Build Advice Where does this system design fall short and what can I do about it ?

[Imacflier]

Background:

Some years ago, when I was working and had money but no time for such frivolity as gaming, I foresaw the rapid approach of retirement and a time of having lots of time and no money. I had always had an intense in gaming, especially such games as the original Baldur’s Gate (which play quite well on Intel’s integrated GPU, BTW).

Planning ahead for the anticipated rigors of AAA gaming, I began to gather what at the time were powerful components to build an MITX gaming system and planning to use at least the monitor immediately.

Concept: Assemble acquired parts into a watercooled system mounted on my keyboard tray.

Parts on hand:

Monitor: Samsung 49” Odyssey OLED Series Curved Gaming Monitor, 240 Hz, native resolution 5220 x 1440. This is the crown jewel of my parts, currently in use (wasted) with the Intel iGPU and a truly spectacular display!

PSU: Corsair SFX-750

MB: Gigabyte Z390I Aorus Pro WiFi Gaming MB, MITX, LGA 1151

System Drive: 4TB NVMe

System Storage: 30TB NAS

CPU: I9-9900KS; This is an Intel I9-9900K binned for an all core speed of 5 GHz. They typically overclock to 5.2 – 5.4 GHz when adequately cooled.

GPU: Gigabyte 3080 Extreme Waterforce. This factory water blocked 3080 has ‘only’ 10 GB of Vram which probably makes it the system ‘bottle neck’.

Cooling Solution: Swiftech Apogee Drive II, a combined PWM Pump and Reservoir, paired with an AlphaCool 200mm x 200mm x 85mm all copper radiator. This radiator has enough cooling capacity to cool my house, let alone a computer system!

RAM: 32GB fast DDR4.

Chassis: My desk mounted slide out keyboard tray (I never found an MITX chassis I liked). After subtracting space for the keyboard I have a space of 18” x 14”. I am height limited to about 4-1/2” by the height of my knees and the height of the desk. I will layout the system like a breadboard. The height limitation means that I must mount the GPU on its side using an Antec riser cable.



And there you have it: the best I could do with the parts available at the time.

Question 1: Do all the parts in this assemblage play ‘nice’ together?

Question 2: Must I upgrade the GPU to make decent use of that glorious monitor? If so, would an RTX 3090 Waterforce (24GB Vram) be sufficient (I can make an attractive trade for my RTX 3080), or what GPU should I upgrade to???

Question 3: What is your opinion of the approach and parts selection (at least I am not trying to use an EliteDesk 800 G5 Mini this time!)???

TIA, and

Looking forward to your responses,

Larry

 

[Misgar]

MB: Gigabyte Z390I Aorus Pro WiFi Gaming MB, MITX, LGA 1151

I think this is the weakest part of your system. LGA 1151 was introduced September 1, 2015, so it's nearly 10 years old.

In my opinion (I don't game) LGA 1151 is too old and slow for modern titles.

I have many LGA1150/1151/1155 systems, but they're all serving lesser function, e.g. media player for TV, general Internet and file downloading, home NAS with TrueNAS Core, hardware testing, etc.

I'd stick with the RTX 3080 and put any spare money intended for a 3090 towards a more modern mobo and CPU, whilst keeping the 32GB DDR4 RAM.

Check out the minimum and recommended hardware for some of your intended games. Ideally, you need something higher than minimum spec.

I've bought a number of second-hand mobo/CPU combos on eBay, which can work out better than the lowest priced, brand new. bottom-of-the-range mobo/cpu.

Best of luck.

 

[helper800]

Background:

Some years ago, when I was working and had money but no time for such frivolity as gaming, I foresaw the rapid approach of retirement and a time of having lots of time and no money. I had always had an intense in gaming, especially such games as the original Baldur’s Gate (which play quite well on Intel’s integrated GPU, BTW).

Planning ahead for the anticipated rigors of AAA gaming, I began to gather what at the time were powerful components to build an MITX gaming system and planning to use at least the monitor immediately.

Concept: Assemble acquired parts into a watercooled system mounted on my keyboard tray.

Parts on hand:

Monitor: Samsung 49” Odyssey OLED Series Curved Gaming Monitor, 240 Hz, native resolution 5220 x 1440. This is the crown jewel of my parts, currently in use (wasted) with the Intel iGPU and a truly spectacular display!

PSU: Corsair SFX-750

MB: Gigabyte Z390I Aorus Pro WiFi Gaming MB, MITX, LGA 1151

System Drive: 4TB NVMe

System Storage: 30TB NAS

CPU: I9-9900KS; This is an Intel I9-9900K binned for an all core speed of 5 GHz. They typically overclock to 5.2 – 5.4 GHz when adequately cooled.

GPU: Gigabyte 3080 Extreme Waterforce. This factory water blocked 3080 has ‘only’ 10 GB of Vram which probably makes it the system ‘bottle neck’.

Cooling Solution: Swiftech Apogee Drive II, a combined PWM Pump and Reservoir, paired with an AlphaCool 200mm x 200mm x 85mm all copper radiator. This radiator has enough cooling capacity to cool my house, let alone a computer system!

RAM: 32GB fast DDR4.

Chassis: My desk mounted slide out keyboard tray (I never found an MITX chassis I liked). After subtracting space for the keyboard I have a space of 18” x 14”. I am height limited to about 4-1/2” by the height of my knees and the height of the desk. I will layout the system like a breadboard. The height limitation means that I must mount the GPU on its side using an Antec riser cable.



And there you have it: the best I could do with the parts available at the time.

Question 1: Do all the parts in this assemblage play ‘nice’ together?

Question 2: Must I upgrade the GPU to make decent use of that glorious monitor? If so, would an RTX 3090 Waterforce (24GB Vram) be sufficient (I can make an attractive trade for my RTX 3080), or what GPU should I upgrade to???

Question 3: What is your opinion of the approach and parts selection (at least I am not trying to use an EliteDesk 800 G5 Mini this time!)???

TIA, and

Looking forward to your responses,

Larry

What are your performance expectations with that monitor? Have you ever played the Pathfinder: KIngmaker, and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous games before? They are a big recommend from me! Personally I would just use the system as you have it now, and only upgrade after you find the system lacking in performance later. If its lacking right away, then upgrade sooner rather than later.

 

[dark_globe]

your motherboard has rather weak VRM for that CPU
as a result your CPU is not running at its maximum potential under load
(can´t imagine it running at 5GHz on all cores under load with that mobo)

your monitor is basically almost as demanding as 4K panel would be .
therefore your graphics card is the main bottleneck/weak link ,
cpu is not such a big deal in this high of a resolution and it is still sufficient .
you need to upgrade to a video card with 16gb of VRAM (at least) -
4070Ti super/rtx 4080 comes to mind as a second hand option .
5070Ti would be sufficient out of new cards .

 

[Imacflier]

I think this is the weakest part of your system. LGA 1151 was introduced September 1, 2015, so it's nearly 10 years old.

In my opinion (I don't game) LGA 1151 is too old and slow for modern titles.

Serious question: you think 5.0-5.4 GHz on 8 cores and 16 threads is too slow? As to "too old", well hell, SO AM I!!!

your motherboard has rather weak VRM for that CPU

as a result your CPU is not running at its maximum potential under load
(can´t imagine it running at 5GHz on all cores under load with that mobo)

Excellent point re the MB VRMs. I was considering sticking copper heatsinks on each one and putting an 80mm fan to blow directly over the heatsinks. Do you think this would be adequate?

your monitor is basically almost as demanding as 4K panel would be .
therefore your graphics card is the main bottleneck/weak link ,
cpu is not such a big deal in this high of a resolution and it is still sufficient .
you need to upgrade to a video card with 16gb of VRAM (at least) -
4070Ti super/rtx 4080 comes to mind as a second hand option .
5070Ti would be sufficient out of new cards .

You have just expressed my biggest fear for this system and I will be looking for a deal on an upgraded card. But what about the PSU? Will 750 Watts still be sufficient? (The ripple effect of single changes to a system design are Hell!)

What are your performance expectations with that monitor? Have you ever played the Pathfinder: KIngmaker, and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous games before? They are a big recommend from me! Personally I would just use the system as you have it now, and only upgrade after you find the system lacking in performance later. If its lacking right away, then upgrade sooner rather than later.

This is my favorite answer by far, and is what I will do, based on responses so far! I will go ahead and beef up the cooling for the MB VRMs, though. I think I mentioned that I have next to no gaming experience, so I will certainly accept your recommendations and try them!

As to my performance expectations, I only know there is no way I can run ultra wide 4K @ 240Hz and Ultra settings but it will be fun to see how close I can approach it!

Thank you all for the well reasoned and helpful recommendations! Please do not hesitate to add to them as the thoughts arise.

Very Warm Regards,

Larry

 

[helper800]

your motherboard has rather weak VRM for that CPU
as a result your CPU is not running at its maximum potential under load
(can´t imagine it running at 5GHz on all cores under load with that mobo)

That motherboard is completely capable of running those frequencies.

cpu is not such a big deal in this high of a resolution and it is still sufficient .

CPUs are still very important at higher resolutions for certain genres of games. For instance Baldur's gate 3 is a very CPU limited game, even at 4k. RTS, simulation, and MMOs are all types of games that rely heavily on CPUs.

Excellent point re the MB VRMs. I was considering sticking copper heatsinks on each one and putting an 80mm fan to blow directly over the heatsinks. Do you think this would be adequate?

You have just expressed my biggest fear for this system and I will be looking for a deal on an upgraded card. But what about the PSU? Will 750 Watts still be sufficient? (The ripple effect of single changes to a system design are Hell!)

This is my favorite answer by far, and is what I will do, based on responses so far! I will go ahead and beef up the cooling for the MB VRMs, though. I think I mentioned that I have next to no gaming experience, so I will certainly accept your recommendations and try them!

As to my performance expectations, I only know there is no way I can run ultra wide 4K @ 240Hz and Ultra settings but it will be fun to see how close I can approach it!

Thank you all for the well reasoned and helpful recommendations! Please do not hesitate to add to them as the thoughts arise.

Very Warm Regards,

Larry

Are you looking into playing mainly older games, newer games (last 5 years), or a mix of both? Your system as you have it set up can play most games at playable frame rates with that monitor if you are willing to sacrifice some high fidelity settings in newer games. I used my 3080 10gb until this year playing everything I wanted at 4k resolution at 50+ FPS. You may want to consider a higher wattage PSU. The 3080 can pull 320-400 watts with stock settings and 9900K can also pull down another 200 watts. A PSU with 850-1000 watts capacity will run cooler, quieter, be more efficient, and have the leg room for upgrades into the future.

 

[Imacflier]

Are you looking into playing mainly older games, newer games (last 5 years), or a mix of both? Your system as you have it set up can play most games at playable frame rates with that monitor if you are willing to sacrifice some high fidelity settings in newer games. I used my 3080 10gb until this year playing everything I wanted at 4k resolution at 50+ FPS. You may want to consider a higher wattage PSU. The 3080 can pull 320-400 watts with stock settings and 9900K can also pull down another 200 watts. A PSU with 850-1000 watts capacity will run cooler, quieter, be more efficient, and have the leg room for upgrades into the future.

As to gaming, as I mentioned, no experience to draw on to form a rational opinion. My interests lie primarily in RPGs and racing games, but I am surely interested in just how much eye-candy that monitor can generate! Can you recommend a PSU, please? I would prefer an SFX for the vertical clearance, but those seem to be awfully dear beyond 750 Watts. Please also recommend a big ATX supply, since I just discovered the Navy Exchange is selling the RTX5070 currently at MSRP with others likely to follow! (Ill put blocks under my desk legs if absolutely necessary!)

Nice post! Thank you!

Larry

 

[helper800]

As to gaming, as I mentioned, no experience to draw on to form a rational opinion. My interests lie primarily in RPGs and racing games, but I am surely interested in just how much eye-candy that monitor can generate! Can you recommend a PSU, please? I would prefer an SFX for the vertical clearance, but those seem to be awfully dear beyond 750 Watts. Please also recommend a big ATX supply, since I just discovered the Navy Exchange is selling the RTX5070 currently at MSRP with others likely to follow! (Ill put blocks under my desk legs if absolutely necessary!)

Nice post! Thank you!

Larry

This Corsair SF1000 is what I would consider for an SFX PSU. This ATX FSP Hydro Ti is what I would consider for ATX. The FSP is only a few dollars more, and titanium rated. The FSP is also only 150mm x 150mm x 86mm in size.

The 5070 is better than the 3080, but, its not the best value for the money. A 5070 ti (750 MSRP) or 9070 XT (600 MSRP) are considerably better because of the 16GB of VRAM and because you are on a larger resolution screen, it may be worth the extra cost in the long run.

I feel remiss recommending expensive parts, however, what you are trying to do can start to necessitate them. If you want any recommendations for games, let me know. The genres you mentioned also contain some of my favorite games of all time, though with a few exceptions, most of them are old and a school computer from 2015 can run them with its integrated graphics. Let me know if you want a more expansive list of game recommendations.

 

[Imacflier]

This Corsair SF1000 is what I would consider for an SFX PSU. This ATX FSP Hydro Ti is what I would consider for ATX. The FSP is only a few dollars more, and titanium rated. The FSP is also only 150mm x 150mm x 86mm in size.

Damn! I don't know how I missed the Corsair SF1000: I am still waiting for the SF750 I ordered from Amazon, so I will make the return-upgrade swap as soon as it arrives.

Thank you so very much!

Larry

 

[helper800]

I agree with Misgar concerning the core system.
For a gaming system, that CPU is ancient and many current games will not support it.
Processors age the most due to the instruction sets they use.
As for speed, performance isn't only related to clock speed. Instructions per cycle plays a part in it too.

What game, "does not support," the 9900KS? The 9900KS may be old but it can run any modern game. The question is the standard of FPS, amount of stutter, and the cranking down of CPU intensive settings the OP is willing to accept, and only for the most modern of games made in the last few years.

 

[williamjeremiah]

What game, "does not support," the 9900KS? The 9900KS may be old but it can run any modern game. The question is the standard of FPS, amount of stutter, and the cranking down of CPU intensive settings the OP is willing to accept.

Yeah, you're right.
I was thinking of generations older than 6th gen.

 

[Imacflier]

Good Evening, Guys,

Just wanted to thank, again, all who are participating. I have learned a great deal from this thread, both directly, and as a result of research done based on comments made. For example, I was startled to learn that Intel has been improving the IPC by about 6% per generation from about gen 10 and on....it makes comparisons of CPUs between generations much harder than I thought it was.

Were I starting from scratch I would be building a vastly different system than what I am actually building...but I cannot afford that, so I am trying to make do with what is available to me.

The two changes I am making, so far, based on this thread, is to add active cooling to the VRMs and to change the PSU from 750 Watts to 1000 Watts. So you can see I really am listening and open to some amount of change. Upgrades to the GPU, although something I would like to do, will likely depend on what becomes available through the Navy Exchange at MSRP. (The RTX 5070 just does not seem a cost effective upgrade to the RTX 3080!)

I think that the system as currently designed will play Baldur's Gate 3 extremely well and the GTA titles to a somewhat lesser level. Those are the titles to which I am currently most attracted.

Thanks again to all,

Larry

 

[helper800]

Good Evening, Guys,

Just wanted to thank, again, all who are participating. I have learned a great deal from this thread, both directly, and as a result of research done based on comments made. For example, I was startled to learn that Intel has been improving the IPC by about 6% per generation from about gen 10 and on....it makes comparisons of CPUs between generations much harder than I thought it was.

Were I starting from scratch I would be building a vastly different system than what I am actually building...but I cannot afford that, so I am trying to make do with what is available to me.

The two changes I am making, so far, based on this thread, is to add active cooling to the VRMs and to change the PSU from 750 Watts to 1000 Watts. So you can see I really am listening and open to some amount of change. Upgrades to the GPU, although something I would like to do, will likely depend on what becomes available through the Navy Exchange at MSRP. (The RTX 5070 just does not seem a cost effective upgrade to the RTX 3080!)

I think that the system as currently designed will play Baldur's Gate 3 extremely well and the GTA titles to a somewhat lesser level. Those are the titles to which I am currently most attracted.

Thanks again to all,

Larry

Let us know how performance is, or if you have any questions about settings in games to increase performance. I am sure you can also find tons of games recommendations here as well. Cheers!

 

[dark_globe]

That motherboard is completely capable of running those frequencies.

it has one major design flaw , one of the power phases dedicated to the cpu is in off position and is not under the main heatsink , it gets hotter than the other 5 ...
gigabyte boards with 6 power phases in general are not too good in terms of VRM temperatures
with high end cpus in my experience .
so there is that ...

CPUs are still very important at higher resolutions for certain genres of games. For instance Baldur's gate 3 is a very CPU limited game, even at 4k. RTS, simulation, and MMOs are all types of games that rely heavily on CPUs.

i´m well aware , but that chip will still be capable of running rtx 5070Ti in vast majority of games in high resolutions since the gpu will still be more of a bottleneck in most cases .
and since the only sensible upgrade for the type of games that you mentioned
would be X3D processor
(if you really want to get the best performance in games like BG3 or CS2 etc.) it would cost
additional 700-900 bucks for the 7800x3d/9800x3d, 32gb of ddr5 (preferably 2x24gb)
and B850 motherboard .
sure you can keep ddr4 memory and get something like i7 13700K which can be found under $300 ,
along with some cheap ddr4 Z790/Z690 motherboard under $150
but do you really want to do that ? i guess not .

 

[dark_globe]

The two changes I am making, so far, based on this thread, is to add active cooling to the VRMs and to change the PSU from 750 Watts to 1000 Watts. So you can see I really am listening and open to some amount of change. Upgrades to the GPU, although something I would like to do, will likely depend on what becomes available through the Navy Exchange at MSRP. (The RTX 5070 just does not seem a cost effective upgrade to the RTX 3080!)

yes you are right 5070 would not be too big of an upgrade over 3080 ,
it would also suffer with its 12gb of VRAM in such high resolution in some games
5070Ti is a better choice overall - try to scout some good deal on it if you can .

 

[helper800]

it has one major design flaw , one of the power phases dedicated to the cpu is in off position and is not under the main heatsink , it gets hotter than the other 5 ...
gigabyte boards with 6 power phases in general are not too good in terms of VRM temperatures
with high end cpus in my experience .
so there is that ...

The separation of that one VRM was not a design flaw according to buildzoid. Since its not located near a bunch of other VRMs it has plenty of board and other unused iGPU VRMs to soak its heat output. If this is really a concern, it can be remedied for less than a couple dollars with a spare small heatsink and a small piece of a thermal pad. That motherboard should have no issue running a stock 9900KS. If you wanted to get into OCing with the motherboard then adding a fan to the main VRM heatsink would be advisable.

i´m well aware , but that chip will still be capable of running rtx 5070Ti in vast majority of games in high resolutions since the gpu will still be more of a bottleneck in most cases .
and since the only sensible upgrade for the type of games that you mentioned
would be X3D processor
(if you really want to get the best performance in games like BG3 or CS2 etc.) it would cost
additional 700-900 bucks for the 7800x3d/9800x3d, 32gb of ddr5 (preferably 2x24gb)
and B850 motherboard .
sure you can keep ddr4 memory and get something like i7 13700K which can be found under $300 ,
along with some cheap ddr4 Z790/Z690 motherboard under $150
but do you really want to do that ? i guess not .

Completely agree. I did not recommend such an expensive platform swap considering OP's situation. By the time the 9900KS is really holding them back even at that high of a resolution a 12 core X3D single CCD CPU would probably be out to swap to.

 

[Flayed]

I'm not sure why people think you need super high FPS in BG3; all the action happens in turn-based mode.

 

[helper800]

I'm not sure why people think you need super high FPS in BG3; all the action happens in turn-based mode.

Personally, I hate when my turn based games are choppy during the fighting animations, though yo are correct in that because it's a turn based game, you could probably play it at 30FPS without major issue. I only brought it up as an extreme example of CPU requirement for 60+ FPS to illustrate my point that CPUs can matter even at higher resolutions.

 

[Imacflier]

Is this a worthwhile upgrade from the RTX3080 Waterforce?

EBay has a listing for an ASUS ROG Strix RTX 4090 OC 24GB, with 9 months remaining factory warranty for $1400. I could swing the price if I eat a lot of rice and beans for a while<sigh>).

I would run it stock until the warranty expires and then, if I find the noise level as obtrusive as I think it will be, add a Bykski water block.

Question 1: is it worth doing?

Question 2: Will the Sf1000 still be adequate for the combination of RTX 4090 + I9-9900KS?

Please advise, and,

TIA,

Larry

 

[helper800]

Is this a worthwhile upgrade from the RTX3080 Waterforce?

EBay has a listing for an ASUS ROG Strix RTX 4090 OC 24GB, with 9 months remaining factory warranty for $1400. I could swing the price if I eat a lot of rice and beans for a while<sigh>).

I would run it stock until the warranty expires and then, if I find the noise level as obtrusive as I think it will be, add a Bykski water block.

Question 1: is it worth doing?

Question 2: Will the Sf1000 still be adequate for the combination of RTX 4090 + I9-9900KS?

Please advise, and,

TIA,

Larry

SF1000 will be adequate for even the 5090. The 4090 for 1400 is actually a great deal considering its faster than the 5080 and they are around 1300-1400 but the 4090 comes with 24gb of VRAM. Which model of 4090 is it? 1400 dollars is a lot of money. The 5080 super is going to come out eventually and I suspect it will be around 1400 dollars and come with 24gb of VRAM. I don't think it will be faster than the 4090 though.

 

[dark_globe]

The separation of that one VRM was not a design flaw according to buildzoid. Since its not located near a bunch of other VRMs it has plenty of board and other unused iGPU VRMs to soak its heat output. If this is really a concern, it can be remedied for less than a couple dollars with a spare small heatsink and a small piece of a thermal pad. That motherboard should have no issue running a stock 9900KS. If you wanted to get into OCing with the motherboard that adding a fan to the maine VRM heatsink would be advisable.

that´s fine , but than of course 99% of regular gamers are not really DIY tech-savvy enthusiasts
eager to do such "tuning" on their components .
luckily the OP is apparently one of the 1% .
and it seems to be working OK for him so we have a win-win situation .

Is this a worthwhile upgrade from the RTX3080 Waterforce?

EBay has a listing for an ASUS ROG Strix RTX 4090 OC 24GB, with 9 months remaining factory warranty for $1400. I could swing the price if I eat a lot of rice and beans for a while<sigh>).

I would run it stock until the warranty expires and then, if I find the noise level as obtrusive as I think it will be, add a Bykski water block.

Question 1: is it worth doing?

Question 2: Will the Sf1000 still be adequate for the combination of RTX 4090 + I9-9900KS?

Please advise, and,

TIA,

Larry

it seems you are really determined to push that 9900KS to its limits 😀
but yeah go for it , it is a good price .

the power supply will handle it if we are talking :

Corsair SF1000 ATX v3.1 PSU Review - Page 3 of 11 - Hardware Busters

Hardware Busters - Corsair SF1000 ATX v3.1 PSU Review - PSUs

hwbusters.com

 

[Imacflier]

SF1000 will be adequate for even the 5090. The 4090 for 1400 is actually a great deal considering its faster than the 5080 and they are around 1300-1400 but the 4090 comes with 24gb of VRAM. Which model of 4090 is it? 1400 dollars is a lot of money. The 5080 super is going to come out eventually and I suspect it will be around 1400 dollars and come with 24gb of VRAM. I don't think it will be faster than the 4090 though.

Its an ASUS ROG Strix OC NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 24GB GDDR6X and there is another one for $100 less without any remaining factory warranty.

Larry

 

[helper800]

Its an ASUS ROG Strix OC NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 24GB GDDR6X and there is another one for $100 less without any remaining factory warranty.

Larry

If you were to get one, a warranty would be nice for such a card.