Sinister Twin.

[AlienALX]

Here we go again. So a few months back I built a PC to play games on the TV. I do most of my gaming there now. Any way, it looks like this.



And I love it. Fastest PC I have, with the 4080 Super and all. However, today I sold my enormous collection of BMX bikes and so I decided to splurge on a top end PC. I am absolutely in love with the case (Lian Li Dan). Now the idea is to pull out the board and RAM from it, replace with a 570i Strix with a 5700X3D and 32gb DDR4 and it will look pretty much as it does now. That will then go to my mother's house, and I will keep the 760i Strix which is pretty much new and start the new build there. Currently it has a 12700KF in it, but I bought a 14600KF to replace it.



OK. So why not a 9800X3D? well to be honest I would hope this new PC can push 4k pretty well. Besides, DDR5 is now botty bleeding prices and yeah. Time I buy a new mobo and RAM I am looking at at least £700 more. It ain't worth it. So, a 14600KF




With 32gb of this.



On this board.



Will be plenty. So why Sinister Twin? well, I am going for the complete opposite of the above but using the exact same case.



Mostly because it is utterly fantastic. Funny thing is I have another Strix ROG led panel too, so they will look very similar inside. I do need a cooler as the one I run now at my mother's house is a 360 so I once again went with Thermalright. This cost me just over £50.



For the PSU I bought a Strix Loki. The 750w one will not cut it, so I got a 1000w.



I then got three reverse flow intakes (same as the white one)



And a rear exhaust.



Again, all Thermalright. Total cost on all the fans was £34.

So why do I need a 1kw PSU? well, because this.

 

[AlienALX]

Deliveries day ! Case first.



PSU. I was surprised how heavy this is compared to the exact same model in 850w.



These are the fans I ordered. Sadly the 3 reverse intakes will not fit due to the GPU being silly lol.



CPU



GPU



Cooler



OK so to confirm said fans would not fit I got the case out.



They don't. Bah. So I installed the rear fan. I know from experience now to fit the cooler last.







I then had a bit of a conundrum. There are very few slim fans on the market. I used to use Arctics slim fans but the wires are like hair and I had three just literally up and die in my NAS for no reason. Which is super concerning tbh. So those were out of the question and so are Noctua's plain black ones at £25 a go. So I found these. £9 each, IIRC, with good solid motors.



Again, Thermalright. I then remembered I needed quite a few fan extensions (I will be putting the fan hub in the same place as last time 'cause I know it works well there) so I got these.

 

[hmmblah]

And here I am happy building an AM5 system for a business customer, but you're messing about with 5090's. I'm really liking that case too.

 

[AlienALX]

Best case Ive ever worked in. Just so well designed.

As for 5090? it's not something I have done often tbh. IE buying the best GPU on the market. I did so in 2015 with two Titan Black, then in 2020 with the 2080Ti and now this. I am noticing a 5 year pattern here lmao. But yeah, it is never something I would have even thought about doing had it not been for selling off my bikes.

 

[AlienALX]

OK well a slight change of plans. I don't know what possessed me to do this but I decided to get one of these (I do know why I did it, explain in a bit)



So why? well it was cheaper than the 14600KF and I get BF6 with it free. Being a 4k rig I don't need a super fast CPU. I also don't need that CPU to pull lots of power. I also love this board I got.




Because it is super plain. I will make small covers for the bits of the IO you can see (in black).

So do I feel stupid? no, not really. I still have one of these, see.



And @Cenedd just sent me 64gb of DDR4. So, the board, RAM and 14600KF will go in my server. Whopping upgrade.

 

[AlienALX]

Oh, and this.



Obs.

 

[AlienALX]

OK last Black Friday buy I promise. I need another drive for the white rig. I noticed at mum's last week it was getting rather full, and one of the drives is SATA (eww). So I got this to go into the new rig.



Gen 5 and all. It is "only" 1tb, but that is the same as the drive I shall remove. I will then lob that in a external NVME box and use it on the white PC. That way I don't have to try and hide a SATA SSD in there (I don't think I could, tbh).

 

[AlienALX]

Well I got a bit paranoid. Nothing had shipped so I phoned HQ today. I had a feeling it was either BF causing bedlam or DPD being overwhelmed. However the mobo I ordered is now out of stock so I was paranoid about it not coming.

Turns out it was DPD. I bet BF is a horrid time for them. It has now shipped and providing its here before 2:30 tomorrow all will be good. If not I'm out for a flu jab.

I wasn't going to CNC anything for this build. Then I remembered I'd had an idea on the white one that I never carried out so I'm going to do that and make a cover panel for the inside to cover the wiring.

I've ordered an A4 limited edition acrylic so I shall be using that. Should be more than enough.

OK so this is the acrylic I got. I will make several bits out of this.



I then remembered I wanted to create something for the white PC, and never did. Basically the board came with this.



The case has one minor annoyance. To remove the front panel to clean the filter you have to remove the top. If, on the other hand, it had a pull tab at the top you could open it without doing that. I thought about cutting off the ring but I think I can machine a channel for it to fit into. The last thing I got is this.



Sinister Twin.



Sorted. I am going over tomorrow instead of Sunday.

 

[Damien c]

I have not really kept up with the prices of ram because I have no ability to buy any, but I have just looked and the 64Gb DDR5 kit I bought in March 2024 was £269.99, it is now £775.49.

DDR4 is going up as well because people are buying systems using that instead.

This whole AI BS is going to kill the computer industry because when companies are not going to be able to source new machines for staff, the price of second hand systems is going to go through the roof and people will not be able to buy machines for school, work, general use or gaming and then Laptops, tablets, consoles and phones etc are all going to follow.

Well done to nGreedia though and the NAND producers because they are going to rake it in!

 

[AlienALX]

It won't kill the industry. It will, however, I reckon, die off. Right now every one is obsessed with it thinking they need it but it's not terribly good. Stuff like the Coca Cola advert is pathetic and lazy. It totally doesn't even look real.

With that said though.... The last time I built a very high end gaming PC was 2020. And it cost me 3500 quid. That was including a discounted 2080Ti Kingpin at 1700 quid. Given it was 5 years back the 5090 at 2100 quid really isn't terrible. What Nvidia have done, though, is basically add the Titan into the lineup under the 90 guise and set a huge gap between it and the cards below. Which, if you are stupid like me and buy one means that it deffo holds its value more than ever. You also know they won't totally usurp it next gen by releasing a card in the 80 tier that goes as fast. Like, as we see the 5080 is nowhere even close to the 4090. My 2080Ti was bettered by a card that (if you could get one) was about 600 quid.

At least I know now that won't happen again. AI is just another fad. Kinda like VR. And tbh? it is kinda nice seeing people get anally rammed for buying lots of RAM. I am just super thankful that I bought all my DDR5 last year, because like you it has rocketed in value. I paid 83 for a high end 32gb kit, it now costs closer to 400.

Unlike 2020 too this time I have gone with a more gaming based CPU. Last time I went with the AMD 3950x which was the best at the time, but totally not needed. Given I will be gaming at 4k I didn't see any point in spending double on a CPU and board. Total waste of money.

I did just buy something else tho. My mate bought the 280 version and it's so neat and tidy that I got the 240 to go on the cooler.



It's one piece, which keeps it looking super tidy. Was quite cheap too on BF

 

[AlienALX]

OK fun from last night.

Board.



Flip it over, fit Gen 4 2tb.



Free badge !!



OK and this is the RAM. Like I said, beautifully packaged. In fact I have had Dominator Plats a few times and they came in garbage boxes. I mean look, it doesn't exactly matter but Acer's Predator range is just over the edge of budget. And if they can do it why can't other companies (hint, they just greedy mofos).







And onto today

I got a bit concerned over the NVME. It is Gen 5, and these get notoriously hot. The weedy little cooler with the mobo doesn't look up to the task, so.



I got that. If it makes a noise I will just cut the fan connector. The X570i Strix I am using also has a piddly fan, but I have never heard it.

Reet, back later. I just fitted a 1tb NVME into an external case so I can ditch the SATA drive. Just copying the data across now.

 

[AngryGoldfish]

In!!!

Just a thought, I totally agree that AI is going to hit something very hard soon and not be able to push through it. I reckon that's why Open AI have invested so heavily, because they don't want to be the company that goes under the bubble bursts. AI is definitely exciting and I am interested in learning how it works and using it, but right now it's still in its infancy and is not true AI as far as I can tell. It's just a fast Google-r.

 

[AlienALX]

I think it will still have its uses, but I think those uses are totally over hyped and inflated right now.

In fact my Samsung phone nearly took a flight into the wall the other day because a stupid AI update broke the keyboard. I had no auto correct, no suggested correctly spelled words; nothing. And I HATE PROD SCREENS. I really do. As such it was taking me 20 minutes to type a few words. All because they keep stuffing me with AI updates for crap that I just haven't used and won't.

My next phone will be a cheaper lower end model with no stupid AI. In fact, if it does it again it is going to CEX and I will get a cheap Oppo.

OK so the first phase of all of this nonsense is complete. I removed the B760i Strix before I got here, and brought it over mobo/cpu/ram less. I then fitted the X570i Strix, 5700X3D and 32gb Viper into the white rig. That is now done, with the 4080S. It really just looks identical but for some reason here in this room the phone camera thinks the lavender RGB is blue. Odd.



I realised the other day that the PC that board/ram etc were in had a SATA drive in it. Ewww. So I bought an external shell for a 1tb gen 3 NVME I had (Intel one). I then tried to copy across the stuff on the SATA SSD but of course it was bad. I wondered why the rig sometimes froze and refused to boot. Turns out it was the SATA SSD. So any way, after a few hours that is done and I now have 1tb externally for the music that was on the SATA SSD.

Now, finally (well, once Tuesday rolls around) I should finally, finally be able to build the new one FFS.

 

[AlienALX]

OK finally "they" came. You know? that company. They were trying to force me into having all my Xmas buys delivered on Tues. I dared to ignore it and put today, they rock up at 8:30 pm lol. I did this earlier.



Then this just a minute ago.



I *think* I should be able to fit the board and some more stuff tomorrow.

 

[AlienALX]

OK so as I mentioned one very minor peeve with this case is that you can't pull out the front without removing the top. So this is the solution.

Take one keyring I bought for £2.99



And then.







A while later...

 

[KingNosser]

Now run mirror's edge on it it seems an odd choice for you Alien but it'll be strong until the next gimmick comes along, I'm looking more towards Zen7 atm with all these ram price fixes and generally my build is strong so just don't feel the need unless i up the GPU next time they have something as I'm sure my nephew wouldn't mind an upgrade on the 6800XT I lent him.

 

[AlienALX]

Odd in what way? the 5090?? that was because I sold off my bike collection. CPU? is a little odd yes. I just had lots of "Ryzen jank" with the 3950x and 3600 I had. I thought I had it with the 5700x3d too but it may have been that the SATA drive had some bad data on it.

I like Intel. And, I always buy from the underdog it is just how I do it. That said it was a bargain. £170 for the CPU with BF6 thrown in. And at 4k? there is no point having a hot (9800X3D) or power guzzling (265 and above) CPU in there dude. With Intel's fixes there is absolutely nothing in it at 4k.

 

[KingNosser]

4k there is nearly zero difference on most modern CPU's but it's one heffty priced GPU I've an Intel laptop they are a decent buy i mainly wanted it for cores at the time it does the job, tbh i'll just see how the land sits come zen 7 cause no way am i paying 300+ for a decent ram kit they can jog on lol, thou i did pick up a 4k projector so can test 4k on my 9070XT but it's more for films etc in this room and a very handy box that converts PC surround sound into eARC and ARC into my spare system in here so problems solved on that front. It's a nice small case thou considering what it's holding it doesn't seem crammed thou to point out i wasn't being negative on things. On CPU side I went from 1700x to a 5800x no issues so far other than i prefer the old overclocking manner still tbh as good as the new method is the old ways were just easier tbh.

 

[AlienALX]

Yeah the GPU was a daft price tbh. Not something I would normally entertain. The last time I bought a top end GPU I had a massive windfall (about 6 grand), the time before that (2015, SLI Titan Black 3 way) I had another windfall (about 4k) and this time I sold off the bikes. Which was a huge relief because TBH? I was at hoarding stages. My water heater packed in and I then realised there were 8 bikes sat in front of the door to access it. So I moved them out and that was when I realised it was a bit dangerous. So yeah, all gone (which is quite tricky when you are talking thousands of pounds, it is hard to find a buyer).

The odd thing is though that each one of those top end GPUs happened literally in 5 year increments. The last one was the 2080Ti in 2020, and the Titans were purchased in 2015.

Weird. I swear sometimes life is controlled by numbers, maths and events !

 

[KingNosser]

Well personally I don't believe in coincidence feel most things are set out sure you have free will etc but your only ever get what you really want good or bad, for you that could be to constantly tinker in things you enjoy rather than needs, I'm kinda like that i don't plan things i just think about it and do things hence why my gaming room is about as crazy as it gets for a PC rig to be sat in it's a never ending room this one thats for sure.