White Lagann

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stormexdante
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White Lagann

Wanted to post an archive of my PC building saga through the years for my own records and/or for anyone who is interested. If you want to learn more about THIS build, please skip down to CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER I: THE FIRST PC (OBSIDIAN BUILD and COUGAR 1.0) The year was 2010. A young Stormexdante bought a PCGAMER magazine with Battlefield 3 on the cover while at the airport. On the plane he read about all of the PC-only features the game would have, including 64 Players, next-gen graphics, and a server browser. A few months later his friend gave him some hand-me-down parts…

I was very fortunate to have a good friend who had leftover parts from a previous build he gave to me for free. These included the GTX 480, Corsair Obsidian D Case, some ram, and an intel motherboard and processor. I'm still super grateful for this gift because I otherwise would never have been able to afford a PC at this age (high school junior)

I had to provide the hard drive, monitor, mouse and keyboard but successfully built my first janky PC. I didn't really do the front panel connectors right - I actually wired the USB front to the power-on, on the motherboard, so I had to use a flash drive plugging into the USB to actually turn on the computer lmao. Still for a first build as a 15 year old, it was more than enough to run Battlefield 3, Skyrim, Tomb Raider, and many other games at very reasonable settings.

Eventually I rebuilt it in a smaller case (Cougar Solution), when I took it to college, learned how to actually wire everything correctly, and constructed a much cleaner build. The parts within essentially remained the same. This collection of parts carried me for the next three-ish years.

You can see an archive of the parts and pictures (that I could dig up) here: https://pcpartpicker.com/b/LBPnTW

CHAPTER II: THE DARK COUGAR BUILD The year was 2014. Stormexdante was now in college, saving up money working in the IT department in order to buy his own PC Parts and build a brand new one from scratch. The goal of this build was to put together a tidy, practical, and well-researched machine that could compete with (and surpass) the new consoles being launched around that time.

This build was pricey for me at the time, but got the job more than done for what I wanted to play. The i7 4790k and GTX 970 were the go-to mid-range combo to crush titles at that time. I named it DARK COUGAR after the Cougar Solution mid-tower case it's built in. I used this new machine to play AC Unity and Black Flag, Dishonored, Battlefield 1, (EA) Battlefront 1, Arkham Knight, Shadow of Mordor, tons of legacy titles and more. In addition, the PC also excelled in Premiere and Autodesk Maya workloads which I needed for class and work.

This thing has been with me for the last 6 years, running almost everything I throw at it, like Witcher 3, Metal Gear Solid V, Crysis 2, Dishonored 2, Borderlands 3, Battlefront 2, Titanfall 2 and more - though it's started to show its age in the last two-ish years.

Limitations in the CPU and RAM have posed problems in newer titles like AC Origins, and since I recently upgraded to an Ultrawide GSYNC monitor, the 970 has issues pushing out a steady 60 without sacrificing quality in a lot of modern titles. Not to mention, editing footage of higher quality and more complex graphics have made the worfklow a bit slower, and other hobbies that I've wanted to try or work-related tasks feel sluggish.

The DARK COUGAR has been a loyal beast, and I will miss it dearly, but it's parts will still have use elsewhere in some form or another - and for now - it's time to hang the cape up and move to the next steps.

You can see an archive of the parts and pictures (that I could dig up) here: https://pcpartpicker.com/b/GRGcCJ

CHAPTER III: A NEW AGE. DAWN OF THE WHITE LAGANN The year is 2020. Stormexdante is a few years out of college, and has a big boy job with decent pay. He has been stuck inside for months due to COVID. The time in quarantine has allowed him to game more often and he has reignited his passion for editing and digital art. A recent move and relocation has also allowed him to revamp his entire setup, while the advent of loads of new computer parts in the fall made this the perfect time to pull the trigger on a build...

This build began forming in my mind in April, at the beginning of Quarantine, but did not come to full fruition until early fall. The launch of very exciting leaps forward in GPU and CPU tech makes me glad that I waited for the new parts to be announced. I was very lucky to pick up a 3080 FE a few weeks after launch on Nvidia's site (before they stopped selling there), and I was also very lucky to get the Ryzen 7 5800X on newegg on launch morning (6:01 AM purchase).

This is definitely a bit overkill of a build for just gaming but I'm also editing 4K Video, Utilizing big files in Photoshop and am planning to learn Blender - all resource hogs. My content creation suite has expanded over the last few months and doesn't show signs of slowing down, so having all of that power to carry many years into the future is reassuring.

There is quite a big aesthetic tax on this build as well, but I'm okay with that. I work my *** off every day so I can buy things that look good - and I was fortunate enough to keep my job during the pandemic.

Additionally, I worked a whole lot of Overtime and Double OT to save up some extra cash for the new set-up. This year lent itself well to pouring some extra funds into the PC too, as there were no vacations, no music festivals, no concerts, no bars or alcohol spending, no lyft fees, no eating out at restaurants, and no shopping for new clothes. A lot of things I would spend money on just ending up being saved/repurposed due to the pandemic.

I hadn't built a computer, or really paid any attention to PC building at all, in over 6 years, so I've spent hours on reddit, youtube, and discord refreshing, learning and improving. Even looking back at my DARK COIUGAR build, I see that I could have made some serious improvement to cable management and airflow that I am only now just realizing.

I had to build this computer in prototype mode while I waited for my CableMod custom cables to arrive and the 12-PIN Founders Cable to come out. So some of the photos you see are the computer running in protoype mode, and then a few months later (January now), I vertically mounted the GPU, installed the cables, and added additional RAM.

Now, day has finally arrived, the build is complete - and I am so stoked to have a glorious machine sitting in my living room, something that can absolutely pulverize anything I throw at it - no compromises.

I've named this the WHITE LAGANN - after my favorite show Gurren Lagann - which helped me get through some dark times during isolation.

First games up: AC Origins, Horizon Zero Dawn, More Borderlands 3, and Cyberpunk 2077.

-AC Origins ran at 120FPS so I had to limit it to 90 because it felt too fast (never a problem that I thought I would deal with) -Horizon runs 100-110 FPS at max settings, so again, had to lock the FPS at 90 so I didn't get motion sick. -Borderlands runs great at near max settings and around 120FPS -Cyberpunk… well, I'm waiting for some patches before jumping back in. -Editing on this thing has been a dream come true. I fly through adobe premiere with 4K Footage like it's child's play.


QUICK PARTS RECAP

GPU: Nvidia RTX 3080 FE - As of now, the best card on the market for the money imo. Crushes 3440x1440p gaming at 80+ FPS in most titles with near max settings. Editing in Premiere is also a dream with this one.

CPU: Ryzen 5800X - All of the new AMD 5000 chips that just launched offer huge performance increases in productivity. Though I could save some money and go with the 5600X, the additional cores on the single CCX offer better productivity and potential future proofing for games this generation (new consoles also have 8 cores - and my last build ran into an early CPU bottleneck). I could have also spent a little extra for the 5900X but honestly, I just didn't feel like spending the extra money (put into the GPU budget), and I knew those would sell out much quicker on launch. The gaming performance of this is on par or occasionally better than the 5900X too. This felt like the perfect middle ground for my needs.

CASE: NZXT H510 ELITE This case is absolutely gorgeous, what can I say? I just love the NZXT design language. Despite the online rhetoric of poor airflow, since I'm using the AIO and an extra top exhaust fan (now included with the case -though I upgraded to the AER RGB) - I've not had any temperature issues. My GPU stays cool under extreme load ~72-75C, and my CPU stays around the same temps as well.

AIO: KRAKEN Z63. Total Aesthetics overkill purchase but idgaf. I love the look of it, the cooling is solid, and the ability to see temps on the screen is a very handy thing to have. Plus, adding gifs once in a while could be a cool way to customize the look. Overall I like the PC monitoring feature a lot, and worth it just for that.

MOTHERBOARD: GIGABYTE B550 VISION D. The best looking motherboard on the market imo. PCIE Gen 4.0 is great. I love the year USB-C Thunderbolt 4 parts with titan ridge. If I upgraded to an external hard drive editing workflow down the line, the speeds would be excellent. I really wish this was an X570 and had a usb-c front panel so I could use that on my case, but I'll live. I rarely use the front panels on my PC, and have a hub on my desk so it's fine. If they drop an X570 version of this in the future, I may pick it up.

RAM: Best CL16 3600MHZ I could find. I originally went with 4x Trident Z but had trouble using the RGB software. Plus it began to look like RGB overload so I swapped out for Crucial Ballistix CL16 3600 Kit. I had to buy 2x 32 gig kits (16GB kits)

SSD SABRENT ROCKET 4.0: PCIE 4.0 SSD with plenty of storage for games, got on a great deal from amazon. The 4.0 compatibility will be great when Direct Storage becomes more widely used in future games.

SSD: I have a Samsung 840 EVO I brought over from my last build as an editing drive and additional game storage drive. I have a HDD from my last build I am using as additional storage.

CABLES: Cablemod Custom 12 PIN Cable and Custom 24PIN ATX Cable. I used their online configurator tool to order the cables, and then they took FOREVER to show up. They were also quite pricey at 20-30 each, plus 20$ Shipping. They are a small company though, and the custom colors and material look and feel incredible. They have cheaper options available, I just opted for their premium cables because I wanted a specific look. Would recommend them! Also great customer support.

Vertical GPU KIT: Cablemod vertical GPU kit. I used this because it keeps the GPU in the middle of the case, thereby eliminating the airflow choke-hold the built in mount would cause by being close to the glass. In order to use the PCIE 4.0 capabilities of the GPU and the Motherboard, I had to buy a different riser cable than the one included with the kit (Linkup 4.0 RIGHT ANGLE Riser Cable). Working great so far.

MONITOR: AW3420DW: This Alienware is a 120hz 3440x1440p panel with amazing contrast, great IPS Colors, and a Gsync Module Built in. Great for gaming and for editing. I picked this up earlier in 2020 for my Birthday, and only now can unlock its full potential.
Color(s): Blue White
RGB Lighting? No
Theme: none
Cooling: AIO Cooling
Size: ATX
Type: General Build

Contests

This build participated in 2 contests.

Hardware

CPU
$ 202.26
AMD - Ryzen 7 (5800X)
Socket: AM4
Cores: 8
Motherboard
$ 249.00
Gigabyte - Vision D
Chipset: B550
CPU Socket: AM4
Size: ATX
Memory
$ 845.08
Crucial - Ballistix (3600MHz) (White/RGB) (4x)
Type: DDR4
Capacity: 16 GB
Graphics
$ 700.00
NVIDIA - GeForce (Founders)
Chip Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip: RTX 3080
Interface: PCIe x16
Storage
$ 139.99
Sabrent - Rocket (High Performance)
Form Factor: M.2
Interface: M.2 (M)
Capacity: 2 TB
Storage
$ 0.01
Samsung - 840 EVO mSATA
Form Factor: mSATA
Capacity: 1 TB
PSU
$ 179.99
Corsair - RM850x
Wattage: 850
Form Factor: ATX
Efficiency: 80+ Gold
Case
$ 169.99
NZXT - H510 Elite (White)
Type: Mid-Tower
Side Panel: Tempered Glass
Case Fan
$ 46.97
NZXT - AER RGB
Size: 140 mm
Case Fan
$ 38.95
NZXT - AER RGB 2
Size: 120 mm
Cooling
$ 264.30
NZXT - Kraken Z63
Type: AIO
CableMod
$ 69.90
CableMod - C-Series Basic Cable Kit for Corsair RMi / RMx / RM
Mode: Stock
Sleeve: ModFlex
Color: White
CableMod
CableMod - C-Series Basic Cable Kit for Corsair RMi / RMx / RM
Mode: Stock
Sleeve: ModFlex
Color: White
Monitor
$ 860.00
Alienware - Curved Gaming (AW3420DW)
Size: 34 Inch
Panel: IPS
Refresh Rate: 120 Hz
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