Building a new desktop - Part deux

[maflynn]

I've made known that I wanted to rebuild my computer in some threads - One reason was to go back to Intel. Nothing is wrong with the Ryzen build, but it was something that I prefer.


Parts list:

• O11 D Mini
• Intel Core i7-11700K
• MSI MEG Z490I ITX motherboard
• Noctua NH-D15
• Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB
• Sabrent Rocket 1 TB
• MSI GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER
• Corsair SF 600 W 80
• Be quiet! Silent Wings (3 of them)
• Lian Li UNI SL120
• Lian Li PW24-V2 ADDRESSABLE RGB STRIMER

I opted for a O11 Dynamic Mini, of course I bought and opened this up just before Lian-Li lifted the embargo to its newly announced O11 Air Mini but based on the reviews, I'm really happy to have the O11 D Mini. I'm not sacrificing any air flow with the O11 D, simply because the newly release Air Mini has very poor air flow. Plus the lack of dust filters with the air mini is disconcerting

I actually wanted a I5-11600k, but lack of availability, and the I7-11700k was fairly cheap. I'm actually really happy with the 11700k, and the temps aren’t horrendous, I have it underclocked, as I'd rather leave some performance on the table in leu of quieter experience and lower temps. My usage is such that I'll not really miss those CPU cycles.

I decided to add some bling this time, and I'm using Lian Li's SL120, originally, I had two sets, one for the top and one for the bottom but that was just too much LED. Plus I was not able to control the fans within the bios (only through the L-Connect app, which was horrible). I kept one set just for LED, and then used the Be Quiet fans, which I was able to set a nice fan curve speed in the bios. I have the SL120's set to a 800rpm speed and that keeps them silent. I also have the Strimer Extension cable which adds a bit more bling as well.

I opted for a z490 mobo, instead of the Z590, because of price pure and simple. I was really unhappy with the Gigabyte motherboard, the bios was too restrictive, I also broke the USB2 header - it's placement and my clumsiness caused the plastic to break and the pins to bend With the MSI, I was much easier able to plug in the USB2 cable and I have a lot more flexibility in making changes in the bios - its definitely a step up imo.

As for temps, I'm in the mid 30s doing web stuff, and other light tasks, and if I decide to saturate the system with a Cinebench execution or XTU's benchmarking, the temps creep into the high 70 range and just barely crossing into 80c. I've set in XTU a core ratio of 40x, stock is 47x and so I'm leaving some performance on the table, but I'd rather have silent operation and cooler temps.

The color led in the images don't really look accurate - they're more of Razer green then what is being shown (at least on my monitor)

 

[I7guy]

Nice look and good job.

If it were me — Alder Lake would be my choice.

 

[maflynn]

Alder Lake would be my choice

Yeah, that was one thought process, but as I dwelt on what to do and timing of everything, I made some assumptions.

• Alder lake processors Would be hard to get in 2021, its more likely something that would be generally available in 2022
• They would be expensive, Intel, has been heavily marking down its processors to compete against AMD.
• Motherboards would also be pricey as well.
• First Gen processors, right out of the box - I'd rather wait and not be on the bleeding hedge.

Overall, its nice to have the latest and greatest, I'm not knocking it, but if I'm purposely slowing downing the processor to run cooler, then do I really need Alder Lake - at least on day one?

I mentioned price above, for the processor, and mobo - For this go around, I was very price sensitive. My goal wasn't to spend a lot, and I reused parts where I could from the Ryzen build. I also wanted to redo things from the prior build that I wasn't happy about but overall, as I said - keep the costs down. I opted for a z490 specifically because it was significantly cheaper then a Z590, and yet still compatible to the 11th Gen processor. I give up some things like PCI gen 4, but I don't own any gen 4 components ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[I7guy]

Yeah, that was one thought process, but as I dwelt on what to do and timing of everything, I made some assumptions.

• Alder lake processors Would be hard to get in 2021, its more likely something that would be generally available in 2022
• They would be expensive, Intel, has been heavily marking down its processors to compete against AMD.
• Motherboards would also be pricey as well.
• First Gen processors, right out of the box - I'd rather wait and not be on the bleeding hedge.

Overall, its nice to have the latest and greatest, I'm not knocking it, but if I'm purposely slowing downing the processor to run cooler, then do I really need Alder Lake - at least on day one?

I mentioned price above, for the processor, and mobo - For this go around, I was very price sensitive. My goal wasn't to spend a lot, and I reused parts where I could from the Ryzen build. I also wanted to redo things from the prior build that I wasn't happy about but overall, as I said - keep the costs down. I opted for a z490 specifically because it was significantly cheaper then a Z590, and yet still compatible to the 11th Gen processor. I give up some things like PCI gen 4, but I don't own any gen 4 components ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You thought it through, priced it out, decided and the end result looks great.

One thing you mentioned about gigabyte resonates with me. I'm not particularly happy with my gigabyte z490 mother board. For a "high-end" board it missing configuration options I thought would be there. Additionally the motherboard still has random bouts of losing the bios/cmos. (which now that this is happened a few times I can recover in under an hour...but why?) So I'm thinking of a new z490 mb and case. Didn't get farther in the process beyond thinking about it. But maybe MSI as they seemingly have good reviews.

 

[maflynn]

I'm not particularly happy with my gigabyte mother board. For a "high-end" board it missing configuration options I thought would be there and I still have random bouts of losing the bios

Indeed, and I ran into an issue (granted it was a driver issue) that reset my bios. Plus I was not really happy with what it didn't offer. The board itself (for the price point) seemed to lack any bios reset or other indicators. For instance, my MSI MEG Z490 has a clear cmos, it has boot indicator lights, so if a boot fails, you can see where it was stuck on, i.e., ram, cpu etc.

Not that I over clock the but power delivery is more robust, higher phase count, superior cooling/heat syncs, better back panel IO ports. MSI is better in every respect imo.

I have zero regrets, this is a great build and system, I'm really estatic over how it went.

Well I do have one regret.
I added a second SSD (back of the mobo), and I thought it was a 1TB - its only 500GB and I was going to use that for my Lightroom library.

I'm not sure how best to proceed. The case cutout is off just 1/4 of inch, that is I can see the screw for the m.2 but a screwdriver can't access it. I'd rather not remove the CPU cooler and take every out to swap that SSD. I may see if I can remove 3 out of the 4 motherboard screws and see if a slight rotation will give me the room to access that ssd That will be a task for another day. Now that I have a Thunderbolt, I may just get an external storage and use that for my LR library.

 

[pshufd]

I think that I would have gone Alder Lake as well as you have to bite the bullet sooner or later if you want to stay with Intel. The attraction to me would be PPW benefits from 10 nm and the Efficiency Cores. I already have a 10700 and my only realistic upgrade is the 10900. The 11700 is more responsive but the 10900, I think, does more overall work with the two extra cores.

I've had good luck with Asus motherboards and would be inclined to stick with them. I bought a Gigabyte motherboard around 2010 and I was really annoyed that they packaged a shareware firmware upgrader. You had to install this thing with games and popups on your system and it took me three hours to figure out how to remove the games and popups. It left a bad taste in my mouth.

I think that some Alder Lake MBs will have support for DDR4 and DDR5 so I may be able to bring my 128 GB DDR4 over. Current plan is to just get an M1X mini and an M1X MacBook Pro and still use the Windows desktop with it.

 

[maflynn]

Well I do have one regret.
I added a second SSD (back of the mobo), and I thought it was a 1TB - its only 500GB and I was going to use that for my Lightroom library.

So I finally decided to fix this regret - its all my fault, I made an assumption without checking, the model # on the SSD, or just plopping it into my Sabrent external m2. drive enclosure - an omission that limited my options.

So I decided to buy a 2 TB SSD, and put that in the front M.2 connector. As the saying goes, if it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.

One of the screws for the M2 heat shield is directly under the red arrow (give or take a millimeter) My iFixit screw drivers could not reach it (even with its bendy extender thingy).

I thought I was screwed (pun intended), I'd have to remove the cpu cooler which I REALLY, REALLY didn't want to do. Right before resigning myself to the inevitable defeat and spending more time then I really planned, I figured one more attempt but this time using my 20+ year old precision screw drivers from radioshack - and it was just small enough that I could get my fingertips to turn the screwdriver. I was even able to put the screw back in which made me feel much better (there were two screws one under the heatsink and the other below it and to the left and I had easy access to that (once the gpu was removed)

At his point, I consider this build complete and in using it on a daily basis it has far exceeded my expectations in terms of performs, temps, and visual appeal.

 

[MBAir2010]

i have a computer power ?
can we plug a chord just into the power supply without any cables attached?
just to make sure the power supply is working, and not short out other components?
i found a dell XPS i7 8300 over the summer and might want to run that, or fix the computer.
thanks in advance!

 

[maflynn]

can we plug a chord just into the power supply without any cables attached?

Yup. Basically that’s what you do to test out custom loops. You want power to the pump but not the mother board

 

[pshufd]

So I finally decided to fix this regret - its all my fault, I made an assumption without checking, the model # on the SSD, or just plopping it into my Sabrent external m2. drive enclosure - an omission that limited my options.

So I decided to buy a 2 TB SSD, and put that in the front M.2 connector. As the saying goes, if it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.

One of the screws for the M2 heat shield is directly under the red arrow (give or take a millimeter) My iFixit screw drivers could not reach it (even with its bendy extender thingy).
View attachment 1854684


I thought I was screwed (pun intended), I'd have to remove the cpu cooler which I REALLY, REALLY didn't want to do. Right before resigning myself to the inevitable defeat and spending more time then I really planned, I figured one more attempt but this time using my 20+ year old precision screw drivers from radioshack - and it was just small enough that I could get my fingertips to turn the screwdriver. I was even able to put the screw back in which made me feel much better (there were two screws one under the heatsink and the other below it and to the left and I had easy access to that (once the gpu was removed)
View attachment 1854689

At his point, I consider this build complete and in using it on a daily basis it has far exceeded my expectations in terms of performs, temps, and visual appeal.

I have a set of those but I think that it's more like 30+ years old. They are useful for all sorts of things.

 

[I7guy]

So I finally decided to fix this regret - its all my fault, I made an assumption without checking, the model # on the SSD, or just plopping it into my Sabrent external m2. drive enclosure - an omission that limited my options.

So I decided to buy a 2 TB SSD, and put that in the front M.2 connector. As the saying goes, if it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.

One of the screws for the M2 heat shield is directly under the red arrow (give or take a millimeter) My iFixit screw drivers could not reach it (even with its bendy extender thingy).
View attachment 1854684


I thought I was screwed (pun intended), I'd have to remove the cpu cooler which I REALLY, REALLY didn't want to do. Right before resigning myself to the inevitable defeat and spending more time then I really planned, I figured one more attempt but this time using my 20+ year old precision screw drivers from radioshack - and it was just small enough that I could get my fingertips to turn the screwdriver. I was even able to put the screw back in which made me feel much better (there were two screws one under the heatsink and the other below it and to the left and I had easy access to that (once the gpu was removed)
View attachment 1854689

At his point, I consider this build complete and in using it on a daily basis it has far exceeded my expectations in terms of performs, temps, and visual appeal.

I hate it when that happens.

 

[pshufd]

I hate it when that happens.

Always good to have a few spare 2 TB SSDs. The question is NVMe or SATA.

 

[I7guy]

Always good to have a few spare 2 TB SSDs. The question is NVMe or SATA.

While I was being slightly sardonic, those of us who build systems have been there. Necessity to remove a part but can’t get to it by a fraction of an inch…or replacing parts you thought you remembered you had.

But I agree nvme or Sata?

 

[pshufd]

While I was being slightly sardonic, those of us who build systems have been there. Necessity to remove a part but can’t get to it by a fraction of an inch…or replacing parts you thought you remembered you had.

But I agree nvme or Sata?

I put in a 1 TB NVMe as the system drive and later added a 2 TB. I would have been better off putting in a 2 to start with. It is nice to be able to be lazy about storing stuff like Virtual Machines. I have a 2 TB SATA as well and my system will take up to five 2.5 inch drive and an additional 3.5 inch drives but NVMe is clearly a lot cleaner with cabling.

My worst build issues are generally related to dropping screws but I can see being not able to get to things because something is on top of it or things bumping into each other.

 

[maflynn]

I put in a 1 TB NVMe as the system drive and later added a 2 TB. I would have been better off putting in a 2 to start with

That was my short coming, I opted to "save" money and only buy a 1TB SSD for the main M.2 slot thinking that my spare SSD was also a 1TB - live and learn ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My worst build issues are generally related to dropping screws

Yeah, sadly, that was me this go around, I have an old ifixit kit and those screw driving set isn't very (or at all) magnetic and I thought it was - the screw dropped right into the case - took some work to get it out

 

[Cape Dave]

I put in a 1 TB NVMe as the system drive and later added a 2 TB. I would have been better off putting in a 2 to start with. It is nice to be able to be lazy about storing stuff like Virtual Machines. I have a 2 TB SATA as well and my system will take up to five 2.5 inch drive and an additional 3.5 inch drives but NVMe is clearly a lot cleaner with cabling.

My worst build issues are generally related to dropping screws but I can see being not able to get to things because something is on top of it or things bumping into each other.

Many do not know this, but a larger SSD is pretty much always substantially faster than the smaller SSD. So 2TB for the win!

 

[MBAir2010]

Hello PCers
I was working on a dell XSP 2013 PC tower someone tossed
just found out the specs are intel 17, and a 2.6 something which is powerful!
everything passed (except old hard drive which could be broke)
the tower needs a new hard drive.
can I purchase a ssd Western digital and install windows 10
or will that install what ever windows came with the computer?

thanks in advance!

 

[pshufd]

Hello PCers
I was working on a dell XSP 2013 PC tower someone tossed
just found out the specs are intel 17, and a 2.6 something which is powerful!
everything passed (except old hard drive which could be broke)
the tower needs a new hard drive.
can I purchase a ssd Western digital and install windows 10
or will that install what ever windows came with the computer?

thanks in advance!

You should be fine with Windows 10. You can install Windows 10 clean off the internet. Dells in the past used to not require a license key but I don't know if this is still the case. Even so, you don't need a license key to run Windows 10 though you will lose some UI settings if you do it this way.

 

[MBAir2010]

You should be fine with Windows 10. You can install Windows 10 clean off the internet. Dells in the past used to not require a license key but I don't know if this is still the case. Even so, you don't need a license key to run Windows 10 though you will lose some UI settings if you do it this way.

Thank You!