Build your own Threadripper 2950X workstation
When you change this much of your machine, is it still the same PC you started out with?
THE CONCEPT
I DIDN’T NEED A NEW PC, but I wanted one. My old gaming/image-editing build was constructed in 2012, and had grown organically over time. It was based around a Core i7-3770K, and had 32GB of DDR3—absolute overkill, but I didn’t foresee the effect cheaper SSDs would have, expecting huge amounts of RAM to become more common instead. Originally, it booted into Windows 8 from a Samsung 840 128GB SSD, with a 500GB WD Velociraptor for storage, plus a DVD drive, and a GeForce GTX 680 to push the pixels. All in a Cooler Master Silencio 450 case, with a Corsair 750W power supply.
A games PC is also a multi-purpose PC, and it handled everything I threw at it for years; my main PC for work and leisure. But the need to fiddle and improve is strong, and as new products hit the market and prices came down, I added to it. Windows 10 came along. The Velociraptor was replaced with a 500GB SSD, then a second one was added, and a 2TB Seagate Barracuda hard drive. The DVD drive went in the cupboard. The Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro cooler gave way to a Zalman closed-loop water cooler, and the GPU became a GTX 970, then a GeForce GTX 1070 Ti. After all this, it was still the same PC.
Replacing the motherboard and CPU, however, changes everything. The itch became so strong, it couldn’t be ignored, and in a moment of madness, and with Cyber Monday in full swing, the six-yearold Core i7 was ousted in favor of a Threadripper 2950X, with new a mobo and RAM. Then power supply and case. And some SSDs. The question is, is it still the same PC now?
IN WITH THE NEW, AND THE OLD
AT FIRST, THE 32-CORE 2990WX was considered, just because I like big numbers, but that chip’s unique layout means it’s extremely fast in the right application, but because the memory bandwidth is rationed out quite thinly, it suffers in many common tasks. The 2950X seemed like a much better bet, with the added bonus of being cheaper. RAM is Corsair, 32GB of the C16 LED DDR4 that lights up white, as it was keenly priced at the time.
Storage comes courtesy of M.2 drives—a Western Digital Blue 2TB SATA model for game downloads, and a 512GB Samsung 970 Evo as the boot drive, plus a 2TB spinner left over from the old build. Power is supplied by Corsair’s modular 1,000W unit—this has the benefit of shutting off its fan when not under load, for extra quietness. We turned to Corsair again for CPU cooling, the Hydro Series H80i V2 fitting both the case and the chip, and its quiet fan and pump profiles help, too. The soundproofing on the Silencio case should add to this for a reasonably quiet build.
This PC is going to use a lot of USB devices, so I added an Icy Box 873 in one of the 5.25-inch bays, bringing with it a USB 3 reader for CompactFlash cards, as well as a couple more USB ports, including some type Cs, and a high-speed charging port.
The old case doesn’t come with a window, so there’s little point in glowing components. The MSI Aero 1070 Ti graphics card is plain black, but the MSI X399 Gaming Pro motherboard and the Corsair RAM do have lighting—we’ll just turn it off.