Originally built in late 2016, this machine was a general-purpose box I built that could do a little bit of everything. At the time, I was coming off a really old machine — a Q6600 based machine straight out of 2008 (!!). I’ve since moved onto a newer machine and this box has been handed down to my wife. Her needs are a bit less severe:

1. Photo processing

2. General purpose computing

Since she games with me, the machine will also need to reasonably keep up for gaming as well.

Last Updated 2021-02-12

Build Considerations and Points of Note

Computer

• [CPU] In 2016, this CPU was the hot processor of choice - with Skylake, Intel had finally made a serious successor to the Haswell (ironically, half a decade later, Intel is still on 14nm…). In 2021, as more and more applications and games are finally leveraging better threading. the low-core count is starting to become a limitation.

• [MOTHERBOARD] I had always been a fan of ASUS, this was one of the cheaper motherboards that had the Z170 chipset needed for Skylake and support for NVME drives

• [COOLING] I tend to start my cooler search with 280mm AIOs; the Corsair unit at the time was one of the higher-performing and widely available models. Even with this cooler, during the years of running with excessively high core voltage, the temps were mostly reasonable all things considered.

Unfortunately, I had a lot of grief for years with this specific motherboard and CPU combination. For the longest time, the system would fail to POST with anything shy of 1.39v (vCore) and regular day to day use saw 1.42v+ (vCore) — even loading BIOS defaults/optimized settings would refuse to POST. I blamed the silicon lottery and this really hampered the overclockability of the chip: the idle temps were 65C and sustained CPU load would run against 100C. In 2020, I finally took a deeper dive through the BIOS and managed to get the vCore down to a normal 1.18v.

• [RAM] This isn’t great memory by any means (I bought it during the period of high RAM prices). Generally speaking, quantity trumps quality in our workflows (or anyone running Chrome). Going with two-sticks of memory makes the best of the latencies and gives me the option to upgrade to 64GB if needed.

• [STORAGE] This particular motherboard only has a single M.2 drive so the inclusion of a 2.5” SATA drive was needed. We make use of central storage on a NAS unit so there isn’t a huge demand for local capacity beyond a Steam drive.

• [NIC] We keep our camera photo and videos on the NAS and copying files across the network gets very tedious at 1Gbit speeds. This NIC was one of the cheaper options providing a RJ45 port at 10Gbit so it was an easy choice. Having 10Gbit access to the NAS also means that VMs (stored on the NAS) are much more usable as well.

• [GPU] This machine has seen several GPU iterations; the most recent is the 2070 Super which we got on sale at the end of 2019. For the games we play, it’s got enough oomph to game at 4K so long as we don’t go too crazy on the settings. Oftentimes we are playing some older titles and in those cases, maxing out the settings can be viable.

• [CASE] This was my first Fractal Design case and my first ‘smaller than monolithic full tower’ case — my previous case was the Silverstone TJ07 (!!). This case was such a well-designed pleasure to work without, barely realize it’s a midtower. I’ve outgrown the flashy case phase, so I opted for the all-black variant.

• [PSU] I was looking for 80Plus Platinum, fully modular and mostly considering eVGA and Corsair units. I happened to have this power supply beforehand so it was an easy option.

Peripherals

• [DISPLAY] My wife wanted more than one display, and to avoid neck strain, she wanted the primary display to be directly in front of her. Being me, symmetry is a non-negotiable way of life so this meant a triple-display setup. Similar to my build, we went with the best monitor in the middle and lesser monitors to the side. She’s using some older 1080P displays I had lying around for side monitors and for her primary screen, it’s the same LG 4K display as I had in my setup at the time.

The monitor selection for us is intentional: it keeps the upfront expense low (only have to buy a single display) but since she and I both use the same center display. when I upgrade my center display, I can order a second one (although possibly less intense on the gaming specs) to use has her new center display. She can then take her previous-center and my previous-center displays and use them as her new side displays.

• [KEYBOARD] She doesn’t have any particular requirements beyond having a volume and mute controls. Since I do maintenance on the machines in the house, all the computers must have the same keyboard.

• [MOUSE] She doesn’t have any particular requirements beyond ‘easy to hold’. I have a stockpile of previous gen G500s mice that she uses on her machines which helps to keep a consistent feel.

• [MOUSEPAD] I went with a cheap supersized roll-up mousepad just to eliminate any movement of the keyboard on the desk.

• [SPEAKERS] She is setup on a much simpler Logitech Z2300 speaker system. This gives great audio considering the price point. Being a 2.1 setup, this was much less fuss to get setup.

• [HEADSET] This is the same headset I used at work and when we transitioned to partial WFH, I brought this home for her to use. Being the same setup as mine, it’s one less driver to keep track of.

• [WEBCAM] I’ve had this for years. When I bought it forever ago, this was the webcam to get. Unfortunately there hasn’t been very much meaningful innovation in this space