EchoWars
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2010
- Messages
- 497
So...my sister works for a financial analysis and is going to be doing some work from home. Her aging Phenom II x4 is starting to have issues now and again, and I told her that there's no sense in fooling with it...we'll put a new GPU in it, freshen it up with a new Windows install, and turn it into a play system for the kids. For her, let's do a new AMD Ryzen 5 1600X setup.
I won't go into detail about the MB requirements, but we wanted native Wi-Fi and a reasonable price. The X370 Taichi looked pretty good, so we went with it.
Parts Link @ PC Parts Picker: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/PDX3pb
Basically:
Asrock X370 Taichi ATX
Ryzen 5 1600X
Noctua NH-U14S (needs NM AM4-UxS kit for AM4 compatibility)
Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3000 2x8GB
MSI GTX 1060 6GB Armor OC (husband likes flight sims)
....and boot with a Samsung 850 Pro 512GB, with a WD Black 1TB for slow storage. Wanted to go with an M.2 boot drive, but we just upgraded the old Phenom setup last year with the 850, so it got moved and the old Phenom will have to live with a spinny drive.
Oh...and the Corsair Air 540 case. I ordered it online, and really had no concept of its size. Height isn't bad, but the damn thing is 13" wide . Sister is gonna shit a brick...hope I can find some place to stuff the thing where she won't be whining about it. Should have built a u-ATX or m-ITX, but we were going to use the old case until we decided that the old system could be salvaged for the kids - by that time we were locked into the ATX as parts were already on the way. It's pretty though, FWIW. And stuffing all the new parts into that ancient case would have been the proverbial 10lbs 'o shit in a 5lb bag.
Never built with an Asrock board. Always used Asus or MSI, and I was a bit nervous about it. But I gotta say, it went slick as snot. Not a hiccup. The LED feature on the board is a bit of a joke though, as the LED's are few and not terribly bright. Wish MB mfgr's would give up on the whole LED thing and concentrate on something that simply works reliably. Only other complaints: cheap-ass I/O shield, cheap-ass Wi-Fi antennas, and the onboard Wi-Fi uses Intel's cheapest AC solution (the 1x1 Wireless-AC 3168, whereas the 2x2 8260 or 8265 would have added little to the cost). But, if you really want, the 8260 or 8265 can be fitted to the MB, as the M.2 card simply pops into a slot (but it's buried in the I/O section really good. Changing would be a PITA now that the system is up and running, but it can be done if ya really need it.)
The Taichi and the Noctua both get along with the GTX 1060 in the top slot, thanks to Asrock putting one of the two M.2 slots between the CPU socket and the first PCIe x16 slot. That Noctua is a tad wide, but does have tons of ram clearance.
Booted right up. Oh...crap...no post speaker! Why do I always forget that nobody builds a goddamn speaker into their MB anymore? Temps in the UEFI BIOS are about 30°C after accounting for the 20°C AMD offset, and HW Monitor agrees. One hour of Prime95 and temps peak at about 49°C...house is kept pretty cool and the builds are done in the basement, where it's even cooler.
Updated the UEFI right there in the BIOS. No problem. Set the memory to 2933 and we're off to the races.
No o'clocking on this work machine, other than the memory. I'll be running some diags on the memory to make sure it's happy at that speed, but for the last two days of the build, it has been solid.
Not an important post here, but a lot of ideas I got for the build were from here, so thanks guys. Only thing I have to deal with now is the look on her face after she gets back from VaCa next week and sees that giant Corsair case. heh.
I won't go into detail about the MB requirements, but we wanted native Wi-Fi and a reasonable price. The X370 Taichi looked pretty good, so we went with it.
Parts Link @ PC Parts Picker: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/PDX3pb
Basically:
Asrock X370 Taichi ATX
Ryzen 5 1600X
Noctua NH-U14S (needs NM AM4-UxS kit for AM4 compatibility)
Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3000 2x8GB
MSI GTX 1060 6GB Armor OC (husband likes flight sims)
....and boot with a Samsung 850 Pro 512GB, with a WD Black 1TB for slow storage. Wanted to go with an M.2 boot drive, but we just upgraded the old Phenom setup last year with the 850, so it got moved and the old Phenom will have to live with a spinny drive.
Oh...and the Corsair Air 540 case. I ordered it online, and really had no concept of its size. Height isn't bad, but the damn thing is 13" wide . Sister is gonna shit a brick...hope I can find some place to stuff the thing where she won't be whining about it. Should have built a u-ATX or m-ITX, but we were going to use the old case until we decided that the old system could be salvaged for the kids - by that time we were locked into the ATX as parts were already on the way. It's pretty though, FWIW. And stuffing all the new parts into that ancient case would have been the proverbial 10lbs 'o shit in a 5lb bag.
Never built with an Asrock board. Always used Asus or MSI, and I was a bit nervous about it. But I gotta say, it went slick as snot. Not a hiccup. The LED feature on the board is a bit of a joke though, as the LED's are few and not terribly bright. Wish MB mfgr's would give up on the whole LED thing and concentrate on something that simply works reliably. Only other complaints: cheap-ass I/O shield, cheap-ass Wi-Fi antennas, and the onboard Wi-Fi uses Intel's cheapest AC solution (the 1x1 Wireless-AC 3168, whereas the 2x2 8260 or 8265 would have added little to the cost). But, if you really want, the 8260 or 8265 can be fitted to the MB, as the M.2 card simply pops into a slot (but it's buried in the I/O section really good. Changing would be a PITA now that the system is up and running, but it can be done if ya really need it.)
The Taichi and the Noctua both get along with the GTX 1060 in the top slot, thanks to Asrock putting one of the two M.2 slots between the CPU socket and the first PCIe x16 slot. That Noctua is a tad wide, but does have tons of ram clearance.
Booted right up. Oh...crap...no post speaker! Why do I always forget that nobody builds a goddamn speaker into their MB anymore? Temps in the UEFI BIOS are about 30°C after accounting for the 20°C AMD offset, and HW Monitor agrees. One hour of Prime95 and temps peak at about 49°C...house is kept pretty cool and the builds are done in the basement, where it's even cooler.
Updated the UEFI right there in the BIOS. No problem. Set the memory to 2933 and we're off to the races.
No o'clocking on this work machine, other than the memory. I'll be running some diags on the memory to make sure it's happy at that speed, but for the last two days of the build, it has been solid.
Not an important post here, but a lot of ideas I got for the build were from here, so thanks guys. Only thing I have to deal with now is the look on her face after she gets back from VaCa next week and sees that giant Corsair case. heh.
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