Gosh it's hard to build a performance PC these days
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Cooling cooling cooling. Things I've never had to do before: Add up the wattage of all my components. Downgrade a processor from the one I wanted due to wattage and heat Carefully consider my airflow design, since liquid cooling won't work ideally in my case Measure the height above my CPU to find a good enough heat sink. Downgrade from my preferred video card so my machine doesn't actually catch fire. Consider the distance between my PCIe slots. Gosh, they are really pushing the envelope in terms of power and thermal properties of newer computer designs. You have to pick your case, fans, sinks, PSU, CPU, and everything super carefully. I hope I built in enough headroom because I'd hate to find out that one day my little cube of computer power turned into an expensive furnace full of slag.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Cooling cooling cooling. Things I've never had to do before: Add up the wattage of all my components. Downgrade a processor from the one I wanted due to wattage and heat Carefully consider my airflow design, since liquid cooling won't work ideally in my case Measure the height above my CPU to find a good enough heat sink. Downgrade from my preferred video card so my machine doesn't actually catch fire. Consider the distance between my PCIe slots. Gosh, they are really pushing the envelope in terms of power and thermal properties of newer computer designs. You have to pick your case, fans, sinks, PSU, CPU, and everything super carefully. I hope I built in enough headroom because I'd hate to find out that one day my little cube of computer power turned into an expensive furnace full of slag.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
honey the codewitch wrote:
You have to pick your case, fans, sinks, PSU, CPU, and everything super carefully.
Sounds like you are confined to a small encloser. I just built a new rig and had to measure if my heatsink would fit. I'm working with a mini ITX case, it's entire front is a 20cm fan, cooling isn't a problem. I'm not going to advertise it but "Thermaltake mini itx case" should find it. Why do you need that gpu you have? Are you using your dev box as a game machine?
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Cooling cooling cooling. Things I've never had to do before: Add up the wattage of all my components. Downgrade a processor from the one I wanted due to wattage and heat Carefully consider my airflow design, since liquid cooling won't work ideally in my case Measure the height above my CPU to find a good enough heat sink. Downgrade from my preferred video card so my machine doesn't actually catch fire. Consider the distance between my PCIe slots. Gosh, they are really pushing the envelope in terms of power and thermal properties of newer computer designs. You have to pick your case, fans, sinks, PSU, CPU, and everything super carefully. I hope I built in enough headroom because I'd hate to find out that one day my little cube of computer power turned into an expensive furnace full of slag.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
Agree. Been there done that, several years ago, when high performance GPU's showed up. Not sure when water cooled systems came to be the need, but if one does not have that option, pump air through an open air chassis as much as possible. External fans an option.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day" Badfinger
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honey the codewitch wrote:
You have to pick your case, fans, sinks, PSU, CPU, and everything super carefully.
Sounds like you are confined to a small encloser. I just built a new rig and had to measure if my heatsink would fit. I'm working with a mini ITX case, it's entire front is a 20cm fan, cooling isn't a problem. I'm not going to advertise it but "Thermaltake mini itx case" should find it. Why do you need that gpu you have? Are you using your dev box as a game machine?
Edit: My preferred would be a 4090 but for fire hazard and cooling issues. I like to build 10 year systems, and a 4090 is by best shot at that. The 2080 TI GPU i bought because i basically stole it for that price. I figured if I didn't use it I could resell it and easily more than double my money. I just got a 3070 TI for free tonight too. Didn't even have to pay for shipping. I do use the 2080 TI to play Fallout 4, which I play to scratch my game development itch (the game engine allows you to customize and otherwise modify it until it's an entirely different game) But primarily, it's a development machine. The GPU is a luxury. I don't mind developing and gaming on it because everything I do is in source control.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Agree. Been there done that, several years ago, when high performance GPU's showed up. Not sure when water cooled systems came to be the need, but if one does not have that option, pump air through an open air chassis as much as possible. External fans an option.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day" Badfinger
jmaida wrote:
if one does not have that option, pump air through an open air chassis as much as possible.
My chassis can take liquid but I don't want it because it is open air. The way the radiator mounts in it, I'd be wondering if the positive air pressure was flowing out all the gaps in order to keep the pet hair and dust out. Right now it works perfectly with 4 120mm fans 1cm away from the top glass panel. It pushes the air against the glass, causing it to flow out toward the edges in all directions and push air out those gaps. The case is a Thermaltake Level 20 VT. It's by far the nicest, best engineered case I've ever owned. The airflow was thought out very carefully, at least for air cooling, which is what I'm doing, and plan to continue.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Edit: My preferred would be a 4090 but for fire hazard and cooling issues. I like to build 10 year systems, and a 4090 is by best shot at that. The 2080 TI GPU i bought because i basically stole it for that price. I figured if I didn't use it I could resell it and easily more than double my money. I just got a 3070 TI for free tonight too. Didn't even have to pay for shipping. I do use the 2080 TI to play Fallout 4, which I play to scratch my game development itch (the game engine allows you to customize and otherwise modify it until it's an entirely different game) But primarily, it's a development machine. The GPU is a luxury. I don't mind developing and gaming on it because everything I do is in source control.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
Probably off topic but as you know I'm a Windows guy. The dev box was for experimenting with [SerenityOS](https://serenityos.org/).. I'm super impressed with how much horsepower you can pack into these mini-ITX cases. I used an AMD APU, no need for a gpu. Don't try to combine a gaming machine and a Dev box, what a ridiculous idea.
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Probably off topic but as you know I'm a Windows guy. The dev box was for experimenting with [SerenityOS](https://serenityos.org/).. I'm super impressed with how much horsepower you can pack into these mini-ITX cases. I used an AMD APU, no need for a gpu. Don't try to combine a gaming machine and a Dev box, what a ridiculous idea.
Don't think of it as a gaming machine. Think of it as a dev machine i occasionally let distract me. I actually don't have room for two PCs in my space.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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jmaida wrote:
if one does not have that option, pump air through an open air chassis as much as possible.
My chassis can take liquid but I don't want it because it is open air. The way the radiator mounts in it, I'd be wondering if the positive air pressure was flowing out all the gaps in order to keep the pet hair and dust out. Right now it works perfectly with 4 120mm fans 1cm away from the top glass panel. It pushes the air against the glass, causing it to flow out toward the edges in all directions and push air out those gaps. The case is a Thermaltake Level 20 VT. It's by far the nicest, best engineered case I've ever owned. The airflow was thought out very carefully, at least for air cooling, which is what I'm doing, and plan to continue.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
honey the codewitch wrote:
The airflow was thought out very carefully, at least for air cooling
Have you thought of trying liquid air cooling? :-\
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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Don't think of it as a gaming machine. Think of it as a dev machine i occasionally let distract me. I actually don't have room for two PCs in my space.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
honey the codewitch wrote:
I actually don't have room for two PCs in my space.
I've got 13 of these little ITX cases stacked in two columns, on top my desk [6,7], and I love them.
honey the codewitch wrote:
Don't think of it as a gaming machine. Think of it as a dev machine i occasionally let distract me.
I get it, I wrote 3 responses here but deleted/edited them all. Trust me, I understand. I'm not sober right now
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honey the codewitch wrote:
I actually don't have room for two PCs in my space.
I've got 13 of these little ITX cases stacked in two columns, on top my desk [6,7], and I love them.
honey the codewitch wrote:
Don't think of it as a gaming machine. Think of it as a dev machine i occasionally let distract me.
I get it, I wrote 3 responses here but deleted/edited them all. Trust me, I understand. I'm not sober right now
Randor wrote:
I've got 13 of these little ITX cases stacked in two columns, on top my desk [6,7], and I love them.
I want single core performance and a RAID 1 NVMe setup on my dev machine from now on. I'm playing for keeps. Compiling lots of little files every time i have to rebuild is getting in the way of my productivity. It will pay for itself easily. You can't really do that on an ITX machine. You have cooling issues unless you go total open air and even then you can't really get the higher end CPUs to run on those without cooking. Even my MicroATX case won't handle a 13th gen high end i7 or i9. They run at 250W. My power supply can handle it, but if I didn't melt the CPU i'd melt the mobo. Then there's my 4x NVMe RAID enclosure. I can't use onboard RAID because I want 3 sticks to saturate my PCIe 3.0 x16 bus and I also don't want to RAID my system drive. And the enclosure is as tall as a video card, and needs cooling. And the GPU. My GPU requires at least a 600W power supply minimum, 700W or better recommended. That alone should tell you how it feels about ITX setups. The bottom line is after looking, ITX won't get me what i want either from a gaming rig, or a dev machine. not yet.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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honey the codewitch wrote:
The airflow was thought out very carefully, at least for air cooling
Have you thought of trying liquid air cooling? :-\
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
I did briefly consider submerging the entire thing in a mineral oil bath and cooling it with a box fan. :laugh: Or liquid nitrogen, but that gets messy and i have pets. It could end poorly.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Probably off topic but as you know I'm a Windows guy. The dev box was for experimenting with [SerenityOS](https://serenityos.org/).. I'm super impressed with how much horsepower you can pack into these mini-ITX cases. I used an AMD APU, no need for a gpu. Don't try to combine a gaming machine and a Dev box, what a ridiculous idea.
Randor wrote:
Don't try to combine a gaming machine and a Dev box, what a ridiculous idea.
Worked for me. Not that the GPU gets used a lot during coding, but it's not in the way either. VS works perfectly fine on a gaming machine. There's also a server here, in the living room and having two desktops on two writing desks in the living might be a bit much for her. There's also a server here, running 24 hrs/w.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Cooling cooling cooling. Things I've never had to do before: Add up the wattage of all my components. Downgrade a processor from the one I wanted due to wattage and heat Carefully consider my airflow design, since liquid cooling won't work ideally in my case Measure the height above my CPU to find a good enough heat sink. Downgrade from my preferred video card so my machine doesn't actually catch fire. Consider the distance between my PCIe slots. Gosh, they are really pushing the envelope in terms of power and thermal properties of newer computer designs. You have to pick your case, fans, sinks, PSU, CPU, and everything super carefully. I hope I built in enough headroom because I'd hate to find out that one day my little cube of computer power turned into an expensive furnace full of slag.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
I think unless you want to go full-on liquid cooling, you'll need to compromise. From what I understand, you don't need the 4090; just get a 30xx series card (maybe a ti one) and get the best air cooling solution you can get (double tower cooler) and add RGB fans, because everything is cooler with RGB. If the usual ambient air temperature is relatively cool, it should be good enough (don't trust me here, I have no clue) But what I can see, most people recommend an AIO for the i9 series cpu.
CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair
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I think unless you want to go full-on liquid cooling, you'll need to compromise. From what I understand, you don't need the 4090; just get a 30xx series card (maybe a ti one) and get the best air cooling solution you can get (double tower cooler) and add RGB fans, because everything is cooler with RGB. If the usual ambient air temperature is relatively cool, it should be good enough (don't trust me here, I have no clue) But what I can see, most people recommend an AIO for the i9 series cpu.
CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair
I'm not going liquid because my Thermaltake Level 20, while it supports liquid, is an open air chassis design. The glass front and top are air gapped from the chassis. Because of this I need positive air pressure along the top of the case. Currently I have 4 120mm fans about 1cm away from the glass, pushing against it, causing the air to flow to the edges of the glass and produce positive pressure around the case's air gaps. With liquid, I have to remove those fans to fit the radiator, and between that and my video card, all the air will flow out of the left side of my case only. It's not so much a cooling issue, the airflow. It's a cat hair issue. So I stepped down to an i5-13600K since it runs at just over 180 watts instead of 250. I've heard the 4080 and the 3090 TI have the same power draw, so I may get a 4080. I heard underclocking them they are super efficient (performance per power draw) at 300 watts Here's my new target specs PSU: EVGA Platinum 1000 watt Mobo: ASUS/ROG STRIX 690z G Gaming Wifi CPU: I5-13600K RAM: 64GB Corsair Dominator GPU: 2080 TI though I'm probably upgrading to a 3090TI or 4080 Storage: 2TB Samsung 990 Pro NVMe system drive. 3x1TB RAID 1 Samsung 990 Pro, for 20 Gigabyte a second reads (I think?) for secondary fast storage Chassis: Thermaltake Level 20 VT
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Cooling cooling cooling. Things I've never had to do before: Add up the wattage of all my components. Downgrade a processor from the one I wanted due to wattage and heat Carefully consider my airflow design, since liquid cooling won't work ideally in my case Measure the height above my CPU to find a good enough heat sink. Downgrade from my preferred video card so my machine doesn't actually catch fire. Consider the distance between my PCIe slots. Gosh, they are really pushing the envelope in terms of power and thermal properties of newer computer designs. You have to pick your case, fans, sinks, PSU, CPU, and everything super carefully. I hope I built in enough headroom because I'd hate to find out that one day my little cube of computer power turned into an expensive furnace full of slag.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
I would get an AMD processor. They have a new series coming that will not have the X suffix and will use about 65W. That should be rather easy to keep cool. Rumor: AMD Ryzen 7900/7700/7600 non-X specifications + pricing revealed, release date of Q1 2023.[^] You can also down-clock GPUs and reduce the heat they emit. The site linked to also reviews video cards so they have a lot of info on those too.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Cooling cooling cooling. Things I've never had to do before: Add up the wattage of all my components. Downgrade a processor from the one I wanted due to wattage and heat Carefully consider my airflow design, since liquid cooling won't work ideally in my case Measure the height above my CPU to find a good enough heat sink. Downgrade from my preferred video card so my machine doesn't actually catch fire. Consider the distance between my PCIe slots. Gosh, they are really pushing the envelope in terms of power and thermal properties of newer computer designs. You have to pick your case, fans, sinks, PSU, CPU, and everything super carefully. I hope I built in enough headroom because I'd hate to find out that one day my little cube of computer power turned into an expensive furnace full of slag.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
I've come to appreciate having a tiny box on my desk, so these days I have a NUC sitting right next to me, but RDP into my big rig, which generates a lot of heat, is loud, big, and--most importantly--in another room, so it doesn't bother me at all. I have 3 monitors connected to the NUC, including one running at 4K - it's got plenty of horsepower for that.
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I would get an AMD processor. They have a new series coming that will not have the X suffix and will use about 65W. That should be rather easy to keep cool. Rumor: AMD Ryzen 7900/7700/7600 non-X specifications + pricing revealed, release date of Q1 2023.[^] You can also down-clock GPUs and reduce the heat they emit. The site linked to also reviews video cards so they have a lot of info on those too.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
I'm after maximum single core performance, and no 65W processor will net me that, much less an AMD which is better at multithreading than single threading in terms of efficiency and performance. I'm on a Ryzen 7 4750G right now. I've considered getting a 4080 and underclocking it, because it's super efficient at 300W but right now I have a 2080 TI and it works great.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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I've come to appreciate having a tiny box on my desk, so these days I have a NUC sitting right next to me, but RDP into my big rig, which generates a lot of heat, is loud, big, and--most importantly--in another room, so it doesn't bother me at all. I have 3 monitors connected to the NUC, including one running at 4K - it's got plenty of horsepower for that.
I switched over to a single 55" 4k QLED smart TV as my monitor. I hate multimon for many reasons. My PC is a relatively small cubish thing. A Thermaltake Level 20 VT. Dimension (H x W x D) 348 x 330 x 430 mm (13.7 x 13 x 16.9 inch) - 2 and a half pill bottles tall, for perspective (don't ask :laugh: ) My PC isn't very loud, even on air, unless I'm pushing the GPU, and currently I'm not anywhere close to having heat issues, because the system is fairly modest compared to my target upgrade.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Cooling cooling cooling. Things I've never had to do before: Add up the wattage of all my components. Downgrade a processor from the one I wanted due to wattage and heat Carefully consider my airflow design, since liquid cooling won't work ideally in my case Measure the height above my CPU to find a good enough heat sink. Downgrade from my preferred video card so my machine doesn't actually catch fire. Consider the distance between my PCIe slots. Gosh, they are really pushing the envelope in terms of power and thermal properties of newer computer designs. You have to pick your case, fans, sinks, PSU, CPU, and everything super carefully. I hope I built in enough headroom because I'd hate to find out that one day my little cube of computer power turned into an expensive furnace full of slag.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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I'm after maximum single core performance, and no 65W processor will net me that, much less an AMD which is better at multithreading than single threading in terms of efficiency and performance. I'm on a Ryzen 7 4750G right now. I've considered getting a 4080 and underclocking it, because it's super efficient at 300W but right now I have a 2080 TI and it works great.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
You should read more reviews. Here's one : SPEC2017 Single-Threaded Results - Intel Core i9-13900K and i5-13600K Review: Raptor Lake Brings More Bite[^]
Quote:
While we highlighted in our AMD Ryzen 9 7950X processor review, which at the time of publishing was the clear leader in single-core performance, it seems as though Intel's Raptor Lake is biting at the heels of the new Zen 4-core.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"