Gadgetory

oh boy this one's gonna be a good one what's up guys Eber here with hurricane axe and I finally got the time to build my very first Skellig X PC it's actually sitting right behind me now building pcs is in rocket science in fact anyone can do it and if you've been following our channel for a while we've posted a variety of bills at different price points but we really haven't approached the hid T market specifically you know what you could get with the best possible components out there especially on the Intel side now a couple weeks back we did a video explaining to you the benefits of Scottie X and the X to an end platform we talked about the processors and their respective specifications along with compatibility for motherboards memory coolers power supplies etc so if you've missed out on the video make sure to check it out right over here in this video I'll be walking you through the components that I've chosen for this epic X 299 gaming slash workstation PC and I've added a little bit of a twist to this build by making it as compact as possible but at the same time also giving it as much as power as I can and the end result is pretty staggering I also want to take this time to thank Intel and the rest of our partners for making this video possible and if you're interested in learning more about these components I'll make sure to link every one of them in the description down below just for your convenience so yeah sit back and enjoy the rest of video finally an ultra slim body keyboard with mechanical red or blue switches designed and perfected for work and play that the Sorel Graham XS evolved to fit right in check it out below ok so there are three reasons why we decided to go with scanning X first and foremost we really haven't done that much content around this platform and it looked like a great opportunity to test out its capabilities and what it can offer for our team members especially since its kind of what we do and of course for people who might want similar needs we're talking video production advanced 3d rendering enhanced parallelism through multitasking and let's just goes on Scylla Keck CPUs offer massive number of threads plus the ability to reach higher clock speeds the x-29 platform is a flexible ecosystem that can offer you everything from an ultra high-end system to a compact ITX setup you can go crazy with multiple GPUs three or four m2 nvme SSDs within the mother and then expand on that later on with an extension card there are a variety of configurations you can go with so let's check out some of the choices I've made for the PC and some of them may surprise you kicking things off with a CPU I chose the Intel Core I 979 ATX seen Extreme Edition 18 Core 36 started in Monster this is Intel's top-of-the-line CPU sporting a baseline of 2.6 gigahertz that can run its turbo frequency to 4.2 gigahertz it was primarily chosen for the sheer number of threads to aid our workflow especially with premiere and some of the programs that we use plus I'm interested to see how far we can push the CPU with overclocking speaking of overclocking cooling the CPU is an important factor to consider because static-x processors do produce a lot of heat especially when overclocked even the slightest increase in voltage can increase the temperature output like crazy so I decided to go with NCHS sx60 2 to 80 millimeter a i/o cooler and set it up as a push-pull configuration for maximum heat dissipation and this cooler does look gorgeous with that Infinity mayor design lit up as for the motherboard well this one might surprise a lot of you especially after looking at its ties meet the MSI x2 99m gaming Pro carbon a/c remember we were looking to reduce the overall footprint of this PC and for that we decided to pick an M ATX motherboard but don't let that size fool you because this motherboard has almost all the features Intel skylake X platform is known for now that doesn't necessarily make it fair to compare it with a full sized ATX solution but this board should get the job done as it offers to nvme m2 slots support for two GPUs RAM support up to 64 gigabytes the i/o is respectable considering this form factor as you get a USB 3.1 gen2 type-c and type 8 connectivity dual Intel gaming line ports and a great internal deck once again pretty dope for a package this small if you ask me now memory prices are totally out of control at least at the time of making this video but throwing in as much as memory for programs like Adobe After Effects and other rendering Suites can come in really beneficial 128 gigabyte kits are extremely rare and the msi board doesn't support it in the first place so I decided to go with G skills 64 gigabyte trident the RGB kid capable of thing as far as 29 33 megahertz with the XMB profile enabled and we also cannot forget G skills gorgeous RGB illumination it's one of the best looking kits around and it's compatible MSI's mystic light software for easier customization which is awesome moving after storage we decide to use Intel drives since they're well-known for their longevity and continual performance over time in fact my very first SSD was Intel's 520 series and I used it to upgrade the stock hard drive on my very old XPS 15 no but some of you may recall this was the l5 o 2x model it was was quite the experience the performance increase was definitely drastic and it's still staying strong I've actually passed it on to my family members and they're still using it just fine and it's and it's holding up really well so Intel hooked us up with a couple of nvme and SATA base drives as well as they're obtained 900 piece series SSD this particular drive is entirely based off a new storage technology called 3d crosspoint non-volatile storage unlike NAND in simple terms think of it as stacking memory layers on top of each other in a 3d manner for the fastest bandwidth you also get the best endurance and specs wise this might attract a lot of enthusiasts out there we're talking nearly 2.5 gigabytes per second on sequential reads and up to 2 gigabytes per second on sequential writes this drive also shines in its low QD and render performance and it uses the u2 interface unfortunately the MSF board doesn't come with one but thankfully Intel has included a unit 2 2 m dot 2 adapter and it comes in this 2280 form factor which should work with the MSI board this is an excellent option if you're using an M ATX motherboard that doesn't come with a native you know connector as you're not sacrificing a lot in terms of bandwidth as the 900p is also using a PCI gen3 x4 nvme interface and will be using this as a primary boot drive for maximum performance for a scratch disk we chose Intel's 760 P series 512 gigabyte nvme SSD it's got fantastic sequential read and write performance thanks to the 64 layer Intel 3d NAND technology they should really help our editing workflow especially with raw 4k footage our last set of drives for data storage are intel's 545 series SATA base SSDs these drives offer great performance with a price and we'll be creating a raid 0 array using two of these drives I'd highly recommend backing up the files stored on the array on a regular basis just in case because if one drive gets corrupted you would lose all the data now we have decided to connect my local nas as a backup solution which should eliminate the stress off our shoulders for graphics we took it to another level by going with to reference GT X 1080 T eyes and there are three reasons for that one being obvious extreme performance this is probably just as overkill as you can get - considering that I'm packing so much power inside a compact case which I'll get to shortly I wanted to exhaust the heat generated by these GPUs outside the case and the reference cooler looked ideal for that lastly if I were to throw in a custom water block for water cooling in the future it could be a lot easier working with reference based GPUs now we understand the component selection is way out of price range for most people especially with the high price of GPUs and memory these days but we have done a lot of affordable bills this time we wanted to put together something cutting-edge when we onto our case of choice and this one interested me the most we chose NZXT SH 400 micro ATX case primarily due to its native support for the MSI board we're using but also for its minimalist approach in design there's not a lot of aggressive elements especially with the fun panel and from a feature standpoint the H 400 I offers a spacious interior support for up to 280 millimeter radiator at the front and top so you could potentially build a custom loop inside and it comes in a variety of color accents and in our case we chose this matte black finish with blue accents to complement Intel's branding and that will be the theme for the rest of the build powering the whole PC is C Sonic's prime ultra titanium 1001 modular power supply it comes with an 80 plus titanium certification for the best efficiency during runtime especially under load and given its excellent modularity plus the extra wattage Headroom this should provide enough power for the 18 core CPU as well as the 210 ATT eyes now I could have gone with a stock power cables that came inside the box but I felt like it would be incomplete on a high-end bill like this so kale mod provided us with some custom black and blue cables to complement a color scheme off this PC each cable is sleeved with cable signature menthe flex leaving for vivid colors and supreme flexibility and they're 100% heat shrink free which ultimately leads to a clean and professional looking build not to mention routing these cables are a lot easier than stock ones and they have kits available for pretty much every PSU out there its 2018 so we've decided to add in some RGB flair inside the build we're not going for the Candyland effect I'm just not a fan of the rainbow colors but I'd like to sync up every components to a uniform color output in this case blue since that's our theme so I've decided to use thermal takes ring plus 12 LED premium fans and I've got the 120 millimeter 3-pack variant these fans look gorgeous with their 12 controllable LEDs with great light coverage and they're really bright too perhaps the most interesting part about this set is the digital controller that acts as the central hub to both power and control the lighting of the fans so you don't have to worry about three pin Peter Liam connectors on the motherboard and their nine fan blade design allows for higher airflow along with quieter operation which is perfect for a build like this and guys we weren't constrained by specific budget for this build we just simply wanted to put together the best possible PC with the components we had our hands on but if you are looking for alternatives you could opt for the 10 cores 7900 X and a single GPU solution like a gtx 1070 but coming to think of it the mining situation is still going on and I really don't want you guys to pay twice the price for a 1070 so I'm just I'm just gonna quite down so I've run into a bit of a problem I guess I always do because my building PC's I always mess up something anyways I just want to walk you through my experience building this PCE especially since you don't Scott in a team called processor 2 GPUs and it's it's overkill for for a compact case but it's also it kind of pushes the the cases limits and what it can hold so first and foremost cable management that's important so I tried my best to keep things clean but it is pretty difficult because especially if you're trying to use a if you're going for a dual GPU setup it's really hard to route the cables through this little cutout that they have here so NZXT actually it was it's pretty small so it's only like a little square shape but I tried my best to basically bring out all the cables I could within within that cut out over there so that was that was pretty challenging and of course the most important one is cleaning so this little guy over here is causing a major bottleneck issue when trying to install the GPU so for instance if I were to install the first GPU I have to bend this this little guy right over here to get the GPU in and yeah that's how you actually install the first one the second one's not bad because it just gets sanded which is really weird but that was one of my concerns another one is of course taking a look at the back so what's switch gears and move or words the back here as you can see it's it's quite the mess definitely not what I would expect from a compact microSD X case as you can see it's a little it's all danav cables here I definitely need a lot of work or it definitely needs a lot of work but it's also challenging because if you think about it there's only so much room left to tuck away the cables so it's it's really hard so you have to probably just jam the side panel to get it all in another thing that I want to talk about is the air cooler that I mounted the front so I decided to go for a push-pull configuration so two fans of the front two fans in the back because I'm cooling an 18 core monster so I'm and then using me X 62 cooler from NZXT so it's a two eighty millimeter radiator it should be good enough given that I'm doing a push-pull configuration home that temperatures will be entering control especially when overclocking but I guess we'll find that out while testing but here's the problem the front dust filter actually doesn't fit because of the because of how large these fans are so if you're doing you 240 millimeter radiator has a push-pull configuration I think you should be just fine because the fans are pretty small and the front filters just should work just fine but if you can as you can see it doesn't go through because the fans are just they're just they're just getting in the way so what I've done is just basically just jam this thing in like that I'm just gonna while I'm holding the camera on one hand but basically I did what I did is I just sort of eyeballed the alignment for the filter and the fans and then I just jammed it in so after all that hassle going through cable management and a few DIY fixes the build is finally complete and it definitely looks staggering especially after configuring the lighting to dark blue I've also led the geforce gtx logo remain at its green setting and i think it adds some contrast to the build but i'd love to hear your thoughts on the visual side of this pc in the comments but overall i'm actually pretty happy with the way how this turned out i mean think about it this is an h 400 i case with basically the best possible components they can find on the planet jammed into a micro ATX case RGB lighting was Frehley straightforward I'm pretty happy with the uniform color output with all the components I used three different software's so NZXT scam for the AO cooler thermal takes ring RGB software control for the ring RGB fans and the LED strip and finally I'm a size mystic software for the Triton see my kid okay so I wanted to spend a dedicated video talking about the performance of this PC but I decided to throw in a few benchmarks just to see what you can expect from a PC like this so I took the stock settings that came out of the bar and I did a little bit of old clocking not the best don't work like that God but I did manage to get the 18 core CPU to 3.5 gigahertz and the memory overclocked at 29 33 megahertz and you will see by the results that it well he wasn't a massive difference but anyways let's go ahead and compare the results starting with Cinebench r15 running the cpu test the 79-80 extreme edition at stock settings scored well over 3,000 points but with that slight overclock it dished out 83 points more than the first one so it's not a significant difference switching to OpenGL and the results shouldn't surprise you the 210 ATT is dished out well over 100 60 frames per second and there wasn't a huge difference with stock and overclock settings once again I also ran blender with the BMW scene and the system rendered that in two and a half minutes and yeah there wasn't really a difference not much compared to you know overclocked but what really surprised me was the rendering performance in Adobe Premiere Pro I took a one-minute 4k timeline and exported that to the YouTube 4k h.264 preset and at stock settings the 18 core CPU rendered it at 49 seconds that's way faster than a one to one ratio testing it a bit further I took a nine and a half minute 1080p timeline and I rendered it out in 4k so basically upscaling the video using the YouTube preset and the system completed that task in eight minutes really proves how fast a 79-80 extremization cpu is the 2.5 gigahertz overclock didn't really do that much but I intend to spend some more time on that so stay tuned for our full analysis in part 3 when it comes to gaming performance well expect breathtaking frame rates battlefield one at 1440p said - hi - Todd over 144 frames per second on average mind you this was tested with the dx11 setting as dx12 cost drivers stability issues with SLI or watch at 1440p said - epic averaged around 295 frames per second that's just insane do at 1440p said - ultra using the Vulkan API averaged well over a hundred 55 frames per second and finally Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon set - 1440p and very high text out on both 1080 T is giving us well over 100 frames per second so 4k gaming is definitely possible with a system like this especially with two gtx 980ti s so maybe I'll include 4k benchmarks in the next video you know where I'm talking about the full analysis so if you're interested in that let me know in the comments down below but I wanted to explain why the slight overclock didn't really help improve the performance basically with all course set to the same speed there's a reduction with the turbo max so essentially you know running at stock sayings the turbo max would allow the CPU to go as far as 4.2 gigahertz in lightly threaded apps like games but when you fiddle around with the settings in the BIOS that potentially reduces and creates sort of a bottleneck when it comes to hitting that max speed however there are ways around that performance reduction when overclocking which we will talk about in the next video there's definitely a lot of things to explore with this build and I do intend to spend some time testing it in depth and going through different performance analysis and creating my own custom benchmark where I'm rendering a 4k video while gaming while also doing some other tasks and comparing to you know my current editing PC so yeah definitely stay tuned for our analysis so what are your thoughts on this epic X 299 gaming slash workstation PC are you surprised with some of the component selections or are there any alternatives that could have been a better fit in this compact micro ATX case let us know in the comments down below also if you have any suggestions for benchmarks let me know in the comments down below of programs that you may be using on regular basis that you would want to see how well it could perform on this PC again comments is all of yours amiibo with hurricane axe thank you so much for watching and we'll see you in the next one