6 Years Later - Reviewing My Build’s Successes and...

6 Years Later - Reviewing My Build’s Successes and Failures At 30,000 Hours of Uptime

So here it is, folks. The 4 grand, big brand, first hand grandstand on an often-neglected topic – what to expect of your machine after years of hard use. Listed below is the encased case I’ll be studying for this piece. Components that look like this are in the machine currently. Components that look like this were replaced with upgrades. Components that look like this failed in service.

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel - Core i5-4670K 3.4 GHz Quad-Core Processor	$230
CPU Cooler	Noctua - NH-D14 64.95 CFM CPU Cooler	$74.95 @ Amazon
Motherboard	Asus - Z87-Pro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard	~$180
Memory	Mushkin - Redline 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-1866 Memory	~$100?
Upgraded Memory	El Cheapo Nemix 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR3-1600 Memory	$150.00
Storage	Samsung - 840 Series 120 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	~$120?
Storage	Seagate - Barracuda 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$58.49 @ OutletPC
Replacement Storage	Western Digital - BLACK SERIES 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$119.16 @ OutletPC
Video Card	Asus - GeForce GTX 780 3 GB DirectCU II Video Card	$650
Upgraded Video Card	EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW GAMING ACX 3.0	~$650
Replacement Video Card	EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 XC ULTRA GAMING	$0
Case	Fractal Design - Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case	~$100
Power Supply	Fractal Design - Newton R3 600 W 80+ Platinum Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply	~$100
Optical Drive	Asus - DRW-24F1ST DVD/CD Writer	$21.39 @ OutletPC
Operating System	Microsoft - Windows 8 OEM 64-bit	~$100
Operating System	Microsoft - Windows 10 64-bit	$0
Case Fan	Fractal Design - FD-FAN-SSR2-140 66 CFM 140mm Fan	$13.89 @ SuperBiiz
Monitor	Asus - VG248QE 24.0" 1920x1080 144 Hz Monitor	$246.00 @ Amazon
Monitor	Asus - VG248QE 24.0" 1920x1080 144 Hz Monitor	$246.00 @ Amazon
Upgraded Monitor	LG - 34UM95 34.0" 3440x1440 60 Hz Monitor	$750.00
	Total	~$4,000
	Generated by PCPartPicker

As you can tell I had two failures, both of them pretty major. I’ll cover them a little farther down.

Starting off, these are the goals I had in mind when building this machine: First and foremost, I wanted the best performance in flight simulators and CAD/CAM software that I could justify spending for. I wanted perfect snappiness in Windows, MS Office, and web browsers. Second, I wanted longevity. Third, silence. I’d say this build achieved all of those things… but I have a few warnings for people looking to build a rig with a similar mindset.

1. I had to make multiple upgrades to the machine for it to keep up with the expanding RAM, VRAM, and storage requirements as sims like DCS got extra content and released updates with power-hungry graphics improvements. Also I may have purchased a much larger monitor and a VR headset… sorry 780.

2. If you have to skimp on things, don’t skimp on the CPU, motherboard, or PSU. Although I have had the urge to get an M.2 SSD and upgrade my CPU for some time now (although really it’s still keeping up perfectly fine), the fact that my current motherboard and RAM will also need to be replaced makes that unjustifiable. At this moment, for me to upgrade to a i7-8700k and an M.2 without losing RAM would cost about $1,200. Totally out of the ballpark.

3. Expect to have failures and do maintenance. I was lucky and had no DOA parts in the build, and the thing ran absolutely flawlessly for years. However about 5 years into the life of the machine, the 1TB storage drive suffered a soft failure. I noticed obvious performance issues, and with drive health monitoring software open I watched it slowly die as I attempted to transfer all the files I wanted elsewhere. I got everything important, but shit. You know the saying that while SSDs have a built-in service life, HDDs either fail within the first couple years or last until obsolescence? Ahhh… not in my experience. Anything I build from now on will probably be all-SSD.

4. (3 cont’d) As for the 1080 that died, that was much more dramatic. I’m flying along in the sublime DCS F/A-18C recreating Mongo’s MiG-21 shootdown in the Gulf War when all at once the computer instantly powers off with a pop and the screen goes black. I’m thinking “…power outage?” until I smell it – something let the smoke out. After a postmortem I decide the smell had to have come from the GPU. So I throw in the old 780 and it boots up – but no video output. Shit. Video output from the IGPU works fine though? Huh. So I try a different PCIe slot and what do you know… I’m pretty sure my 1080 fried the only 16x slot on the board. Not too big a deal to run on 8x but now I feel the machine is in its twilight years with one of the newest components in the rig failing so spectacularly and running with a damaged motherboard. Being realistic though, I won’t be at all surprised if this thing will keep going another 6 years or more with an SSD change.

5. Warranties matter as much or more than quality. At first, I went all-in on the highest quality parts I could get without paying any attention to the warranty service. To this day I still consider the Asus 780 DCUII an incredibly well-built card. When I retrieved it to replace the blown-up 1080 I was impressed all over again with how sturdy it felt and just the quality of work Asus put into it. But all cards can fail, and if the same thing that happened to my EVGA 1080 had happened to my Asus 780… well, I’d have been shit out of both luck and $650. As it stands I’m actually getting an upgrade out of this catastrophe (albeit still being left with a dead PCIe slot).

6. Don’t bother with watercooling, not even AIOs except in very specific use cases. It’s not anywhere close to being worth the headache for the vast majority of people going that route. The amount of additional maintenance and attention required to keep a watercooled rig going strong for so many years is way more than you’re going to want to do. I know you’re pretty into the hardware side of your computer now, but just trust me. You’re going to be a substantially different person in 5 years, most likely one that wants a machine that just works without any doubts about water leaks, water line contamination, pumps dying, etc.

7. Shit’s expensive, yo. Yes I know I didn’t do my wallet any favors here, but just be aware that if you want to maintain a top-shelf rig for many years to come, get ready to shell out many thousands too. It’s not a one-and-done purchase, even if you can handle falling behind the state of the art. I didn’t even list all of my peripherals here. In addition to all of this I’ve also got a UPS, a Das Keyboard 4, monitor stand for the 34UM95 and an Ergotron arm mount for the VG248QEs, flight sim peripherals, headphones, DAC, and more. Plus power bills I’ve honestly got no clue how much this thing has cost me in total. At least $5.5k. Was it worth it? Oh fuck yeah it was worth it. But I’m not exactly on a tight budget here… don’t stretch yourself for something that is ultimately probably going to serve as much as a distraction from responsibility as it will a tool for bettering your life. It undeniably is the latter… but you don’t need to spend nearly as much if you just want a productivity machine.

What would I have done differently with the initial build? Probably nothing. I probably should have gone all-SSD a year or two ago but that’s fine. In the near future I’ll just replace the OS drive and add a storage SSD. My machine has been an absolute pleasure to own, a dream come true after years of the shitty family computer (even by 90s standards) and countless craptops. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.

from Daily Technology News http://bit.ly/2S39mhz
Click Here For More News!