[WARNING: BLABBERING MOUTH UNLEASHED!!]
BUILD NAME: "THE SILENT BRUTE"
Although i've done a few AMD builds in the past, THE SILENT BRUTE is my first personal AMD rig. I've been on INTEL since the diaper days of yore so some RED in the bag is refreshing.
Over a year ago one of our retired commercial ventures landed me a spare AM4 build which was left in home storage. It was built around a 3900X + X570 + RTX 2070 and sheltered in a beast of a BeQuiet Silent 601 case. A couple of weeks later the 2070 was sold and the rest left in the dark. Not long ago, I picked up a used RTX 3080 just south of a hard negotiated £300’ish (GBP) from a close family friend. The 3080 is in excellent condition, previously used only for gaming at stock settings. Unfortunately, I never got around to making use of the build/card. Perhaps laziness or my already operational 9700K + 2080 TI build was running fine with the FPS counter obscured. That's not the only reason. The AMD build was filthy to its bone, looked like a dust vacuum repository and i couldn't get off my backside to give her a thorough clean. TBF, at the same time, for a few months i was considering putting the build with the card up for sale and then upgrading to a brand spanking new AM5/DDR5/7800X3D platform alongside a RTX 4080/4080S GPU (preferably nV for my ‘dedicated’ GSYNC panel). 40-series upper tier prices since launch have been appalling so upgrading GPUs was scrapped. With that out of the way, a couple of newer titles were demanding some MT-resources over the single threaded inferior 9700K hence it made sense to stick with AM4 with a cost-effective larger than life 5800X3D upgrade. IMO, a solid pairing for a 3080-level card.
so...
cleaning time! I undressed the 601 to her bare bones. Every single part/component removed and the case was taken apart. Literally every screw assembly disassembled, and every nook and cranny attended to with brushes, cotton sticks, toothpicks, electrical blower and a ton of 70% Isopropyl alcohol (unnecessary but got loads to burn). Don't worry the CPU or other sensitive components get the 90%+ quality stuff. Above and beyond for the brand spanking NEW and it's nothing short of the goal.
Bringing AM4 to life, the following upgrades were procured in the last week or 2:
- 5800X3D IN (3900X OUT)
- ALFIII-360 IN (Scythe Mugen 5 OUT)
- WIFI 6E PCIe card
- x5 Arctic P14 PWM 140mm fans (x1 rear, x3 front, x1 under the PSU shroud on the bottom belly for additional intake)
- x2 Arctic F9 PWM 92mm fans (on PSU shroud for intake) yield
- Arctic 10-port PWM fan hub
- Some other purchases: 2x2 KVM switch, DP 1.4+HDMI 2.1 cables and finally venturing into WIFI 6E with a DECO 3-pack mesh system
A couple of previous purchases:
- USED MSI RTX3080 X Trio
- x1 990 Pro 2TB NVME a little overkill for the system drive but purchased two of these a couple of months ago on the cheap from a mates Sammy staff discount / £114 ea.
CASE: At some point i almost succumbed to swapping out the 601 for an obese dual-chamber glassy case and flaunting some RGB. But nahhh! the 601s no-glass modesty, thick noise dampening material to feed the noise tolerances, brawny all-black appearance, great build quality/features and dare i say "a bottom full length dust filter which is effortlessly accessible from the front" did it for me!
Quiet and powerful. I named her
"THE SILENT BRUTE".
THE FULL GAMING SETUP:
LOOKING TO PICK UP NEXT:
I fancy having this option available if the preference strays in giving the build some internal exposure. At the moment i have the mobo set to 'stealth mode' (lighting disabled). Still working on disabling the GPU RGB without surrendering to MSI or third-party bloat. This also explains why i opted for a RGB variant of the ALFII 360.
PERF/THERMALS and keeping things 'WHISPER QUIET'
The big elephant in the room being, on first impressions the case looks massively starved for unobstructed airflow. Well its certainly not as effective as some of the fully meshed/perforated case offerings available on the market. This is by design. The 601 is known for its emphasis on noise reduction, which involves less visible ventilation compared to other cases. This was a little concerning hence the special emphasis on populating all case fan mounts. Also a large AIO on top directly exhausting the CPUs heat outwards. Got a 140mm fan below the PSU shroud sucking air from the base and 2 supported 92mm fans on the PSU shroud to help along. Overall, the results are fantastic:
XMP enabled
5800X3D at stock (will look into undervolting for some added efficiency)
GPU at stock
Fan curves dialed down for the preferred acoustic range
Everything up-to-date (BIOS, Chipset, drivers... Win 11 fresh install, etc)
Ambient temp:
CPU/OCCT Large/Extreme 15 mins: 72c
CPU/OCCT Small/Extreme 8 mins: 90c (expected with this type of unrealistic load designed to push limits)
GPU/Furmark: 1440p 15 mins: 73c
The Furmark test is showing 338W expended and max 98% GPU utilisation with clocks alternating between 1576/1636Mhz. Is this normal?
The OCCT large/Extreme test was showing 4350Mhz across all cores. In normal use, the max i'm seeing is 4450Mhz per one or two cores. Looking at other reports online, i take it this is business as usual?
Its my first time running with AMD, that too with a more sensitive X3D processor. Other than undervolting, any other tips/recommendations?
(and the temps are good on the R7 5700X )
)
