Showcase plat's custom PC for 2020 and beyond

Purchase / Last upgraded
May 26, 2021
Form factor
Make & Model
ASUStek--custom/assembled
OS installed
Windows Insider build
Motherboard
ASUS Prime Z390-A
CPU
Intel i9 9900 3.1GHz
GPU
NVIDIA GTX 1080 Founders Edition 8 GB DDR5
RAM
GSkill 2x16 GB @ 3200mHz 16-18-18-38 2T
Storage
Samsung 980 PRO NVM-e 500 GB solitary internal drive
2x Western Digital Blue and 1x Seagate (1) tb HDDs in external enclosure for offline storage
PSU
EVGA SuperNova G2 Gold 650 watts
Case
Fractal Design Meshify C
Monitor
1920x1080 Lenovo 23" LED monitor @60Hz
Keyboard and Mouse
Razer Huntsman RGB mini keyboard w/optical switches
Logitech G 300 wired mouse
Accessories
GPU and monitor to be upgraded when supply is available.
My computer protection
malwaretips.com

SECURITY: Complete - plat's config for 2021

The coming year 2021 will see some significant changes in the hardware dept. specifically. We all prob. know what the hold-up is: NVIDIA? What is your problem? Get going with the restocking and stop enabling the scalpers. :mad: Software-wise, I ditched TreeSize and EaseUS ToDo as it refused...
malwaretips.com malwaretips.com
Oops sorry, Vitali Ortzi, didn't mean to cut and run. I used video editing materials from BandiCam but haven't done so recently. BandiCut to be more precise. If there was something more technically-involved, sorry, not so savvy there. 😁

Here are a couple of quick benchmarks--re: User Benchmark--there was some reports of unfair bias in favor of Intel, so, although these are nice results, I take it all w/salt.

sysinfo.PNG
passmark 7202020.PNG
user benchmark.PNG
 
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Well, what answer was expected?. How about: "any day now." :giggle: I have a Samsung 970 EVO Plus with almost double the read speeds of the Western Digital nvm-e but with 96% drive expected life instead of the 100% the WD shows via HWiNFO64. I want to see how this will affect the Passmark results.

My gpu actually surprised me no end. I thought it was dead. Real quick: I had taken off the CPU cooler to clean and re-paste and to my horror, I couldn't remount it to the brackets. I found that all four threads to hold the cooler in place had fallen and lodged behind the motherboard, which also at that point wasn't delivering power to the gpu's PCIe slot either. But re-placed in my new build, the benchmarks indicated that even though this gpu is over 4 years old, it performs surprisingly well. It retailed at the time for 699 USD.

With this ASUS board, you can only "upgrade" to an i9 9900K, which around here, costs only 20 dollars more than my 9900. I can undervolt but don't have the magic touch to overclock. So, aside from exchanging an nvm-e which I already have, I have no intentions to upgrade anytime soon, only if there's a failure somewhere. To me, it's paramount that the machine is "capable." I leave terminology like "high end" and "low end" to those who place value on those terms. No mad desire to Keep up With The Joneses.:rolleyes:
 
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I could not reinstall my pre-existing EVO 970 Plus, the computer recognized it but would not progress beyond the BIOS page. I then remembered the SSD's surface had been damaged, prob. by my imprope use of a heatsink in the past. So I used a Store Credit and bought a new one. The machine is "done" for now but suggestions and comments are very much welcomed! (y)

Here are the stats--I was a little miffed at the random read/write but then recalled that the EVO Plus is not as high-caliber as the EVO Pro. It's OK, I guess. Anyone with better info on Samsung SSDs, please do not hesitate to add more!

cdm728202.PNG
 
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Well, installed a new drive (Samsung 980 Pro 500 GB) as I wanted more disk room. This drive is designed for PCIe slot version 4.0 but is running in my somewhat older 3.0 M.2 slot so it's not at the advertised speed. Still, I cannot complain.

The machine is a work in progress...but no one knows when the next batch of rtx cards is coming in. So, the monitor is next in line.

cdi980.PNG
cdm 980.PNG

Edit: another benchmark. (y)

passmark disk.PNG
 
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Was looking at brambedkar59's Crystal Disk Mark results and that got me thinking. Wow, OK. Well the Samsung 980 Pro underwent no fewer than 3 firmware revisions in about 1.5 years, that is a lot. Why? Because write speed degraded drastically like in a matter of a few weeks after you installed the new NVMe due to a cache exhaustion thing. I show you in a series of CDM benchmarks.

Two months after I first got the 980 Pro 500GB

cdm 980.PNG

One month after that :eek::

cdm2.PNG

Currently, w/ latest firmware revision 4B2QGXA7:

sammycdm firmv412032021.png

I can def. notice the difference between #3 and #2 but yeah--I see the 4K writes still aren't up to where they were. I don't think I'll get this one again, maybe the 980 (non-Pro). If you have suggestions, pls let me know--I kind of prefer the better brands and models as this is not only the boot drive but the solitary drive in the system. Anyone ever try Intel's NVMe?

At 1.5 years old, the drive is at 99% health now, still in good shape w/no bad blocks or anything. Note this motherboard is PCIe 3.0. PCIe 4.0 can show reads alone at over 6000 MB/s.

Edit: tried CDM again this morning and 4K read/writes had plummeted again. I quit the bench out of disgust. Not getting the 980 Pro again, for sure!:mad:
 
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