The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Ryzen's right around the corner! Anybody else jumping on board? I'm still sporting an AMD 1090t 6-core. Continues to amaze, given it's age. With a few ebay sales, and money I've made with apps on my phone, cost be damned LOL!
On the other hand, I'd greatly like to invest into a house this year. Guess we'll see just how well the new CPU's perform first

 

Ryzen looks incredibly promising. Not only could it be a competitor, it stands a chance at actually being better than Intel's current equivalent offerings. Really impressive single-core benchmarks floating around, though it remains to be seen if they are true.

I would most certainly be interested in another 6 core AMD at some point in the future, and the Ryzen 6 core is priced in my range. However, that's a rather large move for me. New CPU, board and RAM. Maybe when I get my tax return, hmm. lol. We'll see what happens.

 

I'm really hoping it lives up to the predictions, AMD's lack of competition for Intel has caused horrific stagnation over the past few years. My i5 6600 was barely any upgrade at all over the i5 750 it replaced more than 5 years afterwards thanks to the restrictions on overclocking. Skylake systems are also less reliable than their predecessors and actually quite poorly manufactured. I'd happily jump ship to AMD again if the price per performance and price per watt was right. The former is looking very promising right now but the latter is where AMD have really struggled ever since 2006.

The official TDP ratings look good, but we'll see. Currently 3.4Ghz Ryzen7 seems to be equivalent to 3.2Ghz Broadwell, which Skylake and Kaby Lake beat by 4%, the latter architecture being, as far as the consumer is concerned, identical.

This does mean of course that, per core, even the flagship 3.6Ghz Ryzen is a bit behind most Skylake offerings.

 

I'm saving my tax return for a house. Apartment life is getting old lol Not to mention, my 1955 chevy needs a garage for me to start working on it.

My paypal is slowly on the rise. If Ryzen promises to smoke my 1090t, then I'll upgrade when funds have reached the cost of upgrading. Not too keen on a near full rebuild lol

 

Omega, So far, the 6 core Ryzen looks like it can completely demolish a 6 core Thuban. Remember, Hyperthreading makes 12 threads. It could be a number crunching monster. AMD are still pushing the "multiple cores for cheap" idea, just far less cheap. Phenom IIs can still run games and perform most tasks effortlessly, but for the newest games, the demand has risen above their abilities in some. Just about any modern CPU would curb stomp your Thuban.

Sam, I consider Skylake to be a mostly pointless release. The reliability for the boards is questionable, and the performance gains are basically nothing outside of some specific and very artificial scenarios. My 4GHz Haswell i5 can do anything your Skylake can do no problem, and there's actually a lot of headroom for OCing left. I haven't needed to go beyond 4GHz at all, and it's suspect if I even need 4GHz for anything I do. Not to mention this is the most rock solid stable setup I have ever had *knock on wood*.

Nehalem/Lynnfield, Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge are starting to fall behind, Nehalem especially, but Haswell is within a few percent of Skylake in most benches. To say that a Skylake isn't a large upgrade from an i5 750 might be going too far. A Sandy Bridge or newer yeah, but Nehalem/Lynnfield is oooooold. I can see the overclocking limitation but that was really a matter of choice, yeah? There's more than one way to get around restrictive pricing

 

Yeah, my system is pretty outdated lol In fact, I'm finding 8 gigs of Ram to be a bit on the low side at times.
I have been itching to use Adobe Premiere Pro more. And with a more modern processor, I'd likely enjoy it more.

 

I quite agree - the upgrades were only by necessity as the old hardware was worn out and becoming unstable in both the Q9550 and i5 750 cases. The 6600 seems a lot better now the machine has been reformatted but it was far from easy getting it working to start with and the 6500 board that replaced the Q9550 is genuinely defective, one of three such boards. The performance gains re: the 750 are negligible. There's a fair bit of gain over the Q9550 but not all that important on the machine it's in. The 4690S system I built for LANs is far better and just as capable.

Indeed I chose the 6600 as working on PCs all day I don't really have the enthusiasm or the time to deal with unstable hardware and tweaking at home so much these days. Nonetheless the 6600 was similarly priced to the 750 considering inflation (£152 Feb10 / £175 Nov15) - if I'd have gone with an unlocked chip so I could overclock it to any substantial degree, I'd be paying a noticeable amount extra.

I did consider using the spare RAM I bought for diagnostics when I last had the machine apart to fit the bigger SSD (now running a 1050GB MX300 as well as the 480GB M500, 2TB WD Black and 4TB WD Blue), but didn't end up bothering as I was short on time as usual! I do breach 16GB periodically, so 32GB may come in handy, but not all that often. If anything it's more the principle of not letting RAM go to waste.

Scrutinising Ryzen performance a little closer, I may consider the chips if I build a rendering / VHost box as the multi-thread performance is excellent for the money and TDP. Single core performance, however, is still very much second fiddle to Intel as it's worth remembering that the flagship £1000 8-core Intel that the top two Ryzen chips can equal / slightly beat respectively, is actually only a 3.2Ghz Broadwell. The 4Ghz i7 6700K is going to be a good 30% or so better per core, so for single-threaded stuff they're not great, but adequate, certainly a worthy equal to i5 chips.

 

All that being said, Ryzen looks promising. The point is not to beat Intel, but to provide a proper competitor. With the pricing looking the way it is, for the given performance, Ryzen could very well be fierce competition. Possibly even a better overall value. Also remember AMD's knack for greatly improving a chip in the second generation. Phenom -> Phenom 2, Bulldozer -> Piledriver, etc. What will Ryzen 2 look like, if this is only the first iteration of the architecture?

AMD are no liars, and the benchmarks drifting around show some pretty bold results. Not just multi-core encoding and artificial environments, but true single core benchmarks that show what the real gains are. Seems to me to be a clock for clock equivalent to Haswell, or maybe Sandy/Ivy Bridge is a more conservative comparison. It's also supposed to scale pretty high. Whether or not it outright beats Intel in sheer performance, the fact that it looks like a real option is huge for AMD.

 

Just got an NZXT H440 mid-tower case. Insane build quality. Dumped the HAF Advanced. Huge and heavy, for not much more capability. Everything fits beautifully in the smaller case. Video card is a squeeze with the HDD cages in, but it fits. Bonus, there are factory mounts for a 280mm radiator on the top panel with lots of breathing room. Tight fit but great airflow. Can't use the top 3.5" drive bay to leave room for the hoses, but little consequence there are plenty of bays. Really love the NZXT. Very good looking and lots of details. Over-the-top quality and design. The HAF is archaic in comparison. Lack of 5.25" bays not a huge deal. Always have my other PC, and possibly an external USB 3.0 optical drive in the future.

Got a pair of Thermaltake Riing Blue 140mm LED fans to replace my cheapo Swiftech Helixes. The Riings push plenty of air, and are a bit quieter as the Swiftechs have infamously rough bearings. They have already needed to be dismantled and oiled once, and the white plastic stains and shows every spec of dust. I no longer smoke nearly as often near my PC, preferring to use my vaporizer. No more sticky residue. No more nasty dust. My older fans, however, have suffered. The Riings' LEDs also provide a subtle amount of lighting to my case, which is very nice with the side window.

Replaced my 1TB WD EARS Green buffer drive with a 4TB WD EZRX Green and accordingly rearranged my data to make one of the 2TB WD EZRX Greens my buffer drive. Fast and quiet drives, with insanely low power usage. Over 100MB/s average over large transfers between drives. The Samsung 850 Pro 128GB continues to suffice as an OS drive. It is enough breathing room easily for all my needs, but I still have to be mindful at times. A 256GB 950 Pro M.2 in the future might be the inevitable choice.

Last but definitely not least. Replaced my battery-devouring Logitech G700s wireless laser with the G900 Chaos Spectrum wireless optical. it has an integrated Li-Po battery with excellent life. GREAT mouse.

Attempting to get everything into a more compact state, and get rid of everything I had planned on replacing to begin with. Planning a move at some point, and I have sooooo much stuff.

 

The H440 is a very popular case, I know a couple of people that use it.

The WD Green (now Blue of course in EZRZ guise) drives are quiet and fairly solid drives for all up to 4TB. Once you hit 6TB they do become considerably noisier for seek, though all capacities are fairly quiet at idle. The 8TB Reds are of course much noisier on all counts, being 7200rpm falsely advertised as 5400.

Still using the HAF - change is hassle and it's still perfectly usable, though I don't use the side fans any more as they're too noisy with any fan installed due to the vibration profile and with a single GTX1080 and stock CPU they're just not necessary. Kind of wish I had a case with working front USBs though - especially since the ones on my Fractal Node 304 have now failed and the USB header on the motherboard in my server never worked to begin with.

 

I still like my HAF. Heavy friggin brute, but I just don't see the need to replace it yet. I to have the front USB issues. Generally, I leave things connected that need to be, and don't have problems. But sometimes if I'm not grounded and connect something while it's booted up, it restarts the system. Same issue with my brothers HTPC. A bit annoying, but since there are zero other issues, I'm happier than a fly in a pile of crap lol

 

What a coincidence. I've thought that about you! lol

 

The H440 is an exquisite case. It totally exceeded my expectations. The HAF is tired and old in comparison. Not a bad case, but clunky and archaic. Certainly still among the best cooling capability, but lacking in other areas.

The rebuild took me maybe 4 hours from start to finish. The NZXT case made it relatively straight forward and easy to do. It allows for a gorgeous build. I'll have to post pics at some point. It looks GREAT! Super clean and professional.

Also, front USB 3.0 which is kind of a big deal. Cooler Master's USB solution, including an adapter bracket with the HAF Advanced and nothing with the original HAF, sucks in comparison. I also had the front USB grounding issues but they disappeared with the HAF Advanced.

The HAF Advanced is a great case, and very capable, but it's HUGE, and HEAVY. It adds about 10lbs to my PC over the NZXT. I move my PC a lot so it makes a difference. Also the grounding issues are not audiophile-friendly. I get less interference using the NZXT.

 

What a sexy HTPC case. Lian Li
Pity it doesn't support TFX power supply mounting. I wonder how hard it would be to make the adapter myself.

 

Mmmm have given thought to an HTPC...

 

Anybody buy a 10TB hard drive yet? I just did...
An HGST 10TB
With a 5 yr warranty, I'll take a chance. I'm running the long format now. I know... a bit overkill? I've found it to give me piece of mind. I'll probably run a surface scan as well. And then a huge backup, and then it waits on a shelf for the next good value drive to come around.
A few days ago, my WD60EZRZ (Blue) drive said it wanted to reformat. I've been getting intermittent stuttering from video playback, and assumed it was a faulty usb connection. So, I connected it internally, and transferred over 300GB to it. When I brought it back to the USB dock, it said it wanted to reformat it. Um, NO! lol
So I'm hopeful I can use a utility like easeUS to transfer as much data from it before it completely fails. As I understand it, it can try try try again with faulty drives. Thankfully, nothing critical was on the drive. But I would hate to lose the data.

And also my software raid wanted to resync. What a week...

One of my mirror drives is blue. I'll be watching that like a hawk. And blue drives are 2yr warranty. I've got a few months left though. Provided the damned website will cooperate! Can't login or get an RMA started. I've been chatting back and forth with them.

 

Well wonderful...
It would appear that windows didn't catch a problem in time, so it over wrote data. SMART shows a single bad sector. Clearly it was in a critical area that windows needs. I have all the luck lol
I used "Getdataback", and it showed a structure that suggests the last transfer I conducted. And an empty folder that had the majority of the drive in. Guess I need to run Chkdsk more often

I'm gonna be skeptical about using external docks in the future. Because I still wonder if that initiated the problem.

 

Many external docks don't support disks larger than 2TB and after exceeding that value, wrap round and start overwriting the original data. Are you sure that isn't what happened? A single bad sector is still bad news on a new disk but it would greatly surprise me if it caused that.