Best custom build vendor?

mp3guy

I'm looking to build a fairly high spec machine but am not really too pushed on putting the build together myself. I'm also interested in watercooling to keep things quiet, so was mainly wondering what are the best online vendors that will put together such a build? I've tagged pcspecialist.ie, overclockers.co.uk and scan.co.uk but wanted to make sure there are no others I'm missing out on?

Also if anyone wants to convince me that building my own watercooled rig isn't actually that difficult I'm all ears

Samuel T. Cogley

If you're not up to building a watercooled rig I caution against buying one. They need to be maintained and leaks can happen. You don't really want to be sending back an entire machine to the UK.

I also don't see the point in them unless you're going to be overclocking and again you want to know what you're doing. If it's silence you're looking for then you definitely want to build it yourself as you want to painstakingly select components.

mp3guy

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

If you're not up to building a watercooled rig I caution against buying one. They need to be maintained and leaks can happen. You don't really want to be sending back an entire machine to the UK.

I also don't see the point in them unless you're going to be overclocking and again you want to know what you're doing. If it's silence you're looking for then you definitely want to build it yourself as you want to painstakingly select components.

This is good information. I'm not adverse to maintenance. Complete silence is not the goal either, a certain amount I can tolerate. But it sounds like watercooling might not be necessary (not planning on overclocking).

Samuel T. Cogley

Personally I'd avoid watercooling. AIOs for CPUs (All in one's) give you great cooling while being largely maintenance free. I also don't recommend watercooled or AIO GPUs. My experience is you frequently upgrade the GPU so you want a separate, easily accessible unit and the AIOs I've come across on GPUs haven't been great.

On a prebuilt an AIO for the CPU is a boon as you don't have a huge heatsink bouncing around in transit.

Having gone the whole hog on watercooling before I'm back to an AIO for the CPU and an aircooled GPU, the GPU can get a little noticeable under load but it's usually drowned out even by quite quiet strategy games. I found with an AIO GPU I could always here it where as the PC is silent for light use now.

To answer your question though I hear (from this forum) scan are decent I've personally used overclockers for components (and Scan for that matter), they've been grand but a whole system really is a different ball game.

mp3guy

Hmm ok I think I've been convinced. I've put together an ideal spec here; https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/cBDGFt, anything I'm missing? As far as I can tell this is everything I'll need including cables, fans, screws, paste etc... and everything should be compatible.

K.O.Kiki

Why are you going for i9-7940X?
They were released in Q3'17.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Threadripper 2950X 3.5 GHz 16-Core Processor (£827.23 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Noctua - NH-U14S TR4-SP3 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler (£71.88 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - X399 AORUS PRO ATX TR4 Motherboard (£267.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£358.79 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung - 970 Evo 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£118.00 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Samsung - 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£149.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB Black Video Card (£1009.57 @ Amazon UK)
Case: be quiet! - Silent Base 800 w/Window (Silver) ATX Mid Tower Case (£119.69 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Power Supply: Corsair - HX Platinum 750 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£114.98 @ CCL Computers)
Optical Drive: LG - WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer (£54.41 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Pro Full 32/64-bit (£189.97 @ Scan.co.uk)
Monitor: Dell - AW3418DW 34.1" 3440x1440 120 Hz Monitor (£1051.49 @ Scan.co.uk)
Keyboard: Corsair - K65 RGB RAPIDFIRE Wired Gaming Keyboard (£129.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £4463.57
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-02-17 17:53 GMT+0000

Swap CPU to AMD Threadripper (newer, faster, higher memory support).
Swap cooler to Noctua NH-U14S (AIO performance without the worry).
Swap Gigabyte GPU for EVGA (better after-sales support, cheaper).
Get a matched 64GB RAM kit instead of 2x 16Gb kits.
Swap ancient Corsair 750D for newer be Quiet! Silent Base 800.
Swap 600W PSU for 750W or higher.
Don't bother with PCI sound card.

K.O.Kiki

Also, I'm curious - what will you be doing with such a 5k+ machine?

killanena

Why do you need / want a system like that if you don't mind me asking?

Obviously looks good but you could get higher frequency RAM (3000mhz+).

You could save money with the windows key as well, just download it off Microsoft and buy a cheap digital key. I recently got one on amazon for 6 pounds..

Good luck with the build

mp3guy

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Why are you going for i9-7940X?
They were released in Q3'17.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Threadripper 2950X 3.5 GHz 16-Core Processor (£827.23 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Noctua - NH-U14S TR4-SP3 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler (£71.88 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - X399 AORUS PRO ATX TR4 Motherboard (£267.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£358.79 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung - 970 Evo 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£118.00 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Samsung - 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£149.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB Black Video Card (£1009.57 @ Amazon UK)
Case: be quiet! - Silent Base 800 w/Window (Silver) ATX Mid Tower Case (£119.69 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Power Supply: Corsair - HX Platinum 750 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£114.98 @ CCL Computers)
Optical Drive: LG - WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer (£54.41 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Pro Full 32/64-bit (£189.97 @ Scan.co.uk)
Monitor: Dell - AW3418DW 34.1" 3440x1440 120 Hz Monitor (£1051.49 @ Scan.co.uk)
Keyboard: Corsair - K65 RGB RAPIDFIRE Wired Gaming Keyboard (£129.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £4463.57
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-02-17 17:53 GMT+0000

Swap CPU to AMD Threadripper (newer, faster, higher memory support).
Swap cooler to Noctua NH-U14S (AIO performance without the worry).
Swap Gigabyte GPU for EVGA (better after-sales support, cheaper).
Get a matched 64GB RAM kit instead of 2x 16Gb kits.
Swap ancient Corsair 750D for newer be Quiet! Silent Base 800.
Swap 600W PSU for 750W or higher.
Don't bother with PCI sound card.

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Also, I'm curious - what will you be doing with such a 5k+ machine?

killanena wrote: »

Why do you need / want a system like that if you don't mind me asking?

Obviously looks good but you could get higher frequency RAM (3000mhz+).

You could save money with the windows key as well, just download it off Microsoft and buy a cheap digital key. I recently got one on amazon for 6 pounds..

Good luck with the build

Thanks for your tweaks, this saves me a few bob. However I need the CPU to stay the same. I specifically want something with many cores and the AVX-512 instruction set (I write a fair amount of prototype high performance software). I considered the i9-9940X but it has the same feature set and only a 10% perf boost for a 40% price increase.

Good tip on the Windows key, hadn't thought of that.

On the RAM frequency I'm actually a bit naive, the CPU says it'll take DDR4 2666MHz, but correct me if I'm wrong I won't benefit from higher frequency RAM unless I overclock the CPU right?

K.O.Kiki

I see, stick to Intel so.

Not 100% sure on motherboard choice for X299 - afaik the EVGA models are the best (EVGA X299 FTW K is €350 on Caseking.de), otherwise ASRock X299 Taichi series is also highly recommended.
Definitely you'd want to double-check as some mobos disable certain features with the low-end CPUs due to not having enough PCI lanes.

Stick to Noctua NH-U14S for cooling - just make sure you get the Intel LGA2066-compatible model.

BTW have you considered the Radeon VII for GPU? Has 16Gb VRAM which might help with compute stuff - definitely check benchmarks for that.

mp3guy

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

I see, stick to Intel so.

Not 100% sure on motherboard choice for X299 - afaik the EVGA models are the best (EVGA X299 FTW K is €350 on Caseking.de), otherwise ASRock X299 Taichi series is also highly recommended.
Definitely you'd want to double-check as some mobos disable certain features with the low-end CPUs due to not having enough PCI lanes.

Stick to Noctua NH-U14S for cooling - just make sure you get the Intel LGA2066-compatible model.

BTW have you considered the Radeon VII for GPU? Has 16Gb VRAM which might help with compute stuff - definitely check benchmarks for that.

I might swap out the motherboard then, I can envisage adding more PCIe peripherals in the future, don't want to be caught out.

I'm a CUDA man through and through so it'll be NVIDIA for me. Also looking forward to trying out Optix support for programming the RTX cores.

K.O.Kiki

From cursory glancing at the manuals, I'd go with the EVGA as its documentation was more readable. Just my 2c

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i9-7940X 3.1 GHz 14-Core Processor (£989.99 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Noctua - NH-U14S 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler (£56.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: EVGA - X299 FTW K EATX LGA2066 Motherboard (£340.47 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£358.79 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung - 970 Evo Plus 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£112.20 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung - 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£149.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB Black Video Card (£1009.57 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Phanteks - Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case (£89.10 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: Corsair - HX Platinum 750 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£114.98 @ CCL Computers)
Optical Drive: LG - WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer (£54.41 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Pro Full 32/64-bit (£189.97 @ Scan.co.uk)
Monitor: Dell - AW3418DW 34.1" 3440x1440 120 Hz Monitor (£1051.49 @ Scan.co.uk)
Keyboard: Corsair - K65 RGB RAPIDFIRE Wired Gaming Keyboard (£129.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £4647.53
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-02-18 17:32 GMT+0000

Also swapped 970 Evo for newer, faster 970 Evo Plus.
And case to Phanteks Enthoo Pro, since be Quiet! Silent Base 800 can't fit E-ATX & 801 doesn't have a 5.25" drive bay.

killanena

Why not get 2 2080ti's?

mp3guy

killanena wrote: »

Why not get 2 2080ti's?

One is enough for my own programming, and gaming wise I don't fancy paying twice the price for less than twice the performance.

mp3guy

Ok so after some thinking (and realising my employer will get me a CPU with AVX-512 if I ask nicely) I've done a bit of a respec;

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/WrYpvn

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor (£486.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Noctua - NH-U14S 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler (£56.99 @ CCL Computers)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver - 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5 g Thermal Paste (£6.29 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI - MPG Z390 GAMING EDGE AC ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£149.98 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£204.65 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung - 970 Evo Plus 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£112.47 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Samsung - 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£138.78 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB Black Video Card (£1060.00 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Phanteks - Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case (£87.94 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: Corsair - HX Platinum 750 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£114.98 @ CCL Computers)
Optical Drive: LG - WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer (£54.41 @ CCL Computers)
Monitor: Dell - AW3418DW 34.1" 3440x1440 120 Hz Monitor (£1051.49 @ Scan.co.uk)
Keyboard: Corsair - K65 RGB RAPIDFIRE Wired Gaming Keyboard (£109.98 @ Aria PC)
Total: £3634.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-02-20 21:38 GMT+0000

- Swap for a cheaper i9. It seems to be at a nice point on the cost/performance curve. The X-series performance gain on CPU doesn't seem worth the price. Specifically do still want Intel.

- Downgrade motherboard in tandem (not overclocking so nothing too fancy needed).

- Drop to 32GB of RAM.

This lops a grand off the price and still gets me the "luxury" items I want (an i9, 2080 Ti and the monitor).

Anything a crazy mismatch compatibility wise?

buzzerxx

no usb type c on that case. Also doesn't pcpartpicker automatically warn of incompatibilities?

mp3guy

buzzerxx wrote: »

no usb type c on that case. Also doesn't pcpartpicker automatically warn of incompatibilities?

It does for a lot of things, but not others like what you've just pointed out!

K.O.Kiki

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor (£489.99 @ CCL Computers)
CPU Cooler: Noctua - NH-U14S 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler (£56.99 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - Z390 AORUS ELITE ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£163.99 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Crucial - Ballistix Sport AT 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£197.74 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung - 970 Evo Plus 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£113.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung - 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£149.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB Black Video Card (£1060.00 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Phanteks - Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case (£89.10 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: Corsair - HX Platinum 750 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£114.98 @ CCL Computers)
Optical Drive: LG - WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer (£54.41 @ CCL Computers)
Monitor: Dell - AW3418DW 34.1" 3440x1440 120 Hz Monitor (£1051.49 @ Scan.co.uk)
Keyboard: Corsair - K65 RGB RAPIDFIRE Wired Gaming Keyboard (£129.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £3672.25
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-02-20 23:17 GMT+0000

• Noctua cooler comes with its own high-end NT-H1 paste
• Z390 motherboards -> go Gigabyte (as in video above)
• Might as well get DDR4-3200 since it's same price as 2666
• @buzzerxx : USB-C on case is a gimmick IMHO. The only cases that would fit that bill & have 5.25" bays are Nanoxia CoolForce 1, Cooler Master MasterCase MC500M & Define R6 USB-C.

mp3guy

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor (£489.99 @ CCL Computers)
CPU Cooler: Noctua - NH-U14S 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler (£56.99 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - Z390 AORUS ELITE ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£163.99 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: Crucial - Ballistix Sport AT 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£197.74 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung - 970 Evo Plus 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£113.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung - 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£149.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB Black Video Card (£1060.00 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Phanteks - Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case (£89.10 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: Corsair - HX Platinum 750 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£114.98 @ CCL Computers)
Optical Drive: LG - WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer (£54.41 @ CCL Computers)
Monitor: Dell - AW3418DW 34.1" 3440x1440 120 Hz Monitor (£1051.49 @ Scan.co.uk)
Keyboard: Corsair - K65 RGB RAPIDFIRE Wired Gaming Keyboard (£129.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £3672.25
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-02-20 23:17 GMT+0000

• Noctua cooler comes with its own high-end NT-H1 paste
• Z390 motherboards -> go Gigabyte (as in video above)
• Might as well get DDR4-3200 since it's same price as 2666
• @buzzerxx : USB-C on case is a gimmick IMHO. The only cases that would fit that bill & have 5.25" bays are Nanoxia CoolForce 1, Cooler Master MasterCase MC500M & Define R6 USB-C.

Thanks, once again the tweaks are appreciated! For USB-C on front, would the Dark Base Pro 900 rev. 2 from be quiet! suit? https://www.bequiet.com/en/case/1473

buzzerxx

mp3guy wrote: »

Thanks, once again the tweaks are appreciated! For USB-C on front, would the Dark Base Pro 900 rev. 2 from be quiet! suit? https://www.bequiet.com/en/case/1473

i bought this on tuesday, it'll be here friday. My very first part for my very first build. I think type c connnections are becoming more common.

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/be-quiet!-dark-base-700-white-edition-rgb-mid-tower-pc-case-w-tempered-glass-window-eatxmitx-2x-140m

buzzerxx

https://www.bequiet.com/en/compare/case/result?model-compare%5Bcase%5D%5B%5D=BGW15&model-compare%5B%5D%5B%5D=BGW33

K.O.Kiki

Dark Base 900 Pro rev. 2 would also fit the bill.
Bloody expensive though :pac:

mp3guy

Alright, trigger pulled. Final order;

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor (£498.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
CPU Cooler: Noctua - NH-U14S 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler (£59.06 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - Z390 AORUS ELITE ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£164.91 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Crucial - Ballistix Sport AT 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£197.74 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung - 970 Evo Plus 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£113.00 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung - 860 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£155.47 @ Scan.co.uk)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB Black Video Card (£1060.00 @ Amazon UK)
Case: be quiet! - DARK BASE PRO 900 | BLACK rev. 2 ATX Full Tower Case (£228.93 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair - HX Platinum 750 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£120.46 @ Scan.co.uk)
Optical Drive: LG - WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer (£59.99 @ Amazon UK)
Monitor: Dell - AW3418DW 34.1" 3440x1440 120 Hz Monitor (£1051.49 @ Scan.co.uk)
Keyboard: Corsair - K65 RGB RAPIDFIRE Wired Gaming Keyboard (£129.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £3839.62
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-02-22 11:48 GMT+0000

Thanks for all the input! Will update once components arrive and build done.

buzzerxx

WOW. That's going to be some rig. Good luck with everything.

Luck100

i9-9900k doesn't support AVX-512, only AVX 2. In case it matters.

killanena

Good luck and looking forward to reading your update.

mp3guy

Luck100 wrote: »

i9-9900k doesn't support AVX-512, only AVX 2. In case it matters.

Yeah, I was aware of this. I can get a CPU in work with that instruction set so don't need to break the bank on my own rig for it.

mp3guy

Finally all parts received, hoping to have time to put it together in the next couple of days

refusetolose

nice ,enjoy dude

mp3guy

It's alive! Took me 7 hours from opening the first box to finishing the Windows 10 install. As if by a miracle, everything actually worked first boot!

I've been benchmarking in Prime95 v29.4 and the CPU is running fairly hot, 92c under full AVX load. Is this normal? Seems hot. Should I buy a second Noctua fan to put on the other side of the heat sink to draw more heat off it? I did reseat/reapply paste and got the same temps.

Pics to follow...

Samuel T. Cogley

That CPU runs pretty hot alright.

Great rig! Hope you enjoy it!