Build Critique (Noob Edition)

[Mitsu3000gt]

It's going to be a sweet build

[Prelude_dude]

unfortunately due to the Canada Post strike, everything that i ordered on Monday from newegg is getting delayed by the strike. Keep getting emails from Canada Post that it keeps getting delayed further and further. Estimated time for everything is mid to late next week now.

[Prelude_dude]

Alright! Got everything ordered; now just waiting for everything to come in the mail. Black Friday deals were pretty good; managed to stay under my budget of $1600 and get some better parts.

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/p33Rhy

[Mitsu3000gt]

Newegg has some promo codes and mail in rebates on those EVGA PSUs, make sure you take advantage of everything.

[Prelude_dude]

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Newegg has some promo codes and mail in rebates on those EVGA PSUs, make sure you take advantage of everything.

oh yea i believe i have about $40 dollars worth of mail in rebates to claim. Just a pain in the ass that you still have to cut out the barcode... like i can't just take a picture of it?

Still waiting on the GPU.... stupid canada post is still backed up.

Starting piecing the computer together. This is fun as shit; I love building models; so this was right up my alley. If I knew it was this fun, I would of started doing this years ago. The cable management took me forever though; took me about 4 hours lol. Screwing the CPU Cooler actually pretty tough; you really have to push down hard on those mother boards... so scared to break the thing. To do some rewiring and organizing, I had to pull out the huge plug for the PSU to the motherboard; that made me sweat lol; that thing locks in tight.

Below are some pictures of the build so far minus the CPU. I feel pretty proud of the cable management lol, not sure if its actually any good though.

Video of all the lights as well lol. I am loving RGB.





https://photos.app.goo.gl/KBwd3puf3F3rFzmSA

[Mitsu3000gt]

Looks awesome man, glad you're happy with it

You can pull out that lower drive bay and get more airflow if you want, it's blocking about half of your lower front fan. If that's an SSD on top (can't tell with the pic size) you could even just velcro it to the bottom of the case if there is nowhere else to put it. Some cases have mounts for it near the back of the mobo on the opposite of the case but I don't see any on that particular case - you can velcro it back there too if you want if there's room, or use some 2-sided tape. Those SATA III SSD's don't really need to be cooled (if that's what it is).

[Prelude_dude]

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Looks awesome man, glad you're happy with it

You can pull out that lower drive bay and get more airflow if you want, it's blocking about half of your lower front fan. If that's an SSD on top (can't tell with the pic size) you could even just velcro it to the bottom of the case if there is nowhere else to put it. Some cases have mounts for it near the back of the mobo on the opposite of the case but I don't see any on that particular case - you can velcro it back there too if you want if there's room, or use some 2-sided tape. Those SATA III SSD's don't really need to be cooled (if that's what it is).

its actually a 2.5inch spinner HDD; does that make a difference? Can i still just mount it there? I actually laid some electrical tape down on the bottom where its laying so the metal part of the HDD is not touching the metal cage.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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its actually a 2.5inch spinner HDD; does that make a difference? Can i still just mount it there? I actually laid some electrical tape down on the bottom where its laying so the metal part of the HDD is not touching the metal cage.

Ah, I see. As long as there is good airflow in the case you don't really need any active cooling for HDDs, especially if it's a storage drive and not something you are hammering on all the time. I imagine the slower (5400RPM) drives generate less heat too. It's not bad the way you've got it set up, so it's totally up to you. If you mounted it on the bottom of the case maybe slip a little foam or something under it for a vibration/shock buffer. The same fan would still be cooling it too, just without that big empty drive bay blocking airflow from the front bottom fan to the rest of the case. Or if you can roate that drive bay 90 degrees the air could flow through and you could leave the HDD where it is. Just some suggestions anyway, you're not hurting anything the way it is.

Also those stock AMD collers looks great - and they are actually decent, unlike the garbage Intel ships with.

If your TUF mobo is like mine, there is a dedicated fan for the M2 SSD as well which is cool.

[Prelude_dude]

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Ah, I see. As long as there is good airflow in the case you don't really need any active cooling for HDDs, especially if it's a storage drive and not something you are hammering on all the time. I imagine the slower (5400RPM) drives generate less heat too. It's not bad the way you've got it set up, so it's totally up to you. If you mounted it on the bottom of the case maybe slip a little foam or something under it for a vibration/shock buffer. The same fan would still be cooling it too, just without that big empty drive bay blocking airflow from the front bottom fan to the rest of the case. Or if you can roate that drive bay 90 degrees the air could flow through and you could leave the HDD where it is. Just some suggestions anyway, you're not hurting anything the way it is.

Also those stock AMD collers looks great - and they are actually decent, unlike the garbage Intel ships with.

If your TUF mobo is like mine, there is a dedicated fan for the M2 SSD as well which is cool.

No, unfortunately my TUF mobo does not have a dedicated fan for the M.2 SSD; but no complaints so far.

Got the GPU! This baby is up and running and oh is it so sweeeeeeet! Thanks for all the help from everyone on this. Check out the entire desk set up.





Tried to hide the wires as best as possible; took forever, but I think it looks pretty clean. I did tighten up the cable management a bit even more so it looks even better.

Also I have been trying to update the BIOS on this MOBO, which is a ASUS TUF B450 PLUS and i am not having any luck. Anyone have any experience doing this for ASUS motherboards? I've downloaded the BIOS, and using the EZFLASH its not recognizing the file.... when i try to scan the barcode in the manual on how to update the BIOS, it takes me to the chinese asus website.... no fucking help at all lol.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Looks awesome

On my ASUS TUF board the BIOS update is really simple, so hopefully you're just missing a step:

1) Download the new BIOS and put only that file on a fresh USB drive (it is a "CAP" file)
2) Pop in the USB drive and boot into the BIOS
3) Go to "Advanced Settings" then "Tools" then "EZ Flash"
4) From the dropdown menu of drives, select the flash drive (all your internal drives will show up too - ignore them)
5) Once you select the flash drive you should see the new BIOS file and select it - it will ask "if you really want to read the file" Say Yes

That should be it - it will update and may reboot a couple times in the process.

You get the file here, but you probably already know that if you've got as far as trying to install it (double check the exact mobo model):

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/TU...HelpDesk_BIOS/


The other thing is if you aren't having any issues with anything, you could just not update the BIOS. A lot of people have the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality with BIOSes because often times the new BIOS versions come with a new set of bugs. Go on some forums to find out if the new BIOS is stable and if anyone is having issues with it first - if you're confident it's all good, then go ahead and update.

[LilDrunkenSmurf]

I just drop mine onto the root of my C:\ drive, and flash from that.

[BigDL]

My C6H has issues trying to update inside of the Bios, i could only get it to recognize the file if I used ezupdate via the asus app in windows. It would then reboot and launch the update in the bios.

[Prelude_dude]

Didn't miss a step; tried both methods, booting from the BIOS and the ezupdate via asus app in windows.

Both would not recognize the .cap file... so weird.

Probably just leave it as is at this point; the updates to the current BIOS don't really affect me; i have the last update that contained stability changes.

Just kind of annoying that it was not allowing me to do it.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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Didn't miss a step; tried both methods, booting from the BIOS and the ezupdate via asus app in windows.

Both would not recognize the .cap file... so weird.

Probably just leave it as is at this point; the updates to the current BIOS don't really affect me; i have the last update that contained stability changes.

Just kind of annoying that it was not allowing me to do it.

That is odd. There is probably a way to do it, but not worth the effort if you don't have any issues. I have made more problems for myself by updating the bios than not over the years for sure. The most important things in the last year or so have been optimizations to Intel/AMD code to improve the performance hit due to their patching of vulnerabilities (meltdown/spectre), and even then you would only notice that under certain scenarios. That and RAM compatibility, but only if needed. If it's working for you I'd say just leave it for now and continue enjoying the new PC.

[Prelude_dude]

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That is odd. There is probably a way to do it, but not worth the effort if you don't have any issues. I have made more problems for myself by updating the bios than not over the years for sure. The most important things in the last year or so have been optimizations to Intel/AMD code to improve the performance hit due to their patching of vulnerabilities (meltdown/spectre), and even then you would only notice that under certain scenarios. That and RAM compatibility, but only if needed. If it's working for you I'd say just leave it for now and continue enjoying the new PC.

I'm such a noob lol.... I was trying to install the TUF B450 Plus Gaming BIOS when mine is the TUF B450M Plus Gaming.... that stupid M lol...

There was actually stability improvements, so i ended up using EZFlash and updating the BIOS. As you speculated though.... after updating the BIOS my corsair ICUE software now cannot detect my Vengeance Pro RGB ram now... so my RGB's is all sporatic; based on the forums other people are having this issue as well. Not a huge deal, just the colours are flashing randomly now.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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I'm such a noob lol.... I was trying to install the TUF B450 Plus Gaming BIOS when mine is the TUF B450M Plus Gaming.... that stupid M lol...

There was actually stability improvements, so i ended up using EZFlash and updating the BIOS. As you speculated though.... after updating the BIOS my corsair ICUE software now cannot detect my Vengeance Pro RGB ram now... so my RGB's is all sporatic; based on the forums other people are having this issue as well. Not a huge deal, just the colours are flashing randomly now.

Aw jeez, haha. Oh well - at least now you know it has to be very specific for the next time.

Yeah often the best thing to do before BIOS updates is to pour through forums (I like overclockers.net mobo specific threads where Asus employees are active) after they have been out for a while, and try to see what kind of issues people are having and if they will affect you. Since that takes a lot of time, I generally suggest people just leave it alone unless there are major performance/stability updates or if it solves a specific problem (i.e. specific RAM compatibility). You can roll back or you can look for a solution on the flashing RAM, up to you - at least it's just cosmetic! Also any custom settings you changed in the BIOS will have to be re-entered (i.e. fan curves, overclocks, etc.) so it's a good idea to write those down or take pictures of the screens with your phone, if applicable.

[Chandler_Racing]

Have some cash burning a hole in my pocket. Don't know it's worthy of a new thread but looking at a semi high end gaming station.

Wanted to see if I am missing anything or should I be changing certain components? I will price check or match with pcpartpicker just used ME's system configurator for now.

Corsair Obsidian 500D RGB SE Series Premium ATX Mid Tower Case w/ Tempered Glass, 3x 120mm LL120 RGB Fans, Black
$349.99

Intel Core™ i7-9700K Processor, 3.6GHz w/ 12MB Cache
$529.99

Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Compound, 65g
$39.99

Asus ROG Strix Z390-I Gaming w/ DDR4 2666, 7.1 Audio, Dual M.2, Gigabit LAN, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
$279.99

Corsair Dominator Platinum 16GB DDR4 3000MHz CL15 Dual Channel Kit (2x 8GB), Black
$259.99

Samsung 970 PRO NVMe M.2 PCIe x4 SSD, 512GB
$259.99

EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Black GAMING 8GB PCI-E w/ HDMI, Triple DP, USB-C
$999.99

Corsair RMx Series RM1000x 80+ Gold Fully Modular ATX Power Supply, 1000W
$204.99

Memory Express Assemble Hardware

Philips Brilliance 499P9H 49in 32:9 Super Wide 5K QHD Curved HDR LED LCD w/ USB 3.1 Gen2 Hub, KVM, FHD Web Cam
$1,769.99

[Xtrema]

I know it's cash burning in your pocket, but it may be interesting to wait til June to see what AMD say about Ryzen 3 line up is going to be like?

I got a feeling even if you decide to stick with Intel, it will be a lot cheaper or competitive. But I think AMD got Intel beat with 7nm process this time around.

[KRyn]

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Have some cash burning a hole in my pocket. Don't know it's worthy of a new thread but looking at a semi high end gaming station.

Wanted to see if I am missing anything or should I be changing certain components? I will price check or match with pcpartpicker just used ME's system configurator for now.

Any interest in a very, very lightly used Fractal Define R6 Black USB C case?

[Chandler_Racing]

Not against waiting till June as it is the ideal time to have it but unlikely to purchase AMD products. With that said, there is always a latest and greatest coming out so never been a fan of waiting for a slightly better solution.

In terms of the Fractal case not something I am interested in.