Rig Refresh 2018

Lord Nemesis

Overlord
Skilled
Upgrading my entire rig after 7 years.

Specs

CPU: AMD Ryzen 2700X
Cooler: Corsair H115i AIO LCS + 2 x Noctua NF-A14 iPPC 3000 Fans
Motherboard: Gigabyte Aorus X470 Gaming 7 WiFi
RAM: 16 GB Gskill Trident Z RGB F4-3600C17D-16GTZR
GPU: Gigabyte GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming Premium (Reused)
Storage:
480GB Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD (Reused)
2 x 8TB WD Red Pro HDD
1 x 5TB Seagate HDD (Reused)
1 x 4TB WD Red HDD (Reused)
Chassis: Thermaltake Core X9

More to come (Around December)
Samsung 970 Pro 512GB NVMe SSD
nVidia GTX 1180

















 
Lol dude its not 6 its 16gb ram and btw theres no logic between amount of ram you install and the storage unless you are putting those storages on 2gb ram.

I'm just comparing the prices of those dual 8TB WD reds vs the ram in the machine. I'm not sure why anyone needs so much storage these days.
 
Storage preferences depends individually as per ones need and chores.

Some users have latest rigs with just 1tb hdd with 256 ssd and thats enough for them and they like to keep it clean from inside as well clutter free and then there is always external usb drive for backup purpose.
At other end still there are users with 4-5 storage devices installed in their rigs with couple of external backup devices.
My 3d modeller friend has total 12 drives as he was hit by critical data loss couple of years ago he has now ran into phobia hence keeps multiple backup of his work spanned across multiple devices.
And then we have tons of pron, torrent and pirate stashers around for whom any number of storages are still ltd!
 
I'm just comparing the prices of those dual 8TB WD reds vs the ram in the machine. I'm not sure why anyone needs so much storage these days.

I had to get 16G RAM because 32G kits of the same make were out of stock and there was only one 16G kit available at the time and no definite timeline when new stocks would reach the distributor. In any case, will be adding another 16G soon. RAM prices are also expected to decrease in next few months.

As for storage, one of the 8TB drives is already more than half full after migrating my stuff from 3 older hard drives which are on verge of failure. Another 8TB drive is for games. My steam directory is 2TB in size with only a fraction of the games in my library installed. Many AAA Games these days take anywhere from 50 to 100 GB in size. Apart from steam, I have games on Origin, UPlay and GOG as well.
 
I had to get 16G RAM because 32G kits of the same make were out of stock and there was only one 16G kit available at the time and no definite timeline when new stocks would reach the distributor. In any case, will be adding another 16G soon. RAM prices are also expected to decrease in next few months.

As for storage, one of the 8TB drives is already more than half full after migrating my stuff from 3 older hard drives which are on verge of failure. Another 8TB drive is for games. My steam directory is 2TB in size with only a fraction of the games in my library installed. Many AAA Games these days take anywhere from 50 to 100 GB in size. Apart from steam, I have games on Origin, UPlay and GOG as well.

Please do get another kit. Unless the machine is purely for gaming, 16GB ain't enough anymore - especially if you do a lot of photo/video editing/retouching or work with game development/game programming like I do. Some content we received from Epic recently (UE4) doesn't even build on a 16GB machine.

True about large game libs - I just play and delete the games these days. Else the number of updates to keep 300-500+ games updated takes forever. If I want to play something, I download it that moment. Doesn't take that long with steam having local servers. UPlay anyways is connected to steam if you buy off steam. Origin is a bit of a pain but then again I don't buy any EA titles anymore. GOG is limited to very few titles anyways - most of them not too big other than W3.
 
Upgrading my entire rig after 7 years.

Specs

CPU: AMD Ryzen 2700X
Cooler: Corsair H115i AIO LCS + 2 x Noctua NF-A14 iPPC 3000 Fans
Motherboard: Gigabyte Aorus X470 Gaming 7 WiFi
RAM: 16 GB Gskill Trident Z RGB F4-3600C17D-16GTZR
GPU: Gigabyte GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming Premium (Reused)
Storage:
480GB Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD (Reused)
2 x 8TB WD Red Pro HDD
1 x 5TB Seagate HDD (Reused)
1 x 4TB WD Red HDD (Reused)
Chassis: Thermaltake Core X9

More to come (Around December)
Samsung 970 Pro 512GB NVMe SSD
nVidia GTX 1180




















This gives me Butterflies in my stomach... :') <3
 
So much storage lol. Where did you keep them? Can you upload a photo or two?

The chassis has insane flexibility for installing, fans, radiators and hard drives.

As far as hard drives go,

10 x 3.5" Hard drives (6 via HDD drive cages, 1 via 3.5" drive cage under motherboard tray, 3 via 5.25" bays)
or
20 x 2.5" Hard drives. (Every place that can hold a 3.5" drive is also designed to hold 2 x 2.5" drives)

Even if I mix both types, there is a lot of capacity as many of the designated storage areas can be used to hold both a 3.5" on one side and 2 x 2.5" on the other.

In contrast, I have only 480GB (SSD) + 2 x 8TB + 1 x 5TB. So total comes to 21TB storage in addition to the SSD. I removed one 4TB drive from the chassis since I last posted.



Some more pics







 
The chassis has insane flexibility for installing, fans, radiators and hard drives.

As far as hard drives go,

10 x 3.5" Hard drives (6 via HDD drive cages, 1 via 3.5" drive cage under motherboard tray, 3 via 5.25" bays)
or
20 x 2.5" Hard drives. (Every place that can hold a 3.5" drive is also designed to hold 2 x 2.5" drives)

Even if I mix both types, there is a lot of capacity as many of the designated storage areas can be used to hold both a 3.5" on one side and 2 x 2.5" on the other.
That's nice. I honestly thought it was just another of those "meh" cabinets and wondered why you paid so much for it haha :D
If I ever build a media PC I will definitely consider it. I was actually thinking of making a custom HDD rack as I tend to always run out of storage and couldn't spend thousands for a harddisk at one time. A relative of mine who works with media files is also facing a "too many hard disks not enough slots in cabinet" problem.
This would be an awesome cabinet if the external design is modded for aesthetics.
 
Cable management is definitely not a strong point and to be honest, I didnt try to do a lot around that. But it's still not the worst. The PSU is hidden behind a shroud and only necessary cables come to the top. There is no provision for cleanly getting the 8 pin EPS though. Further complication is that all the fans except the noctuas are RGB capable and have both a 4 pin pwm cable as well as RGB cable. The stiff cables that come with the PSU (Corsair HX850) is another pain.
 
That's nice. I honestly thought it was just another of those "meh" cabinets and wondered why you paid so much for it haha :D
If I ever build a media PC I will definitely consider it. I was actually thinking of making a custom HDD rack as I tend to always run out of storage and couldn't spend thousands for a harddisk at one time. A relative of mine who works with media files is also facing a "too many hard disks not enough slots in cabinet" problem.
This would be an awesome cabinet if the external design is modded for aesthetics.

Cost of the chassis is 12K inclusive of GST + shipping extra. Its not that high compared to other chassis that you can get for around the same cost.

1. Removable E-ATX motherboard tray in horizontal layout.
2. Dual PSU support. With single PSU, you can chose between left and right install and cover the other one with supplied grill with support for a 120/140mm fan.
3. 2 x 480/420/360/280/240/140/120 radiator/fan mounting at the top and one on choice of either left/right side. Alternatively, 2 x 200mm fans at the top.
4. 360/280/240/140/120mm radiator or fan mounting on the front. Alternatively, 2 x 200mm fans
5. 3 x 5.25" bays which can optionally be removed for radiator/fan installation.
6. 2 x HDD rack each holding 3 x 3.5" HDD, 1 x 3.5" HDD rack under the motherboard tray. The racks can be mounted to the left or right side or one on each side.
7. Removable front I/O panel which can be mounted to the left or right.
8. Side panels can be swapped from left to right. So, if you have the chassis on the left side, you have the side panel with the acrylic window to the right side of the case.


What I would have loved in addition.

1. Aluminum instead of steel.
2. Better front side design where we can have a column with 5.25" drive bays and another with radiator/fan support which can both be swapped to either side.
3. Ability to rotate the motherboard tray by 180 deg.
4. Slightly more width, less depth and better cable management.


If you are just looking for HDD storage, a Full/Ultra tower case with lot of 5.25" bays would be better. My old case has 12 x 5.25" bays. I can have plain HDD cages or hot swap cases to accommodate up to 16 x 3.5" HDD. Unfortunately, these kind of cases don't seem to be around anymore.
 
Absolutely no place to hide the cables. It looks like a cable mess out there.
Definitely not the priority though. Compromises have to be made somewhat. But I'm sure it will look good with fully modular cables properly tied up. Believe it or not I prefer seeing a clean tied up cables than hidden cables. There's the appeal for me. :happy:
I do think the radiators are a bit overkill. Phew.
 
Back
Top