Building a small pc [2/N]
Last post [blog link] I wrote about some learnings on building small quiet PCs
I finally ordered parts [pcpartpicker] and put the thing together
A couple notes: Let’s start with the easy fun stuff.
- This build was a lot easier than what I remember from “back in the day”, the Meshlicious case panels use entirely push-pin mounts; these are absolutely incredible! No tools required, just pull the panel off, push the panel on. Push-on, pull-off. Should be a new Karate Kid movie with Michelle Yeoh. Maybe a sequel to Everything Everywhere All at Once?
- I used the Intel stock CPU cooler which seems to have improved a lot from past years according to reviews; I decided to start with this before going more heavy duty onto custom coolers, thermal paste. This was quite nice as a “push-pin” fastener which was much more convenient than what I remember in the past, screwing things in, opposite corners at a time, incrementally getting them tighter and tighter. (see a pattern? no tools!)
- From a pride perspective, I’m still sad that I didn’t go for the equally priced AMD threadripper (I know, such an eL33t name) [amzn], but I would have had to spend an extra $50-100 on Noctua’s nice, quiet low-profile and beautifully ugly cooler fans [amzn] The big caveat here is that there doesn’t exist an itx motherboard that supports the big threadripper dies.
- An alternative that I’ve recently learned about is AMD’s new (2019) EPYC processors which are seriously impressive for their price (starting at $400!), they seem like threadripper alternatives, with a specific server-side focus: supporting huge RAM capacities (2TB! up from 256 from Threadripper) and double the thread counts (256!) For an ITX form-factor, you’d have to go with this $600 “deep” mini-itx [newegg] motherboard that would really push the boundary for what’s reasonable for a casual gamer/enthusiast.
- Basically instead of spending about $450 on CPU/cooler/mobo, you’d spend over $1000, for two extra “server” cores and the opportunity to buy 2TB RAM; mind you a 128GB kit nearly costs $1000 (pre-tax) on its own [corsair]. Going to 2TB might not be possible yet (as of 2022) on a “deep” itx form-factor [amzn]. Cool to know that 1TB is though! Fair warning to those who haven’t clicked the link yet… Let’s just say that I too enjoy imagining what you could buy instead of a year’s tuition at some in-state university college. :)
- I splurged and got the Corsair SF 750 Plat SFX power-supply. Super small, super efficient, and supposedly the quietest PSU available at the power! Advertises silence for average use. The smallness made it super easy to plug stuff in with so much extra space for pushing cables around. So far, no complaints. The previous builds I was familiar with, running 1600W+ were louder than the GPU/CPU fans themselves at average power, never again!
The most difficult things for me on the build were three-fold
- PCI riser and GPU installation
- Ah my dear old friend. GPU installation was always something I struggled with, and here it is again. I ended up trying to save money (~$40) on a glass-panel Meshlicious case that didn’t come with a PCI-4.0-riser. I only later realized how stupid I was since I ended up having to spend $70 on a PCI-4.0 riser anyways after realizing what that cable does (it’s just an extension cable for PCI, don’t know why I’m so bad at googling) got lucky in that my case ended up coming with a 3.0 so I could feel a little better that I essentially got $40 for free, but the RTX30x0 is PCI 4.0 so I felt stupid once again.
- This was actually a huge pain in the butt. Because the case was pre-machined for their own PCI riser, when I replaced the PCI riser, the new one didn’t fit perfectly in the stand-off holes they drilled. (I was only able to fit one screw to secure the riser…)
- To compensate I proceeded to spend a BUNCH of hours securing my GPU with screws such that it wouldn’t budge at all since from past experience the connection is actually fairly loose and very easy to pop the GPU out since it’s so honking heavy and leans and falls out wherever it pleases.
- I also really wanted to get this “right on the first try” since I’ve had to deal with unscrewing and re-screwing in a GPU and re-seating it in the PCI a bunch in the past and even probably witnessed fires related to not properly seated GPUs in the past because of this. I think it was an old 1080 that had its rainbow LEDs melted off due to a short-circuit from improper seating.
- The brown Noctua fans come with these nice rubber attaching pins (again, the tool-less present of building PCs!) However the larger 120mm black ones didn’t, and the fans weren’t even threaded for the screws, so I had to force the screws in to make threads myself. That was mind-boggling and a real doozy. Fair warning ahead of time would have made me a lot less annoyed.
- Wiring. I always sucked at this stuff, but I guess I never really did it from scratch. Just took a while to figure out how to read the manual and it was fine after that. + goes into + was the key insight I needed, and it took me a bunch of Youtube videos to figure that one out since the manual doesn’t say. I think it helped to put the fans in last, but I guess this is case dependent since I’ve seen builds where fans go in first helps. Basically with sandwiches you build middle-out rather than outside-in. (Motherboard, GPU, PSU, wires, fans, case panels