• Intel i5-13600K - £297
  • MSI PRO Z690-A WIFI DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard - £180
  • Corsair VENGEANCE RGB PRO 64GB (2x32GB) DDR4 3600 - £174
  • Samsung 980 PRO M.2 NVMe SSD (MZ-V8P2T0BW), 2 TB, PCIe 4.0 - £156
  • DeepCool AK620 CPU Air Cooler - £60
  • Corsair 4000D Airflow Tempered Glass Mid-Tower ATX Case - £95
  • Corsair RM850x 80 PLUS Gold Fully Modular ATX 850 Watt Power Supply - £153

PCPartPicker - Dave Dev Rig April 2023

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Super quiet, 64GB RAM, 2TB rig.

Total: £1115

All parts bought from Amazon UK

The Build

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Lets do a bench build to test components

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First step is to seat the CPU - the trick was to get the arrows lined up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC1f5_cWFNU CPU install - lining up arrows

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmknmmSpUA4 AK 620 cooler install

Notice above I should have put in the m.2, but I could get it in afterwards. Also the memory was in the incorrect slot, but I was testing the clearances

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/PRO-Z690-A-DDR4/support memory in DIMMA2 and DIMMB2

https://download.msi.com/archive/mnu_exe/mb/PROZ690-AWIFIDDR4_PROZ690-ADDR4100x150.pdf

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It is alive! I powered on the mobo by shorting the two power pins (see manual)

checking temps are not rising crazily (which would indicate problems with the thermal cooling paste).

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xmp profile 1 - running at full speed RAM ie 3600 MHz (in first picture DDR is at 2133 MHz)

cooling profile - in Advanced, OC, CPU Cooling Tuning, Water cooling 4096W (ie full power)

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226W max draw on cinebench. Thermal throttle, but I believe this is okay.

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22412 on cinebench which is fine.

Windows

windows 10 pro user: setup

MSI Driver Utility Installer - comes up once only. Otherwise have to install drivers via MSI Center.

had to use USB external CD ROM drive to read Ethernet Adapter driver (and wifi)

Do all updates in Windows

Download MSI Center - to get all devices on the mobo working (ie in device maanger on windows) download driver all except Norton Also in advanced I went from BIOS V1.A0 to V1.B0 - 24/03/2023 (so 5 days old)

Samsung Magician (to get and chec updated firmware on ssd). ScottH likes to Overprovision by 10% . I’ve not. Perf test gave: Sequential Reads: 6874 MB/s Sequential Writes: 5116 MB/s Random Reads: 1.06 million iOPS Random Writes: 1.06 million iOPS

Install HW Info 64 Sensors Only CPU Package CPI Package Power

Cinebench r23 from MS Store I got a 24,042 which looks good results

Get Intel Extreme Tuning from Intel turned on automatic overclocking which gave me 24,316 above

Case

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It is alive!

Why a new PC

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Why change? I’ve run out of disk space on the current machine (which has 256GB SSD) and maxing out memory (16GB), and have a smart caution on one of my 4TB spinning HDD drives. Crystal DiskInfo to get stats

I’m going for a fairly average power build with high storage and high memory, and it’s my first every build from parts, so just having fun!

Interestingly Damien Edwards has built around 12 machines over the last 3 years Video Here so this may be a fun start of building as a hobby! at 29 minutes in he starts the build with tips eg how tight to tighten screws.

PCParkPicker of Hanselrig

PCPartPicker summary of this build

LTT sister build - z690, 3060ti

CPU chooser - toms guide

Buying Kit

Inspect boxes when you receive them for damage!

Where to buy stuff in the UK?

-Amazon. Good as can cross ship if have got a problem. support bot try and get. -scan.co.uk -overclockers.co.uk

reddit buildapcsalesuk

CPU

Team Blue (Intel).. team Red (AMD)

Intel (13th gen - Raptor Lake) - £313

-Core i5-13600K or KF (KF = no onboard graphics). Prefer to get integrated graphics so easier to test on boot up.

LGA-1700 socket

cpu mark 38,400

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I went for this as very good price for performance - this processor is still great value for the power (was in Jan 23 and now Apr 23)

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Interestinly the xxxx is only $90 more..

Motherboard (MOBO)

We’re going for LGA-1700 as there are 1,700 pins on 12th and 13th gen of CPU’s

Want at least 2 * m.2 slots

Toms Guide

MSI PRO Z690-A WIFI DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard £200

Also Asus are a good brand

B660M - no. can be slower

z690 - yes. Good for overclocking if need it

z790 - don’t need yet

I’m going with DDR4 RAM currently

ATX, Micro ATX and Mini-ITX. (Mini is smaller than Micro)

PC Builder

2 types of headers with different pins aRBB - addressable rgb RBG

Wifi

Useful to have as things like mirrorcast or wideeye need wifi. Even if you’re using wired ethernet.

CPU Contact Frame

To stop the scissor mechanism from bending the CPU, thus causing issues for cooling.

RAM

You want to buy a paired memory kit, so the DIMM (Dual Inline Memory Module)’s are matched

They don’t have 64HB DIMMs yet (DDR5)

64GB of DDR4

Corsair LPX amazon

3200 DDR4 (only need 3600 if overclock)

will the mobo support XMP to this RAM type that I’m going to buy?

SSD Storage

Put dev on different drive to the system so I want 2 * m.2

m.2 SSD

PCIe 4.0 is the latest eg Samsung 990 Pro. But expensive. Actually 5.0 is latest!

2280 is the mainstream length of an ssd

Crystal disk info to get smart ie how degraded is ssd and other drives. I’ve got a caution on one of my spinning drives (Uncorrectable sector count of 8). So time to retire that drive for sure. My main SSD an 840 PRO Series 256 has a 75% wear levelling count.

need to make sure to upgrade the firmware of the ssd

CPU Cooler

You can air cool a 13900k but you will be limiting it. Damien recommends large water coolers for modern cpus

On setup if we tell the mobo it has AIO (All in one, so I don’t have to plug in hoses, they are done already) or Watner cooling the cpu can draw as much power as it needs.. 250-350W!

Air cooler

Deepcool AK620 68.99 CFM CPU Cooler

or

ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 360 A-RGB 48.8 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler - but it costs £180

Use arctix thermal paste mx5

PSU

Modular power supply means none of the cables are attached

Platinum is highly efficient

Corsair are good.

cheaper ones will be nosier and less efficient maybe

BIOS

Simple and Advanced mode

OC - overclocking! Not tiner

CPU cooler tuning - want full power (water)

TPM2.0 built in for Win 11.

XMP 1 - enable that profile.. then reboot switch disabled to this profile then it will do memory training.. black screen

he was on 4000 MHz, then with XMP (Extreme memory profile), can go faster. to 5200 MHz

Windows

Win 11 Pro?

Windows 11 setup without network to get around not being able to do a local install. Shift 10 open terminal, oob slash something, which will reboot back into oob

# search for drivers for network card (wired and wireless)
# there were on a tiny usb key that came with the mobo
pnputil
# beginnings of hack to allow local account
oobe\bypassnro

then usb key that came with motherboard

sign up with personal account

Samsung Magician - to update SSD firmware

MSI Centre to update mobo drivers

HW Info 64 to monitor temps

Cinebench r23 to give load (use MS Store to easily get it)

Here is my old 4790k running cinebench with an air cooler

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pulling 100W and maxing around 92 degrees (hit 97 later on 30min run). Didn’t thermal throttle (yet)

I got: 4,712, 4,560.. single runs… then for a 30 min run (Test Stability) 4,702

39,600 is what hanselman got on his 13900k (LTT only got 36,000 with no work) - so good silicon!

Intel XTU - to do overclocking of CPU. But core isolation.

AIDA64 for memory testing

Case

Mid tower

ATX, Micro ATX and Mini-ITX. (Mini is smaller than Micro)

GPU

Team Green (Nvidia) vs Team Red (AMD)

PC Builder GPU Price spreadsheet

do not buy 3060 8gb.. need 12gb

3070 msi model?

I want to go with NVidia purely as can then talk to the gpu

amazon bestseller gpu

But I’m not gaming at the moment, and prices are falling. Don’t want kids gaming on my PC!

Cables

ATX connector is to the mobo

need 2 CPU cables?

Networking

Am putting in ethernet, but also wifi is super userful

I want a long antenna option

Monitor

I want to game at 144MHz at 1440p. Probably 27inch

  • 1080p
  • 1440p
  • 4k

PC Builder - best gaming monitor 2023

Keyboard

I like Microsoft keyboards and mice.. for development. But letters have worn off current once.

Microsoft Desktop 2000 £34

Microsoft Wireless 4000 £60

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Strategy

Read up on background on latest CPUs, MOBO (Motherboards), Memory, GPUS, monitors, keyboards, m.2, SSD, WiFi

DUMP

w computer fun! uk pc build reddit? quietpc https://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/category/pc-filter/price-1500to1999/ https://www.chillblast.com/learn/intel-or-amd-cpu-a-buyers-guide/ best bang for buck

get a previous gen or 2? compare cpu’s https://www.cpubenchmark.net/ get bang for buck!

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/8DKbY9 https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/8DKbY9 UK amazon - £300 monitor - 27” 1ms response 1080

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ voucher code in PRO22

ssd 1tb £86

memory 32GB £84

cpu cooler £105

Windows 11 Pro vs Win 11 Home

MS Compare Win

  • Bitlocker on pro

WSL2 is on home for Win 10 and 11

Pre build ideas

https://buildredux.com/pages/build-your-pc good, better, best

CPU - AMD or Intel?

asdf

virtualisation

Motherboard

asdf

Network card

Would love an extendable aerial for wifi

Graphics - Nvidia or AMD

I want to be able to play latest titles

CUDA?

3070 8GB

3060Ti 8GB - made by MSI GeForce

Screen

I’ve never had a ‘gaming’ screen ie high refresh rate.. would be fun to try

Memory

32 or 64GB probably

Disks

1 or 2TB

New Mechanical disk?