Assembling a PC with the power of a console | Articles | Gadgets, gifts and accessories

Many at least once in their lives have had to build their own PC from scratch. And one of the most dif­fi­cult tasks in this process is the com­bi­na­tion of tech­ni­cal pow­er and qui­et oper­a­tion. If, for exam­ple, the com­put­er will be in the liv­ing room, you do not want its noise to dis­tract from com­mu­ni­ca­tion and oth­er activ­i­ties. And silence usu­al­ly means water cool­ing. We will try to com­bine all this with the shape and dimen­sions of the ITX moth­er­board. Plus, we’re try­ing to get the pow­er to match that of a gam­ing con­sole.

Sev­er­al devices will become the cen­tral ele­ments of the device. As a proces­sor, we will take either the Ryzen 5 2600 CPU or the Ryzen 53600X. Asus RTX 2080 as graph­ics card and a box of Phanteks Evolv Shift X. It is this small case that allows us to get not only a con­ve­nient, but also a visu­al­ly impres­sive device with a com­pact size. Com­bin­ing all this with a bright liq­uid for cool­ing, we get a sys­tem unit that just meets the require­ments of gamers.

It is not so easy to choose ele­ments for assem­bly, and the main prob­lem rests pre­cise­ly on the size of the case. Because of this, there is lit­tle space for built-in radi­a­tors. If you try, you will be able to place one 120 mm and one 240 mm. The reser­voir and pis­ton should be sep­a­rate, not com­bined, in order to pro­vide the most con­ve­nient loca­tion.

Accord­ing­ly, the lim­it­ed space for the cool­ing sys­tem dic­tates which one. the PC itself will receive the stuff­ing. For exam­ple, the graph­ics need­ed to be max­i­mized to pro­vide a 4K HDR expe­ri­ence at high fre­quen­cies. That is, we need an RTX 2080 Ti, but the dimen­sions do not allow for appro­pri­ate cool­ing, the same applies to the proces­sor, the Core i9-9900K would be ide­al, but for this design the chip will turn out to be too hot. There­fore, the six-core Ryzen of the sec­ond gen­er­a­tion will become a uni­ver­sal option.

Source: Tom’s Hard­ware

Elements

Proces­sor AMD Ryzen 5 2600X

Since heat is a very sig­nif­i­cant issue for this build, it is on this basis that we choose the proces­sor. It must be borne in mind that there is only enough space for a radi­a­tor with a 360 mm sur­face. There­fore, it is in pow­er that you will have to make con­ces­sions. We choose the sec­ond gen­er­a­tion for its price, since it is cheap­er than the third. But in the mem­o­ry opti­miza­tion para­me­ters, the Ryzen 5 2600X does very well, which makes it an excel­lent gam­ing option. Low max­i­mum tem­per­a­tures, fre­quen­cies and inter-process com­mu­ni­ca­tion also played a role.

Asus ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2080 OC Edi­tion graph­ics card

Why the choice was made in favor of this card — in this build, you have to choose a com­pro­mise option for price and heat­ing. Com­pared to the 2080 Ti, the con­ces­sion is neg­li­gi­ble (from 250V to 215V). At the same time, the RTX 2080 is a good option for 4K gam­ing, even despite the rel­a­tive­ly mod­est amount of mem­o­ry of 8 GB. And keep in mind that when choos­ing this card, in some games you will still have to reset the set­tings from max­i­mum to high (or medi­um, in rare cas­es).

Anoth­er rea­son to choose this par­tic­u­lar card is the pres­ence of a Phanteks waterblock specif­i­cal­ly for this card from Asus. Choos­ing a water block is usu­al­ly a com­plex process and if we can sim­pli­fy it, then we should take this oppor­tu­ni­ty.

Asus ROG Strix X470‑I Gam­ing Moth­er­board

Again, we chose this par­tic­u­lar board for a rea­son, and the rea­son for this was not only its appear­ance. Although, to be hon­est, the design of the board also plays a role, and users who want to get a styl­ish PC will be sat­is­fied. At the same time, the X470‑I fits the form fac­tor. An alter­na­tive could be an option from Intel, name­ly the Z390‑I Gam­ing. But this moth­er­board has a num­ber of prob­lems that can affect the expe­ri­ence. First of all, this is the loca­tion of the input / out­put ports. They are on this board direct­ly above the PCI slot and under the M.2 SSD, all of which com­pli­cates the orga­ni­za­tion of wires. This will become espe­cial­ly notice­able when a video card is direct­ly con­nect­ed. What you end up with is a rather dis­or­ga­nized space inside the PC that is impos­si­ble to fix. And the X470‑I with a dif­fer­ent port lay­out cre­ates an oppor­tu­ni­ty for a more con­ve­nient and, as a result, visu­al­ly aes­thet­ic orga­ni­za­tion of wires and stuff­ing.

And even though both Giga­byte and ASRock intro­duced the next gen­er­a­tion of moth­er­boards, the X470‑I still deliv­ers excel­lent per­for­mance to this day. Plus, audio solu­tion, mem­o­ry sup­port up to 3600 MT/s, 4 SATA ports, etc.

Source: Dig­i­tal Reviews

RAM – 16GB (2x8GB) Cor­sair Dom­i­na­tor Plat­inum RGB @3200 MT/s

These RAM boards can be safe­ly called ide­al. They com­bine per­for­mance with styl­ish looks. The black heatsinks are made from strik­ing alu­minum, and the Capel­lix LED light­ing gives impres­sive reflex­es.

But the ques­tion is why we decid­ed to lim­it our­selves to 16 GB of RAM. If we did­n’t char­ac­ter­ize the PC as strict­ly a gam­ing device, but would con­sid­er it for oth­er tasks, such as work­ing with video or 3D design, that is, for process­es that require seri­ous resources, then it would make sense to use 32 GB. But if you plan to use the device for its intend­ed pur­pose, then it is unlike­ly that it will need more than 16 GB of RAM. Of course, you can always con­sid­er upgrades if you’re still unsure.

The choice of 3200 MT / s is also explained by the fact that the sec­ond gen­er­a­tion Ryzen board does an excel­lent job with such indi­ca­tors, the high­er the fre­quen­cy, the bet­ter the per­for­mance. And this is exact­ly what we need from this device.

PSU: 750W Cor­sair SF750 Mod­u­lar 80+ Plat­inum

E Evolv Shift X has a sig­nif­i­cant lim­i­ta­tion in the sup­port of pow­er sup­plies — up to 160mm in length, so the choice is lim­it­ed. In total there are sev­er­al options avail­able that are suit­able for pow­er: one of them is the Sil­ver­stone 800W Strid­er, the sec­ond is be qui­et! 600W SFX L Pow­er. But each has its draw­backs, which led us to choose the Cor­sair SF750. First of all, this is the size, it is 40 mm short­er than the oth­ers, which means that it will be eas­i­er to con­nect the nec­es­sary cables, and they can also be hid­den. The sec­ond fac­tor is com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with Cor­sair’s pre­mi­um cables, which again pro­vide a visu­al edge. And that’s not all, because the case itself is quite long, and the wires are very short. There­fore, a com­pro­mise will have to be found, and pre­mi­um cables will become them.

SSD Mem­o­ry: 1TB WD Black SN750 PCIe NVME M.2 SSD

SSD mem­o­ry in a gam­ing PC today is manda­to­ry, and its pre­ferred amount is at least a ter­abyte. There­fore, the choice is quite under­stand­able. Since this is a boot dri­ve, that is, basi­cal­ly, it is designed to run games, it is in this regard that SSD mem­o­ry is allo­cat­ed, it has suf­fi­cient resources to sup­port the OS and games. How­ev­er, a sep­a­rate exter­nal hard dri­ve will be pro­vid­ed for larg­er files.

The Black SN750 PCIe is one of the few dri­ves that can com­pete with Sam­sung SSDs. It is this option that gives us read­ing at a speed of 3470 Mb / s and writ­ing at 3000 Mb / s. A sep­a­rate plus is the heat sink, which is aimed at com­bat­ing throt­tling at high per­for­mance. And yes, the look is amaz­ing too. In this regard, the solu­tion is absolute­ly accu­rate, and we have not found alter­na­tives to it.

Source: Phanteks Inno­v­a­tive Com­put­er Hard­ware Design

Hous­ing — Phanteks Evolv Shift X — Satin Black

It would seem that it is far from the most sig­nif­i­cant detail of our design, but its role is key. This is a very unique case with a com­pact form fac­tor and liq­uid cool­ing sup­port for the innards. The cost is also com­fort­able, despite the fact that the case is made of alu­minum and tem­pered glass, and the con­ve­nient arrange­ment of wires and light­ing are thought out inside.

In the­o­ry, the case sup­ports up to four 140mm fans at the back and 280mm at the front. But 240mm at the front and 120mm at the bot­tom will suf­fice to max­i­mize free space.

Cool­ing

Only the last step remains — this is the cool­ing sys­tem. In this case, it is most con­ve­nient to choose Phanteks for GPU and CPU, Alpha­cool for pipes, tank and radi­a­tor, and liq­uid from May­hems. Again, the lim­i­ta­tion is dic­tat­ed by the size of the device, so two thin radi­a­tors (120 mm at the bot­tom and 240 mm at the front), a small pis­ton and a reser­voir will have to be used.

Of course, in order for all the forces not to be wast­ed and visu­al­ly the whole device looks spec­tac­u­lar, it is best to choose a col­ored liq­uid. Over­all, this will give the PC a futur­is­tic look and feel that is some­what sim­i­lar to a con­sole with a spe­cif­ic design.

Which is more powerful Console or PC?

Does such a com­put­er work and does it give the desired result? The main dif­fer­ence between PC and PS 4 Pro is the amount of effort it takes to install. The PC is very easy to han­dle games, and if you use con­trollers, you will not notice the dif­fer­ence. The claim of many play­ers to the PS4 Pro lies in the fact that tech­ni­cal­ly 4K RVC is sup­port­ed on the con­sole, but in prac­tice it is only 30 fps, which leads to lags. In demand­ing games, it is enough to turn the cam­era too sharply to notice where there is not enough pow­er. The com­put­er solves this prob­lem, although not per­fect­ly, and does not even guar­an­tee 4K at 60fps, but dips and lags are not so com­mon, and in gen­er­al, the expe­ri­ence of play­ing on a PC is more pos­i­tive. But the graph­ics and its visu­al effect are quite com­pa­ra­ble to the PS4 Pro, espe­cial­ly if you turn on the HDR mode on Win­dows 10.

Col­lect­ing such builds on your own is not an easy task, and of course, it will be inter­est­ing only for those who are seri­ous­ly pas­sion­ate about such things. In prin­ci­ple, it will be quite dif­fi­cult for a begin­ner from the first time to think over a liq­uid cool­ing sys­tem, and even so that it visu­al­ly pleas­es the eye. But noth­ing is impos­si­ble with mod­ern resources, and we only offer one of the many options designed for a spe­cif­ic pur­pose.

If you pre­fer out-of-the-box options, you can always order a one-piece gam­ing PC or lap­top. Well, you can just give pref­er­ence to the con­sole. While every­one is wait­ing for the PS5 release, PS4 Pro prices are drop­ping, so if you are look­ing for the right moment to get the con­sole, then now is the time. Wait­ing for the fifth mod­el is also a great idea. And of course, don’t for­get that every year new games are released that require new stan­dards of pow­er. So nev­er miss an oppor­tu­ni­ty to upgrade your PC.