MISTAKES WERE MADE...
IT’S PROBABLY FAIR to say this upgrade didn’t go 100 percent according to plan, and in fact, may be a cautionary tale about what not to do. PC components have changed a great deal in six years, even if clock speeds have only inched up. The 2950X’s base clock of 3.5GHz is the same as that of the Core i7 it replaces. Elsewhere, though, the increases in memory bandwidth and storage speed, not to mention the processing horsepower of all those cores running at 4.1GHz, thanks to Precision Boost Overdrive, mean it’s a much quicker system for some tasks. It’s also the first system I’ve built that has the same amount of RAM as the one it replaces, albeit running at twice the frequency.
This isn’t a system built by an expert to show off or demonstrate a point; it’s a realworld PC designed to accelerate the gaming and media tasks it’s expected to handle, built with an eye on online bargains, and with the desire to recycle components. This last one didn’t work so well—only the HDD, graphics card, and a USB 3 card remain from the original—but if this increases the rig’s reliability, I’ll be happy, as I use it all day, every day. The power supply, in particular, could have blown, thanks to the extra draw.
The main lesson I’m drawing from this is that it pays to plan your build precisely and in detail. The clash between the RAM and cooler probably couldn’t have been predicted—who checks the height of their sticks?—and if I’d stuck with the LPX RAM, a lot of trouble could have been avoided. I should have sucked up the price increase, perhaps returning the cheaper LED RAM in favor of something shorter, but I never could resist a bargain. There is such a thing as false economy, though; because of the RAM, I ended up with a new case, and maybe a new desk, and because I failed to discern the difference between SATA and NVMe, I’ve got two M.2 drives where one would have done.
As the build process neared its end, but before the problems with the case and cooler appeared, I reflected that it was one of the easiest I’d ever attempted. M.2 storage is a vast improvement over sliding drives into cages, mounting them with four screws, and running power and data connections. I’m endlessly thankful for the way RAM sticks can only be put in their slots one way, too, but there needs to be a better way to connect the front panel connections on a case to the motherboard—a bundle of unlabeled, thin wires with plastic blocks on the end isn’t ideal, especially when you’re dealing with them in the confines of a case.