Compy 2024 Edition (Marauder)

It's been 8 years since I built RIFTER, a computer built specifically to power my Oculus CV1. It continues to hold up well despite its age, but I decided it was time to finally catch up to latest generation PC hardware.

So I present: MAURADER.

• AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor
• Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler
• Gigabyte B650 AORUS ELITE AX ATX AM5 Motherboard
• Asus DUAL OC GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER 12 GB Video Card
• G.Skill Flare X5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory
• Crucial T700 W/Heatsink 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 5.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
• Corsair RM850e (2023) 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
• Lian Li LANCOOL 216 ATX Mid Tower Case
• Windows 11 Pro

(yes, I switched from EVE Online names to Battletech names)

My build philosophy was to get delightful gaming performance at a reasonable price, while providing a path for future upgrade. That was why I went with AMD - while Intel is competitive in this type of build, an upcoming socket change from LGA1700 would leave me stranded. Conversely, AM5 will have at least one more good generation. The one concession I made was the Crucial PCIe 5.0 drive. I don't really need something that fast, but storage really makes the difference on the day-to-day computing experience. Conversely, while the RTX 4070 Super may seem aggressively mid, video cards have literally doubled in price since my last build, and I wasn't willing to spend $1000 on a GPU no matter how fast.

The build has worked perfectly! Clean post the very first time. Everything was compatible and connected together.

Everything fits! Even that tall Phantom Spirit cooler has plenty of clearance to the tempered glass. The CPU cooler has clearance to the RAM - one of the fans had to be offset slightly, but that turns out to be a benefit of clip-on fans (I was skeptical at first). Good thing I didn't do the RGB RAM! The M.2 drive and it's built-in heatsink had clearance to both the motherboard and the GPU. 

If anything, I wish I had a shallower case. There's a good 4 inches of completely unused space to the front fans.

The bane of my builds has always been shoddy cases. The LANCOOL is definitely the best case I've ever owned,. My only complaint was the complete lack of instructions or labelling. Trying to match up some weird unlabelled ports (eg. this is the first time I've had a USB-C port), or track the connections to a completely undocumented ARGB controller. Also, the thumb screws are garbage, but there's spring-loaded post latches too, so it's not a big deal.

So far I have not made any attempt to optimize or overclock. Everything is running at default settings. Running 3dMark benchmarks:

• Time Spy (DX11 test): 19157 (CPU 13395)
• Port Royal (raytracing test): 12879
• Storage benchmark: 2899
  
  
• Furmark 2160: 6467

Thermals are good. Strangely, the CPU barely breaks a sweat at the maximum Prime95 torture test (temps in mid-50's). However, I can instantly spike CPU temperature into the 80's with World Community Grid jobs ("Mapping Cancer Markers"). I'm still trying to understand this, and I'll have to figure out the right tests before I attempt any kind of overclock.

Reference: RIFTER

Intel Core i5-6600K / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070

3DMark (Time Spy): 5348 (3396 CPU)