the risk of cracking a die.

I think it uses liquid metal so I'm probably gonna just leave it.

[Salodin]

This NAS build has been weird. First, someone on ebay sent me the wrong server, then refunded me and told me to keep it.

I ordered 4x8gb of ecc UDIMM ram from ebay. They're about $50 a stick. The guy sent me 8 sticks lol. So, I got an extra $200 in ram free.

This NAS gonna be next to free after I finish it lol.

AND you made bank of the stonks? 2021 been reallll good to you

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

[Prothescar]

Laptop delayed til early April, bleh. Was hoping to get it before surgery cause the A51m is very cumbersome.

[Jaybar]

New stimmy means new pc upgrades. Looking to replace my MOBO/cpu/ram for newer generations. I'll post full specs when I get to my work computer.

First big step is deciding between Intel or AMD this round, any thoughts on these chips? Also looking for some pointers on MOBOs these days. I can do my research on RAM but open to suggestions.

[Gredival]

New stimmy means new pc upgrades. Looking to replace my MOBO/cpu/ram for newer generations. I'll post full specs when I get to my work computer.

First big step is deciding between Intel or AMD this round, any thoughts on these chips? Also looking for some pointers on MOBOs these days. I can do my research on RAM but open to suggestions.

Intel has been aggressively cutting pricing in order to recapture market share from Ryzen. You probably will get better value per buck from them on the chip but remember that Intel mobos tend to be more expensive to get high quality boards.

What is the goal in terms of FPS/refresh vs. resolution and what GPU are you using?

[Jaybar]

I picked up a 2090 Super recently. I'm using this upgrade as a stepping stone to upgrade into 4K monitors and resolution, and ideally hitting a solid 45+ FPS (i.e. never dropping below 45, but I'm ok with it being sub-60 because I'm a pleb gamer). I no longer use my computer for CPU intensive purposes like rendering software, but I'd like to keep this computer near the top for the next few years. I built this in 2015 and I was already a generation behind on most of my parts.

I'll keep that Intel/MOBO price point in mind. I plan to grab the MOBO/CPU at my local Microcenter for the local biz stimulus plus the package deal.

[Prothescar]

For pure gaming a 10700k or 11700k will be good.

If you plan to do even a little video editing or streaming or any sort of productive tasks at all before your next upgrade you want a 3900x/3950x or a 5900x/5950x ideally, but anything between 3600 and 5600 will shit on Intel for mixed usage and a 5900x will beat a 10700k for games too.

For motherboard chipset go X570 for amd. I know it's the more expensive chipset but it gives you better compatibility and expandability for your ssds and memory so it is worth the extra 50 or so bucks.

Worth noting that if you go for Intel you will not get pcie 4.0 unless you get the new 11000 series cpus which will be difficult.

[Boyiee]

I honestly haven't been following PCs but with laptops AMD is absolutely killing Intel. I'm a huge Intel and team green fanboy I never ever build anything other than those, but at least with laptops AMD is the way. I'm surprised if it's different outside of laptops.

[Krandor]

For strictly gaming and nothing else intel will perform slightly better assuming the laptops cooling is up to snuff.

But battery life (big kicker, my new Asus can go up to 8 or 9 hours on battery if I run it in iGPU mode) and literally everything else it will lag behind.

[Prothescar]

Yeah for laptops an Intel 11000 based cpu will cream mobile ryzen for purely gaming purposes but it comes at that battery life cost like Krandor said. I personally would never use anything that isn't a DRF for editing and stuff but it can be done with the new ryzen mobile chips.

[Boyiee]

Yeah for laptops an Intel 11000 based cpu will cream mobile ryzen for purely gaming purposes but it comes at that battery life cost like Krandor said. I personally would never use anything that isn't a DRF for editing and stuff but it can be done with the new ryzen mobile chips.

Cream? No way dude ryzen 9 is killing it.