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Need help building a computer before global thermonuclear war breaks out.

I have an old chest freezer in the garage, maybe I could put the whole computer in it. Would keep it cool and quiet...
 
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I have an old chest freezer in the garage, maybe I could put the whole computer in it. Would keep it cool and quiet...

Youre joking but man youre taking me back to early 2000's overclocking days. How about a custom R22 A/C chiller that averaged -10C under full load??? HAHAHHAHAHAH.






 
The chest freezer is more valuable for food with current inflation, but I've done dumber things in my life, so anything is possible.

I went around the house and did an inventory of stuff that can be considered consumables, and am thinking about grabbing spares while availability is there. Filters and fluids for the vehicles, guitar strings, everything. My local deli just started some serious portion control on their hot foods, which kinda nudged me into the "uh oh, shortages are really starting" mode. I'm imagining what things will look like by the Holidays, or this time next year. No confidence in leadership so time to get anything worth getting sooner rather than later. I'm even seeing less traffic on a local highway at a time when it's usually pretty busy.

If there's a cheap processor that fits the lg1700 i9 socket, might get it, then sell it an upgrade to the 13900 when it becomes available.
 
Forget Taiwan, Russia is due to nuke some shit soon if we don't stop fucking around. I'm starting to wonder who is worse, our current administration is no better than Xi or Putin, so who's got it comming?

Besides, your computer won't do shit after that first EMP blast fucks it all up.

That said, get a minimum of 128 gigs of Ram, it's one of the best ways to speed things up. Always do SSD, they are much faster than platters and have a failure rate of 1/10th that of traditional HD's

Computers are a bit more robust these days than many realize.
Also the whole EMP thing is not like it is portrayed in the movies and books where like someone sets off one EMP and everything electrical around the world is dead. Power Grids and Communication systems and radio frequency devices will be what is mostly affected, everything else very much depends on a large number of factors.

If you have a source of power and aren't unlucky, there is a good chance your computer may still be working fine, the big question however would be is your computer setup to be able to do everything you need and want to do if there was no internet for a month or longer?
How long will your programs work or such before they start being upset they can't connect back to the corporate spy server?

If your OS was to get scrambled, do you have everything you need to reinstall and reconfigure without having to go to the internet?
(This is DOUBLY true for a lot of the Linux distros because so many of them expect that you will start the installer, connect to the internet and download all the rest of the bits and pieces on the fly).

If you want to like be extra cautious, change your home network to be all fibre instead of copper wire, especially for any long runs through the attic and such.
I'm not the only one I know of that had a nearby lightning strike mess with things that had long coiled Ethernet cable runs to them.
 
Sounds like yall are going a different direction. I'm not running 4k video through After Effects or anything, mostly coding and effing around. Here's the little box I just built. Water cooling - ha - this thing has one little fan in it that never even come on. I call it my Blac Mini.
computer.png
 
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Don't forget the mighty Cobol.
Fortran and Cobol, language of engineers.....and where all the good ones started.
They still use Fortran, Cobol I'm not sure of.
Cobol is still used on the mainframe at California DMV. Explains a lot, doesn't it?
 
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Right now water cooling is mostly about having your computer be nice and quiet. Or having things more compact, as you can air cool even very high power draw computer parts, given a big enough case, big enough radiators and big enough fans, but at a certain point it becomes too annoying to be around. If you try running a 3090 class card at 100% while pushing your high end CPU hard, it's going to be an annoying level of sound to say the least.
(going up from there, I deal in rackmount servers and switches that have to be in a dedicated room as the fans can be so loud).

However in the near future, I think both the GPUs and the CPUs are going to hit the point where liquid cooling is going to become much more of a standard for anything high end.

As the next generation of Nvidia cards starts pushing a 3 slot minimum design with something like 1.3x height and power draws over 400w, Liquid cooling is going to be something you'll want big time.

Quite a few companies are already working on making liquid cooling for datacenter rackmounted servers much easier, as the new generation of Processors from Nvidia and such have crazy high thermal envelopes and then if you wanted a pair of the fastest CPUs, those are pushing the limits of air cooling already.
 
Sounds like yall are going a different direction. I'm not running 4k video through After Effects or anything, mostly coding and effing around. Here's the little box I just built. Water cooling - ha - this thing has one little fan in it that never even come on. I call it my Blac Mini.
View attachment 7915300

All depends on your needs. We sell 100's of Intel NUC's to all of our business clients. They love them and the i5 and i7 variants are more than enough for day to day office needs. Mounts to the back of their monitor with VESA... Core i7, 16 or 32GB or ram, NVME... WIFI6 and Gigabit LAN, USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt...

But that isnt what the OP is looking for, he is trying to build a performance workstation. You arent getting that in that small a footprint. You can get close with Intel Dragon Canyon though 12th Gen, i9, 3060, 64GB RAM, NVME....

 
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I wouldn't even consider a new full size desktop type computer w/o water cooling these days.
CPU's are easily capable of overheating with ANY air cooling solution out there.
They can also easily push well over 200 watts thru the cpu.....exactly what air cooler will handle that all day every day ?
Are you going to undervolt your desktop to accommodate it ?
You would have to.

Probably just like Padom, I ran that old Koolance with a Barton core AMD 2500 @ 3200.
It was the shit back in those days and ran room temps on the CPU all day long.

Those Corsair units are bombproof and about the same cost as a high end air cooler but cool way better, should keep a high end CPU under 60C or so under heavy use.
Air cooler will throttle, period.
 
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...

Probably just like Padom, I ran that old Koolance with a Barton core AMD 2500 @ 3200.
It was the shit back in those days and ran room temps on the CPU all day long.

...
Hey... I'm still running one of those in a FreePBX (CentOS linux-based) phone switch... ;)
 
I wouldn't even consider a new full size desktop type computer w/o water cooling these days.
CPU's are easily capable of overheating with ANY air cooling solution out there.
They can also easily push well over 200 watts thru the cpu.....exactly what air cooler will handle that all day every day ?
Are you going to undervolt your desktop to accommodate it ?
You would have to.

Probably just like Padom, I ran that old Koolance with a Barton core AMD 2500 @ 3200.
It was the shit back in those days and ran room temps on the CPU all day long.

Those Corsair units are bombproof and about the same cost as a high end air cooler but cool way better, should keep a high end CPU under 60C or so under heavy use.
Air cooler will throttle, period.

I may get both air and liquid cpu coolers. The Corsair you suggest and this Noctua:


This way I will have both options and can determine needs at my timeframe.

This narrows motherboard choices to this list:


Ddr5 and memory limitations can narrow that further.

Whatever doesn't work I'd sell off.
 
Jeezus.
That Noctua is 3 lbs.
3 freaking pounds.
How long will the mobo last holding that thing ?
Will it break upon install ?
 
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I may get both air and liquid cpu coolers. The Corsair you suggest and this Noctua:

...
I prefer BeQuiet to Noctua for air coolers currently. Just used one of these BeQuiet Dark Rock on a Asus/Ryzen build.

ETA: also not particularly svelte... although I've never seen a motherboard break (or even crack) from the weight of a CPU cooler; suppose anything's possible though...
 
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Hey... I'm still running one of those in a FreePBX (CentOS linux-based) phone switch... ;)

No shit! Haha. Now thats the most surprising thing I've heard this year!! I'm a Sangoma partner, sell lots of FreePBX Commercial modules and PBXact....they don't need much to run but DAMN that's old! I have lots of Intel NUC i3 deployments for small 25 or less extensions out there running without issue and bigger deployments running on SuperMicro 1U Xeon Quad core servers... but shit I've all but given up on physical deployments of Freepbx these days...hosted is the way to go on VULTR...dead nuts reliable and so cheap...hosting costs are $10 month....and vultr let's you upload your own ISO...so you can use the latest distro

I'm actually sitting here testing Sangoma new P370 executive touch screen phone that just came out. Working out the bugs with support. Haha

 
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Jeezus.
That Noctua is 3 lbs.
3 freaking pounds.
How long will the mobo last holding that thing ?
Will it break upon install ?
They have brackets and tethers for some of the graphics boards, so maybe something for the cooler? I could get some Harbor Freight bungee cords or just lay the computer on it's back (that sounded kinda awkward, but a slumpbuster is a slumpbuster...)
 
I may get both air and liquid cpu coolers. The Corsair you suggest and this Noctua:


This way I will have both options and can determine needs at my timeframe.

This narrows motherboard choices to this list:


Ddr5 and memory limitations can narrow that further.

Whatever doesn't work I'd sell off.

Honestly man, plan from the start.. get a good radiator compatible case, get the best Corsair AIO you can afford and never look back... you aren't going to want to hear that cpu fan ramping up and down all day. We stopped using HSF 2-3yr ago. We do 100+ custom high performance workstation builds a year for engineering departments running Surfcam and Solid works (NVIDIA QUADRO cards) photo/ video editing and showrooms with 200" touch glass and video servers running 8-20 Ultra Short Throw projectors. Save the money and put it elsewhere. You'll thank me later
 
They have brackets and tethers for some of the graphics boards, so maybe something for the cooler? I could get some Harbor Freight bungee cords or just lay the computer on it's back (that sounded kinda awkward, but a slumpbuster is a slumpbuster...)

Please no. Where in PA are you? We are a full service IT company servicing the Greater Philadelphia region.....if you need some help let me know. We do the IT for a few of the well known shops on here as well....

We did the custom video server for Beyond Hello's street side glass advertising walls (Philadelphia premier marijuana dispensery) in center city Philadelphia, the custom video servers for an event venue in Minneapolis and a custom event venue in Denver.... we have been doing this a long time...I'm trying to help you.







 
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I prefer BeQuiet to Noctua for air coolers currently. Just used one of these BeQuiet Dark Rock on a Asus/Ryzen build.

ETA: also not particularly svelte... although I've never seen a motherboard break (or even crack) from the weight of a CPU cooler; suppose anything's possible though...

The Dark rocks look pretty good
 
I prefer BeQuiet to Noctua for air coolers currently. Just used one of these BeQuiet Dark Rock on a Asus/Ryzen build.

ETA: also not particularly svelte... although I've never seen a motherboard break (or even crack) from the weight of a CPU cooler; suppose anything's possible though...

I haven't seen any MB break either from weight...but these HSF these days have just gotten down right huge, heavy and expensive. Zero reason not to go with an AIO anymore... I've even built a few SFF eith single 120 and 140 rads that outperform air by a mile in performance and noise....
 
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Please no. Where in PA are you? We are a full service IT company servicing the Greater Philadelphia region.....if you need some help let me know. We do the IT for a few of the well known shops on here as well....

We did the custom video server for Beyond Hello's street side glass advertising walls (Philadelphia premier marijuana dispensery) in center city Philadelphia, the custom video servers for an event venue in Minneapolis and a custom event venue in Denver.... we have been doing this a long time...I'm trying to help you.









6nafz8.jpg
 
No shit! Haha. Now thats the most surprising thing I've heard this year!! I'm a Sangoma partner, sell lots of FreePBX Commercial modules and PBXact....they don't need much to run but DAMN that's old! I have lots of Intel NUC i3 deployments for small 25 or less extensions out there running without issue and bigger deployments running on SuperMicro 1U Xeon Quad core servers... but shit I've all but given up on physical deployments of Freepbx these days...hosted is the way to go on VULTR...dead nuts reliable and so cheap...hosting costs are $10 month....and vultr let's you upload your own ISO...so you can use the latest distro

I'm actually sitting here testing Sangoma new P370 executive touch screen phone that just came out. Working out the bugs with support. Haha


Thoughts on the new Sangoma phones versus Polycom, in particular VVX500/600...? (Sorry for the derail OP, but... it is the 'Pit, after all... ;))
 
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stop being a poor


They don't offer AARP discounts :mad:

(seriously, it's kinda shocking how much a high-end system total adds up 😳 )

(No, I don't have AARP, buncha commies)

(I do appreciate all the suggestions throughout this thread)
 
Thoughts on the new Sangoma phones versus Polycom, in particular VVX500/600...? (Sorry for the derail OP, but... it is the 'Pit, after all... ;))

Sangoma over Poly all day. EPM and Phone Apps is free with Sangoma phones too....been rocking s750 and D65 and D80 for years...the new P series are really nice
 
Here is a little example of how simple a little water cooling kit for your CPU could be to install in a case:

Water Cooling 1.jpg


Now the hard part is trying to find a water cooling block for an A6000
 
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Falcon NW has sucked for years now, just like Origin and Alienware.
They triple over charge for anything.
If you really need to go that route go here...

 
My most recent build:

Corsair iCue 5000X Case (The 5000D Airflow case is nice too)
Corsair RM1000x 1000 Watt 80+ Gold Certified Modular PSU
ASUS Z690 Apex Motherboard
Intel Core i9-12900K 12th Gen CPU
Corsair Vengeance 32GB DDR5 RAM
Corsair iCue H150i RGB Pro XT AIO (Water Cooling System)
Fans - 3 120mm on Front, 3 120mm on Radiator and 1 120mm on Rear
ASUS RTX 3070 8GB 3 Fan Video Card
Samsung 980 PRO Gen 4.0 NVMe (500GB for OS and Programs and 1TB for Data)
ASUS Thunderbolt Add-On Card
Windows 11 Pro (Because I support people that have it)

Was around $3,500 to build.

I'm not a gamer but when you need speed, you need speed.

I agree with others that water cooling is important to get rid of the heat and these AIOs are supposed to last at least 5 years.
 
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good luck. just so you know, southpark has been pretty spot on about a lot of things,
4k porn might look like this if things go bad and water cooled might not make it any better.

fart-pron.jpg
 
I'm thinking maybe I should listen to people who know what they are doing. Maybe return the 3090ti I bought from BestBuy and get one that is factory water cooled or something? Haven't opened the vid card. Have a week or so to return it.

One of these maybe?

https://www.evga.com/products/produ...orce+30+Series+Family&chipset=RTX+3090+Tithen also get a water cooled cpu, possibly waiting for the i9-13900k if it isn't too far off.

The question then is do I wait to buy a motherboard also or pick parts up along the way?

Things were simpler in the old days.

ZWVuLmpwZw
 
Many Nvidia cards are built to common PCB layouts with the changes being in the heatsinks and fans and such.
There is a good chance you could find a ready made water block for your existing card that is pretty simple to bolt on.
 
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Many Nvidia cards are built to common PCB layouts with the changes being in the heatsinks and fans and such.
There is a good chance you could find a ready made water block for your existing card that is pretty simple to bolt on.

I've found one, but the card I got was 1599+tax. I could get the EVGA for $100 less. I bought the Nvidia Founder's Edition because it was said they had the best (graded/binned/selected) chips and other vendors for the rest. I'm thinking now water cooling may be more important than binned chips
 
I've found one, but the card I got was 1599+tax. I could get the EVGA for $100 less. I bought the Nvidia Founder's Edition because it was said they had the best (graded/binned/selected) chips and other vendors for the rest. I'm thinking now water cooling may be more important than binned chips

Water cooling + binned chips for the win!

As far as binned chips go however the Evga FTW3 and several other brands super clocked versions are also highly binned chips

You may of course find it easier just to buy one that is already setup for watercooling if this is your first go with it.
 
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How often do these water-cooler contraptions leak anyway? Is there some sort of method to kill the system if the CPU or GPU/memory temps take off?

What do they use for coolant? Is there something that is frowned upon by the EPA that I can use that will make them work better? (Hypothetically, of course)
 
I have been water cooling for 9 years and only had two leaks because I didn't install a fitting right, if it's assembled right it wont leak. The cpu/gpu temps wont take off even on air cooling they will throttle once they get to tjmax/ max safe temps as for coolant distilled water and some biocide will work and if you are new to water cooling start with soft tubing, hard tubing is harder to do and the fittings cost more.

Montrose
 
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Water is actually the most efficient at removing heat, however many folks will use one of the low conductivity fluids in order to avoid problems in the event of leakage. A well built, well tested system is unlikely to leak on you, it's all low pressure stuff.

Modern CPUs will halt and freeze if the thermals get too high, they also throttle back as temperatures go up.
(Unlike the AMD CPUs of 2 decades ago that would actually catch fire and go out in a puff of smoke and flame if you didn't put a heatsink on).

Unless you are seriously overclocking stuff, the normal liquid cooling is all you'll need to worry about.
Sub ambient stuff is for folks trying to hit crazy benchmarks.
(or cheat by having air cooled stuff in your unheated garage in AK in the winter (actual computer history legend))
 
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Water is actually the most efficient at removing heat, however many folks will use one of the low conductivity fluids in order to avoid problems in the event of leakage. A well built, well tested system is unlikely to leak on you, it's all low pressure stuff.

Modern CPUs will halt and freeze if the thermals get too high, they also throttle back as temperatures go up.
(Unlike the AMD CPUs of 2 decades ago that would actually catch fire and go out in a puff of smoke and flame if you didn't put a heatsink on).

Unless you are seriously overclocking stuff, the normal liquid cooling is all you'll need to worry about.
Sub ambient stuff is for folks trying to hit crazy benchmarks.
(or cheat by having air cooled stuff in your unheated garage in AK in the winter (actual computer history legend))
Pure distilled or RO water actually has low conductivity. It is the impurities in water that are the conductors.
 
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Cardboard55
If you really are thinking about doing water cooling check out youtuber Jays two cents he does a lot of stuff on water cooling.

Montrose
 
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Great news!




On the computer front, I may return the 3090ti Founder's Edition and get a hybrid / water cooled model.

This is more complicated than I expected.

It's not actually all that complicated.

The problem is that some folks start overthinking everything and endlessly trying to find the "Best" or "most perfect" and getting bogged down going in circles.

Find a chassis you like the looks of that is compatible with the form factor of motherboards you are looking at and has room to add fans and radiators.
 
6omqg1.jpg


I returned the Founder's Edition 3090Ti ($1599+ tax) and got the following:

(all EVGA)

EVGA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti FTW3 ULTRA GAMING, 24G-P5-4985-KR, 24GB GDDR6X, iCX3, ARGB LED, Backplate, Free eLeash
Item #: 24G-P5-4985-K $1399 (was $2199!)

EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 T2, 80+ TITANIUM 1000W, Fully Modular, EVGA ECO Mode, 10 Year Warranty , Includes FREE Power On Self Tester Power Supply 220-T2-1000-X1 $229

EVGA Z690 CLASSIFIED, 121-AL-E698-KR, LGA 1700, Intel Z690, PCIe Gen5, SATA 6Gb/s, 2.5Gb/s LAN, WiFi6E/BT5.2, USB 3.2 Gen2x2, M.2, EATX, Intel Motherboard $299

+ Odds and ends (keyboard, mice etc)

I'll still need a case, CPU, memory, storage, and not sure what else. I suppose I should get a copy of Windows. 10 or 11? Pro I am guessing. Do they still have the deals where you buy some beater HD on fleabay and get a *free* copy of oem windows? Hate to pay full price for anything. I know you guys said go Linux, but thinking I might get a 2nd computer for the shop, might try Linux on that. Maybe get one of the water cooled 3090's for that one, since they're relatively cheap now. Can't imagine the 4090 would be any better for my needs, and I like the idea of 24gb of memory on the graphics card. Any 40xx card with 24gb or more I'm thinking will be way more expensive. Plus either 3090 Ti + a 12900 or 13900 would be a good heater for the shop. Basically faster Mr. Heater Buddy.

May wait for the 13900 processor, I can just fiddle with cases in the meantime.

Did I do good?
 
Windows 10 LTSC 64 bit
Do not even consider any other iteration.
LTSC has zero bullshit and 1/4 of the spying (telemetry) built into it.
You'll have to look a little harder to find it, but well worth the effort.
It's the ONLY windows I will run, or install on my, or any others computer.
 
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Windows 10 LTSC 64 bit
Do not even consider any other iteration.
LTSC has zero bullshit and 1/4 of the spying (telemetry) built into it.
You'll have to look a little harder to find it, but well worth the effort.
It's the ONLY windows I will run, or install on my, or any others computer.

I will get this, if I can figure out where. Is it still made or discontinued by MS?

I am going to enjoy this build, I think. Now that I have an idea of what I will be working with, I can fine tune the design.

6omuuo.jpg
 
Since you got a Z690 board you are going to need windows 11 for the task scheduler to work with the P-cores and E-cores, I really like EVGA products I am currently running an EVGA SR-3 Dark with a W-3175x and an EVGA 3080 TI FTW3 in a Corsair 1000D case.

Montrose
 
6omqg1.jpg


I returned the Founder's Edition 3090Ti ($1599+ tax) and got the following:

(all EVGA)

EVGA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti FTW3 ULTRA GAMING, 24G-P5-4985-KR, 24GB GDDR6X, iCX3, ARGB LED, Backplate, Free eLeash
Item #: 24G-P5-4985-K $1399 (was $2199!)

EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 T2, 80+ TITANIUM 1000W, Fully Modular, EVGA ECO Mode, 10 Year Warranty , Includes FREE Power On Self Tester Power Supply 220-T2-1000-X1 $229

EVGA Z690 CLASSIFIED, 121-AL-E698-KR, LGA 1700, Intel Z690, PCIe Gen5, SATA 6Gb/s, 2.5Gb/s LAN, WiFi6E/BT5.2, USB 3.2 Gen2x2, M.2, EATX, Intel Motherboard $299

+ Odds and ends (keyboard, mice etc)

I'll still need a case, CPU, memory, storage, and not sure what else. I suppose I should get a copy of Windows. 10 or 11? Pro I am guessing. Do they still have the deals where you buy some beater HD on fleabay and get a *free* copy of oem windows? Hate to pay full price for anything. I know you guys said go Linux, but thinking I might get a 2nd computer for the shop, might try Linux on that. Maybe get one of the water cooled 3090's for that one, since they're relatively cheap now. Can't imagine the 4090 would be any better for my needs, and I like the idea of 24gb of memory on the graphics card. Any 40xx card with 24gb or more I'm thinking will be way more expensive. Plus either 3090 Ti + a 12900 or 13900 would be a good heater for the shop. Basically faster Mr. Heater Buddy.

May wait for the 13900 processor, I can just fiddle with cases in the meantime.

Did I do good?
Read up on DDR5 before you buy it and make sure what you’re looking at is on the MB QVL list. If you’re considering any kind of overclocking or XMP you might want to stick to two sticks. My Z690 Apex BIOS was just updated for the next Intel processor.
 
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Re: Linux....

If you are even slightly IT savvy, I would recommend installing distro of your choice and just giving it a go. There is a learning curve but it's not that ridiculous. I mean it's free..... worst case scenario you learn something new and then uninstall it and buy WIndows. Best case you keep using it and don't have to deal with MS telemetry and data collection.