u/Richy59

Hi, slight update to my build from last time. Changed the 240mm Kraken Elite to a 280mm Elite RGB. Was keen to make the change happen from the start as I felt the PC was running loud with air through the radiator whilst keeping the CPU temps in check.

Initially I had a Corsair 280mm in place to test it, and whilst I’ve went with the NZXT for aesthetic reasons, I think the Corsair was actually a bit better at cooling under heavy load. I may visit this again in the future but for now I’m happy.

Added the 280mm RGB fans from the cooler to the top of case for extraction, and since they aren’t the performance fans like the F280x they run a fair bit quieter. Returned the F240x, and the 280mm fans do fit but a bit of a squeeze against the radiator in the front.

Last change I plan to make will be to try and ‘tidily’ remove the front fan brackets on front of the case to allow the RGB on the F280x to shine through properly.

Specs:

Case: NZXT H3 Flow
CPU: Ryzen 7 9850x3D
Cooler: NZXT Kraken Elite 240
Fans: NZXT F120x/F240x/F280x Performance Fans & NZXT Hub
RAM: V-Color DDR5 32GB 6000mhz CL28
GPU: PNY nVidia RTX 5080 Slim OC
Storage: 2TB Corsair MP700, 2TB Crucial P310, 2x4TB Samsung 870 SATA & 4TB WD Blue SATA
PSU: Corsair RM1000x

Just finished up my ‘downsize’ to an mATX board in the H3 flow chassis. Really like the case, was easy enough to build in and following other examples I tried hard not to bunch all the cables up in the fairly open PSU basement. It’s pretty much a copy/paste of the other H3 builds I’ve seen.

I also tried to install a slim 120mm fan underneath the shroud to pull in some air, but a 120mm fan doesn’t fit in the correct holes as there is a metal bar running along the underside and I didn’t want to screw into the grill if possible. Don’t think of really needs it to be honest, only done brief testing but the GPU hasn’t reached above 60 degrees.

Originally I wanted a front mounted 280mm AIO, but the Kraken Elite is either out of stock or really expensive for whatever reason. Got a 240mm for half the price of the 280mm, unless I go with a white AIO which can find on sale here in the UK.

I’ve used a 240mm AIO before and was fairly loud with the air being pushed through the radiator. Using this one with the NZXT Performance fans is insanely loud, like a jet engine and I recorded 65db using an app on my phone when all I was doing was downloading via steam. Thought I made a big mistake but I’ve set fixed fan curves and made the air more ‘constant’ but slower and it’s actually keeping temps well in check without ramping up all the time.

Glutton for punishment I wanted to carry over my three SATA drives I use for mass storage so running power for them meant additional cables but also needed a SATA for the Kraken pump anyway. I’m a storage hoarder but at least I’ve had these for years now.

Only thing I’m not 100% happy with and it’s such a silly thing is the brackets on the front of the case area really visible using 140/280mm fans which partially cover the RGB. I may dremel them out at some stage as I’ll never be using the 120mm mounts anyway.

Specs:

Case: NZXT H3 Flow
CPU: Ryzen 7 9850x3D
Cooler: NZXT Kraken Elite 240
Fans: NZXT F120x/F240x/F280x Performance Fans & NZXT Hub
RAM: V-Color DDR5 32GB 6000mhz CL28
GPU: PNY nVidia RTX 5080 Slim OC
Storage: 2TB Corsair MP700, 2TB Crucial P310, 2x4TB Samsung 870 SATA & 4TB WD Blue SATA
PSU: Corsair RM1000x

Was like a sauna, they had large fan units running at the end of each aisle but didn’t seem to be making any difference. Felt bad for the staff having to work in that heat.

Hello, I'm really stuck between the H2 Flow and H3 Flow. Was wondering if any owners of each (or both!) could share some feedback or thoughts on the cases.

Looking at a new-ish build, with a platform change to AM5 so either way I'll need a new motherboard of MATX or Mini-ITX. The prices aren't too far off each other, MATX is a little bit cheaper in some places.

I'm coming from a full tower and want to shrink the PC size on my desk. I really like the looks and style of the H2 Flow with it's smaller tall footprint, and I think it looks great with the split glass and mesh side panel. I'd have to get an AIO (probably the Kraken) if I went H2 and buy a new SFX PSU.

If I got H3 then I'll be able to carry over my RM1000x I already have and probably would switch to an air cooler, saving about £300-350 going by current costs I am looking at. The Kraken looks good in both cases and I'm already coming from an AIO so don't mind getting a new one.

The GPU I have is a flow through design so the H3 would allow it to breath and I do have some concerns about the flow through hitting the back of the motherboard in the H2, although the top fans would help get rid of the heat.

I currently have 3 SATA SSDs in use alongside 2 NVMe drives (from way before the current price increases) so I'd like to accommodate that and the H3 Flow seems to have spaces for three 2.5" drives. I probably could reduce down to two 2.5" drives if I went with the H2.

Writing it down makes me see that the H3 ticks more of the boxes, but man that H2 Flow looks so good!

Thanks.

Hello, sorry if this is a bit long winded but I thought I would share my highly unscientific benchmarks between the 5080 and 3080Ti. I've only used in game benchmarks where possible and I have tried maxing out the graphics to work the cards hard.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GmEmh__tkLGSh5KbWju1FXzkeGCtEd8mO36MM09XqY4/edit?usp=sharing

I have been using the 3080Ti since new, paired with a 5800X3D and 32GB DDR4 RAM. Has been serving me well, but it's at a point where performance is starting to fall behind in some games. I'm a fairly casual gamer with the time I've had recently, but I have been wanting to get a bit more out my PC without going down the full rabbit hole of an AM5 build. I have been playing without any Ray Tracing, no DLSS/Frame Gen and when using my 1440p Ultrawide performance has been solid.

I decided during Prime day a few weeks ago to purchase an RTX 5080 (PNY SLIM OC) for £1000 and see if this would give me the boost I was looking for. Ideally I want to be able to play some games at 4K60FPS on my TV (60Hz Limited) and the 3080Ti just can't quite get there without using aggressive Performance DLSS in some games. Will preface this by saying the games I have and play probably aren't the latest and greatest, so the 3080Ti may be worse than I'm experiencing in those new AAA titles.

Overall I found the 5080 to be good, but not sure it is £1000 good compared to the 3080Ti. I am looking to sell the 3080Ti and I think max I could get is around £400 going by recent prices. I paid around £700 for the 3080Ti back in 2022 (via Amazon Resale - but it was a new card effectively) and the MSRP in 2022 was around £1000 - pretty much similar costs between the two cards all things considered.

What really stood out for me is how improved DLSS Quality is compared to the 3080Ti, even with all the latest drivers installed. It really makes a difference in performance whereas the older card didn't have much of a bump. I haven't used any Frame Gen in my testing, I was avoiding it but I've also been reading that the latest Frame Gen works very well at 2X and there is minimal lag especially when your base raster framerate is fairly high to begin with.

I have been swithering about keeping the 5080 and just holding onto my 3080Ti as in 1440p it performs well, but the 4K RT 60FPS I'm looking for just isn't easily achievable. I'm still trying to talk myself out of buying a Zen5 platform with DDR5 RAM as I don't think my 5800X3D is holding back the 5080. I'm aware the 5080 Super may be on the horizon with more VRAM, but I haven't seen (personally) any issues with hitting VRAM limits and a 5080 Super isn't going to cost £1000.

This topic seems to have been talked about a lot and maybe my bechmarks will help some people if they are looking to justify an upgrade. I have a week left before my return window closes to decide and do some Frame Gen testing, it really does come down to what you personally want to achieve with your PC.

Just thought I’d post a little update on the final build of my L200. Very happy with this machine, is very ‘console’ like for me - as can be seen with comparison to a Series X. It’s playing games at 4k60fps on my TV with FSR on quality and v-sync to match the 60hz my screen output - I have terrible tearing without it.

Didn’t really have a budget in mind when I started as I planned to use a lot of previous parts to build this. Ended up going down the rabbit hole and replacing some parts including the motherboard to give me a native USB C header (had an adaptor in place before which lead to sata power and cable clutter). I’ve ended up spending around the same as the 512gb Steam Machine costs here in the UK. I did buy a new CPU and RAM on sales via AliExpress and a ‘Like New’ GPU on eBay within this price.

I still have the old parts and planning to put them into my previous Ridge case and try sell it to recoup some costs - although I’ve never sold a full PC before. Didn’t intend on a Steam Machine alternative as I’ve had a living room PC for a few years now and I play a lot of GamePass games so sticking to Windows.

System:

CPU - Ryzen 5500x3D

GPU - Powercolor RX 9060 XT 16GB

Motherboard - Jingyue B550i Mini ITX

RAM - Netac 32GB DDR4 3200Mhz CL16

CPU Cooler - Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 Mini

Storage - 2TB fanxiang NVMe SSD & 1TB Orico NVMe SSD

PSU - 650W EVGA SFX

Case - Shiny Snake L200

Fans - 2 x Arctic P12 Pro Reversed & 2 x Arctic P8

Sorry for the long post, I started waffling and got carried away…

A few years ago I built a Fractal Ridge for the Living Room (originally a Fractal Node which was quickly replaced) using some parts from my previous PC. It was the most 'console' like case I could find at the time that took medium sized GPUs. The original purpose was a Retro Game Emulation device with the ability to play some modern games at 1080p. What I have found over time is that it's a bit too 'big' for my use case and especially the equipment it houses. It also doesn't fit in the media unit very well (which isn't ideal either), it never sat quite right and always ran pretty hot. I had to mount a USB fan on top to try exhaust the hot air out the unit.

Having a look at other cases recently I kept coming across the 'sandwich' layout which isn't really suitable for a horizontal position. I found the Shiny Snake L200 on YouTube which is inverted and thought it would be good to try out for a rebuild. I am happy with how the actual PC has turned out althought I'm not sure it quite fits the bill of 'console' anymore.

It's the most 'SFF' I've built as the Ridge was pretty roomy to work in and this certainly wasn't. I'm glad it has a PSU basement as I was able to hide a large amount of cables in there - especially as I require SATA power. It is also feels like a dense solid lump of PC now.

I cheaped out a bit on the first build and went with an A520i board, which is PCIe 3.0 (not too big a deal), only has one M.2 slot and doesn't have a USB C header. I wanted to take advantage of the Ridge's USB C slot so I ended up buying a splitter board which takes the USB 3.0 input and splits it across USB 3.0 and USB C. This was fine in the Ridge, lots of space, but was a challenge in the L200 as it requires SATA power. I also had 2x2TB SATA SSDs which stored modern games and retro games, and they haven't been able to go back in so I need an alternate storage solution to the 512GB NVMe that is installed for the OS.

I decided to rebuild and slightly upgrade as I wanted more performance than 1080p on a 4K TV which we have in the living room. Picked up a PowerColor RX 9060 XT 16GB due to it's small form factor which is ideal for this sort of case. It still has the original 5600X installed, I'd upgrade but a 5700X3D is now more expensive. I have a 5800X3D in my main rig, might keep that if I ever do an upgrade there. Would also love to upgrade the mobo but there isn't really anything wrong with it other than some work arounds.

I have all the fans set to exhaust out the front of the case instead of usual flow front to back. I have installed a small intake fan on bottom of the media unit where the cables come in to try and get some fresh air in. Seems ok so far. I’ve also stuck the mesh side panel on the top instead of glass just to try and draw more air in. The glass panel is now on the bottom with some rubber feet. Realised I forgot to take a picture of the cable management…

Was considering a Bazzite build now that I have all AMD stuff but recently came across a piece of software called ConsolePC which has worked well unifiying all the games on Windows. It's either that or Playnite which also works.

Parts List:

CPU - Ryzen 5600X

CPU Cooler - Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 MINI

Case Fans - Arctic Reverse Flow P12 Pro on front & P8s on rear

Mobo - Gigabye A520i

RAM - KLEVV BOLT DDR4 16GB 3600MHz CL18

Storage - 512GB NVMe

GPU - PowerColor RX 9060 XT 16GB

PSU - EVGA SFX 650W

CASE - Shiny Snake L200