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Description
EDIT: 12/14/20 - Finally updated the parts list and added a new photo to match the build as of ~October. I've since taken out both 2080Ti's and moved them off to my other machines and upgraded to a 3090 Founder's Edition + Bitspower block as my main card and a cheap K4200 quadro as a multi-monitor card (to replace the outputs I used on the SLI setup before). Still waiting on my moddiy custom ampere cable to ditch the ugly adapter. Performance overall is about 10-20% less than my 2080 Tis in applications that actually used them both (which was rare), but single card performance is up dramatically. Additionally I've gone deep into Microsoft Flight Sim with a significant amount of new hardware - Honeycomb Alpha and Bravo yoke/throttle, Logitech rudder pedals, and an Elgato stream deck (for extra button functions)
Approximately two years ago I created the build here https://pcpartpicker.com/b/cKdXsY
It's been updated so many times from then it needed a clean new build page. From that original build nearly nothing but the drives remain - a real PC of Theseus. In the last month I've dumped a small fortune into a hard line water cooling loop and case upgrade that could handle it.
Intended to be both my work and play machine - lots of cores and memory for rendering, photo editing, and virtual machine labs plus lots of GPU power for gaming, VR, and Folding@Home in down time.
The biggest changes outside of the actual hardware components has been cooling. The Enermax Liqtech AIOs have horrendous longevity and because of that I've since gone for a 100% custom water cooled EK loop in this iteration. The water loop is documented in the build photos (at least for the steps I remembered to photograph, oops). For my first foray into hard line cooling it went without a hiccup. Under full folding@home torture at 23C ambient temps max out at 80C on the 3970x, and 43C to 45C on the two GPUs. The CPU isn't much changed from the enermax compared to previously, but the GPUs are easily 40C lower. Fluid temps are tied to fan speed and max out at 41C. In non-torture workloads the CPU struggles to pass 75C.
The eye-watering final price represents years of upgrades and expansions and is also heavily invested into VR, peripherals, sound system, monitors, etc.
The one final part I have in transit is the v1tech Sakura GPU backplate that will just be appended to the top GPU in SLI.
I plan to put in a day 1 order for the 3xxx top tier GPUs and a pair of waterblocks as soon as it's possible and the existing ones will roll down to my living room rig.
Benchmarks 3dmark timespy extreme https://www.3dmark.com/spy/12552698 Cinebench: TBA, need to upload
Part Reviews
CPU
Absolute best of a workstation HEDT processor. In the past decade I've gone from Sandy Bridge - E 3930k (6 core 12 thread), Threadripper 1950x (16 core 32 thread), and now the 3970x (32 core 64 thread). This thing is strong enough to render 4k video or run virtual machines and folding@home while playing a game at the same time. The cost is incredibly high but it brings along tons of PCI-E lanes and lots of other goodies with the chipset.
Motherboard
Expensive board for what it is and a bit of a rub to be needed after the x399 chipset was killed so soon. It has lots of headers you wouldn't think you'd need, but end up coming in handy once you go watercooled or plan to do liquid nitrogen. That said some of the water cooling headers are proprietary and you can't find hardware to use them. Excellent overclocker with Ryzen Master and the 3970x
Memory
It's memory. It's not Samsung B-die, but it (finally) runs at rated speeds even in a quad channel board with 4 kits. I say finally because this didn't work on the older 1950x and x399 setup, but is flawless on TRX40. The RGB looks great but the hitch is that the software has literally never worked - instead I've had to rely on the Asus software.
Storage
Shucked from WD Easystore enclosures, these are cheap steam drive options when even 6TB of SSD space isn't enough. Two of these bad boys hidden on vertical mounts out of sight on the machine and you have years of storage space. These have been running without issue for several years now in this machine and some have been on 24/7 in my home server for easily 4-5 years without failure.
Case
Probably the best compromise case for water cooling loop. As a long time fractal fan and especially of the define series, this is like a deluxe upsized Define R6. Not officially supported it managed to just barely squeeze in dual 420x45mm rads, a massive 300mm res/pump combo, and the rest of my components (SLI + eATX motherboard) without compromising on cable management. Copied from a reddit post I made, here are my lists of pros/cons
Pros
- Minimalist look, coming from the Define R6 I wanted to keep that. This was really #1 along with noise dampening
- Actually fits E-ATX boards with cable management
- Some consideration given to water cooling - it has a fill port spot and the plastic shroud cover piece has holes for a pump mount
- Sound dampening materials do a pretty decent job
- Included fan hub is not bad
- New from the define r6, the tempered glass is edge to edge
- Relatively easy to work in due to the size
- Convertible between silence and air flow with the top panel (though for us in watercooling - there's only one way that's ever going to be configured)
- Filters are all removable from front or top
Cons
- Cable management in the back is very limited. My 24 pin cable is crammed tight between the mobo tray and back of the case.
- Hard drive trays can't be removed from the back, you need to pull them out from the basement area at the front so if you have to unmount your pump and rads if you needed to yoink one.
- Similar to above, but worse. If you skip the hdd cage for space reasons and mount two hdd's directly to the back of the tray vertically you can ONLY mount them through the front which requires removing a plastic panel + the pump and front rad. Good luck replacing a hard drive later
- PSU area has a plastic shroud piece to hold cables from pressing against the back panel. It makes the already tight space worse and the clips aren't amazing at holding it in without lots of organizing
- Back panel is magnetically mounted, no screws. So coupled with the already limited clearance now you have a back panel that pops off if you don't spend time getting everything pushed tight.
- Front intake is limited with door closed (but you know that going in with this case)
- Fan controller PWM cable is laughably short. I had some extensions laying around, but it wouldn't have reached any header on my mobo without one other than maybe CPU.
- If you're mounting LED strips there's not really enough space on the front left edge of the glass side and you can't put one on the bottom edge at all without the strip showing.
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