Login

CHAOS-COMMAND

This page contains information on my personal machine. For reasons I'll detail later, I don't recommend replicating my build, but if you wanted to know what hardware I'm running, here are the current hardware specifications:

Front view of case in rack:

View of internals; some hardware has been swapped out since this picture was taken:

So your first concern after checking the list may be something like "Wait, this hardware is fine; why not recommend it?" Don't get me wrong, the individual components are perfectly fine and the build has been relatively stable since I figured out Thunderbolt 3 and the nuances of one of my docks; the reason I don't recommend it is because most of the decisions on parts and such are based on my specific desires and requirements and they don't necessarily make sense for most people.

The first of these choices I'd point to are the fans. If you're familiar with the tech space, you may know that Noctua fans are generally solid options, however I went with their Industrial PPC fans; those fans run at a higher RPM than the typical case fans you'll find in a shop, generating a lot more noise than you'd expect. If you were going to reference my build for a desktop you plan to keep in the same room, I'd recommend going for standard Noctua case fans instead; the reason I went with the Industrial PPC fans was because my computer was always going to sit in a rack in a different room from my own and I'm not concerned about the additional noise.

The next choice I wouldn't necessarily recommend would be my motherboard. While it's been a fine platform, the reasons I went with the Creator specifically is because it has Thunderbolt 3 ports in addition to a 10 Gigabit Ethernet port. The reason I wanted Thunderbolt 3 ports was so I could throw my computer in my rack and use it in a different room. I was looking for a solution to this problem and came across Linus's personal rig videos on Linus Tech Tips and realized it fit the bill, however there were a lot of problems with this setup and since this space is intended to be talking about my build generally, here's a quick list of the issues in no particular order:

  • Finding a proper Thunderbolt 3 dock instead of a USB-C dock incorrectly labeled a Thunderbolt 3 dock was a chore
  • The setup requires an Optical Thunderbolt 3 cable to overcome the signaling limitations of copper cables and make it the ~30 meters from the server room to my work space
  • Optical Thunderbolt 3 cables are expensive
  • The first proper Thunderbolt 3 dock I bought supported my monitors but frequently mishandled even basic input/output devices like my mouse and keyboard
  • The second proper Thunderbolt 3 dock I bought (and the one Linus uses in later videos) was significantly more stable with input/output devices but could not support my monitor setup
  • I ended up needing both docks to handle all my peripherals and monitors
  • Now I need 2 rather expensive Optical Thunderbolt 3 cables to support both docks
  • The display dock will occassionally forget it has monitors attached requiring me shut down my computer and unplug the dock for a period of time in order for it to work properly again
  • When I initially deployed the system, NVIDIA's drivers didn't handle the DisplayPort injection for Thunderbolt particularly well causing odd behaviors (this hasn't been an issue for probably a year or more at the time of writing)
  • When my computer misbehaved from any of the stability issues I noted, I had to walk around to an entirely different room to even begin troubleshooting

So yeah, Thunderbolt 3 was the real main driving feature that pushed me to that motherboard, though realistically there were only like 3 viable options. The other nice feature as mentioned before was a 10 Gigabit Ethernet adapter built right into the board; I do have a server that handles the majority of my storage needs, and having a high speed interconnect between the two is highly desireable. Generally the average user doesn't need such high speeds and there is a tradeoff: peripherals, even when built into the motherboard, use PCIe lanes off the CPU, so having 10 Gig Ethernet takes up lanes that could have been allocated to more USB ports or expansion bays that may suit the average person better. So I got an expensive board because of my niche desires, that's why I don't recommend my motherboard even though it's been a nice platform.

The next bit of my configuration I don't necessarily recommend is the amount of RAM that I run. The reasons for this are actually fairly technical, though the first reason is that the amount of RAM you have available doesn't necessarily translate into performance benefits. If you do general computing and play some games, your RAM utilization generally won't be in excess of somewhere around 16 GB because Windows (and other operating systems) are generally set up to try being as efficient with RAM as possible. Having more than 32 GB of RAM generally doesn't offer major performance benefits unless you're doing specific things like managing large data sets, doing animation, editing videos, etc. The important thing about my memory setup is actually the fact that I use 4 modules (hence why it's 4x16GB); the Zen 3 AMD processors oddly get a performance uplift from using all available memory slots. Gamers Nexus actually did an investigation of this behavior and found that you get a performance uplift of ~3% to ~10% depending on the specific type of work you're trying to perform with 4 modules instead of 2. This behavior, as far as I know, is fairly unique to the Zen 3 CPUs from AMD. The reason I have 64 GB is because I started off with a kit with 2 modules that are 16 GB each for 32 GB total, then decided to upgrade later and it was cheaper to get another 2x16GB kit rather than buy 4 matching smaller modules. So if you plan to get an older Zen 3 AMD CPU or you're looking for a performance bump for the one you have, this is an avenue you could take. Other than those oddly specific notes, generally the speed of the memory kit has more of a performance impact than the amount of RAM you have, though, once again, AMD's Zen 3 CPUs are a bit odd in that their architecture really works best at 3200 megatransfers per second and they do not benefit from higher speeds.

So I don't recommend my specific case fans, motherboard, or RAM configuration, so what about the rest? Well I can say that I really like the Sliger case. Ever since university, I've been housing my computer in various flavors of black boxes; Sliger's cases keep this aesthetic in addition to being rackmounted, so highly recommend if you want a rackmount case that's easy to work in. They're simple, spacious, and there are a lot of options if that specific size and form factor doesn't suit your fancy. I also highly recommend the Zen 3 AMD CPUs; they perform extremely well and are at a nice low price point these days, so excellent power for how much you spend and excellent for general computing. My GPU has held up quite nicely, though EVGA no longer makes GPUs so as those sell out, it will become difficult to match that specific aspect of my build. The power supply is good enough; I've been using Corsair power supplies for years now and they seem to hold up quite well in general.

While all of those components are also fairly niche supporting the other design considerations I had for my system, the one thing that I can universally recommend is my storage setup. Generally I recommend having a high speed primary storage device for your operating system, and a secondary storage device for like games or a general work space. In addition to that, SSDs aren't great when hammered with writes, so if you have multiple drives, you can actually configure Windows to only store system files (like the page file) on the secondary drive, so even if Windows is eating paste in the background for some weird reason and writing a lot to the drive as a result, it won't impact the performance you get writing to and reading from your primary storage drive. As a somewhat related aside, the drives I got aren't the "fastest", however they use TLC NAND flash which means they're a lot more durable than a lot of the "fast" consumer drives available which use QLC NAND flash and software magic to achieve those speeds at the cost of durability and reliability. SSD speed is another can of worms I won't open right now, but that is a subject that deserves a lot more scrutiny so you can make informed decisions on what storage you purchase and why.

Anyways, now you're intimately familiar with why I made such specific choies with my personal machine; hopefully some of that proves useful if you decide to look into upgrades you can get or while shopping for technology generally.

Last updated on 12th Aug 2024