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[BusierDonkey]

Is this a good thread to ask for this stuff?
I have 3700x with Dark Rock pro 4 cooler, msi 2070 armor 8g and x570 gigabyte aorus elite motherboard. Only drives are 480gb nvme for system and 1tb nvme for games (both are corsair mp510)
I currently have it all in fractal define c silent case but since that gpu is starbing for air and I never had a window case, I've ordered grey Phanteks p600s case and have few quesitons if maybe anyone knows:
-P600S comes with 3x140mm phanteks fans. Are these good? I have 2x140mm be quiet silent wings 3 from current case which I can reuse.
-msi 2070 and gigabyte motherboard have some rgb but how do I control it all and how do I add some rgb/light inside the case to show it off? do I buy phanteks halos addon for existing fans or buy some other fans?
tl;dr - do I go rgb and how

I'm with longdi regarding RGB. I'm an old fart. It's a current fad but it will die out and date your build in time. It also adds another level of software to your build to control the whole thing. I personally wanted no lights but everything has lights now, even mouse pads. Eventually I settled on everything being blue without any added software or controllers to run it that way. Short of cutting wires, I'm stuck with the lights I have. If you decide to go ahead with RGB, just make sure what you're using works together, your mobo has RGB Fusion 2.0 multi-zone lighting built-in, so as long as you use components compatible with that, you should be able to adjust things from there without adding any extra software.



The Phanteks p600S was on my short list to replace my old Fractal R5, it's a clean looking case and it keeps the PSU down and out of the way in it's own space which keeps it out of the heat equation. I eventually landed on a really ugly full ATX Thermaltake Core X71 because it's 100% future-proof in terms of size and adjustments and will likely last my lifetime.

The 3 Phanteks fans you got with the P600slook like their 1600rpm 140mm fans which are decent fans. They are more capable than the Be Quiet fans, which are more focused on sound control than air movement. I would use the Be Quiet fans on the top of the case as exhaust fans, and use the three Phantek fans as intake fans and GPU exhaust fans. If you are going RGB, you might want to get a 5-pack of fans that supports your mobo's built-in RGB software and keep everything uniform.

Did your mobo come with an optional fan controller to hook up? Having a decent controller will let you control what various banks of fans do in different circumstances. I have my 4 200mm exhaust and intake fans tied to case temps that run off the controller's remote case thermometer. 140mm high speed fans are mounted to the front radiator tied to CPU load, and the GPU area exhaust fan is tied to the GPU load. Finally the GPU contols it's own fans. One is the blower mounted on the GPU, the other is mounted outside the case with the GPU's raidiator. In heavy use conditions (Metro Exodus max settings, full RTX at 4K) I'm rarely over 40C on the CPU, 50-55C on the GPU and mid 30's case temps. Finally I have two 140mm fans in the lower section where I keep the PSU and all the drives set to a constant speed. All my fans are all adjustable through Afterburner or through the Bios. It's not the prettiest PC, but it runs cool as a cucumber in any situation.

You didn't ask this but I thought I'd give my two cents on the subject. Since you're moving everything into a new case, have you considered looking at an AIO CPU cooler setup in place of the current air cooler over setting up RGB? It'll cost about $130 but in my experience is money well spent. A good air cooler works just fine, but an air cooler's placement will always be problematic, situated directly between the two hottest things in the case. No matter how good your case flow, you'll be pulling hot GPU exhaust air through the heatsinks, soaking them. AIO will let you remote mount the CPU's radiator into cold air and will reduce CPU temps considerably as well as open up the main case area for rapid airflow, letting you quickly pull the heat away from the top of the GPU backplate and out the top and rear of the case. When I went from my Noctua air cooler to AIO I shed 10C off the CPU and case temps went down even more in my Fractal R5 case which didn't have very good airflow. With your case there is potential for big improvement in temps as it's designed for unobstructed airflow. My radiators are cool to the touch even during stress testing, That said, my setup isn't exactly XboneX quiet.

Pardon the shitty visual representation,

With air cooler

With AIO cooler (radiator/fans in front are interchageable. If you need more slack in the hoses mount the radiator to the inside.

Whichever route you go with, have fun!

 

[Myths]

I'm with longdi regarding RGB. I'm an old fart. It's a current fad but it will die out and date your build in time. It also adds another level of software to your build to control the whole thing. I personally wanted no lights but everything has lights now, even mouse pads. Eventually I settled on everything being blue without any added software or controllers to run it that way. Short of cutting wires, I'm stuck with the lights I have. If you decide to go ahead with RGB, just make sure what you're using works together, your mobo has RGB Fusion 2.0 multi-zone lighting built-in, so as long as you use components compatible with that, you should be able to adjust things from there without adding any extra software.



The Phanteks p600S was on my short list to replace my old Fractal R5, it's a clean looking case and it keeps the PSU down and out of the way in it's own space which keeps it out of the heat equation. I eventually landed on a really ugly full ATX Thermaltake Core X71 because it's 100% future-proof in terms of size and adjustments and will likely last my lifetime.

The 3 Phanteks fans you got with the P600slook like their 1600rpm 140mm fans which are decent fans. They are more capable than the Be Quiet fans, which are more focused on sound control than air movement. I would use the Be Quiet fans on the top of the case as exhaust fans, and use the three Phantek fans as intake fans and GPU exhaust fans. If you are going RGB, you might want to get a 5-pack of fans that supports your mobo's built-in RGB software and keep everything uniform.

Did your mobo come with an optional fan controller to hook up? Having a decent controller will let you control what various banks of fans do in different circumstances. I have my 4 200mm exhaust and intake fans tied to case temps that run off the controller's remote case thermometer. 140mm high speed fans are mounted to the front radiator tied to CPU load, and the GPU area exhaust fan is tied to the GPU load. Finally the GPU contols it's own fans. One is the blower mounted on the GPU, the other is mounted outside the case with the GPU's raidiator. In heavy use conditions (Metro Exodus max settings, full RTX at 4K) I'm rarely over 40C on the CPU, 50-55C on the GPU and mid 30's case temps. Finally I have two 140mm fans in the lower section where I keep the PSU and all the drives set to a constant speed. All my fans are all adjustable through Afterburner or through the Bios. It's not the prettiest PC, but it runs cool as a cucumber in any situation.

You didn't ask this but I thought I'd give my two cents on the subject. Since you're moving everything into a new case, have you considered looking at an AIO CPU cooler setup in place of the current air cooler over setting up RGB? It'll cost about $130 but in my experience is money well spent. A good air cooler works just fine, but an air cooler's placement will always be problematic, situated directly between the two hottest things in the case. No matter how good your case flow, you'll be pulling hot GPU exhaust air through the heatsinks, soaking them. AIO will let you remote mount the CPU's radiator into cold air and will reduce CPU temps considerably as well as open up the main case area for rapid airflow, letting you quickly pull the heat away from the top of the GPU backplate and out the top and rear of the case. When I went from my Noctua air cooler to AIO I shed 10C off the CPU and case temps went down even more in my Fractal R5 case which didn't have very good airflow. With your case there is potential for big improvement in temps as it's designed for unobstructed airflow. My radiators are cool to the touch even during stress testing, That said, my setup isn't exactly XboneX quiet.

Pardon the shitty visual representation,

With air cooler

With AIO cooler (radiator/fans in front are interchageable. If you need more slack in the hoses mount the radiator to the inside.

Whichever route you go with, have fun!

This is my air flow direction as well, except different sizes: 3x120mm on top for exhaust and 3x120mm front intake. Surprisingly, I managed to get this done in the Corsair 570x by adding some plastic zip ties over the framing structure to nestle the fans in place.

 

[rofif]

I'm with longdi regarding RGB. I'm an old fart. It's a current fad but it will die out and date your build in time. It also adds another level of software to your build to control the whole thing. I personally wanted no lights but everything has lights now, even mouse pads. Eventually I settled on everything being blue without any added software or controllers to run it that way. Short of cutting wires, I'm stuck with the lights I have. If you decide to go ahead with RGB, just make sure what you're using works together, your mobo has RGB Fusion 2.0 multi-zone lighting built-in, so as long as you use components compatible with that, you should be able to adjust things from there without adding any extra software.



The Phanteks p600S was on my short list to replace my old Fractal R5, it's a clean looking case and it keeps the PSU down and out of the way in it's own space which keeps it out of the heat equation. I eventually landed on a really ugly full ATX Thermaltake Core X71 because it's 100% future-proof in terms of size and adjustments and will likely last my lifetime.

The 3 Phanteks fans you got with the P600slook like their 1600rpm 140mm fans which are decent fans. They are more capable than the Be Quiet fans, which are more focused on sound control than air movement. I would use the Be Quiet fans on the top of the case as exhaust fans, and use the three Phantek fans as intake fans and GPU exhaust fans. If you are going RGB, you might want to get a 5-pack of fans that supports your mobo's built-in RGB software and keep everything uniform.

Did your mobo come with an optional fan controller to hook up? Having a decent controller will let you control what various banks of fans do in different circumstances. I have my 4 200mm exhaust and intake fans tied to case temps that run off the controller's remote case thermometer. 140mm high speed fans are mounted to the front radiator tied to CPU load, and the GPU area exhaust fan is tied to the GPU load. Finally the GPU contols it's own fans. One is the blower mounted on the GPU, the other is mounted outside the case with the GPU's raidiator. In heavy use conditions (Metro Exodus max settings, full RTX at 4K) I'm rarely over 40C on the CPU, 50-55C on the GPU and mid 30's case temps. Finally I have two 140mm fans in the lower section where I keep the PSU and all the drives set to a constant speed. All my fans are all adjustable through Afterburner or through the Bios. It's not the prettiest PC, but it runs cool as a cucumber in any situation.

You didn't ask this but I thought I'd give my two cents on the subject. Since you're moving everything into a new case, have you considered looking at an AIO CPU cooler setup in place of the current air cooler over setting up RGB? It'll cost about $130 but in my experience is money well spent. A good air cooler works just fine, but an air cooler's placement will always be problematic, situated directly between the two hottest things in the case. No matter how good your case flow, you'll be pulling hot GPU exhaust air through the heatsinks, soaking them. AIO will let you remote mount the CPU's radiator into cold air and will reduce CPU temps considerably as well as open up the main case area for rapid airflow, letting you quickly pull the heat away from the top of the GPU backplate and out the top and rear of the case. When I went from my Noctua air cooler to AIO I shed 10C off the CPU and case temps went down even more in my Fractal R5 case which didn't have very good airflow. With your case there is potential for big improvement in temps as it's designed for unobstructed airflow. My radiators are cool to the touch even during stress testing, That said, my setup isn't exactly XboneX quiet.

Pardon the shitty visual representation,

With air cooler

With AIO cooler (radiator/fans in front are interchageable. If you need more slack in the hoses mount the radiator to the inside.

Whichever route you go with, have fun!

Hey that's some great insight! Your pc looks dope!
I am a 30yo fart myself and never was the one for RGB. I just thought to maybe get some light in there and set it to red or blue and that's it, just to better see the insides since the pc is standing on my desk.
I always was a bit OCD about useless software on my pc. I use afterburner + rtss but don't care for installing motherboard or icue whatever software.
I don't think my motherboard has any rgb hub or fan hub. Just few rgb/jled headers. Phanteks case should have built-it fan hub and it will be useful since gigabyte x570 elite motherboard I have, lacks fan headers(only 3).
If I want to go softwareless, I could just get a single color magnetic LED strip and just connect it into led rgb header on mobo right? Sounds similarly like what You did with Your setup (or are those fans fully rgb ? )

As for fans, my cpu cooler is only few months old and it's very very good cooler Be Quiet Dark Rock pro 4. It is extremely quiet(If I keep below 1000 rpm) and does wonders with 3700x so I am sticking to it. Aside from that, I have 2x140 and 1x120 be quiet! silent wings 3 fans. The 2x140 are right now my intake fans running at 700rpm locked. CPu fans are also running only 900rpm. I like to keep things quiet.
Moving 3 Phanteks fans as intake and my Silent Wing3 fans as exhaust is a good idea. I could put 2x140 on top and 120mm out back... or do not use 120 at all just to keep it all 140mm. Depending if I decide to keep the top cover on or off. not sure yet.
So it would result in 3x140 intake, 2x140 exhaust. All running max about 800rpm probably and should result in positive pressure. But I do understand that with rpm this low, I should probably do more fans

Also, with Your setup - Wouldn't that AIO radiator setup just blow air warmed by cpu pump, into the case ? I never had AIO, water cooling or those big radiators. It's tempting though

 

[BusierDonkey]

Your pc looks dope!

It looks like complete shit, but thank you for being nice It runs anything I throw at it, which is all I was worried about. It's not quiet but I can feel it pulling the air in a few feet away.

If I want to go softwareless, I could just get a single color magnetic LED strip and just connect it into led rgb header on mobo right? Sounds similarly like what You did with Your setup (or are those fans fully rgb ? )

My fans are all just single color blue LED or unlit and I have no control of anything light-wise. They come on with the power and to shut them off I need to cut power to the lights. If you want to go single-color or even RGB without getting into 3rd party software you always have the option of remote RGB or lighting that you can control through a remote outside your PC. There are a ton of aftermarket PC setups lighting that you can install alongside the PC components that will only need power but not load your OS with sketchy software.

As for fans, my cpu cooler is only few months old and it's very very good cooler Be Quiet Dark Rock pro 4. It is extremely quiet(If I keep below 1000 rpm) and does wonders with 3700x so I am sticking to it. Aside from that, I have 2x140 and 1x120 be quiet! silent wings 3 fans. The 2x140 are right now my intake fans running at 700rpm locked. CPu fans are also running only 900rpm. I like to keep things quiet.
Moving 3 Phanteks fans as intake and my Silent Wing3 fans as exhaust is a good idea. I could put 2x140 on top and 120mm out back... or do not use 120 at all just to keep it all 140mm. Depending if I decide to keep the top cover on or off. not sure yet.
So it would result in 3x140 intake, 2x140 exhaust. All running max about 800rpm probably and should result in positive pressure. But I do understand that with rpm this low, I should probably do more fans

If quiet is your priority I can certainly understand that, and if you're happy with what you're running temp-wise then there's no point in fixing what's not broke. Just putting out ideas There are some higher cf/m fans that can keep quiet, it's not all just RPM, but blade pitch, design and angle comes into play too. A good example is the Fractal Design Venturi HF-14 11-blade variant. It moves almost 120cfm at 26.5 dBA. It's at the same time one of the quietest fans on the market, and moves almost twice as much air as a typical case fan. When I replace my mobo and CPU this year I'll be buying a set of them to replace my 140mm fans and see if I can't get the fan noise down a bit. With something like them you could stick to 5 fans, run them at a higher rpm and still be at a low dBA. Even at the same rpm they may move twice the air your current fans are moving.

Also, with Your setup - Wouldn't that AIO radiator setup just blow air warmed by cpu pump, into the case ? I never had AIO, water cooling or those big radiators. It's tempting though

I had a few people recommend I install the radiator on the top vent, I argued it should be laid out like a car's cooling system only to have them insist I was wrong. I tried both and the front mount ended up running much cooler. There's a couple reasons why.

- The CPU temp at the pump is where the coolant reaches it's hottest point. Say it's 50C. On the way back to the radiator through the hose it's already dropping in temperature, and in the top reservoir of the radiator it'll drop more. as it travels through the tubes going through the fins it's already at room temps before heading back to the CPU. Even in my old Fractal case, my front radiator was always cool to the touch. It always has fresh cool air running through it mounted up front. You're moving enough air with a good layout that the AIO radiator never heats up in the first place.

- That's the other issue with mounting the radiator at the top vent. You pull cool air through the front which will mix with the GPU exhaust and the radiated heat from the GPU backplate, then you pull that through the radiator which will heat soak it.

So mounting a radiator in the front might possibly increase case temps a degree or two, but that won't have a noticeable effect on the components as the liquid in the cooling system in several degrees lower and that's what's actually pulling heat away from the chips. Mounting the radiator high won't decrease case temps and places the radiator directly above the hottest things in the case. I ran into the same issue when I got the Sea Hawk 2080ti. The instructions dictated that I mount the radiator directly above the GPU where the single fan currently is, and I followed that. My GPU temps were into the 80s during stress testing at 1790mhz, so I mounted the works out back and dropped almost 30C off the temps instantly. I'm currently overclocking the card over 2000mhz and temps stay in the 50's. The problem was I was sucking the heat off the GPU backplate right into the radiator causing heat soak.

 

[DGrayson]

Anyone try the new Intel i5-9400F ?

Im thinking of picking one up for my HTPC which is used really for browing/Youtube, playing Plex, and light Steam gaming.

I already have a GTX 1050ti in there which I would keep.

Price of the 9400F seems really good, and there is no integrated graphics but its fine as I have the GPU.

Any drawbacks? I have a dedicated gaming PC so I want something low power, 65W or lower.

 

[rofif]

Well that's a turn of events. The Anthracite gray Phanteks P600s I've ordered will not show up. The color version is out of stock everyhwere here and I was not decided on the black version.
So I started thinking about this and measuring it's dimensions against my fractal define c silent and... maybe it's a fortunate turn of events? The p600s is 11cm longer and like 7cm taller.
Here is a pic of my setup so You can imagine:

The p600s would span the whole desk width. That's maybe not a bad thing but I am undecided.

So I need another recommendation. I have 3700x cooled with Dark Rock pro4 and MSI rtx 2070. I could go for black p600s any time but maybe I could be more creative or even cheaper? O11 dynamic, nzxt and few other cases seem pretty interesting and all have better temps than meshift c tg.
The main reason I wanted to change that define c is because of gpu temps and drab looks in the corner of the desk.

 

[Leonidas]

Anyone try the new Intel i5-9400F ?

Im thinking of picking one up for my HTPC which is used really for browing/Youtube, playing Plex, and light Steam gaming.

I already have a GTX 1050ti in there which I would keep.

Price of the 9400F seems really good, and there is no integrated graphics but its fine as I have the GPU.

Any drawbacks? I have a dedicated gaming PC so I want something low power, 65W or lower.

Never used it myself, but I can't think of any drawbacks for those uses.

 

[PhoenixTank]

Anyone try the new Intel i5-9400F ?

Im thinking of picking one up for my HTPC which is used really for browing/Youtube, playing Plex, and light Steam gaming.

I already have a GTX 1050ti in there which I would keep.

Price of the 9400F seems really good, and there is no integrated graphics but its fine as I have the GPU.

Any drawbacks? I have a dedicated gaming PC so I want something low power, 65W or lower.

No GPU means no quicksync on the 9400F if that is of interest to you, whereas something like a 6c/12t Ryzen 5 3600 in there on a B450 would have more beef for transcoding. You can't readily buy the comparable 6c/6t 3500/X. At your limit of 65W, but can be limited down to 45W as of recent bios updates. On the other hand, about 40 dollars price difference in Intel's favour is still 40 dollars and they seem to trade blows in gaming depending on the game. OCing would be more of a difference, but we aren't doing that in a HTPC

Well that's a turn of events. The Anthracite gray Phanteks P600s I've ordered will not show up. The color version is out of stock everyhwere here and I was not decided on the black version.
So I started thinking about this and measuring it's dimensions against my fractal define c silent and... maybe it's a fortunate turn of events? The p600s is 11cm longer and like 7cm taller.
Here is a pic of my setup so You can imagine:

The p600s would span the whole desk width. That's maybe not a bad thing but I am undecided.

So I need another recommendation. I have 3700x cooled with Dark Rock pro4 and MSI rtx 2070. I could go for black p600s any time but maybe I could be more creative or even cheaper? O11 dynamic, nzxt and few other cases seem pretty interesting and all have better temps than meshift c tg.
The main reason I wanted to change that define c is because of gpu temps and drab looks in the corner of the desk.

O11 dynamic is very nice, but depending on how bad your current case is you're probably not going to improve your GPU thermals a lot unless you get the "Air" version and remove the mesh (easy). (Or watercooling/AIOs on CPU & GPU)
Unfortunately, the "Air" isn't quite as nice to look at as the normal, IMHO.
Gamers Nexus does decent roundups of cases - somewhere to start?

 

[DGrayson]

No GPU means no quicksync on the 9400F if that is of interest to you, whereas something like a 6c/12t Ryzen 5 3600 in there on a B450 would have more beef for transcoding. You can't readily buy the comparable 6c/6t 3500/X. At your limit of 65W, but can be limited down to 45W as of recent bios updates. On the other hand, about 40 dollars price difference in Intel's favour is still 40 dollars and they seem to trade blows in gaming depending on the game. OCing would be more of a difference, but we aren't doing that in a HTPC

I read that in another review. Can you explain qhat quicksync is and why i would need it?

Sorry if i wasnt clear. I have a dedicated windows server whoch is my plex server. The htpc is just a plex client which feeds to a denon receiver and then to a sony 4k tv (so no need for transcoding).

 

[PhoenixTank]

I read that in another review. Can you explain qhat quicksync is and why i would need it?

Sorry if i wasnt clear. I have a dedicated windows server whoch is my plex server. The htpc is just a plex client which feeds to a denon receiver and then to a sony 4k tv.

Essentially, Quicksync uses the iGPU to help accelerate transcoding video formats. Say if you had a H.265/HEVC video that an old mobile device/tablet didn't support, you'd be able to transcode to H.264 quickly compared to using just the CPU cores.
Based on what you're telling me your beefy plex box will be doing the heavy lifting, so you really don't need it.

Grab the 9400F then, if not something cheaper? Cheaper seems to be i3... or a R5 2600/1600AF. I don't think the last two would hold back a 1050Ti, i3's might depending on the game.

I haven't looked at this part of the market properly in ages, so forgive the semi formed ramblings here.

 

[DGrayson]

No worries thanks a lot.

Ive been building pcs (again) since 2013. I have 3 pcs i review rebuild and upgrade when necessary: gaming pc, 24/7 home server, and the htpc. Since 2013 ive only built intel so i am a bit hesitant to try amd, although i would love competition to drive down prices...

 

[PhoenixTank]

No worries thanks a lot.

Ive been building pcs (again) since 2013. I have 3 pcs i review rebuild and upgrade when necessary: gaming pc, 24/7 home server, and the htpc. Since 2013 ive only built intel so i am a bit hesitant to try amd, although i would love competition to drive down prices...

Happy to help. There really hasn't been much to choose from except Intel since even further back than 2013 - I've rocked a i7 980X for the best part of a decade and now I have a R9 3950X. Prices are changing (HEDT at least is so much better than before), and the market as a whole is finally getting some life in it again. Competition!

 

[Kenpachii]

I would replace budget PC with buy a console to be honest.

Imagine having to deal with budget parts in newer games specially if you got no clue what's going on ( onboard vega ) . Endless hell.

Also would change some things in the mid range by removing those dog shit 9400 and 9600k cpu's. U better of buying 2700 series then. Intel only is interesting if you can push out at a minimum 8700k or 9900k series cpu which are to expensive for mid tier, they basically have nothing to compete in this segment.

Would also be handy to add frequency of memory modules in there.

 

[Guileless]

Based on what we know so far about the specs of the new consoles, what is the expected GPU/CPU equivalent in PC terms?

 

[Moses85]

Hey PC Hardware-Cracks

My budget is 1400€ and I do not have a single part of hardware which I can use for a new PC.

What would you configure with this budget?

Thanks

 

[Leonidas]

Hey PC Hardware-Cracks

My budget is 1400€ and I do not have a single part of hardware which I can use for a new PC.

What would you configure with this budget?

Thanks

That depends on many factors, does your budget include monitor and accessories? Do you want a GPU that supports ray-tracing like next-gen consoles claim? What refresh rate do you plan to game at?

 

[Moses85]

That depends on many factors, does your budget include monitor and accessories? Do you want a GPU that supports ray-tracing like next-gen consoles claim? What refresh rate do you plan to game at?

Don’t laugh, I want to play on my OLED
Mainly the PC is for Half Life Alyx. But sure, I want to play also all upcoming multi games on the pc and will use PS5 only for exclusives.

 

[Leonidas]

Don’t laugh, I want to play on my OLED
Mainly the PC is for Half Life Alyx. But sure, I want to play also all upcoming multi games on the pc and will use PS5 only for exclusives.

I'd suggest something like this with that budget.

System Builder

pt.pcpartpicker.com

 

[Moses85]

I'd suggest something like this with that budget.

System Builder

pt.pcpartpicker.com

Thanks mate

 

[DGrayson]

Thanks to Leonidas we have the new thread open. Please direct questions there.

Thanks

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