PC builders

New thread because I want to see/hear about @mable and @_void 's hardware. Haha.

I have a 3700X/16GB DDR4 3600/B450/250 GB NVME/FuzeDrive setup (with an SSD and HDD from old builds, not sure it’s actually doing anything lol) build with a GTX 1080 in it, currently. I had a 5700XT, then upgraded to a 2080 Ti and warrantied that for a 3070. I then traded the 3070 for the 1080 and $600 when I felt graphics cards were peaking. When Cyberpunk turned out…the way it did, I decided to opt out of current gen gfx since I typically just play AoE2 and Halo MCC with friends, along with the occasional low-demand aRPG or deckbuilding roguelike (Chronicon, Inscryption, Hades - Supergiant is something else - and Slay the Spire are a few of my recent favorites). Running everything on a very sweet, somewhat overpriced 650w SeaSonic PSU and feeding a (relatively) cheapo Sceptre monitor @ 2560x1080. Got a love-hate relationship going with ultrawide at this point. I have a darkFlash DLM-21 mesh case that has served me well. I like buying cheap cases from no-name manufacturers. It’s usually the component that carries the lowest risk. If I like the look or internal setup I’m willing to sacrifice some cooling, but in this case I didn’t have to.

I’ve been building PCs for about 21 years. First build was out of a box of parts that my dad’s friend gifted me when I was 9. Burnt the crap out of my thumb on a CPU that I neglected to put a HSF on. My brother and I built a few PCs out of that box of parts and always had an AoE2 or Dungeon Siege lobby ready when friends came over after that.

Anyone else with a cool PC build they’d like to share?

Pic from when it had the 3070 in it. I love the magnetic window/door this case has.

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Well, hello there!
My current PC is actually the first one that i built from scratch all by myself. All previous ones were somewhat bought (and mildly upgraded) pre-built new, or used, or even given to me as a present :smiley: Anyway, what i have on my desk at home:
Case - Fractal Design R5
PSU - Fractal Design 660w
Motherboard - Asus Z170 ProGaming
CPU - Intel Core i5 6600K (i was thinking about overclocking it some day, never done it)
CPU cooling - air, Zalman CNPS9500A (nice big chunk of copper with lighted fan :D)
RAM - Kingston HyperX Fury DDR4 32Gb 2100 (i can`t remember exact clock, need to dig into some paperwork that i still keeping :D)
Video - Zotac NVidia GTX970 (ZT-90106-10P) x2 SLI
Storage - M.2 SSD Kingston Fury 128GB, a couple of conventional 1TB drives, and DVD-RW optical drive
Backup power supply unit - APC Back-UPS 1100 (this guy saved my butt for a few times, making its puchase worth, still keeping it healthy, changing batteries regulary).

At the time when i decided to build this machine (start of 2016) currencies were running wild, and i thought - i need to upgrade now, otherwise i will be thrown into stone age soon, digitally speaking. So, money and time were spent, and PC still running pretty good and fits all my needs - internet, watching online tv-series, sometimes gaming (not really hardware-demanding ones), some home office stuff like document scanning, typing, printing.
Of course, six years is like a few geological epochs in digital world, and my hardware is pretty dated, but i`m not planning to upgrade anytime soon.

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My first build was a Phenom II x6, almost exactly ten years ago. It still was working perfectly a few weeks ago but I had to upgrade to a Ryzen in order to be compatible with Bitwig 4. I saved the MB/RAM/Phenom as a backup.

Here’s it’s current parts list:
Antec 1200 case
Zalman cooler (the one with the sweet toroidal shape, love this cooler for it’s form as well as function)
XFX HD6950 graphics card
Samsung NVME drive for main OS
Various Samsung Evo SSDs for other OS’s and programs, more than I really need now.
WD 8TB HDD for storage
External HDD swap bay for backup and disc drive for backing up music and movies.

For my peripherals I’ve got a Das Ultimate keyboard and CST Laser trackball, both purchased when the computer was built about ten years ago.

Ivan

EDIT: Whoops, forgot to list the new MB and processor! It’s an Asus TUF B550 board and a Ryzen 5 5600x processor. I honestly don’t remember the exact RAM except that it’s G.Skill.

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My PC build is weird, I think my use case and really weird two desk setup is far more interesting than the actual build lol. This is the third PC I’ve built for myself, but I used to work in IT and did way too much tech support. So I’ve built enough PCs and dealt with people in a way that has me almost loathing to think about tech stuff now haha.

I ordered some replacement parts for my PC recently because my main hobby is playing beatmania IIDX/BMS and my PC is kind of just a dedicated arcade setup. I converted a control panel from a gutted arcade cabinet for use on a normal PC, and I just play those games here. I still need to build a large 16seg panel to place behind the clear plexi on the vertical controller bit, but I’m really lazy lol.

This is what my primary monitor/desk setup looks like lol. For daily computing and art applications I mostly just use my iPad at this point. This PC setup sees almost no normal daily computer use. I do have a secondary desk setup behind the main one with a secondary monitor, and wired keyboard and mouse. Occasionally I’ll load up DOSBox and play some old shooters on it. The old Build Engine stuff is my favorite. Blood, Duke Nukem 3D, and Shadow Warrior. Also @craZivn knows what’s up in peripheral choices. I used to use a model M, but I picked up a black widow for 5 euros at a recycling center and it’s just a bit nicer having a Finnish keyboard layout.

Build is:
MSI Z97 PC Mate
Intel i7-4770K
GeForce GTX 780
16GB DDR3 1866
Two 512 GB SSDs and a single 1TB HDD
Corsair 750W PSU (I spent too much money on this but after having my old PSU die I figured this would future proof me a bit more, on the off chance I do end up having a change of heart and want to do a full new build to play modern games)

I need a new monitor at some point though. I’d like to get a 43" 120hz monitor… but that would cost more than entirety of my build… my partner has one that’s only 32" that was far more affordable. But I just really hate playing on monitors smaller than what the normal current arcade size is. So I’d have to go for the full 43".


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The beatmania setup is easily one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a very long time. Brought back immediate nostalgia of the smell of sweaty arcades of 2003. I was just bumpin’ a DDR playlist last night too.

slow clap, and a little tear of joy

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Very cool setup. I get feeling a little burnt out on tech - it’s a chore just keeping up with it, and I hated the assembly/tech support/light coding job I had in 2014. It’s great that you found a way to put your experience to use and make it enjoyable.

I am using a Model M and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. There’s just something about typing on a piece of hardware that is also capable of being used as a blunt weapon, haha. It takes up a ton of desk space, though.

The closest thing I have to any sort of custom setup is the home recording equipment and loop pedal I got a few years ago. I found a really nice condenser mic for a steal on Craigslist, and also bought a copy of Reaper along with a cheap audio interface. Was looking into soundproofing stuff for a little while as I had an office with a sizable closet in my old place, but I too suffer from laziness (after my initial mania that usually accompanies new interests). Made a few recordings with a buddy in the first year I had it, but I haven’t touched the stuff lately, which is a shame. I love making music, just for the sake of sharing/swapping with friends who also make their own.

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I got a good laugh out of this. You have a way with words!

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Hey I am a pc and overclocking enthusiasts. Here is my build. It’s a 10850k running at 5.0ghz all core and delided with a 3080ti. Ram overclocked to 4000 cl15. My gpu was 3070, then traded it up to a 3080 fhr then traded to a 3080ti because I don’t mine. The fan at the center is for extreme ram overclocking. The 2 at the bottom is a meme.


This is one of my best friend’s build I did January. It has 12600k running at 5ghz all P cores and 4ghz all E cores. A 3070 and 3600 cl14 ram.


This is the build I did early February for my table tennis friend, for this one I mainly got the parts from discord trading post. Facebook Marketplace. It’s a 10850k with a 2080 super. I somehow got this build done under 1300 USD. Here are some repaste pictures on the 2080 super


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Wow, that 10850k/2080s build was dirt cheap. Really nice looking stuff!

Have you noticed a measurable difference between that Kryonaut paste and something like AS-5 or AS ceramic?

The go to paste I recommend right now is the Artic MX-5, its super cheap and it performs within 1 to 2 degrees with the kryonaut, tested on the 2080 super. Also it will last longer. I personally use kryonaut cause I like to chase dragons haha. Arctic Sliver 5 is pretty outdated and I see a decent temp difference. I use to use Artic Sliver 5 and had a tube left from 2015.

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Arctic Silver 5 takes a LOT of temp cycles to “break in” though, if I remember correctly. AND if what I was reading was correct.

I used it on my refresh because it’s what worked for the previous ten years, but I’m not into overclocking and my case has really good airflow so thermal paste performance was never critical.

Ivan

Been a minute since this one had action! I’ll resurrect it, anyone’s rig change? Anyone build anything since then?

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I’ve built a few machines for myself but I’ve been in IT for over a decade and early on was a datacenter tech and built hundreds if not thousands of servers and then did consulting and speced, bought and configured systems for several small businesses before going pure networking. Today I’m really burnt out on my career and in IT governance reviewing other people’s work and most systems I own are pre built as I’m so disinterested in it now. I do have some old builds in my closet I’ll gladly dig out and show off. One I’m particularly proud of cobbling together over the years as it’s an old old pedestal server I salvaged into a workstation. Today it’s just not worth the power to boot up but it’s neat to have.

My current daily driver is a dell latitude cause I’m just interested in reliability at this point.

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I’ve build my first ever PC rig (by my own hands, not my father’s :smiley: ) back in April of this year. I needed it for work and gaming 50/50. So here is what I got for roughly 1000$:

Mobo - AsRock B650M-H/M.2+
CPU - AMD Ryzen 5 7500F
CPU Cooler - Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE White ARGB
GPU - AMD Radeon RX 6750XT 12GB MSI Gaming Trio X
RAM - KingBank DDR5 6000Mhz CL30 2x16GB (Hynix A-die)
SSD - ADATA Legend 960 1TB
Power Supply - Montech Century 850
Case - Deepcool CH360 WH

The build came out great and fits my needs perfectly (and not only my needs :slight_smile: )


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Well, i built a new one this year in june. Good Lord, PC parts are expensive nowadays.

MB - Asus ROG Strix Z790-F Gaming WIFI II
CPU - Intel Core i5 14600K
CPU cooler - Deepcool Assassin IV
RAM - Kingston Fury Beast 4x16 GB (2 kits, 64 GB total) CL36 6000 MHz
GPU - Asus GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER TUF GAMING 16G
System Drive - Kingston Fury Renegade NVMe 1TB
Data Drive - Western Digital Blue WD40EZAX 4TB
Optical Drive - good old trusty Asus DVD-RW something, from my old PC
PSU - Fractal Design 850W
Case - Fractal Design Define 7 (no windows, plain white tower, nothing to look at)
All this being managed by good old Windows 10 Pro.

Case is great, it disassembles almost completely when you want it, and you can toss almost everything inside of it as you want. It even have a slot for optical drive. And it is silent as well, as i wanted.

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Oooh! Clean!

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They really have gone insane on the pricing. The power is insane, but my wallet is practical.

Thats what I forgot on mine! I need to get a spinning data drive. I’m running one NVME for everything.

And that case is SLICK. 100 percent would build in that and slap a Geekenspiel Hal 9000 decal on it.

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I am very interested in cobbling together a monster of a server! I have a few dells laying around and work and I’m hoping to convince the boss to let me mash the messed up pieces into an insane super server.

Old builds are awesome to look at! So many brands and trends gone by the wayside, frozen in time.

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I’ll throw my first try out there. I too have only built computers for work, and it’s usually mashing two broken ones together to make one working unit. Never really tried building my own before, as I am a Mac man and never thought I’d get a windows machine again. Well, my classes don’t like macOS for some of the apps I’ll be needing (and my old MacBook Pro finally kicked the bucket) so when I got the computer budget, I started picking up pieces here and there. I was able to beef up some parts since I got a grant for school supplies and, well, it’s an online school so this is my only supply this semester. Finally finished.


Mobo: Gigabyte Gaming X AX
CPU: Ryzen 7950x3D
GPU: Asus TUF 4080 Super OC
Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 Evo
Ram: Corsair Vengeance 2x16 6000Mhz
Storage: WD Black 2 TB
Psu: Corsair RM1000e
Case: NZXT H9 Flow

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I’ve got at least 3 servers laying about the wife hasn’t got rid of yet. I’ll post them Monday when I’m in my home office in
A Boring meeting lol

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