the only other decision i was able to reach is that i will build it as fully air cooled first and then convert to custom liquid cooled …
my original plan was to build it as AIO ( all in one ) liquid cooled first but i realized my Lian Li chassis is so big the AIO tubing won’t reach from the components to the radiator mount …
so much the better - AIO is garbage anyway.
AIO is like the worst of both worlds between AIR and CLC ( Custom Liquid Cooling )
AIO has all the problems of CLC without any ability to repair or customize that CLC has …
besides my previous ( current ) build is already AIO and my goal was to try something new so i’m actually glad AIO didn’t work out as an option for this new build …
it’s always on backorder. they already moved expected availability date 3 times so far.
but it’s the only one for the Xeon W platform anyway so not like i had any choice.
i trust that it will eventually come - when ? who knows. as i said i’m building the system as air cooled and it will get converted to CLC later.
this waterblock is the first CLC component i have ever ordered. although theoretically i know how CLC works i have never built or designed a Custom Liquid Cooling loop so this will be quite interesting …
the fact i will be waiting several weeks for the waterblock gives me extra time to design it …
also this block just went on sale - frankly a strange move to put an item on sale when there is a waiting list for it but hey - saves me money - and i hope it means that the queue is getting shorter.
the amount of stupidity i’m dealing with in this build is off the charts
that’s what you get when you try to stay on the cutting edge
there is only one store on the internet that has ram for this platform in stock and for a semi-reasonable price and they have mixed everything up - the part numbers and descriptions do not match - and their support doesn’t work on weekends while i am running out of time …
because this platform needs DDR5 ECC RDIMM with XMP which is the absolute unicorn of RAM - i mean, this is literally the only platform that uses this ram and the platform just came out …
later this year AMD will release 7000 series Threadrippers that will use the same RAM and honestly you would probably be wise to wait for that … because by then you will also be able to find Gen 5 SSDs in stock as well, plus there is reason to believe 7000 Threadrippers will be significantly better than Sapphire Rapids Xeon W …
but with last gen Threadripper it took them TWO YEARS to start selling the chips retail ( for the first 2 years they were OEM only ) so also there is that risk …
this whole build is an absolute nightmare but now is the time to just dig deep and push towards the finish line despite all the bullshit …
i spent entire day yesterday thinking of what CPU to get, then i couldn’t fall asleep, then i woke up only a few hours later because i wanted to get right back to picking the CPU and that’s when i realized i could not go on like this …
so i just ordered it to put the end to the madness even though technically i could have taken another day ( Memorial Day ) to think about it without delaying the shipment, but i simply had enough …
i also ordered a ram kit, namely 4 X 16 GB Kingston Fury Renegade Pro 6000
the motherboard is a 8 channel memory architecture but i only ordered 4 channels because smallest RDIMM is 16GB and i only really need 32GB ram …
if i used all the channels to get full memory bandwidth i would have ended up with 128GB ram that i have no use for so i went with a compromise at 4 channels …
it’s a compromise because i get half the available memory bandwidth by paying for twice as many GB of ram that i actually need …
the other reason i went with 4 channels of memory is because i felt 8 channels would be spaced too closely together for optimal cooling …
once i upgrade the system to liquid cooling i may add the remaining 4 memory channels for while the system is air cooled for the time being there will be a lot of heat in the chassis and the ram will benefit from extra spacing for airflow …
processor was supposed to come on Monday ( 3 days from now ) but instead came today …
idiots at intel packaged it into a box the size of a cigarette pack with the CPU itself being visible through the clear plastic and pressed right against the edge of the box with basically zero protection.
it doesn’t seem like the box had sustained any abuse but fuck son you would think they could use a bit more protection on a $3,000 part …
and i thought the packaging on my Asus SAGE motherboard was bad …
it feels like i’m back in the day when Newegg and Amazon would ship you a 3.5" hard drive without any packaging … FFS !
it’s either you get a consumer product with fancy over the top packaging or you get a Professional / OEM product with NO packaging like this …
why can’t they do something in the middle ?
because that would actually make sense and nothing in this fucking world is allowed to make sense …
and mind you - my SKU is an UNLOCKED / OVERCLOCKABLE / “X” / RETAIL model SKU … so they knew it would quite likely be going into a custom build and not a fucking Dell …
yet they still couldn’t bother to package it properly for shipping …
the last part has been ordered and will be delivered tomorrow
i’m starting the physical build today
this last part was the graphics card
it will be Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 in Asus ROG Strix flavor
unless the coil whine is unbearable then i will send it back and get something else
this card is known for unbearable coil whine but it was the only one i could get with next day delivery and i already have all the other parts so i didn’t want to wait longer …
it’s literally this card that Der8auer specifically said not to buy
this is actually why i left it for last because i wanted to make sure i don’t miss the return window for it
i wanted to have as much time as possible to test out the coil whine and still be able to send it back
i also literally had to wait for the Crypto Bust to buy a graphics card like this. remember i’m a Jew. i’m cheap
i got 2 X Crucial T700 5th gen M.2 drives to work in Raid 0 for a boot drive after all. in retrospect there was nothing hard about it - i just had no idea what i was doing. in theory that should give me about 3 times the bandwidth of the fastest M.2 drive you could buy a month ago ( before 5th gen drives became available ).
my 6 GHZ ram is only running at 4 GHZ but i don’t care - won’t even bother looking for the menu to change the speed. as long as all 64GB show up i’m happy.
next is the hardest part - moving the computer to the final location
I haven’t done a build since the 2000s but when my current desktop fails (it is almost 8 years old and the last one failed at 11), I may attempt this following your example.
i have just made an entire thread to answer and in the last post i specifically address what i would do differently if i was doing it again:
not sure if that thread helps since my build is fairly unique and probably you would want to do things differently, but i also did a lot of research in general ( hundreds of hours ) and can probably answer most hardware questions relating to your future build even if they aren’t directly related to any of the hardware that i personally ended up using …
in other words there are many ways to skin a cat and i have researched most of them and i feel like i have a good grasp on the hardware market right now. if you have any questions ( not necessarily related to my build, but to building a desktop in 2023 in general ) ask them because a year from now i will not remember most of what i know now plus the market will change again and whatever i know will no longer apply anyway …
but right now because i just finished a build that was very extensively researched i could probably answer almost any question you may have about building your next pc …
