Building a PC, Part IX: Downsizing
blog.codinghorror.com
blog.codinghorror.com
http://fabiensanglard.net/the_beautiful_machine/index.html
He built a neat looking, entirely passively-cooled machine.
Discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22501462
Got a shockingly powerful machine for the price it cost me, still less than if I'd got an iMac Pro and dual GPUs for Octane Render and 2TB SSD.
What I'm really itching for is a high quality case, there seems to be a ton of premium options for SFF builds but close to zero in ATX or mATX my preferred factor[1]. I'm currently running in a Fractal Define Mini-C which does look ok but still a bit plasticy if I'm going to have a large box in my house I'd honestly by happy paying upwards of $500+ for a premium case if I liked the look of it and it was all quality and looked sophisticated.
Probably sounds crazy saying that to most PC builders but at the sort of size a PC is at it's almost a piece of furniture so I'd like it to look good.
[0]: It was clear the Mac Pro was dead at that point and todays Mac Pro was only a response to the markets response to the iMac Pro. [1]: Only one I can name is the Cerberus https://www.sliger.com/products/cases/cerberus_x/ which looks great but has niche build requirements.
Such as,
Dune Pro: https://www.dunecase.com/ InWin lines: https://www.in-win.com/en/gaming-chassis/z-tower/ Lian Li, Cases that are desks, and other high end designs: http://www.lian-li.com/
If you have money, you will find people looking to sell you high end cases.
I personally use Fractal Design cases, they look good, made of thick steel, and are cheap enough I can replace them more often without feeling bad.
The on button is just two copper wires that need to make contact in order to boot the computer. You can use any old button from a store or make one yourself, or use a wireless one if your computer is really far away. The USB hub's case can be removed, and if you use the motherboard's internal audio chip you can find ready to use AUX extending cables for nothing.
Of course if you don't want to make a custom IO box you can just use a regular USB hub and a remote.
Or the ECC RAM? Or the insane I/O with four thunderbolt 3 ports?
I find that people often don't compare Macs spec for spec. They just pick and choose the specs that they care about which isn't a great comparison. However this also speaks to the freedom of PC building - you can pay for only what you need.
I find people often hold one thing from the iMac that's not really relevant as justifying a whole laundry list of failings.
I'm including my screen in the price of my build, I have ECC ram and two GPUs and I'm still a fraction of the base model price and outperforming it.
> That said, if you spend all day encoding videos, or compiling big projects in source code, the more cores but less overall speed tradeoff might be the correct one. And AMD is a lot closer on IPC now than they were 2 years ago, as well.
These days the IPC gap has been basically closed [1], which is what the write-up says, but really worth calling out. This hasn't happened since the Athlon 64 days. On mobile, AMD's IPC absolutely savages Intel with the 4000-series.
[1] https://hothardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-9-3900x-vs-core-i9...
A lot of builders try to strike a balance between price and performance, but if you are OK with spending a lot of money on one box, you can have a LOT of power.
That's waaay more compute power than I'd be able to use (which is why the last time I built my own machine - not including adding memory/storage to a pre-built one - was in the late 90's). My main personal laptop is an aging Core i3 that was chosen because I needed a laptop and this one was the one that could be delivered in two days) and my server (from where I run VMs for testing) is a low-end Lenovo server that was being sold at an unreasonably low price at the time.
> On mobile, AMD's IPC absolutely savages Intel with the 4000-series.
I haven't found many machines built on those. It's a shame.
The 4900HS just came out, so I assume we'll be seeing more of them! (LTT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYqG31V4qtA)
I'm currently using a fairly large case from Fractal that has a bunch of big, slow-spinning fans as its only moving parts. I'm sitting right next to it and can't hear it at all. (When I'm playing a game, I can hear the GPU fans.) My life would not be improved at all if it took up less space.
No affiliation, just a fan of the channel:
PC Builds - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv8HwYhBwOOoYxKyLMJTX...
Cases - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv8HwYhBwOOpUFPiBs6QG...
The biggest takeaway is that I have a case that is 15 years old or so. It probably came with a P4 in it back in the day. For my use, it is good enough. It's not pretty. But it doesn't need to be. It just holds parts in place, which it does just fine.
With my next build, which I hope to do from scratch (everything's been an upgrade for the longest time) I hope to spend a grand on a mild gaming level machine, and another few hundred for a single giant 4k monitor rather than the 4 monitors I currently have. Then I'll buy a new case.
I switched mine in 2011, because they were too beaten already, and today they are the component that give me second largest number of problems, just after power supply unities.
I've had a few fancy ones with design failures that weren't showstoppers on a new case, but once the plastic parts whore-off they wouldn't hold well (ok, they were still usable). I had a case that developed some conductive points on the main board support, and one that after a bit of dust accumulated there wasn't enough airflow anymore, and one with an embedded fun that broke in months. All of those were mid-range models, from different manufacturers that people were recommending on the internet.
Funny thing is that last time I brought one, I got for the cheapest no-name thing available (it breaks anyway...). It's a plain standard case, with a simple robust assembly, standard ventilation, normal buttons, and a old-way standard main board support. I have seen no issues at all.
(JPG) https://turbo.paulstamatiou.com/uploads/2019/05/copyright-pa...
For work I normally am just in an SSH session or maybe in Visual Studio Code for my Ocaml experiment.
Here is my "advanced cooling system" https://i.redd.it/d3ssbzfl1ri31.jpg
Here's some builds that use it: https://pcpartpicker.com/builds/by_part/wBw7YJ
Airflow is bad in small cases. And it is harder to build it for newbie correctly.
Bigger cases are usually quieter (fans are bigger and spin less).
I would recommend MicroATX format and case. Still fairly small but without any compromises.
I ask as its interesting to me how much less stuff goes into a PC these days. When I built my first box around 2000, it had so many components inside:
Motherboard/CPU/RAM Graphics Card
Sound Card Network Card TV Tuner Card Floppy Drive CD Burner drive DVD Drive (this prob came after initial build 2 3.5" HDs
That second portion of the list is effectively gone now, integrated into the motherboard, and M2 drives are the size of ram sticks and don't take up any significant space. Coolers have gotten bigger, as have high end graphics cards, but PC cases seem to generally be about the same size, when they are holding much less.
What did you regret about a small case?
The problem with SFF is airflow. If everything is crammed together you are going to have to pump it through with high pressure and small fans which means noise, lots of it, if you want to have a high performance rig.
If you don't need performance, just get an all-in-1 or remodel a laptop build into the back of your monitor.
One think I like about homebuilt desktop PCs is not just raw power, but also the large amount of options regarding ports, drives and extension cards. In laptops there is potability to consider, not so much with desktops.
For example, my tower has 3 5.25" front facing bays used. One for DVD, one HDD rack, and a multi-card reader with USB3 ports. Plus front panel jack connectors for headphone and microphones, and extra USB. Inside is a 3.5" mechanical hard drive in addition to the SSD, and an extra USB3 controller (for the Oculus Rift, which is quite finicky). It doesn't fit in a downsized case, and even finding a case with more than 2 front-facing 5.25" drives is hard enough these days.
Do I use them all every day? Obviously not, I'm not sure I even opened the optical drive this year, and it is not a feature I want on my laptop. But if I need to read or burn a CD or DVD, I know I have a computer that is ready to do that.
For me, small form factor PC still have a place in the living room. To watch movies, surf the web, play games, etc... Kind of like a modern game console, but more open. But for my desktop, I like to have everything at hand, even if it costs a bit in terms of clean look and makes cable management tricky.
RIP Caselabs :/
I recently build a Ryzen 3950X PC in Fractal Define 7. The case is huge and mostly empty space. No problem though - the case sits below my 2-meter wide standing desk, so it's not competing with anything.
I've got a Blu-ray burner, some PCI-e sound cards that I swap from time to time, and a large potential for future upgrades / add-ins.
That said, it is spectacular what amount of power you can fit in these small boxes these days - if you need to.
I wanted a top-of-the-line gaming rig that ran quietly and took up a minimal amount of desktop space for my home office/"battlestation" [1]. Maybe I gave up too quickly, and maybe I've gotten too old for this shit, but I couldn't find anything that fit the bill without spending a lot of time on custom watercooling setups. I wonder how loud Atwood's rig is here.
I went with a Corsair One i165 [2] and love it so far - runs whisper-quiet no matter what I'm doing, and is small enough to easily fit on the desk. We'll see in a couple of years if I'm kicking myself over lack of upgradeability, but I'd hope its specs last me a long time.
Side note: it's kinda hard to find nice-but-not-gaudy components these days, I feel. Not a big fan of the RGB craze as I get older (although 16-year-old-me would have loved it).
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/battlestations/comments/f4fk3h/dual...
[2] https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Systems/CO...
Why do you think that Corsair will be difficult to upgrade? Genuinely curious, maybe the size of the case will impose limitations? Looks like there's only two RAM slots (ITX board?) so that might also be an upgrade issue?
Even with mATX SFFs it is still rare to have depth below 30 cm. mATX makes lower bound to about 26 cm, full-length GPUs are up to 32 cm, but there are still powerful GPUs with reasonable length.
It's a bit noisy, but it is the near perfect form factor that just slides under a bookshelf.
If I ever end up replacing that PC it will definitely be one with a smaller depth, even if it takes some work to find one.
I built a computer recently and went in the opposite direction. Since the major differentiator of desktop vs laptop is power, I put as much power into my computer as I possibly could :) I also built a custom loop in it, because it looks cool, keeps the PC quiet at all times and I always wanted to do that.
Here's the PC if anyone is interested: https://pcpartpicker.com/b/Mkcqqs
With that said, I'm sticking with my full tower format. It's bigger and heavier by far, but it's easy to do maintenance on, and the cats can climb and jump on it without doing any damage.
Whereas the Apple way, since the PowerMac G5, has been to mount the fans perpendicular to the motherboard and daughterboards, and push air across them. That seems like it would be much more efficient, better for both cooling and noise.
Is there a reason these PC systems mount the fans that way? Is it not actually as inefficient as it seems? Is this a case of modular parts each needing their own built-in cooling, and not being able to look at the bigger picture?
Similar to what you'd see in a 1U server chassis, however they're substantially louder.
If you want some inspiration for sff PCs then I can recommend the subreddit /r/sffpc [1].
I recently rebuilt my rid (ncase M1) with a Ryzen chip and now want an excuse to use all that power. I think one of the biggest case size constraints are how massive high end GPUs are and whoever cracked 2080Ti type performance in a small single-fan chip will do wonders for the SFF community and portable computing in general
It is not the coolest running or quietest system i ever had but I don't mind.
And why not? Aesthetics are very important for a lot of people. Unless you're doing some sort of watercooling or need multiple GPUs or other expansion cards or need to put it a bunch of HDDs there's no reason you can't go for a smaller form factor. Why should a mid or full-sized ATX case be the standard?
At the other extreme are those folks who work on the iPad exclusively, like the poster/blogger who just runs everything on the cloud using a SSH client.
- If you want a truly SFF PC (no, 20 liters is not small), you're going to have spend extra money and extra time on finding components that will fit. ITX options are very limited, SFX is somewhat pricey, and GPU form factors often don't adhere to the NVIDIA/AMD spec, so clearance-compatible cards are limited.
That said, I love the new form factor - it's got everything I need in a tiny package that I can put anywhere and is easily portable for cleaning or when I need to do some on-site video rendering and laptops just don't cut it.
But the problem with it, as well as /r/sffpc is that their top priority is a gaming PC, and they optimize for putting in a latest, most performing GPU.
I as a developer, don't need a discrete GPU for nothing more that to connect several (2, actually) screens to the pc.
That said, I haven't found a small case that doesn't optimize for "normal-size" GPUs (too big for non-gamers) and doesn't cost a fortune, yet.
[0] I wasn't using a board that was high end (or recent) enough to have a back panel button for this.
Heres Raijintek Thetis [0]. Takes full size ATX motherboards, GPUs, CPU coolers and power supplies. Dimensions 210×360×366 mm (27.7L), smaller than most mATX cases and rivaling some ITX.
I keep looking at it, trying to find an excuse to build a new system, but waiting for next gen Ryzen.
[0] https://www.raijintek.com/en/products_detail.php?ProductID=5...
I live in a small studio apartment together with my gf, and I still am completely happy with a giant ATX case that sits under my desk. And if I would switch it for anything, it would be a bigger case, with more space to organize everything, not a smaller one.
It’s neat to efficiently pack a lot of power into a small package. I don’t think there’s a strong practical argument beyond that.
Luckily, both my HTPC and entertainment centers are both due for upgrades, so at least now I can plan ahead.
(It'll be dense as a lead block, and loud and hot though)
And the difference against 3.9L is about as much as a GPU takes, so you’re just saying an ITX build with no GPU is weaker but smaller by what you just removed. A tautology.
I sure hope this is not the case.
I've designed a water cooled mITX system with PCIe GPU that should've fitted into a 2DIN car radio slot, which is doable with a deep enough slot, a PCIe riser, and even a DC/DC power supply in the box. I never got around to actually building that due to life getting in the way, but the components ended up in a laser-cut acrylic cube crammed as small as can be. I have to say the laser-cut acrylic case works quite well, and is well within reach of anyone with a maker space close-by and basic CAD skills.
TL;DR: anecdote about SFF PC building.
Some people maybe, but most people who build PCs were usually never part of Apple's customer base to begin with.
Are you asking whether people have been buying a lot of PCs over the last month or two? I don't have the stats, but I suspect the answer would be no.
I guess the question is how long home working will remain, but talking to my team earlier, those of us who do work from home are set up with multiple monitors, decent ergonimics, and a decent work location. Those who go to the office are working in random locations and finding things far harder.
When has the Mac occupied the most of any market?
Most programmers don't run a Mac. Never have. The vast majority of programmers are on Windows with Mac as a distant second and Linux third.
It’s the opposite of my lived experience, but that might just be a Silicon Valley bubble.
Everyone here uses macOS or Linux. Windows is rare outside of specific domains that require it.
On the east coast, I'd say that most of the programmers I've worked with in IT departments for Finance, Health and Pharma companies are not using Macs - but in my office, a dedicated software consulting firm where the owner has tried to emulate Google - about 2/3 of us use Macs. Personally, I can use any of them to get my job done but right now I prefer a Linux with XFCE.
Though I bet if this survey was restricted to the bay area the percentage would be even higher.
In Europe most development is done on Windows by a long shot with linux second and Mac a distant third.
I’m holding out until the new i9-10 are out. Unfortunately those are still stuck with max 64 GB RAM.
Also, this software uses Intel MPI libraries. A new i7 runs it 30% faster than a new Ryzen 7 with same clock speed. So Intel is tweaking their compiler for their processors.
Also I wonder if 64GB limit is enforced or simply listed as max tested, there are 32GB non-ECC Unbuffered modules these days. That's 256GB populated on 8 slots.