The choice of which processor to go with wasn’t all that difficult. Well, maybe a little.

Given that this was going into the machine that would be swapped-in as my new workstation, I figured most medium-to-high end current processors available would do the job. Many of the applications I utilize can get more done with a greater number of processing cores, and I’ve been known to keep a significant number of applications open on my desktop. I also continue to run a number of virtual machines (on my workstation) in my day-to-day work.

In recent years, AMD has been flogging Intel in many different benchmarks – more specifically, the high-end desktop (non-gaming) performance range of benchmarks that are the domain of multi-core systems. AMD’s manufacturing processes are also more advanced (Intel is still stuck on 10nm-14nm while AMD has been on 7nm), and they’ve finally left the knife at home and brought a gun to the fight – especially with Threadripper. It reminds me of period of time decades ago when AMD was able to outperform Intel with the Athlon FX-series (I loved the FX-based system I built!).

I realize benchmarks are won by some companies one day, and someone else the next. Bottom line for me: performance per core at a specific price point has been held by AMD’s Ryzen chips for a while. I briefly considered a Ryzen 5 or 9 for a bit, but I opted for the Threadripper when I acknowledged that the system would have to last me a fairly long time. Yes, it’s a chunk of change … but Threadripper was worth it for my computing tasks.

Had I been building a gaming machine, it’s worth noting that I probably would have gone Intel, as their chips still tend to perform better for single-threaded loads that are common in games.

First off, you should know that I generally don’t worry about motherboard performance. Yes, I know that differences exist and motherboard “A” may be 5% faster than motherboard “B.” At the end of the day, they’re all going to be in the same ballpark (except for maybe a few stinkers – and ratings tend to frown on those offerings …)

For me, motherboard selection is all about capabilities and options. I want storage options, and I especially want robust USB support. Features and capabilities tend to become more available as cost goes up (imagine that!), and I knew right off that I was going to probably spend a pretty penny for the appropriate motherboard to drop that Threadripper chip into.

I’ve always good luck with ASUS motherboards, and it doesn’t hurt that the ROG Zenith II Extreme Alpha was highly rated and reviewed. After all, it has a name that sounds like the next-generation terminator, so how could I go wrong?!?!?!

Everything about the board says high end, and it satisfies the handful of requirements I had. And some I didn’t have (but later found nice, like that 10Gbps Ehternet port …)

“Memory, all alone in the moonlight …”

Be thankful you’re reading that instead of listening to me sing it. Barbra Streisand I am not.

Selecting memory doesn’t involve as many decision points as other components in a new system, but there are still a few to consider. There is, of course, the overall amount of memory you want to include in the system. My motherboard and processor supported up to 256GB, but that would be overkill for anythings I’d be doing. I settled on 128GB, and I decided to get that as 4x32GB DIMMS rather than 8x16GB so I could expand (easily) later if needed.

Due to their architecture, it has been noted that the performance of Ryzen chips can be impacted significantly by memory speeds. The “sweet spot” before prices grew beyond my desire to purchase appeared to be about 3200MHz. And if possible, I wanted to get memory with the lowest possible CAS (column access strobe) latency I could find, as that number tends to matter the most with memory timings (of CAS, tRAS, tRP, and tRCD.)

I found what I wanted with the Corsair Vengeance RGB series. I’ve had a solid experience with Corsair memory in the past, so once I confirmed the numbers it was easy to pull the trigger on the purchase.

There are 50 million cases and case makers out there. I’ve had experience with many of them, but getting a good case (in my experience) is as much about timing as any other factor (like vendor, cost, etc).

Because I was a bit more focused on the other components, I didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time on the case. I knew I could get one of those diamonds in the rough (i.e., cheap and awesome) if I were willing spend some time combing reviews and product slicks … but I’ll confess: I dropped back and punted on this one. I pulled open my Maximum PC and/or PC Gamer magazines (I’ve been subscribing for years) and looked at what they recommended.

And that was as hard as it got. Sure, the Cosmos C700P was pricy, but it looked easy enough to work with. Great reviews, too.

When the thing was delivered, the one thing I *wasn’t* prepared for was sheer SIZE of the case. Holy shnikes – this is a BIG case. Easily the biggest non-server case I’ve ever owned. It almost doesn’t fit under my desk but thankfully it just makes it with enough clearance that I don’t worry.

Oh yeah, there’s something else I realized with this case: I was acrruing quite the “bling show” of RGB lighting-capable components. Between the case, the memory, and the motherboard, I had my own personal 4th of July show brewing.

Power supplies aren’t glamorous, but they’re critical to any stable and solid system. 25 years ago, I lived in an old apartment with atrocious power. I would go through cheap power supplies regularly. It was painful and expensive, but it was instructional. Now, I do two things: buy an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for everything electronic, and purchase a good power supply for any new build. Oh, and one more thing: always have another PSU on-hand.

I started buying high-end Corsair power supplies around the time I built my first gaming machine which utilized videocards in SLI. That was the point in nVidia’s history when the cards had horrible power consumption stats … and putting two of them in a case was a quick trip to the scrap heap for anything less than 1000W.

That PSU survived and is still in-use in one of my machines, and that sealed the deal for me for future PSU needs.

This PSU can support more than I would ever throw at it, and it’s fully modular *and* relatively high efficiency. Fully modular is the only to go these days; it definitely cuts down on cable sprawl.

Much like power supplies, CPU coolers tend not to be glamorous. The most significant decision point is “air cooled” or “liquid cooled.” Traditionally, I’ve gone with air coolers since I don’t overclock my systems and opt for highly ventillated cases. It’s easier (in my opinion) and tends to be quite a bit cheaper.

I have started evolving my thinking on the topic, though – at least a little bit. I’m not about to start building custom open-loop cooling runs like some of the extreme builders out there, but there are a host of sealed closed-loop coolers that are well-regarded and highly rated.

Unsurprisingly, Corsair makes one of the best (is there anything they don’t do?) I believe Maximum PC put the H100i PRO all-in-one at the top of their list. It was a hair more than I wanted to spend, but in the context of the project’s budget (growing with each piece), it wasn’t bad.

And oh yeah: it *also* had RGB lighting built-in. What the heck?

I initially had no plans (honestly) of buying another videocard. My old workstation had two GeForce 1080s (in SLI) in it, and my thinking was that I would re-use those cards to keep costs down.

Ha. Ha ha. “Keep costs down” – that’s funny! Hahahahahahaha…

At first, I did start with one of the 1080s in the case. But there were other factors in the mix I hadn’t foreseen. Those two cards were going to take up a lot room in the case and limit access to the remaining PCI express slots. There’s also the time-honored tradition of passing one of the 1080s down to my son Brendan, who is also a gamer.

Weak arguments, perhaps, but they were enough to push me over the edge into the purchase of another RTX 2080Ti. I actually picked it up at the local Micro Center, and there’s a bit of a story behind it. I originally purchase the wrong card (one that had connects for an open-loop cooling system), so I returned it and picked up the right card while doing so. That card (the right one) was only available as an open box item (at a substantially reduced price). Shortly after powering my system on with the card plugged in, it was clear why it was open-box: it had hardware problems.

Thus began the dance with EVGA support and the RMA process. I’d done the dance before, so I knew what to expect. EVGA has fantastic support anyway, so I was able to RMA the card back (shipping nearly killed me – ouch!), and I got a new RTX 2080Ti at an ultimately “reasonable” price.

Now my son will get a 1080, I’ve got a shiny new 2080Ti … and nVidia just released the new 30 series. Dang it!

Admittedly, this was a Micro Center “impulse buy.” That is, the specific choice of card was the impulse buy. I knew I was going to get an external sound card (i.e., aside from the motherboard-integrated sound) before I’d really made any other decision tied to the new system.

For years I’ve been hearing that the integrated sound chips they’re now putting on motherboards have gotten good enough that the need for a separate, discrete sound card is no longer necessary for those wanting high-quality audio. Forget about SoundBlaster – no longer needed!

I disagree.

I’ve tried using integrated sound on a variety of motherboards, and there’s always been something … sub-standard. In many cases, the chips and electronics simply weren’t shielded enough to keep powerline hum and other interference out. In other cases, the DSP associated with the audio would chew CPU cycles and slow things down.

Given how much I care about my music – and my picky listening habits (we’ll say “discerning audiophile tendencies”) – I’ve found that I’m only truly happy with a sound card.

I’d always gotten SoundBlaster cards in the past, but I’ve been kinda wondering about SoundBlaster for a while. They were still making good (or at least “okay”) cards in my opinion, but their attempts to stay relevant seemed to be taking them down some weird avenues. So, I was open to the idea of another vendor.

The ASUS card looked to be the right combo of a high signal-to-noise, low distortion minimalist card. And thus far, it’s been fantastic. An impulse buy that actually worked out!

Much like the choice of CPU, picking the SSD that would be used as my Windows system (boot) drive wasn’t overly difficult. This was the device that my system would be booting from, using for memory swapping, and other activities that would directly impact perceived speed and “nimbleness.” For those reasons alone, I wanted to find the fastest SSD I could reasonably purchase.

Historically, I’ve purchased Samsung Pro SSD drives for boot drive purposes and have remained fairly brand loyal. If something “ain’t broke, ya don’t fix it.” But when I saw that Seagate had a new M.2 SSD out that was supposed to be pretty doggone quick, I took notice. I picked one up, and I can say that it’s a really sweet SSD.

The only negative thing or two that Tom’s Hardware had to say about it was that it was “costly” and had “no heatsink.” In the plus category, Tom’s said that it had “solid performance,” a “large write cache,” that it was “power efficient,” had “class-leading endurance,” and they like its “aesthetics.” They also said it “should be near the top of your best ssds list.”

And about the cost: Micro Center actually had the drive for substantially less than what the drive is listing as, so I jumped at it. I’m glad I did, because I’ve been very happy with its performance. Happiness is based on nothing more than my perception. Full disclosure: I haven’t actually benchmarked system performance (yet), so I don’t have numbers to share. Maybe a future post …

Unsurprisingly, my motherboard selection came with built-in RAID capability. That RAID capability actually extended to NVMe drives (a first for one of my systems), so I decided to take advantage of it.

Although it’s impractical from a data stability and safety standpoint, I decided that I was going to put together a RAID-0 (striped) “disk” array with two M.2 drives. I figured I didn’t need maximum performance (as I did with my boot/system drive), so I opted to pull back a bit and be a little more cost-efficient.

It’s no surprise (or at least, I don’t think it should be a surprise), then, that I opted to go with Samsung and a pair of 970 EVO plus M.2 NVMe drives for that array. I got a decent deal on them (another Micro Center purchase), and so with two of the drives I put together a 4TB pretty-darn-quick array – great for multimedia editing, recording, a temporary area … and oh yeah: a place to host my virtual machine disks. Smooth as butta!

For more of my “standard storage” needs – where data safety trumped speed of operations – I opted for a pair of Seagate IronWolf 6TB NAS drives in a RAID-1 (mirrored) array configuration. I’ve been relatively happy with Seagate’s NAS series. Truthfully, both Seagate and Western Digitial did a wonderful thing by offering their NAS/Red series of drives. The companies acknowledge the reality that a large segment of the computing population are leaving machines and devices running 24/7, and they built products to work for that market. I don’t think I’ve had a single Red/NAS-series drive fail yet … and I’ve been using them for years now.

In any case, there’s nothing amazing out these drives. They do what their supposed to do. If I lose one, I just need to get another back in and let the array rebuild itself. Sure, I’ll be running in degraded fashion for a while, but that’s a small price to pay for a little data safety.

I believe in protection in layers – especially for data. That’s a mindset that comes out of my experience doing disaster recovery and business continuity work. Some backup process that you “set and forget” isn’t good enough for any data – yours or mine. That’s a perspective I tried to share and convey in the DR guides that John Ferringer and I wrote back in the SharePoint 2007 and 2010 days, and it’s a philosophy I adhere to even today.

The mirroring of the 6TB IronWolf drives provides one layer of data protection. The additional 10TB Western Digital Red drive I added as a system level backup target provides another. I’ve been using Acronis True Image as a backup tool for quite a few years now, and I’m generally pretty happy with the application, how it has operated, and how it has evolved. About the only thing that still bugs me (on a minor level) is the relative lack of responsiveness of UI/UX elements within the application. I know the application is doing a lot behind the scenes, but as a former product manager for a backup product myself (Idera SharePoint Backup), I have to believe that something could be done about it.

Thoughts on backup product/tool aside, I back up all the drives in my system to my Z: drive (the 10TB WD drive) a couple of times per week:

I use Acronis’ incremental backup scheme and maintain about month’s worth of backups at any given time; that seems to strike a good balance between capturing data changes and maintaining enough disk space.

I have one more backup layer in addition to the ones I’ve already described: off-machine. Another topic for another time …

Last but not least, I have to mention my trust Blu-ray optical drive. Yes, it does do writing … but I only ever use it to read media. If I didn’t have a large collection of Blu-rays that I maintain for my Plex Server, I probably wouldn’t even need the drive. With today’s Internet speeds and the ease of moving large files around, optical media is quickly going the way of the floppy disk.

I had two optical drives in my last workstation, and I have plenty of additional drives downstairs, so it wasn’t hard at all to find one to throw in the machine.

And that’s all I have to say about that.