New gaming rig build

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Losbot
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Re: New gaming rig build

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LMAO I love Trevor's storylines. He's a riot.
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FlyingPenguin
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Re: New gaming rig build

Post by FlyingPenguin »

Very happy with this build so far.

Okay, I was not expecting the performance gains to be as dramatic as they are. I knew I was CPU limited but I really half expected it to amount to a 20% performance gain at most since, we're constantly told, the GPU is more important that the CPU. A lot of it probably has more to do with a faster PCIe Gen 4 bus.

I'm actually seeing the GPU running near 100% now in games where, previously, it was hardly breaking a sweat at 60%.

Well here's some startling benchmark numbers:

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I'm actually having an issue with GTA5 that I ran into once before. Ironically, the game is NOT happy if you run the framerate too high - it starts stuttering and crashing. Fortunately it does run the benchmark just fine. The solution is to enable VSync and cap the refresh at 85 or 100 Hz. It's working for me at 100.
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Corsair 110Q Case

Post by FlyingPenguin »

ReBAR is enabled. That was not as straight forward as it should be. I installed the latest version of EVGA X1 Precision and it informed me there was a firmware update for the 3080, and I installed it. That alone wasn't enough.

In X1 Precision, there's a button that tests to see if you've met all the criteria for ReBAR and it said the firmware needed to be updated (Huh? I just did that!). However this is apparently not a flashing of the entire main card firmware, but some NVidia microcode that enables ReBAR in the card. Clicked on that item, and it opened a DOS window and an NVidia utility ran that warned me I was about to update my firmware for ReBAR support. Small amount of code I guess because it only took a couple of seconds. Now GPU-Z, the NVidia driver and X1 Precision say ReBAR is enabled.

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Nice case: Corsair 110Q. I always go Corsair. This is a newer one, so new that there aren't any pics online of one with components installed. It comes with a removable dual 3.5" drive cage located in front of the PSU, but I took it out.

I like how the front fan positions are totally adjustable. I put one intake fan directly in front of the CPU cooler, and the other right in front of the GPU.
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I don't have the greatest cable management skillz, but I try. Not that anyone will ever look inside except me. No window. I'm not a fan of window cases, and it's getting annoyingly difficult to find good non-window cases.
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SSDs mount behind the mobo, as seems to be the new trend in cases. Only room for two, so I had to tuck my third SSD behind the PSU.
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Something to watch for is that the button to manually flash the mobo BIOS is located on the back panel (small black button in upper left of photo below, and the USB port you're supposed to put the firmware flash drive in has a box around it). It's ridiculously easy to mount the board slightly cock-eyed and jam the button in the depressed position, or make it so tight that you can't press the button.

FYI: Those antennas didn't come with the mobo. I cannibalized them from an old Asus router I had lying around. I didn't like the Wifi antenna that came with the board. Not using Wifi except to use my phone's hotspot as a backup in case Comcast goes down.

And yes, that's a PS/2 Mouse/keyboard jack. Don't ask me why. My guess is it's just in case USB takes a dump on you. Maybe it's just a retro fad. Funny thing is, I do have a bin full of PS/2 keyboard and mice.
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The newer cases have a single 4 conductor cellphone style headset jack (apparently that's real common on laptops now too). Makes sense - it standardizes all headsets. That means I had to order an adapter for my old headset, which has the separate mic and headphone plugs. Until it arrives, I'm running the mic into the rear panel with an extension. I'm trying to use the onboard audio as reviews say it's very good on this mobo, and so far it sounds great. I had issues with the onboard on the old mobo that forced me to install a Soundblaster Z card on it. I still prefer my old skool analog headset over USB ones. I have big ears, and it's hard to find a headset that doesn't cause me pain after a few hours wearing it. I have a large muff Plantonics model I prefer.
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Losbot
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Re: New gaming rig build

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May I ask how much the project cost you?
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FlyingPenguin
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Re: New gaming rig build

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Less PSU and GPU, which I pulled from the old rig, just shy of $1200. Of course I bought 32GB of RAM which is probably overkill. The 1TB NVMe drive was $200 as it's a high end drive. CPU was $450.
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Err
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Re: New gaming rig build

Post by Err »

Very nice build. I'm impressee by the PCI 4 vs 3. I'll also need to keep that NVMe on my shortlist once Sony releases the PS5 firmware to enable additional storage support.
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Re: New gaming rig build

Post by FlyingPenguin »

Links:

Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 X 8GB) DDR4 3600 (PC4-28800) C18 1.35V Desktop Memory
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RM39V5F

Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition CPU Air Cooler (BTW, the fan that came with this is very good, even though I replaced it with one of mine. Wound up using it for the back exhaust since the fan that came with the case was nothing special):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H25DYM3
***NOTE: I eventually replaced this with a Noctua NH-D15, because the CPU ran too warm with the 212 cooler in this case with it's limited airflow, and the heat dump from the RTX 3080.

Noctua NF-F12 PWM, Premium Quiet Fan, 4-Pin (120mm, Brown)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00650P2ZC/

Corsair 110Q Mid-Tower Quiet ATX Case, Black, Solid, Standard
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07X3Y1BX7

Sabrent 1TB Rocket 4 Plus NVMe 4.0 Gen4 PCIe M.2 Internal SSD Extreme Performance Solid State Drive
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08P2B6JKV

ASUS TUF Gaming X570-PRO (WiFi 6) AM4 Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 & 3rd Gen Ryzen ATX Motherboard (PCIe 4.0, 2.5Gb LAN, BIOS Flashback, HDMI 2.1, USB 3.2 Gen 2
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08JWMPVD9

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8-Core 3.8 GHz Socket AM4 105W 100-100000063WOF Desktop Processor
https://www.newegg.com/amd-ryzen-7-5800 ... 6819113665
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Executioner
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Re: New gaming rig build

Post by Executioner »

So you're not using a 2.5 micro SSD as a boot drive?
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Re: New gaming rig build

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Oh hell no. Even my previous rig used an M.2 boot drive.

Max transfer speed on a SATA SSD is 550 MB/s. An M.2/NVMe drive is directly connected to the PCIe bus, so even the previous generation (like the one in my old rig) can do up to 3500 MB/s. The new PCIe Gen 4 drives can double that.

All modern mobos have at least one NVMe slot on the mobo. Enthusiast and hi-end mobos have two. My new mobo has two slots but I'm only using one for the 1TB boot drive which I've partitioned as a 150GB 'C' boot partition (more than enough for the OS and basic apps on my gaming rig) and an 850GB 'D' partition for my favorite games that would benefit the most from fast load times. The rest of my games are scattered in separate Steam folders on two 1TB, and one 2TB SATA SSDs.

NVMe drives for boot are a no brainer now. They are not much more expensive than SATA SSDs, and much faster, and having the OS running on a superfast drive makes a hell of a performance difference. Most games really don't benefit from it except games that have major load time issues.

I purposely keep the boot partition size very minimal - no games are installed on it - on purpose, to make it easy to image on a regular basis, and the images are small. Games are pretty easy to re-download nowadays anywsy, and Steam backs up most of your game data (although I'd say, from my experience, that 80% of modern games actually save your game data in your boot drive's AppData folders, not the Steam folders.
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psypher
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Re: New gaming rig build

Post by psypher »

Your case has wheels? lol

NM, I guess it's something like this
https://www.amazon.com/Liitrton-Mobile- ... B003BYRO7O
Last edited by psypher on Mon Apr 05, 2021 7:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: New gaming rig build

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And if you're wondering what modern data farm servers look like nowadays, and why they're running SSDs, it's all about storage density and power reduction. Spinning drives eat up space, and it takes a lot of power to spin a platter of rust. Just check out this single 1U rack server with 32 hot-swappable NVMe drives.

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Re: New gaming rig build

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Yeah Pypher, it's a dolly. Since the gaming PC sits on the floor under the desk, I wanted it elevated to reduce dust intake, and make it easy access. Also prevents it from getting slopped on when we mop the floor. No room on the desk - the workstation sits on the desk.

I have tried very hard to keep everything off the floor as much as possible. Just the gaming PC, the woofer, and the UPS.
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Re: New gaming rig build

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Oh crap, I just went down a rabbit hole. Yes Veronica, they are starting to make NVMe NAS boxes. Probably expensive as hell, but at 14,000 MB/s these are probably great for video editing.

https://highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/seri ... erview.htm
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Re: New gaming rig build

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Rig's running great, all my games re-installed.

I have run into an issue where in some games, the framerate is so blazing high that the GPU and CPU temps are very high for no good reason with the CPU hitting 90C and the GPU hitting 70C. I can get 300 FPS in Left 4 Dead 2, but I don't need it, for instance.

Yes, I now have too many frames per second. Grovel before me. :)

Nuby suggested capping the framerate in some of the games, and some games let you and some games don't, and I don't want to use VSync as a cap with a GSync monitor.

But then I realized NVIdia has a global framerate cap in the driver control panel. There's also a per-game framerate cap, but I didn't want to mess with that. I just capped framerates globally at 100 FPS. That should be plenty, and since in most games now I have more power than that available, I'll get a solid 100 FPS all the time in them. My monitor has a 100Hz refresh so that framerate is a good match.

Now the load on the GPU is lower and it runs cooler, except for Valheim and MS Flight sim, which are the only games I can't hit 100 FPS with, at the graphics settings I want.

That also solved the stutter/crash issue in GTA5 and I cranked the visuals up to max. Still have to enable VSync in GTA5 or I get tearing. But that's an old known issue. GTA5 has never played nice with GSync.
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Losbot
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Re: New gaming rig build

Post by Losbot »

You unfortunate bastard. So many extra frames, just tossed off to the side like that. LOL
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