Build a PC: Simple Questions - October 19, 2020 |
- Simple Questions - October 19, 2020
- You wanna sell me a GTX 1080 for $200? Hell yeah.
- Laides and Gentlemen, we bought it.
- First build complete! Thanks to the community for being awesome!
- I built a PC!
- Thoughts on this budget build?
- First build! Took 3 hours & my hands & body are so goddamn sore from all those wires. Despite minor issues here and there, everything seemed to boot up first try!
- First ever PC build!
- gpu problems pls help
- SSD and motherboard came with no screw.
- Looking to build my first PC, how should I start learning?
- 1st PC Build!
- Is it safe to use braided cables from Aliexpress ?
- Booting from M.2 NVMe
- Is a 6gb GPU already outdated?
- Which is better case overall: Phanteks P500A D-RGB BLACK or Fractal Design Define S2 Vision Blackout?
- Thoughts on my 1300 budget build
- my first build won’t work
- The Geeek A40 v3: 11L mITX case that loooks kinda coool (a case review)
- How badly will an AMD FX-8300 bottleneck a GTX 1650 Super?
- GPU upgrades
- Techspot reviews storage for gaming.
- I need help with my first build
- 4k gaming or 1440p?
| Simple Questions - October 19, 2020 Posted: 19 Oct 2020 05:16 AM PDT This thread is for simple questions that don't warrant their own thread (although we strongly suggest checking the sidebar and the wiki before posting!). Please don't post involved questions that are better suited to a [Build Help], [Build Ready] or [Build Complete] post. Examples of questions:
Remember that Discord is great places to ask quick questions as well: http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/wiki/livechat Important: Downvotes are strongly discouraged in this thread. Sorting by new is strongly encouraged. Have a question about the subreddit or otherwise for /r/buildapc mods? We welcome your mod mail! Looking for all the Simple Questions threads? Want an easy way to locate today's thread? This link is now in the sidebar below the yellow Rules section. [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| You wanna sell me a GTX 1080 for $200? Hell yeah. Posted: 19 Oct 2020 05:16 AM PDT A good friend of mine have upgraded from gtx 1080 to rtx 3080. I am very happy for him and I asked what gpu he had before. It was an gtx 1080 which he would sell for $350-ish, but I offered 200 and said it would still be in our family. He is the best friend you could get and we often trade other things like old consoles and yu-gi-oh cards. But now..... I had a ryzen 2200g and without a graphics card. I am very happy just to get this used one. I also pitched some money in to a NVMe and some other used Rams, together with a r5 3600. Now it went straight from a very low budget build to a gaming rig. Couldn't be happier. [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Laides and Gentlemen, we bought it. Posted: 18 Oct 2020 08:16 PM PDT After a month of selling old legos, and a few old comics, this weekend I am going to buy the final parts of my pc, and because my 19th bday is coming up my parents decided to buy my graphics card next Thursday! This weekend I'm going to buy my final 2 parts and then next week we get in line at micro center for my 3070! I'm pretty proud of myself being a broke college student hustling up the money to pay for this soon to be beast of a machine. This sub has helped a lot, so thanks to everyone here! Everyone have an awesome week :) [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| First build complete! Thanks to the community for being awesome! Posted: 18 Oct 2020 05:45 PM PDT Just wanted to say thanks to this community for being so awesome and helping people out. I'm a long time lurker but have read a bunch of information and it helped me immensely, and for that, thank all of you! No better feeling than pressing the power button and it firing up first try! [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 18 Oct 2020 09:57 PM PDT I DID IT! I built my first PC, and it's exciting. I'm kind of sensitive to light (I get headaches just looking at RGB heavy setups) so preferred to go without a lot of RGB. I also know I only have one extension cable installed; the PCIe extension cable wasn't fitting right and I preferred the look of the black CPU cable. Tbh I prefer the black PCIe cable because it blends in better and kind of creates a focal point at the level of the RAM. I'll probably get a black extension cable to replace it with.
I know that I could have waited for the 3060 and R5 5600, or I could have waited a little longer to see if the 3600 or 2060 parts dropped in price, but after watching the 3600 jump between $175 and $199 for a month or so I decided to just go for it when I saw it was in stock at $175. Also I am upgrading from a laptop with a dual core CPU so for me this is LUXURY. The build process was an adventure. Let me preface by letting you know that I have ADHD and reading manuals are not usually my thing. Even when I do manage to read them I have a tendency to read the first couple lines of instructions and make assumptions about the rest of the process. So. Day One: My strategy was to follow this video to test my parts outside of the case. I also felt confident that I could do this on a Friday night after a long work week (and complete the build the next day). I mean tech YouTubers with decades of experience can do it in 10 minutes so obviously I can too...right? Did I mention that people with ADHD have a really terrible sense of time? Because we do. The hardest part of building a PC for the first time is taking your components out of the box where they are safe to the kitchen table where you might drop them. The second hardest part is installing the RAM. Yes. Friends, I did not realize how effing HARD you have to push the RAM sticks to get them seated. Everyone hyped up seating the CPU so much when in reality that shit is EASY! The CPU just falls into the socket all gracefully while I practically had to throw my weight on top of the RAM to get it in there. I felt like I was about to do chest compressions. (I am a short and weak medical professional with a desk job). Once I got everything seated I realized that my mobo doesn't have a nice button like the one in the video that I can press to turn it on. Having no real experience here I was definitely not feeling confident enough to do that screwdriver trick and potentially short my motherboard/electrocute myself, so into the case we went. I connected the power switch and...AND!!!!! The CPU cooler was spinning (loudly...too loudly). The GPU lit up. The case fans were on. The monitor was dark. I checked the troubleshooting LED lights on the motherboard. RAM. I knew it. I pushed too hard. I broke the RAM. It was at this time that I also remembered seeing some posts on this sub about people forgetting to take off the plastic on their CPU. I did not remove any plastic from my CPU. Probably why the fan was so loud. Welp. It was late. I went to bed. My back hurt. Day Two: So it turns out that (a) I had not actually fully seated the RAM sticks (I was trying to be gentle with my expensive components, okay?!) and (b) there was never any plastic covering on the CPU or the CPU cooler. But on the bright side, the RAM was very obviously not seated correctly before, and it was now, so the PC was sure to POST this time. Right...? Mother. Fucking. POST. Loop. It was at this point that I learned firsthand the power of turning things off and turning them back on again. Because I did that, and it WORKED! The first time you see the BIOS screen on a PC you built is a special moment, probably akin to the birth of your first child, idk. But we weren't done. (We were almost done though.) Do you remember how I said I don't like to read manuals? See, if I read the manual I would have known that the M.2 slot into which I installed my SSD was for PCIe drives. Do I have a PCIe drive? No. No I do not. Which would explain why Windows couldn't find any storage devices on my PC. All right. SSD is in the SATA slot. RAM is seated. And Windows has booted. Time for this grad student fire up PubMed and open 73 Chrome tabs across 4 different windows to write some well-fuckin-researched Blackboard discussion posts. Because why else would you build a $1000 gaming PC? [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Thoughts on this budget build? Posted: 19 Oct 2020 03:44 AM PDT
Uses: Programming, light CAD and video/audio editing, light gaming. [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 19 Oct 2020 08:56 AM PDT https://imgur.com/a/HnAk2XE - What do you guys think of the cable management? Also, PCPartpicker doesn't list the 1650 super version of the Aero ITX, so it just says 1650 on there, but it's deffo a super. And to anyone who would ask where my mass storage is, I'm still saving up for one lol. My money ran out as soon as I bought the gpu.
Since 2013 I dreamed of building a PC all by myself. I can't count how many hours I spent on tomshardware forums, reddit, youtube, etc. binge researching everything there is to know about how to find out the compatibility of parts, how to build everything, models, names, prices, reviews, you name it. The experience all showed tonight when I finally collated all my parts after a couple months of gathering them up. If anyone asks, the case was a gift from my aunt, and I got the gpu 2nd hand. Everything else is brand new. The whole build took about 3 hours, and much of that was consumed taking breaks after having quite a hard time pushing cables in and wiring everything together. My arms are still sore as I type this, Jesus. I got hosed by prices for sure, but I live in the Philippines so they're the most reasonable I could get. I'm not in the best of financial situation either, which explains some parts choices (e.g. 2600 instead of 3600, 1650s instead of 1660/s). Anywho, everything booted up first try and that made me really happy! Although weirdly it took like 3 restarts before I could boot into the Windows Setup. The screen also glitched out for a bit, but I just pressed Esc and it took me to the set-up where everything was smooth sailing, so I guess it was just minor issues? I really don't know. The important thing for me is that it posted and I got into the OS where I'm happily setting things up for some gaming and photo/video editing (I'm making this post from my new PC right as we speak!). After 3 years on a laptop, I can finally say that I've truly ascended. And I'm very happy. [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 19 Oct 2020 10:34 AM PDT After about 30 hours of research, 10 hours of reddit sales research, and 8 hours of putting the thing together... It's done! This build didn't go too well, first of all I was using a friend's GPU until I got my RX 5700 XT but the GPU wasn't compatible with my other drivers so as soon as windows booted up, and started installing VGA drivers the GPU failed. This obstacle caused a lot of panic because I wasn't sure what was wrong with it but I ended up going to my local computer store and picking up the card early! Parts list: CPU: Ryzen 5 3600x Mobo: Asus TUF x570-plus GPU: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT Fans: EZ-DIY 120mm (3 pack) Case: Cougar MX330-G (Tempered glass) Storage: WD Blue m.2 1TB 2400mbps read RAM: G.SKILL V Series 2x8gb 3600mhz CL16 PSU: XPG 650w 80+ gold [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 19 Oct 2020 11:55 AM PDT I brought the parts to build a pc some time ago, but the grapichs card had some technically issues. And had to be sent back to the retailer, when i got the new card today. The issue is when i start the pc, when i boot it on. No input is detected on the monitor, and looks like the grapichs card isn't turning on. https://gyazo.com/1066dacc11944fbf532ea5a9fae25c05 Any ideas on how to locate the issue, or ideally fix it Thanks before hand i got to bios the first time i starrted but i turned it off bc i didnt have my windows flash drive ready and the next time i turned it on to install windows nothing happened and i got before mentioned issues [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| SSD and motherboard came with no screw. Posted: 19 Oct 2020 12:42 PM PDT My Crucial NVME M.2 SSD and ASRock Pro4 B550M never came with a screw to screw in the ssd to the M.2_2 slot. All my screws and part boxes are still on my table and haven't thrown anything out, but the only screws I see are my leftover case screws as well as a few from my heatsink. I tried all of them in random chance that they would fit but no luck. Any information on why there's no screw or if they're is one I could use somewhere would be much appreciated. Or any information on what screw I could purchase. Thanks! [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Looking to build my first PC, how should I start learning? Posted: 19 Oct 2020 04:41 AM PDT Hey everyone, Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but it's finally time to transition from my gaming laptop into a good gaming PC. To be honest besides some basic shit I do know know much about PC's, but I want to build it mostly myself, instead of asking someone to build it for me. So the question is, how do I start? Do you guys recommend some YouTube videos, or some websites where I can read about it? It seems like a daunting task as I don't know where to begin. Thanks! [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 19 Oct 2020 01:44 PM PDT White NR200 Sffpc I7 10700KA/ 2x16 T-Force RAM/ SF750 Corsair PSU/ RX 570 Armor OC Edition (Place holder until 3080 or Big Navi)/ Zip ties, zip ties and more zipties! [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Is it safe to use braided cables from Aliexpress ? Posted: 19 Oct 2020 10:45 AM PDT Those look sick but i wonder of they're safe ? They look to be from a company named "FormulaMod" which seems to be doing decent stuff, in china at least. [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 19 Oct 2020 11:58 AM PDT Hi everyone, so I have an EVO 500gb SSD, a WD 1TB HDD, and a WD 4TB External HDD. I just installed a 2TB NVMe, and installed a fresh version of Windows on it... However, in my BIOS, it seems to still be booting from the EVO SSD, despite the fact that I formatted it. I want to be sure that I'm using the full potential of NVMe fastboot... any help you guys can offer? Edit: So I shrunk the drive by 200mb, created an NFTS parition, labeled it Drive G, confirmed in Diskpart that it is indeed a Primary, then tried to use EasyBCD to change boot drive to G: and got this error: An attempt was made to change the boot partition to a logical drive, which is not allowed. The boot partition must be a primary partition. TLDR: How can I migrate my Windows Boot Manager from old SSD to new M.2 so that BIOS can recognize it? EDIT: SOLVED by Pro tip - just unplug all other harddrives and do a fresh install, migrate files and folders at your leisure. Then format old drives. [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Is a 6gb GPU already outdated? Posted: 19 Oct 2020 01:10 PM PDT Can a 6GB GPU be a good cost benefit option or a 8GB is the minimum for the upcoming generation? I am thinking about upgrading my current 1050ti for a better but cheap GPU... In my country the RTX series is very expensive (except the 2060 mobile with only 6GB), and the 1660s sounds like a good option too, it is a lot cheaper and seems to be able to handle nicely most of the current games. But I am not sure if I should keep my 1050ti on the edge for few more years untill the RTX series get cheaper... [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 19 Oct 2020 11:35 AM PDT I've come across a question yet again, I want to hear from owners. [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Thoughts on my 1300 budget build Posted: 19 Oct 2020 09:21 AM PDT Hi all! Am ready to build my $1300 budget build and just wanted some outside opinions before i pull the trigger. This will mostly be used for 1080p gaming (apex, gta v, mw, csgo, seige) [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 19 Oct 2020 07:09 AM PDT So all my pc parts came in yesterday, and me and my friend started building it. Long story short we didn't have enough time and he had to leave and I ended up having to finish it. I finished building and then I turned it on. I have two problems, the power button doesn't turn off the pc. The other problem is it's not working, I just get a no signal on the monitor. For more context, when I turn the pc all the fans spin and the lights come on. Yes I have the HDMI in the video card. I would appreciate some help, i'm just a 16 year old trying to game. I am considering taking it to the pc shop soon. [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Geeek A40 v3: 11L mITX case that loooks kinda coool (a case review) Posted: 19 Oct 2020 09:19 AM PDT I recently purchased the Geeek A40 v3 for a recreational PC build, and with intent to use it as a relatively compact 1080p gaming rig. Frankly, I have no need for this, but maybe it'll find a home next to my TV in my living room. However, I figured I'd write up a review and build notes on the case, given I cannot find any reviews anywhere online. Seriously, I don't think anyone has ever reviewed this case. To be clear, I bought this with my own money and am in no way affiliated with or paid/sponsored by Geeek.
You can find a small gallery of the build here on Imgur. I'll re-link some of these photos throughout the review.
The CaseThe A40 v3 is a mITX case of 10.93 liters in volume. It costs $60 USD from the Geeek store, with $20 shipping to the USA. I also paid another $20 for the Geeek PCIe riser cable, as I knew I wanted a dedicated graphics card. Total cost was ~$109, which I would argue is a little pricey, but not egregiously-so. The case only comes in a white or matte black (I chose black) and the only included LEDs are a blue ring around the power button, which I found quite tasteful. I want to highlight here, the power button is the most satisfying power button I've ever pressed on any computer. It has a very solid "click" when depressed and frankly, I'm considering trying to order some of these power buttons separately from Geeek customer service to mod into my other PCs. They're that good. Keep in mind, you're limited to SFX or SFX-L power supplies, and if you use SFX-L, you cannot fit a bottom-mounted case fan. Speaking of fans, the case can fit 2x 92-mm fans at the top of the case and 1x 92-mm at the bottom of the case. There are absolutely no dust filters included in this case. My plan was to use 3x 92-mm fans with two at the top as exhaust and one at the bottom as intake, and then slide a small magnetic filter under the bottom of the case to serve as a filter for both the 92-mm intake as well as my bottom-facing PSU fan. Build quality felt solid. The aluminum is of a decent thickness and heft and didn't flex as I handled it. The side panels are acrylic, not glass, which I think is a bit unfortunate given the price point, but they look fine. There was a very tiny scuff on one of my side panels which was surprising given that everything (the aluminum and the acrylic side panels) all came shipped with protective plastic foil that had to be peeled off before building… the scuff is minor and wasn't worth sending back for a replacement, but was still disappointing to see nonetheless. In addition to the minor scuff on one of the side panels, some of my thumb screws were also scuffed or tarnished. I'm considering replacing them anyway with blue thumb screws for some customization I plan to do on the case down the road, so this also isn't worth asking for a replacement, but I'm again a bit disappointed that the more obviously visible portions of the case (e.g. side panel & thumb screws that hold in the side panels) were marred. The case includes space for 2x 2.5" SSD/HDDs, but frankly, I'd strongly encourage using a single M.2 drive if using this case. For cases this small I really prefer as little extra "stuff" as possible, and M.2 drives are just too space-saving to not use. Just personal preference, however. CPU cooler height is limited to 70 mm, but this isn't surprising for a mITX case. You have several nice options from Noctua (e.g. NH-l9), Cryorig (e.g. C7), Cooler Master (e.g. i71C), Alpenföhn (e.g. Black Ridge), and other manufacturers. Finally, your GPU choice will be somewhat limited, as 245 mm is the maximum length for a GPU. You'll also have to use a GPU riser cable, and as mentioned, I purchased the Geeek riser cable since it was supposedly guaranteed to fit (more on that later).
System ComponentsMy build consisted of the following parts:
Part ExplanationI liked the A520 ASRock board as a relatively cheap 500-series mITX board, and iirc, even Buildzoid said the VRM isn't horrible, which means it's more than fine for my use running it at stock on a 3100, and should give me room to upgrade the CPU down the road if I so desired. Built-in WiFi, two case fan headers, an M.2 shield that probably isn't good for thermals but hey it looks nice, and an almost all-black finish fit perfectly with my vision for the build. Note the 8-pin EPS12V connector is strangely wedged near the rear I/O panel, but that didn't specifically cause any issues for me, it's just abnormal. The I/O shield is just a cheap steel-stamped one, but it gets the job done. I'd have loved to get a 3300X instead of the 3100, but they are sold out or wildly overpriced. The 3100 should more than handle most of my 1080p gaming needs, thankfully. The 5500 XT 4 GB is a great match for the 3100, in my opinion, and has a zero RPM fan mode at low-load which works well. The build overall ended up being relatively quiet. Everything else is pretty self explanatory, though I'll note that the SF600 power supply is a spare I keep around for temporary builds, which explains why it's overkill and why it cost only $100 (bought it in 2019), whereas it's now around $150 or so due to the PSU price hikes of 2020.
The Case AssemblyThe case comes completely disassembled. You're given something like 100+ screws (organized nicely, I'll admit) and around 20 pieces of the case. There are no included instructions, but there is a QR code that links you to their website where a PDF is available. The PDF is basically just pictures and indicators showing which screws you need for each step. It's not a terrible process, but it took me the better part of an afternoon to fully assemble the case, and I never felt confident I was doing it correctly. It turned out I did assemble it all correctly on my first attempt, so that was a relief. I looked at photos of the completed case to help me double-check that I was on the right track as I built. The case construction is actually done simultaneously with installing your components, especially towards the end, so you'll want to follow those instructions very carefully regarding the order of operations.
The Build ProcessThe CPU, CPU cooler, RAM, and NVMe drive installed very easily into the motherboard. I'm not sure the M.2 shield will even help with cooling, but it sure looks nice. Nothing more to say about these components right now. The GPU riser cable popped into the GPU without issue, but mounting the GPU in the case was not quite simple. Once the GPU was in, there is a small piece of plastic that you screw onto the back of the case that takes the place of the screws you'd normally use to secure your GPU (at the I/O rear panel) to the case. However, as you can see in the photos, the piece of plastic simply doesn't align with the grooves of the dual-slot GPU. I'm not sure what GPU Geeek thinks would fit into this case with this piece of plastic, but mine certainly couldn't be properly secured. I didn't have my Dremel on hand, but I did have a metal file from an old nail clipper kit. Sounds insane, but in about 10 minutes, I'd pretty easily filed down two of the three "teeth" on the plastic lock, allowing the third tooth to keep my GPU secured once the plastic lock was screwed into place. This is something you'll almost assuredly have to deal with if you buy this case, though you could just not use the plastic lock at all… though I'll say, my GPU was definitely a little floppy in there until I fixed the plastic lock into place. With the GPU finally installed and the plastic lock secured, I began to install the motherboard. At first, I screwed the motherboard down and then tried to attach the other end of the GPU riser cable into the motherboard, but it simply wasn't able to reach. It felt about 10 mm too short. I tried for a good while and never managed to make it work, so I emailed Geeek support. In their defense, they got back to me about 24 hours later which I feel is reasonable, but I resolved my issue by that point, thankfully. How did I fix the issue? Turns out, you simply need to plug the GPU riser cable into the motherboard and then install/screw the motherboard into the case. It definitely is a tight fit on the riser cable, but this does work and it doesn't seem so tight that I have any worries about the riser cable breaking due to the tension. tl:dr, install the GPU with the riser cable attached, attach the other end of the riser cable to the motherboard, then install the motherboard. Oh, I should note, the motherboard's I/O shield doesn't "click" into the case frame as I normally would see with other cases… it just sorta floats there. I had to hold it in place with one hand while I slid the motherboard into the case, essentially keeping the I/O shield in place purely because of the screwed down motherboard. I'm not sure if I just did something incorrectly or perhaps the I/O shield itself is faulty, but yeah, it doesn't hold itself into the case frame at all. Once the motherboard was in place, I installed the PSU without issue, as well as the case fans. Due to the very tight fit of the GPU riser cable, the clearance for the top case fans was completely fine. Due to only having two case fan headers on the motherboard, I used a Noctua Y-cable to split one of the fan headers to make sure I could max out the case fan slots, putting two 92 mm fans at the top for exhaust, and one 92 mm fan at the bottom for intake. As you can tell from the pictures, the three case fans and the Y-splitter cable add a lot of cable mess to the case. I've included some simple thermal tests below showing the difference with the stock build (no case fans), with all three case fans, and with all three case fans and no side panels, so you can decide for yourself if it's a worthwhile investment. I'm considering removing one top fan, which would let me remove the Y-splitter cable, too. That'd clear up a lot of cable mess but still give me room for a balanced intake/exhaust (right now, I have more exhaust than intake, which I tend to avoid). The other issue with the bottom intake fan is that the flow of air from the fan is partially blocked by the various cables running above it. I've tried pushing the cables towards the edges of the case to improve air flow, but with no cable tie locations, there's not a simple way of really moving them. Although it's not surprising, there is really no room to hide cables in this case, as you have no space between the motherboard/GPU, and not much of a frame to run cables along. A lack of PSU shroud doesn't help the visual appearance, and I'm particularly not a fan of seeing that big, white, PSU label. I'm considering getting a black vinyl sticker to slap on there to make it look a bit better. I mentioned this previously, but there are simply no dust filters included with this case, not even for the PSU. I've got some spare magnetic dust filters from an old Thermaltake Core V21 case that I cut to fit the bottom, at least, which would filter the bottom intake fan and the PSU… but the case is aluminum, so magnets don't work. I'll have to figure out a way to properly attach these later. With the fans installed and all other cables in place, the build was done! I still plan to do more work trying to improve the cable mess on the CPU/MB-side of the case, but I will say, I think it looks quite nice from the GPU-side of the case.
Benchmarks and ThermalsThis is by no means extremely comprehensive, but I ran a few synthetic benchmarks with the scores listed below, as well as some thermal and noise tests in looping benchmarks. Each test was run for at least 10 minutes (looped if needed) or until temperatures hit steady-state, ambient temperature was ~23ºC, and the tests were for the stock case (no case fans) as well as with all three case fans at 1,200 RPM (~63% max speed). I know this can make it tough to compare between the stock build and the 3-case fans build, but I left the CPU and GPU fans on automatic/default settings. In the BIOS, the CPU fan speed was set to "Standard" which applies a relatively balanced curve; other curves, such as "Silent" also exist in the ASRock BIOS. Ambient temperature values were subtracted from test results, providing ΔT (ºC) results for all tests. If you're wondering why I left the CPU and GPU fans at default, frankly, it was to get a better idea of what the case would look like in a real-world setting, and because I'm not comparing this case to other cases as you'd see in more thorough reviews from established review sites (e.g. Gamers Nexus). My tests were simply to give me an idea of how hot case is in either stock configuration or with three case fans, using settings I'd normally be using or that an average user would default to. I attempted to record noise levels, but all I have on-hand is my phone and a free dBa-measuring app. The issue became that my home is too loud and street noise/ambient noise was quite frankly louder (sound floor around 30 dBa plus spikes from cars etc.) than what I could pick up from my case at a 24" distance, so I didn't bother. I'll briefly say that, subjectively, even under full load I did not find the CPU/GPU/case fans to be very loud, although they were audible. With proper curve tuning, I think it could all be improved quite a bit.
Tests were conducted using the following software:
Tests were run three times in a row and scores below are the average of the three tests, but temperatures were only measured once at the very end of the three test loop, so no averaging was taken for the temperatures as only a single value was recorded. Ambient temperature was 20ºC, and I gave time between each test to allow the CPU/GPU to return to idle temperatures.
Test results: Average results from three runs of each test.
As you can quickly tell, differences in the case configurations didn't make a significant impact on scores for any of my tests; the 1% increase in the Cinebench R20 score when going from stock to adding three fans is measurable but not significant. However, there was absolutely a measurable difference in temperatures for the CPU (and GPU to a much lesser extent) when running these tests in the different configurations, which would suggest that under heavier loads or with locking all the fans to the same speed, it's very possible that we'd see performance drops if not using three extra fans. Superposition Temperature Tests Cinebench R20 Temperature Tests ASUS Realbench Temperature Tests For example, looking at the chart for the Valley 1080p Extreme test, you can see a very significant drop in CPU temperature of ~10°C when adding three fans, and another ~5°C when three fans are used and the side panels are removed. This drop is even more significant when running the Superposition test, resulting in a roughly 20°C drop from stock in either test that added three fans. Similar results can be seen to a lesser extent in the Cinebench R20 and ASUS Realbench tests, in which the CPU temperature is consistently better when case fans are added, but the GpU temperature is mostly unchanged in these test conditions. Taken together, I'd say it's a relatively unsurprising result that a stock case with no case fans and a vertical-mounted GPU with side panels, even if those side panels have some ventilation holes, is going to perform worse than a situation where you add case fans. The ventilation holes in the side panels likely keep the stock condition from being egregiously bad, but it was still surprising to me to see just how much CPU temperatures improve once you add one intake fan at the bottom and two exhaust fans at the top. My guess is that the downdraft low-profile CPU cooler doesn't do a great job of pushing the warm air out of the case, so you end up with both the GPU and CPU just recirculating the hot air inside. I'd hypothesize that adding just a single top exhaust would probably significantly help with thermals and get you closer to the three-fan setup than the stock setup. For a balanced build, you may want just one intake at the bottom and one exhaust at the top so you don't have negative pressure as I did with my two exhaust and one intake setup. Whatever you decide, if you buy a Geeek A40 v3, I'd strongly recommend the addition of at least a single exhaust at the top.
Conclusion / Pros & ConsPros
Cons
If you have any questions, feel free to comment below or DM me here. You can also find me at youtube.com/soupasokagaming or Twitter at SoupaSokaGaming. To repeat what I said in the intro, this post isn't sponsored in any way, as I a paid for the A40 with my own cash and had no contact with Geeek except briefly during the build process where I got stock with the GPU riser, and that was just via a simple email sent to their customer support. tl;dr: Fun case to build in with a few headaches, add at least two case fans to help with thermals, I'm glad I bought it and will enjoy having it around, but only buy it if you really like the size/aesthetics. [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How badly will an AMD FX-8300 bottleneck a GTX 1650 Super? Posted: 19 Oct 2020 12:40 PM PDT I am looking to upgrade my GPU for my pc from a GTX 1050 2GB. Unfortunately the motherboard I have means that I am limited in being able to upgrade my CPU with my current budget. I am therefore looking to get the best GPU possible that will work with the FX-8300. I am considering buying either the GTX 1650 or GTX 1650 Super. I am aware the Super will cause the CPU to bottleneck, but will the upgrade give me enough of a performance increase to warrant it? [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 19 Oct 2020 10:59 AM PDT There are a few things i want answers for. Firstly, whether I get a 1650 Super or an RX 580, and after that which variant i should get of each. Important to bear in mind that i dont want to spend more than £165 on a gpu, as otherwise it goes way over budget for me. [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Techspot reviews storage for gaming. Posted: 19 Oct 2020 06:29 AM PDT We often have questions about storage for gaming systems, so I'm gonna link an article Techspot released today. It helps visualize HDD vs SATA SSD vs PCIe 3 vs PCIe 4 to help in your build decisions. https://www.techspot.com/amp/review/2116-storage-speed-game-loading/ [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| I need help with my first build Posted: 19 Oct 2020 12:27 PM PDT Hello, i am thinking of building my first PC and i have been checking out videos for some time and i think this is the one i want to build but before i do it it tought it would be wise to ask from reddit first so please give honest answers and here is the link to the video https://youtu.be/zfIhXh715-A Im not sure if this is good for 600$ so i need some advice & im not using all the same parts as in the video so i will list here the parts i have now choosen PSU: Crosair CV Series PSU 650W Should i use 550W psu or 650W the price difference is about 10 bucks? Motherboard: B450 AORUS M CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 3100 3.6Ghz SSD: Kingston A400 480GB SATAIII 2.5 (is there any better ssd for same price or for a little more or less? RAM (question) Should i use Crosair vengeance 3000mhz kit of 2 (16GB, cl 15 & 1.35v) OR G.SKILL Tridentz 3000MHz kit of 2 (16GB, cl16 1.2v) GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Super Ventus XS OC 4GB GDDR6 Thanks for any incoming answers! [link] [comments] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 19 Oct 2020 10:49 AM PDT EDIT : the one I decided on So I've had a build for over a year now which is just missing the 3080 (when it finally arrives..) and I thought there would be no better time than now to get a 4k monitor to support my new GPU. The only problem is that any I see online are at 60Hz and to find one at 144Hz is almost impossible (unless it's over 1k) I was wondering if it's worth getting a 1440p 144Hz monitor instead or not? I play shooters yes but I prefer more immersive gaming as in a single player adventure game for example so I think that 4k would be better. If anyone could please recommend me any monitors that may be what I'm looking for then please be my guest! Thanks [link] [comments] |
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