Tom's Hardware Member System Gallery

[NightHawkRMX]

I built a new pc today.

And no, this one is not made of legos, but it is equally as terrible.

Say hello to the Pentium 4 and RGB.

https://ibb.co/VpXF5yV

20200207-224545-2 hosted at ImgBB

Image 20200207-224545-2 hosted in ImgBB

ibb.co

https://ibb.co/sRjVZ12

Pentium 4 2.4ghz 1c/1t 32bit
Dell PGA478 motherboard
2x1gb DDR
Onboard graphics
17 year old Dell OEM PSU
ThermalTake Versa H22 case
RGB STRIP
3 optical drives

 

[Saga Lout]

Am I right to think it runs Linux?

 

[Darkbreeze]

Sorry man. I liked the lego build a lot better.

 

[Karadjgne]

Would go over a lot better prolly if that wiring was tidy. A good build doesn't have to be a work of art, but it should be a labour of love, the effort put into it counts more than the cost (or lack thereof) of the parts.

Not a criticism, but I have faith you could do a whole lot better, and have something to be proud of.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

The issue is one i have faced before with oem systems.

The power supply cables are so short that i cannot cable manage.

The 20 pin (yes its that old) is actually trying to bend the board since the cable is so short and there is no slack left in the 4 pin.

I may be able to attempt to cable manage the molex connector.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Am I right to think it runs Linux?

Currently all its running is the bios.

The board is ide only and i lack any desktop ide drives. I do have a laptop ide drive, however i need an adapter for it.

Heck, only 2 of the 3 optical drives are connected since one is sata.

 

[Saga Lout]

I usually hang a 2.5 drive outside the slot for a 3.5 using the screws from a laptop.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

No, the case has 2.5in bays, mounting the drive isn't an issue. The issue is that 2.5in ide and 3.5in ide use a different interface. The 2.5in interface carries power where the 3.5in drive interface has a different pin amount as it gets its power from MOLEX. So i need something like this: https://www.startech.com/Cables/Drive/IDE/25-to-35-IDE-Hard-Drive-Cable-Adapter~IDE4044

I may buy one off of amazon, but I dunno If it's really worth it considering I just can buy an IDE 3.5in HDD off of ebay for simmilar amount.

 

[Saga Lout]

A USB Caddy might fit the bill. Take the connection out of the case and bin the latter. The downside is you need two spare ports - one for data and the other to power the drive.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Well, I found an ancient Athlon PC locally with a 200gb IDE HDD for $15, which is worth it for the HDD alone. I think I'll snag that one later as I am buying a few PC parts later to resell.

On another note, prepare your eyes. The Lego PC returns and is "upgraded," now with RGB and an optical drive!
https://ibb.co/g7byq71

20200209-133407-1 hosted at ImgBB

Image 20200209-133407-1 hosted in ImgBB

ibb.co

https://ibb.co/5FTkQ7g

20200209-134737-1 hosted at ImgBB

Image 20200209-134737-1 hosted in ImgBB

ibb.co

I sold the TT SMART PSU for like a $25 profit, so I'm stuck with the 300w Cors... COUGH COUGH Hipro PSU which seems to handle the HD5670 and Q9500 just fine when under stress in tomb raider anniversary earlier in Win xp. That's what this PC is for, games from like 2007ish, just like tomb raider anniversary. Ran great.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Also, the ventilation went away to mount the optical drive and there isn't much air gap between the CPU fan and the optical drive. So its cooking.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

So, I accidentally borked the motherboard in the Lego PC. I was trying to mount an RGB cooler for the lolz, and I had to remove the backplate which is glued to the motherboard. I used heat and a screwdriver, which turned out to be a bad idea and I gouged a trace on the board.

I removed the backplate and successfully mounted the cooler, but it wouldn't boot for more than a second before the PSU abruptly cuts power. tried with 2 PSUs, the same result.

I'm selling the CPU + cooler + DDR3 on eBay.

So I am looking to upgrade the lego PC now. I'm wondering if anyone has an idea of some creative or absurd hardware to put inside the case?

I was thinking of a Xeon system or something absurd like that. Needs to be MicroATX and cheap.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Ryzen build done today for a client in a system I had already done a build in about five years ago using the same case. Not a gaming machine so no big graphics card. This system is used exclusively in a private investigators office, but it's a nice rig for his purposes and I'm sure will last another five years or more. Probably get repurposed in five years just like the hardware I took out of this machine today, an E3 Xeon, is going to be.

No fancy lights. No RGB. No water cooling. No big graphics cards or CPU coolers. Just simple and clean with lots of room for storage devices. Which he definitely needs in his line of work.

Ryzen 3600x
B450 Tomahawk Max
2 x8GB G.Skill Ripjaws

Aftermarket cooler coming soon.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Today I put together a budget Gaming Computer build.

Intel Core i5 3550 Quad Core with RGB cooler
8GB (2x4gb) HyperX DDR3 1600mhz
MSI GAMING GTX960 2gb GDDR5
Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm 1TB SATAiii
SeaSonic 520w M12ii 80+ Bronze Semi Modular
Thermaltake VERSA H22 case with acrylic window and RGB strip
Random WIFI adapter found in a drawer

https://valid.x86.fr/vchpmy

This is the exact opposite of the system darkbreeze built above. This is as bright as I could buy with basically no money.

Also, yes, those are PCIe power adapters being used. Those are temporary until the modular PCIe cable I bought from SeaSonic arrives. Im also using a burner HDD until the 1tb one comes tomorrow.

Once both arrive it will be available for sale.

The issue is I need to find some slot covers for the front bays.

 

[g-unit1111]

Ryzen build done today for a client in a system I had already done a build in about five years ago using the same case. Not a gaming machine so no big graphics card. This system is used exclusively in a private investigators office, but it's a nice rig for his purposes and I'm sure will last another five years or more. Probably get repurposed in five years just like the hardware I took out of this machine today, an E3 Xeon, is going to be.

No fancy lights. No RGB. No water cooling. No big graphics cards or CPU coolers. Just simple and clean with lots of room for storage devices. Which he definitely needs in his line of work.

That's one thing I love about Phanteks is that their cases have lots of room for storage. I'm actually thinking of converting my 6700K rig into a file server at some point, I've got plenty of HDs that I can use for that purpose.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Upgraded that, and the other two Ryzen systems I built this week, to a new cooler. The stock Wraith spire cooler, honestly, sucks. It does not do a great job, it's loud and annoying and the pitch of it's "whine" is unsettling. Plus it allows over 80°C temperatures even with all power saving features enabled such as Cool N Quiet, Ryzen balanced plan with 8% minimum processor power state, Core CPPC enabled, CPPC preferred cores enabled, Advanced/Global C-states enabled and PBO disabled, while running Prime95 small FFT (No AVX/AVX2). With no overclock, ANY stock cooler SHOULD be capable of running the CPU at 100% on all cores without exceeding the recommended temperature.

Anyhow, with this Thermaltake True Spirit direct 140 cooler, these systems dropped 11°C to a much better 73°C (Was at 84°C with the Wraith spire at full load) so boost speeds were somewhat better as well. Looks nicer too IMO. For 42 bucks, this is a really capable cooler and at only 154mm, it will fit a lot of cases that most other coolers won't.

It's probably worth mentioning as well that before I did any testing, I replaced the layer of TIM that came on the bottom of the Wraith coolers with Thermal grizzly Kryonaut after cleaning the pre-applied layer off with alcohol. So paste was removed as a factor in the comparison, and only the heatsink performance itself was compared in the end.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Just curious, why did you go for the 3600x over a non x?

 

[Darkbreeze]

I don't know why anybody WOULDN'T. For thirty bucks you get about 200mhz faster consistent boost operation. At least with adequate cooling.

People spend a LOT more than that on cooling to gain only an 200mhz from their overclock. High end fans, liquid cooling, expensive cases, etc. Or they spend WAY more than that for high speed or very low latency memory, that doesn't even give them as much of a performance bump as an extra 200mhz clock speed boost on the CPU offers.

 

[Rogue Leader]

I don't know why anybody WOULDN'T. For thirty bucks you get about 200mhz faster consistent boost operation. At least with adequate cooling.

People spend a LOT more than that on cooling to gain only an 200mhz from their overclock. High end fans, liquid cooling, expensive cases, etc. Or they spend WAY more than that for high speed or very low latency memory, that doesn't even give them as much of a performance bump as an extra 200mhz clock speed boost on the CPU offers.

Agree,

I always laugh when I see people buy cheaper CPUs with the intention of overclocking them, and then spend a lot on cooling, just to get it somewhere around the CPU they didn't buy because they figured they'd save money by overclocking.

 

[Nemesia]

Agree,

I always laugh when I see people buy cheaper CPUs with the intention of overclocking them, and then spend a lot on cooling, just to get it somewhere around the CPU they didn't buy because they figured they'd save money by overclocking.

Let's see.

CPU + Cooler / Overclocked close to the CPU they didn't buy.

Compared to

CPU they didn't buy + Cooler / Overclocked or not.


Conclusion. Money saved. They were right. Even if it's 30 bux.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Let's see.

CPU + Cooler / Overclocked close to the CPU they didn't buy.

Compared to

CPU they didn't buy + Cooler / Overclocked or not.


Conclusion. Money saved. They were right.

I think you didn't understand what you read. Let me spell it out for you, slowly.

Its spend money (and time jerking around with it) on a cheaper CPU and cooler to maybe get to the same level as just buying the BETTER CPU and using a cheaper cooler (or the stock one) which guarantees you that performance out of the box (and if you want later you can OC it more).

So who is right again? Where is the smart money?

 

[Rogue Leader]

Sorry but no cheap cooler or stock cooler in my world. I would use the same cooler for both CPU. So in that case. It's not cheaper. Stock cooler are crap and cheaper cooler that are a tiny bit better than stock cooler are as pointless. When I recommend a system on tomshardware that's with a good cooler in the first place.

Good for you, you've solved all the problems, BRAVO. In case it wasn't glaringly obvious now that I've spelled it out twice, my point doesn't apply to you. But thanks for sharing your philosophy, I am sure now every builder will heed such advice and never make a mistake again.

I never said it was in something I specced out or recommended. Many people come here well after completing their build.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Let's see.

CPU + Cooler / Overclocked close to the CPU they didn't buy.

Compared to

CPU they didn't buy + Cooler / Overclocked or not.


Conclusion. Money saved. They were right. Even if it's 30 bux.

This makes absolutely no sense to me, but regardless this is probably not the place to go into a lengthy discussion of it. I was simply offering MY opinion in response to a question that was asked of me by another member. I'm not sure what your contribution was a reaction to, but I'm not really understanding how a "CPU they didn't buy" could be part of any comparison anyhow if they didn't buy it. Again, makes no sense to me.

You are absolutely right that you are entitled to have, and share, your opinion. You know what they say about opinions and body parts though. Think we'll just stick to that.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Agree,

I always laugh when I see people buy cheaper CPUs with the intention of overclocking them, and then spend a lot on cooling, just to get it somewhere around the CPU they didn't buy because they figured they'd save money by overclocking.

Makes sense for AMD it seems now since their CPUs are already pretty much at the line in terms of clock speeds.

I do miss the days when that wasn't true though. Buying the Q6600 for $250 and getting a G0 stepping was fantastic. Easily OCed to 3GHz on stock cooler, 3.4GHz was common for most with good cooling, and didn;t have to even spend much on cooling. I think my Zalman I bought was $60 bucks and kept it from ever getting above 55c.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Yes, there are definitely, or used to be anyhow, circumstances that were exactly the opposite. My thoughts were towards specifically just the 3600 vs 3600x though.