New Crazy Beast Mega Gaming Computer Build

"valsidalv, reminding you that infiniti is an option" (valsidalv) 01/13/2018 at 23:20 • Filed to: None

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It’s super awesome. I use it for gaming and hacking the government.

Actually this thing was procured for one purpose - for my buddy to come over and play Civilization VI. He used to bring over his laptop but neither the graphics or screen size were very impressive. The game would slow down quite a bit beginning ~turn 200 because of all the units. We then tried using Remote Desktop to log into his home computer using my laptop and, surprisingly, it worked quite well. Graphics were crisp and gameplay was ok except when you had to scroll the map. In that case there was serious lag which made it unplayable.

The last option was to build a dedicated Civ-puter. Specs for the game aren’t crazy and I wanted something with enough oomph to last for a little while. I picked up this refurbished HP 8300 Elite which packs an i5-3570 and 4 GB of RAM. We then added an ASUS GT 1030 low-profile card. Check out dat clearance with the heatsink in the bottom pic. $170 loonies for the computer, and $110 for the video card. Throw in a wireless PCI card and for a gran total of $300 we had ourselves a rig that is more than capable of running Civ at high settings. I think I’ll be on the lookout for another 4 GB RAM stick to toss in once prices fall a bit.

DC3 LS, will be perpetually replacing cars until the end of time > valsidalv, reminding you that infiniti is an option 01/13/2018 at 23:31

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Why have you not purchased/pirated the only video game made by God himself?

valsidalv, reminding you that infiniti is an option > DC3 LS, will be perpetually replacing cars until the end of time 01/13/2018 at 23:40

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Oooh it has been a loooong time since I played a Rainbow Six game... I actually think it was Vegas which is 10 years old at this point o_O

TBH I’m not a big gamer, but when I do game it’s either racing or strategy/sim games.

lone_liberal > valsidalv, reminding you that infiniti is an option 01/13/2018 at 23:41

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We are just now phasing those out at work but they’re the i7 version with 16GB. Mine is the tower version and is the oldest so I’m hoping to get a new one soon, but the IT guy always has to make do.

DC3 LS, will be perpetually replacing cars until the end of time > valsidalv, reminding you that infiniti is an option 01/13/2018 at 23:47

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Rainbow six is like half strategy and half FPS. It’s a lot of fun, although there’s a steep learning curve to it because of that.

valsidalv, reminding you that infiniti is an option > lone_liberal 01/13/2018 at 23:53

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Whoa, what is it that you do that an i7 with 16 GB doesn’t cut it?

Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) > valsidalv, reminding you that infiniti is an option 01/13/2018 at 23:56

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Serious looking GT 1030 right thurr, got dam dat heatsink it has! Looks sick.

itschrome > valsidalv, reminding you that infiniti is an option 01/14/2018 at 00:00

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Bought this off reddit for $200 bucks. GTX 950 came with it.

Mainly just play Pubg and it does that pretty well

itschrome > valsidalv, reminding you that infiniti is an option 01/14/2018 at 00:05

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Probably just planned cycle refresh.

facw > Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) 01/14/2018 at 00:13

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All the passively cooled 1030s are like that. It’s too bad, I was hoping to replace my Radeon 4670 with one, but I need something single slot, while the 1030s are all low-profile (which I don’t need) and double slot.

lone_liberal > valsidalv, reminding you that infiniti is an option 01/14/2018 at 00:26

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For me personally it’s testing virtual machines using hyper-v that stresses things. For other people it’s just a matter of replacing old equipment before it fails. They probably won’t get i7s this go round but they’ll get the RAM since they need to have a lot of things open at the same time to work.

Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) > facw 01/14/2018 at 00:38

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What about this 1030 on Newegg ? They have others from MSI and Zotac .

winterlegacy, here 'till the end > lone_liberal 01/14/2018 at 01:32

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Are you hoping to get a Zen system with lots of tasty cores for your hypervisor to munch on?

facw > Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) 01/14/2018 at 01:58

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Looking for a fanless one. The real problem is that I’m currently using a Vantec VNF100 cooler, which pairs a small heatsink on the front of the card, with a bigger one on the back:

Sadly it doesn’t seem anyone is making a such a cooler these days, and I’m not keen on trying to unbolt it from the old card and try retrofitting onto a newer card it wasn’t designed for.

Mercedes Streeter > valsidalv, reminding you that infiniti is an option 01/14/2018 at 02:57

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In a late night decision last night (as in, 3:50 AM) I decided to build a second computer as it seemed like I got scammed out of that 2011 MacBook Pro.

The system will be built into a micro-sized case (it’s 10x8x8) that looks absolutely adorable. Computing power will come from a Pentium G4400, GPU power from a GTX 750, and this one will feature some incremental custom case design improvements over my existing “DC-10-50TI” build. Keeping with names that reference both an aircraft and the GPU, this new one will be called “CRJ750”.

In all, it’ll be significantly more powerful than the 2008 MacBook I’m retiring and will be a fine testing environment for FSX and X-Plane mods before I move them to the “production” computer.

As the 1tb HDD will be sourced from a dormant PC in my collection and the GTX 750 was a Goodwill find, this project will set me back approximately $200. If it weren’t for the Mini-Itx form factor it would have been even cheaper.

Coincidentally, I got a message from the seller tonight. He initially didn’t get paid because PayPal decided to be stupid (I confirmed this to be true, PayPal took two weeks to process the transaction on my end too) and made it seem like I was scamming him. The MacBook Pro is now on its way. Great, I’m now two PCs too many. I’ll just sell two of my dormant ones and break even on costs.

(My side-business is way too chaotic sometimes).

valsidalv, reminding you that infiniti is an option > Mercedes Streeter 01/14/2018 at 05:11

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A lot of people think mini-ITX builds are dinky but they’re totally awesome! Something about squeezing everything into a little box makes it funny. I once cut out a hole for the CPU heatsink in a motherboard’s purchase box and ran the computer directly within it. Good find with the new project.

valsidalv, reminding you that infiniti is an option > itschrome 01/14/2018 at 05:12

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Hmm, never thought to consider Reddit. Nice find!

Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) > facw 01/14/2018 at 07:40

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Any reason for the fanless choice?

Nibby > valsidalv, reminding you that infiniti is an option 01/14/2018 at 08:09

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Hm, not bad but for $300 you could’ve done much much better. Like a used Xeon workstation+ SSD + gfx card

lone_liberal > winterlegacy, here 'till the end 01/14/2018 at 11:45

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The budget won’t support anything fancy or cutting edge so it will probably be a regular quad core 7th gen i7.

winterlegacy, here 'till the end > lone_liberal 01/14/2018 at 13:56

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Dang, that sucks.

Ever since I saw the ridiculous two-computers-one-rig build on LTT I’ve wanted to make something just as ridiculously crazy as it.

facw > Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) 01/14/2018 at 14:33

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I’m a big fan of quiet. My systems are all pretty silent, so I don’t like adding little, hard-working fans to the mix.

itschrome > valsidalv, reminding you that infiniti is an option 01/14/2018 at 15:15

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Yeah you can find some good deals on there for sure!

Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) > facw 01/14/2018 at 19:28

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Ah. I have a PC that is very silent. The CPU fan is only subtly audible at 750 rpm, and my GPU fans only get noisy above 30-35% of their rpm.

Though I’d love to have a completely fanless CPU...but those are expensive.

facw > Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) 01/14/2018 at 20:18

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I actually run the CPU in my HTPC fanless. Its only a i3-2100 and its got a big cantilever heatpipe cooler on top of it, with two 120mm case fans near by, though the unfortunately the fins point the wrong way to draw air across them, which is how it worked with the previous CPU in there (different MB component placement meant I had to change how things lined up).

valsidalv, reminding you that infiniti is an option > Nibby 01/14/2018 at 22:33

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Not really, keep in mind 300 CAD is very different from 300 USD. Also what’s the point in getting a server processor for gaming? It just adds a bunch of other parameters and overhead I don’t need to mess with.

Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) > facw 01/14/2018 at 23:32

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I tried my PC without its CPU fan on it for a while. I have an i5-6600k cooled by Cooler Master’s Hyper 212 EVO.

The CPU idled at 37-40 Celsius with just the heat sink only (10 degrees hotter than with the fan on and running at 750rpm). In gaming it never got hotter than 60-70 Celsius.

I might do it again just to eliminate all sound during idling. The intake and exhaust 140mms that came with my PC case don’t even have any audible sound at their max 1000 RPM and never bump higher than 600rpm.

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > valsidalv, reminding you that infiniti is an option 01/18/2018 at 23:41

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I’m seriously considering doing something similar myself. My budget for areal gaming rig is dedicated to the actual racecar, and I’ve got the xbox one for newer stuff like F12017, but the old A8-7410 powered laptop isn’t cutting for some less demanding PC-only sim type stuff I like to mess around with. I think a machine like this with a 3rd/4th gen core i5, lots of DDR ram for cheap enough and a gt 1030 would do what I want to do. It would also let me run a dual monitor set up at home, as I’ve gotten spoiled my dual set up at work. It seems like I could justify 300-400 usd to do so.