Calling on you gamers

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

Can’t see any m.2 drives or other SSD’s ? What you doing for storage?

They're probably under the m.2 shrouds. Those long grey ones

[Cois]

And that damn 8 pin CPU cable that is just too short. I hate it when manufacturers don't check that their cables will reach with the PSU in both orientations. I prefer the fan on the top so that it extracts the air from the case, as well as the fact that here in Strand we have lots of dust, especially in summer, so I do not like it when fans pull in air from the bottom.

I ordered a set of extension cables for my InWin Case, but only reason was because I wanted white cables.

 

COOCAT CC-04 Custom Mod Sleeved PSU Cable, Braided 18AWG ATX EPS PCI-E Extension Cable Kit with Combs for CPU GPU Modular Power Supply Unit, 30CM (White) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085Y2RHG7/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_JReEFbF3BCG0D

I think I have one set left, but the white might be out of place

[dev null]

Can’t see any m.2 drives or other SSD’s ? What you doing for storage?

 

 There is one M.2 PCI Gen 4 SSD under the first piece of aluminium on the mobo. A Sabrent ITB.

 

https://www.wootware.co.za/sabrent-sb-rocket-nvme4-1tb-rocket-1tb-m-2-2280-nvme-pci-e-4-0-solid-state-drive.html

Edited October 3, 2020 by Moridin

[WrightJnr]

They're probably under the m.2 shrouds. Those long grey ones

On the boards I’ve used the shrouds are removed when slotting in a drive and cannot be reinstalled. But yes, that could be the case here, cheers!!

[WrightJnr]

Question:

 

I see everyone installs the GPU in first slot, which I understand if that’s the only x16 slot. But when there are 2 x16 slots why are people still using the slot closest to CPU and all other heat sources?

[Cois]

Question:

 

I see everyone installs the GPU in first slot, which I understand if that’s the only x16 slot. But when there are 2 x16 slots why are people still using the slot closest to CPU and all other heat sources?

Guess it all comes down to habit, bit think a lot of people do not read their manuals and will not know they have 2 or 3 x16 slots...

To be honest, I do not know if my board has 2/3 x16 slots...

 

Okay, checked I have one x16 slot and 2 x8 slots

 

Oh and this:

Edited October 3, 2020 by Cois

[dev null]

Question:

 

I see everyone installs the GPU in first slot, which I understand if that’s the only x16 slot. But when there are 2 x16 slots why are people still using the slot closest to CPU and all other heat sources?

 

Also on the B550 motherboards (most of them I think) only the first slot is PCI Gen 4. Not so important for most people that do not use a Gen 4 capable GPU. But then again, most GPUs will never reach the bandwith limit of PCI Gen 4 anyway. Mostly just because of habit.

Edited October 3, 2020 by Moridin

[dev null]

On the boards I’ve used the shrouds are removed when slotting in a drive and cannot be reinstalled. But yes, that could be the case here, cheers!!

 

Yes, that piece of aluminium is quite beefy and has heat conductive material pre-installed for conducting the heat from the drive electronics to the aluminium.

 

But I will monitor the heat there from time to time as I have heard that PCI Gen 4 SSDs get toasty. However, my daughter is not a hardcore gamer (yet), so I doubt she will give the rig a run for it's money.

Edited October 3, 2020 by Moridin

[WrightJnr]

Guess it all comes down to habit, bit think a lot of people do not read their manuals and will not know they have 2 or 3 x16 slots...

To be honest, I do not know if my board has 2/3 x16 slots...

 

Okay, checked I have one x16 slot and 2 x8 slots

 

Oh and this:

Thanks for this. I noticed my first x16 slot has a metal reinforcement around the edge, so makes perfect sense it’s got to do with weight of GPU’s and to prevent deformation.

[WrightJnr]

Also on the B550 motherboards (most of them I think) only the first slot is PCI Gen 4. Not so important for most people that do not use a Gen 4 capable GPU. But then again, most GPUs will never reach the bandwith limit of PCI Gen 4 anyway. Mostly just because of habit.

Aaah. Ok, I built B460-Plus so no Gen 4 slots.

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

On the boards I’ve used the shrouds are removed when slotting in a drive and cannot be reinstalled. But yes, that could be the case here, cheers!!

Most shrouds are actually heat sinks, too. Thermal pads on the back side of em.

[Wimmas]

 

[popcorn_skollie]

IMG_2145.JPG

 

IMG_2148.JPG

 

IMG_2149.JPG

 

Build done. I could not find the RGB fans I wanted in stock, so the stock case fans will have to do for now. Also used my son's old GTX 960 for now. Will get a RTX 3070 when the prices normalise.

 

And that damn 8 pin CPU cable that is just too short. I hate it when manufacturers don't check that their cables will reach with the PSU in both orientations. I prefer the fan on the top so that it extracts the air from the case, as well as the fact that here in Strand we have lots of dust, especially in summer, so I do not like it when fans pull in air from the bottom.

 

Bonus points for superb cable management

[popcorn_skollie]

Ooh! Very clean! I must admit I am thinking of going to air cooling rather than am AIO for my upgrade. When.

 

When liquid cooling and by extension AIO solutions were introduced. They had the type of performance gains light years ahead of what air cooling was capable at the time. Thermal headroom meant greater OC potential and back then if you wanted to overclock you'd want water or nothing at all. This mindset is still prevalent today despite air cooling solutions that have improved significantly to date.

 

Today I really think the argument has to be made that there is no better. Not in terms of performance anyways. Certain setups will work better with air. Some better with water. I'm of the opinion that if you want to use a good AIO over a good air cooler. You will benefit from a cleaner overall setup. Better (subjective) aesthetics, possiblly better case airflow, and overall a nicer, cleaner setup. But not necessarily performance benefits. There are air solutions for CPU's which rival even the best AIO's from that perspective. At the expense of a huge slab taking up half your case. Possible ram clearance issues, and possibly extra cable management hurdles.

 

I think if we want to talk water cooling as apposed to air cooling from a purely performance gains perspective. You're better off going all in with a full custom loop. They're pricey, you need to know what you're doing, and they require a greater degree of maintenance. GPU performance on water seems to benefit more in terms of thermal headroom than cpu's do. Its a general statement which kind of holds true in most scenarios. But there are exceptions of course. When you go custome loop however. Balls to the wall mobo, cpu, gpu slabs, pumps resevoirs and rads with fans. The overall performance gain is astounding. And beautiful as well. Its here where you see the real benefit of water over air. Go big or go home.

 

If you're just someone looking for a decent cooling solution to your chip without breaking the bank. There are many many air solutions that can work as well (and in some cases even better) than an AIO.

[popcorn_skollie]

Most shrouds are actually heat sinks, too. Thermal pads on the back side of em.

 

Correct

 

Aaah. Ok, I built B460-Plus so no Gen 4 slots.

 

Some b450 boards are capable of supporting gen 4 depending on traces and bios updates.

While partners supported this feature quite early in adoption (Gigabyte rings a bell)

AMD warned that they would not officially support gen4 on b450 moving forward since it hinges on too many variables inconsistent with so many b450 options. As a result AMD has themselves released Ryzen bios updates which blocks support for gen 4. But many older bios versions are available for many boards which end users can adopt at their own risk. 

 

Here's the thing though. For most of us its probably not worth the trouble. As mentioned before gpu performance gains with gen4 are almost non existent. They're certainly there. And hint at the possibility of expanding on this moving forward. But for now even the latest and greatest GPU's function on gen 4 and gen 3 slots with pretty much identical performance. Despite latest gpu's themselves having improved immensely. This scaling however seems to be irrelevant from the bandwidth difference between gen 3 and gen 4. For now at least.

 

Then there's storage. There's no beating around the bush here. The performance gains with nvme gen4 over 3 is massive. Much, much faster read and right speeds. This is where gen 4 start to make a difference. And a big one at that. But... Lets look at it objectively. For that difference in speed to make a real difference to the everyday the end user. You're only really going to benefit from those speeds when you're doing large data transfers. At least enough to notice. And even then you'll be limited to the slowest speed you're transferring to and/or from. So lets say you have 1x gen 4 nvme drive. Its super fast. But you want to copy gigs of datas to a sata ssd or hdd. Unfortunately you're going to be limited to the maximum speed of the slowest device. If your board supports enough lanes for multiple gen 4 nvme storage drives then yes. You'll definitely benefit from the speeds. But how often are you going to be moving massive amounts of data? And are you prepared to fork out the kind of money required to benefit from such support?

 

But skollie. What about games? Ah, you see. If you have your games stored on a gen3 nvme ssd. You already going to benefit from 5-10 times shorter loading speeds over a sata ssd. This you will definitely notice. But moving from gen3 to gen 4 nvme? Not so much. The amount of data required to be loaded from playing games is just too little for any of us to really tell a real world difference. Many times probably just fractions of seconds. Because you just not loading enough data at any single time to truly notice the performance gains

Edited October 5, 2020 by popcorn_skollie

[dev null]

When liquid cooling and by extension AIO solutions were introduced. They had the type of performance gains light years ahead of what air cooling was capable at the time. Thermal headroom meant greater OC potential and back then if you wanted to overclock you'd want water or nothing at all. This mindset is still prevalent today despite air cooling solutions that have improved significantly to date.

 

Today I really think the argument has to be made that there is no better. Not in terms of performance anyways. Certain setups will work better with air. Some better with water. I'm of the opinion that if you want to use a good AIO over a good air cooler. You will benefit from a cleaner overall setup. Better (subjective) aesthetics, possiblly better case airflow, and overall a nicer, cleaner setup. But not necessarily performance benefits. There are air solutions for CPU's which rival even the best AIO's from that perspective. At the expense of a huge slab taking up half your case. Possible ram clearance issues, and possibly extra cable management hurdles.

 

I think if we want to talk water cooling as apposed to air cooling from a purely performance gains perspective. You're better off going all in with a full custom loop. They're pricey, you need to know what you're doing, and they require a greater degree of maintenance. GPU performance on water seems to benefit more in terms of thermal headroom than cpu's do. Its a general statement which kind of holds true in most scenarios. But there are exceptions of course. When you go custome loop however. Balls to the wall mobo, cpu, gpu slabs, pumps resevoirs and rads with fans. The overall performance gain is astounding. And beautiful as well. Its here where you see the real benefit of water over air. Go big or go home.

 

If you're just someone looking for a decent cooling solution to your chip without breaking the bank. There are many many air solutions that can work as well (and in some cases even better) than an AIO.

 

Yup. A custom EKWB solution for my own Threadripper setup is quite tempting. But it is quite costly though. And a hardline installation is not for the faint of heart. Personally I would probably favour a softline setup.

 

This CPU waterblock is probably what I would prefer over the RGB and see through ones.

 

https://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-velocity-str4-rgb-full-nickel

Edited October 5, 2020 by Moridin