A minor hardware update over my previous build. Replaced the 1080 Ti with a 2080 Ti and replaced the ugly white LED fan on the CPU cooler with a black one. Mainly posting this so others can see another build with this elusive and beastly GPU.

I recently moved and went to a permanent working from home setup. I'm a software engineer. So, I wanted to not be in front of a PC at a desk all day. Decided to transition into steam big picture mode full time for gaming. Separating the entertainment area from the work office is the idea. So far it's working well. This did mean losing the ultra wide and going with primarily using a controller, but I don't play competitive multiplayer games. Never have been interested in that. I play only single player games, usually those that are best played with a controller anyway. I also put away the headphones and use my home theater setup for audio, which consists of a sonos play bar and sub combo.

One thing that was added was a massive increase in resolution since it is a 4k HDR tv. The 1080 Ti was more than enough at 3440x1440, but it wasn't cutting it for what I wanted at 4k. I managed to get an Asus Strix 2080 Ti OC to replace it and the performance increase has been fantastic. I always use low AA at this resolution and have been able to max out the most demanding games I've thrown at while hitting 60 fps easy. Not only that but this card runs cool and quiet. Much more so than the outgoing 1080 Ti strix model I had in here. Full load in the low 70s and not very audible all things considered. By far my PS4 Pro is much louder under load. Been playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider and a ton of Assassin's Creed Odyssey. These games are beautiful to look at.

Somewhere along the line the second m.2 slot on my motherboard died. In the laziness of not wanting to replace the entire motherboard I used an extra 2.5" Samsung 860 Evo 1TB SSD I had lying around in its place. Whenever I upgrade CPUs and motherboard I'll use that Samsung 960 Evo 1TB SSD again.

Lastly, I was really annoyed for a while about the static white led fan that comes with the cryorig h7 quad lumi. Who thought that was a good idea on an otherwise RGB product? I replaced it with the black fan that's on their H7 Plus. Same fan, just no LEDs and it's all black. Looks far better.

I think the next goal will be to go micro atx to try to get the build more compact while still allowing for massive GPUs like this one. I'm hoping Asus gives micro atx some love with their strix motherboard line soon here. Was waiting for z390 and they completely skipped the strix g series motherboard. Maybe by then Cryorig will have made that H7 Ultra RGB and Fractal Design updates the Meshify C line to feature a flush TG side panel like in the Meshify S2.