So upon trying to animate and render said animations, my repurposed HP Compaq Elite 8300 PC struggled to render out the sequences via Adobe After Effects. I had enough time to activate my plans to build a new PC. So my AMD Ryzen DIY journey began.
So if you’re here, from Part I thanks for taking time out of your schedule to be here with me, I do appreciated it and if your only now getting here I suggest you read Part I. This section is my AMD Ryzen DIY Journey Part 2.
This is just to get oriented as to what I am on about because I am grouping the parts used in my build in no particular order but based on the amount of explanation an item may need for you to understand my challenges or triumphs.
This article will cover the following pieces of my build and why I choose them in my AMD Ryzen DIY journey:
- Case: Cooler Master HAF XB EVO Case
- Case Fans: Noctua NF-A20 PWM 200 mm, Noctua NF-P12 redux-1700 PWM 120 mm, Noctua NF-R8 redux-1800 PWM 80 mm (x2)
- HDD1: M.2 500 GB WD Black SN750
- HDD2: WD Black 2 TB 7,200RPM SATA
THE COMPUTER CASE
The case was in fact a vanity purchase I have always loved the Cooler Master HAF XB EVO Case since its first reveal in 2012, it was amazing that this case is still in production despite it being considered legacy.
Now people may see the price of this case varying, but one should pay attention as there is the HAF XB EVO Case vs the HAF XB Case, each has minor variations which will fluctuate the price point.
I am sure that there are many alternatives of ATX and Mid ATX cases that I could have used and then dumped the extra credits into the components, but getting a case of my fantasies was just too appealing to give up.
THE DETAILS
The Cooler Master HAF XB EVO – High Air Flow Test Bench and LAN Box Desktop Computer Case with ATX Motherboard Support is a case with a “low profile” box design vs the traditional high tower design of most cases including its tower cousin.
Further to the variations between the EVO and non-EVO versions there exists two flavours of top panel, the regular version which I bought has the mesh at the top and accommodates a 200 mm fan and the version with a clear portal replacing the top mesh.
The case provides a lot of room and accommodates many configuration and part types. All the while providing a lot of airflow throughout the system. The case comes with two 120 mm fans and further supports one 200 mm, one 120 mm and two 80 mm fans.
However, let us be clear, the case can be easily reconfigured for most liquid cooling solutions where the radiators, pump and reservoirs can be arranged various ways throughout this case.
The case accommodates four 3.5-inch internal drives, two 5.25 drives and two hot X-Dock 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch SSD for hot swapping, If that’s your thing… If such a thing is compatible with my motherboard, I think I like the idea of making my extra storage hot swappable, Definitely a future goal for this system if not immediately, I will have to investigate.
THE CASE FANS
Now if we are going to have an airflow case we might as well go for the best in air cooling. I have fawned over getting Noctua cooling solutions, when I first saw reviews way back in the day, I was intrigued.
I honestly cannot recall if it was a chip cooling fan or a case fan. But since then they knocked Cooler Master fan-boy out of me for air cooling solutions and I have lusted after Noctua ever since.
THE CHOSEN
I basically, looked for solutions provided by Noctua which was one 200 mm, 800 RPM, one 120 mm, 1700 RPM and two 80 mm, 1800 RPM fans.
All the fans are Pulse Width Modulation (PWM), which means they are all 4-pin connector fans and can vary their speed as low as 20% of the rated speed without stalling. I am sure this is done via BIOS or automatically via some software solution or motherboard sensor.
I will cross that bridge shortly, but for now they all plug into the motherboard which I am happy that it can accommodate them, I really did not double-check to see if the motherboard could.
The two XTRAFLO 120 mm, 1200 RPM fans that come with the case are of MOLEX connection and will be fed from the PSU and will serve as intake, along with the PSU fan and all other units as exhaust.
If I had not got the sexy Noctua fans, I would have alternated for Cooler Master’s fans solutions, my only regret now is that I did not go for the Chromax versions of Noctua and went for all black they were pricer than the default fans versions and I managed to get grey in the 80 mm and 120 mm fans, but I capitulated and got the default brown for the 200 mm.
In hindsight, deliberating on price when I am already burning dockets for premium fans seems a bit silly, and maybe I should have just got all black.
THE HARD DRIVES
I am a Seagate drive man, I literally did not compromise back in the day and all my builds had the Seagate Barracuda series in them.
But something about Western Digital’s Black Series seemed right for this build based on my research. I was going for the big WD black Terra-byte NVMe drives.
THE CHOICES
But a sale caught my eye and I compromised and purchased one Western Digital WD BLACK SN750 NVMe M.2 2280 500 GB PCI-Express 3.0 x4 64-layer 3D NAND Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) WDS500G3X0C and one WD Black 2 TB Performance Desktop Hard Disk Drive – 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64 MB Cache 3.5 inch – WD2003FZEX.
I decided to do a dual storage solution, like back in the day when SSD’s first hit the market, and they opted for the fast SSD as the OS drive and the traditional drive as the storage. Therefore, I will utilize the NVMe drive for the OS and then the 2 TB Drive will be used for storage.
Now that I have quenched somewhat my techo-lust with getting some enthusiast drives based on emotion, it would be interesting to actually spec drives and see which would render better performance and options.
SUMMARY
I am looking forward to completing my Ryzen DIY project. There are many options for tinkering and optimizing the setup for good performance vs price, and I hope you continue to tune in on my AMD Ryzen DIY journey part 2 unto part 3.
[…] if you’re here, from Part 2 thanks for taking time out of your schedule to be here with me, I do appreciated it and if your […]