My 3050 6GB SFF Build - Series S Replacement

OKC Yeakey Trentadue

[H]ard|Gawd
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Nov 24, 2021
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After being fed up with console gaming, I decided to convert my existing PC into something more usable for gaming.

The 3 Pillars I focused on were:
1.) Value
2.) Power Efficiency
3.) Compactness

Parts: [$Rough cost estimates]
5700g (igpu redundant but it was $100 on marketplace) [$150 for 5700]
Gigabyte Auros B-550 ITX[$170]
16gb DDR4. [$50]
512 GB nvme + 1 TB ssd [$100]
Silverstone ML-06 case [$80]
450w sff psu [$50]
And now, RTX 3050 6GB sff [$160]

Value: So closer to $850 if you bought all the parts new compared to $300 of the Series S, but obviously more usability. ITX sff always kills value some but needed for the compactness. Comparable in shader gpu performance to the Series S, but much more cpu headroom than the Series S and even Series X. Also, way more game storage space and dlss.

Efficiency: Both the 5700g in cpu only mode and the 3050 6gb are some of the most efficient cpus and gpus even today. Not quite as low as the 90w typically seen with the Series S, but happy with 130w at the wall when gaming.

3.) Compactness - Not as small as the Series S or some of the hyper small builds seen in other posts here, but not an obnoxious giant ATX build either.

Overall very happy. It's like I a took a time machine back to 2014 which is about the game era where a build like this flourishes. Okay with me as I am rediscovering gems that I missed or played little of such as Alien Isolation, GTA V, Witcher 3 and others.
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Yeah probably not going to be doing much Ray tracing but the dlss will come in handy for playing these games on our downstairs 4k TV. The 4060 SFF and a 5700x3d would get you closer to Series X gpu power with much better cpu power for another $200 or so, but you need a bit longer case for that card.

Now to download F.E.A.R. which was $1.07 after tax...
 
I got the sg06 with the PSU on the GPU side of the case. I'm very happy with it, but I think I would've liked the other config better.

Careful with the buttons, press the power button a bit too forcefully and it can pop out, and it's a pita to pop back in with all those cables in the front.
 
Fixed. Not the prettiest, but enough space in the Silverstone case and Cezzane doesn't need much cooling at all.
Makes sense. Build what you want/need. The support requirements for a high end build are getting ridiculous. I still do it but it's getting out of control. All this and I still need a CPU cooler, planning on a 360 AIO. PSU is admittedly overkill for now, but we'll see after another NV generation or two. But... I like to crank up RT at 4k, so I'm doing it anyway. Still easier to deal with than the dual socket builds I did back before multicore CPUs were a thing.
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thatll do.
so funny seeing such a small card braggin about RTX.
Does the 3050 even count? I think they just quite spending the $ to make a separate GTX core design for the low end cards. The first time around NV cut off RTX below the 2060 and made the GTX 1600 series. Ever check the die sizes on Turing? They're huge. The 2060's die was bigger than a 1080, closer to a 1080Ti. Even then RT on a 2060 was still useless, so no wonder they didn't try to extend it down the stack. Also pissed off a lot of people. 2060 launched at $350, +$100 vs. the 1060 6GB. Every 60 card since has had a lower MSRP. Granted that didn't matter much when the 3060 came out with a theoretical MSRP of $330, but $300 mostly stuck for the 4060. The RTX/GTX split had to end eventually, though I think maybe they ought to have kept that up a bit longer if they actually cared about the budget market. Maybe they don't. Maybe strip out RT but leave the Tensor cores so a GTX 2600 could do DLSS but not RT. Or just do what they did and keep the 3050 and 3060 around for a while and let the price drop a bit.
 
2060 launched at $350, +$100 vs. the 1060 6GB. Every 60 card since has had a lower MSRP. Granted that didn't matter much when the 3060 came out with a theoretical MSRP of $330, but $300 mostly stuck for the 4060.

Looking back, the 2060 6GB probably got more hate than it deserved. While a '60' series card, it really could have been called a 2060 Super. The ACTUAL 2060 Super was really could have been called a 2070LE as it has a 256 bit bus and wasn't much behind the 2070. The 1660ti/Super were the real spiritual successors of the 1060. Overall, the 2060 has held up well fie its current performance level, even with 6GB vram and worked hard to introduce rtx and dlss.

As an SFF Super fan, the most regretable thing about that era is that they never launched a 1650 Super LP card.
 
So far it's been an incredibly fun machine for 10 year old games - Alien Isolation, Mafia, Witcher 3, Tomb Raider, etc.

I was able to shave 10 watts of the gpu from 70w to 60w with no performance loss by running 85% power and msi curve optimizer with gddr6 bumped to 16gb/s.

Most power seen from the wall now is 130w briefly in Timespy. However, gaming typically runs 75-90 watts at 60 fps - same as Series S.
 
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