Hybrid 5950x Build (Gaming + Homeassistant)

[ender11122]

I wanted to do a combined gaming VM + homeassistant + home nas + development server for awhile. I had a few attempts using an 8700K based build, but there wasn't enough cores to get good performance all around, and the PCIe situation on my motherboard was sad. So, with nothing else to do during COVID, I put together this guy. Sorry in advance for only 1 pic. This thing weighs a ton and I can't be bothered to pull it out of its corner and take some shots of the other side. Suffice to say the cables are "managed", ie stuffed behind the cable shield built into the O11.

 

 

OS: unRAID 6.9.0 RC 2

CPU: 5950x stock (no PBO)

Motherboard: ASRock X570 Taichi

RAM: 32 GB GSkill Trident NEO DDR4-3600 CL 16 (@3533 for 1:1)

Case: Lian Li O11-D XL

Power Supply: MAINGEAR 1200W Ignition 80+ Platinum

Cooling: Custom Loop

 

Storage: 4xToshiba X300 5TB (1 Parity Disk)

Cache: Samsung 830 Evo SATA 128GB

 

Passthrough Devices for Gaming VM:

Boot Disk: Samsung 960 Pro NVMe 512GB

Game Drives: 2 x TEAM T-FORCE Delta 1GB SATA

GPU: GTX 1080TI

USB: ASMedia USB 3.1 PCIe controller

 

Primary Use: Daily Windows Gaming PC + Homeassistant + NAS

Likes: Looks good. Easy to work in. Mounting for the SSDs and HDDs is great. Cable management channel is large and easy to use. The Taichi has x8 sata ports built in so no PCIe controller necessary.

Dislikes: Case is HUGE. Zero HDD rack cooling. The only way to turn of the case's LED strip is to unplug it.

Future Plans: Add another Gaming/Work VM for my wife.

 

Power Consumption

Idle (avg): 200-300W

Gaming (avg): 400-600 W

 

Some build notes:

I actually ended up having to add two small 80mm USB powered fans to the HDD vents on this case. There is literally ZERO airflow to the built in racks, and my HDD temps were climbing all the way past 65C or higher doing parity check. It ended up being easy enough to use a couple cheap amazon fans and some of those Velcro command strips to mount one to each of the vents, and now the temps are down in the 40s.

 

I had originally intended to add an additional 120mm rad in the rear exhaust slot, but I didn't read the manual enough to see that this fan location cannot support a radiator. It is so close to the side panel that the rad frame blocks the installation of the panel. No matter, I just omitted the 120mm from the loop and temps still seem fine.

 

I did end up installing the rad in the bottom location exhausting into the case. This heats the case up a bit, but keeps the GPU and CPU nice and cool. I have 3 noctuas in the top exhaust on a pretty aggressive curve to keep the interior ambient down as much as possible. Its tuned to hover around 50-60C and everything stays around that even when gaming. You can hear it when gaming, but idle is silent.

 

Shoutout to openRGB guys. I had written off using RGB in anything but rainbow barf mode with this build, but openRGB works and can even sync my MB with the ram!

 

 

[cyberspectre]

Awesome rig, man! Now that you're on UnRaid, I can promise you'll never go back to not using it. It makes so much sense to put your machine's extra muscle to work for you instead of letting it go unused in Windows. Your build actually looks similar to my last one, though with much better hardware. That 5950X is making me feel kinda jelly, I passed on that and did a 3900X in my new rig. Mine's got soft black tubing, too, not to mention purple lighting. We have similar tastes.

 

Which flow meter is that?

Edited February 25, 2021 by cyberspectre

[ender11122]

The flow meter is a Thermaltake Pacific TF2 G1/4. Its pretty nice if you just want the visuals. You have to buy into TTs whole ecosystem with a controller and whatnot if you want to be able to report temp/flow in software, which is lame.