Built a PC in 2021

[Dieselboy]

My AMD Phenom 2 PC build which was top spec for AMD back in 2009/2010 although is 3.4GHz quad core running at 3.8GHz its chip is too out dated for modern stuff. A Steam game needs SSSE3 and the AMD CPU didnt have it at all.

This last weekend I decided to renew the build:
AMD Ryzen 9 5950X
AMD 6700 XT GPU
Samsung 980 Pro SSD
corsair icue h150i (CPU cooler)
corsair 16GB 3200mhz memory

The thing absolutely flies! SSD is Samsung 980 pro (7000mb/s read speed!).

But the case usb port plug is way too tight and while trying to fit the gpu using a riser and get it all sorted I broke one of the usb ports . What actually happened was, everything was connected and working 100%. Then I needed to remove the front panel usb connector to try and fit the gpu. After removing the front panel usb I noticed that the connector had been too tight to the motherboard plastic connector shroud and pulled it clean off the motherboard. When I carefully replaced it, one of the pins got bent and I didnt notice. When I tried to carefully lift up the pin, it snapped and went into orbit  It just means one 1 of the 2 usb-A ports are working. Everything else is fine. Shame though, I could try and solder something on there but I need a bloody telescope to see it.

I still need to do a few things;
- The shop only had PCI 3.0 riser cables so I need to buy a 4.0 cable to connect the gpu so that it runs at PCI 4.0
- ram is running at 1300mhz  according to CPU-Z. I think I need to do something to get it to 3200mhz. Or at least read up on this to see the capabilities.

I must have spent about 3 hours just looking at the parts on the table and trying to figure out what to start / do next. Things have moved on since 2010. I dont need any DVD drive and I dont have any SATA devices at all. The SSD is tucked away under a motherboard cooler and slots right into the motherboard itself. 
I tried to re-use my old AX850 PSU and Nvidia GTX 560 ti GPU:
- the GPU is complete whack. I was getting worse performance than my launch day PS4 (48fps with all the graphical settings turned right down. It was like minecraft block head graphics)
- the PSU although powerful, all the spare modular cables are in my mums place back in UK. So, pointless for me last weekend here in Australia. The motherboard now takes 1 x 8 pin and 1 x 4 pin connector (instead of 2 x 4 pins on the last system, although the new motherboard manual states it works with just the 1 x 8 pin and is very clear "do not only use 1 x 4 pin because the board will overheat).

After going back sunday to get the GPU, the GPU needs 2 x 8 pin power connectors which I just didnt have so I needed to buy a new PSU as well.

BTW - actually obtaining GPUs are one of the hardest things to do in 2021. Out of stock globally! And scalpers selling 700$ GPUs for 1000's.   

[config t]

I built a PC this year too. It's a monster however I have a serious GPU bottle neck.. because crypto mining is a thing. I wanted an NVIDIA RTX 3080 and those babies are near impossible to find. The street price is something like 1.5 - 2x last I looked.

Intel Core i7-10700K 3.8GHz
Radeon RX 570 GPU (was on sale for $250~ and I think it's going for $450 now)
Corsair 64GB (4x16GB) 3200MHz DDR4
Samsung 970 EVO 1TB
Seagate BarraCude SSD 1TB

I went a little overboard with the RAM and Mobo (GIGABYTE Z490 Vision D) however no ragrets. The whole shabang is in a white NZXT H510 and it looks pretty clean. Eventually I will get some white cable sleeves to make it look even more clean inside.

The only thing I'm not happy with is CPU cooler which is absolutely massive in the case (Noctua NH-D15 chromax.Black, Dual-Tower CPU Cooler 140mm, Black) and I will probably change that out at some point or even try to do a closed loop water cooling solution.

Happy gaming 

[deanwebb]

I built my 2021 laptop in 2019, got a dang good video card back then.

Because I'm a Cities:Skylines player, I upgraded the 32GB RAM I bought in 2019 to 64GB RAM at the start of the year. It's very very very niiiiiiice.

[config t]

I built my 2021 laptop in 2019, got a dang good video card back then.

Because I'm a Cities:Skylines player, I upgraded the 32GB RAM I bought in 2019 to 64GB RAM at the start of the year. It's very very very niiiiiiice.

Did they ever fix the traffic algorithm?

[Otanx]

We built new systems in the last year as well. We did the i7 path like config t. We did 64G RAM so we could use the systems for running VMs on occasion. Currently using the onboard video while we wait for RTX to be available. I don't remember the exact motherboard we got. One of the MSI ones that had good reviews. None of our games right now are graphics intensive so the onboard is fine. This was the first time I have seen an M.2 style drive. Those are pretty sweet. No cables, just sits under a cover on the motherboard. One down side of that is we almost forgot to pull it off when we had to RMA the first motherboard.

-Otanx

[config t]

That's funny I ran into the same discovery with the M.2. Actually I had to re-seat it to get the Mobo to recognize it. I got super lucky and haven't had to RMA a single component. First time ever.

My thinking with the 64GB RAM is the same too. I want to run VM's. I mean.. and completely overkill games when I get my hands on an RTX.

[deanwebb]

I built my 2021 laptop in 2019, got a dang good video card back then.

Because I'm a Cities:Skylines player, I upgraded the 32GB RAM I bought in 2019 to 64GB RAM at the start of the year. It's very very very niiiiiiice.

Did they ever fix the traffic algorithm?

Traffic Manager: President Edition is the mod for that. Transit Broker is another mod that helps with getting deliveries and services better coordinated so that they're more geo-friendly and not requests for cops or hearses from the complete other side of town.

[Dieselboy]

I built my 2021 laptop in 2019, got a dang good video card back then.

Because I'm a Cities:Skylines player, I upgraded the 32GB RAM I bought in 2019 to 64GB RAM at the start of the year. It's very very very niiiiiiice.

I'm still amazed at the performance of these tiny m.2 drives. Actually I was amazed a few years ago when I saw that they can achieve 100,000 IOPs. Around the same time, I just bought an adaptive-flash iSCSI storage array that was a lot more superior than the netapp FAS and the new array can achieve 35,000 IOPS by using RAM and SSDs for write-caching (backed by cheaper 1TB 3.5" drives). So 100,000 IOPs was amazing to me. I just checked the spec of the PCI 4 m.2 I'm using now and no joke, the IOPs are listed as up to 1,000,000 (1 million). 20 of these in an array would only be the size of a shoe box and would not be a huge hungry power draw either (9W absolute maximum per drive).

@config_t - I wanted an nvidia card but I cannot get them at all here, there's no stock of anything. Max I wanted to spend was 1500$ AUD which should have got me a 3080. The 6700 I got sits somwhere between the 3060 to 3070. With my build being all AMD, the CPU can directly access the RAM on the GPU which should boost performance. I'm only running it at PCI 3.0 capability because of the riser and runs Apex Legends pretty well up to 144FPS and I've seen as low as low 100's FPS in some situations. My 6700 supports ray tracing also though.

Check out the CPU cooler I am using. I've used these all in one cpu block / closed water loop since 2009 and I think they are great. The heat leaves the case and absorbtion from the cpu I've found to be much better than an air cooler. I used one in my mums build and after 10 years the pump gave up which was fun to diagnose but other than that, no issues at all in any other machine. Super quiet as well even though my cooler has 3 x 120mm fans. I dont even know the PC is on. My first boot up I thought it didnt boot.