Late last year when I was starting to hear about the AMD Zen CPUs and the Vega GPUs I was thinking of wanting to build a new machine until they came out. I was not really an AMD enthusiasts at the time, but I had owned a few AMD laptops and thus had no real problem with the company...they worked. So I was going to wait see what AMD was doing and then...probably just build a Z270 system.

But when Ryzen hit and was about as much as AMD had promised with critics being fairly optimistic, I knew I wanted a Ryzen/Vega system. But, I was not expecting such a gap between Ryzen and Vega being on the market. Even with consumer level Vega coming out in July/August that still means ist would be wise to let cards and prices shake out before planning a build. So, realistically it I'm looking at a October or November build, and that hurts.

When I bought my 4K TV id decided it was stupid to have a PC and 24" monitor literally four feet away from a 4K TV that could so decent proxy duty as a monitor. So my plan as of two weeks ago was to build a mATX system in a HTPC case that would sit under the screen but tilted with the wide top facing the viewer - you can see all the parts through the glass.

To the right is what I want: It is all done with flexible tubing, but because it is all straight, taut runs it looks as good as a PC with rigid tubes. The case is pricey to be taking a drill to, but I think the results look extremely nice. The only stumbling blocks is seeing what size Vega cards are when they come out...small enough to fit the case and be mounted for the riser card?

I am rooting for amd but they are playing catchup too often for me. Best to hope for is they recapture the mid system market but i wouldn't bank to hard on their 4k performance. Hope i am wrong though.

I'm waiting for Vegas as well and for more mATX and mITX boards to come out for Ryzen. I really like the way Ryzen has shaped up so far, the platform has been making a lot of progress since it launched. AMD and board vendors have really been putting in some solid work, and for a new platform i think the teething issues have been pretty minor compared to say the likes of which X99 saw when that first launched.

I'm curious about Vega but won't be changing GPUs anytime soon, hope AMD can finally have a card again that stands in the same class as one of Nvidia's high end models. Ryzen is a good first step for their CPUs, but I'm wondering how Intel will respond as there's speculation they have been sitting on innovations because AMD haven't been competitive for so long.

I'm out of the loop regarding Ryzen's problems, I hear there was a lot of RAM issues. If I was building new I'd probably go Ryzen myself as they are amazing bang for buck for multi-core processing (3D rendering, video editing etc), for a mostly gaming rig I'd still favour Intel for the superior per core performance & higher clocks.

Regarding that pic, I'm certain that all of that plumbing needs a giant radiator and a bunch of fans to blow over it, which is conveniently invisible in that side view. Anyway both custom water loops and and the concept of SFF HTPC are remnants of the past, I feel. The idea of using a case as a kind of TV stand isn't bad, were it not for the cables of course, which would all have to go out of the large side panel in the back. In the pictured case you couldn't put anything on top of it because of the fans and the radiator mentioned earlier. That said of the million ways case makers tried to rearrange PSU and drive bays and cables, I've never seen a box that lets cables out of the (broad)side, making it difficult to access the I/O panel which is always perpendicular to the motherboard.

Anyway the Professional cards were launched today for 1 and 1,5 grand depending on whether it's air or water cooled. However expectations for Vega are low.

As you deduced it has a 360 radiator (three 120 fans on along a thin radiator) tucked up on top. The back is neatly done, but has no other fans. As you can see from the picture, tubes and wires fit back there without much room. The builder says it runs a bit hot. Which is to be expected since it has a grand total of four fans...one in the PSU and three on the radiator.

The back has spot for a 120 mm fan, but not a great spot. I would rather tinker to put a bigger fan on the outside, even if I had to clean it more often. Sure, the flow of that one fan will be interrupted and not have a clear path, but it would be something. It's just an idea...

I want something small, and I like the idea of the mobo and the flat side coolant chamber of the GPU being visible out the window. It does have its trade-offs.

No matter what parts I go with I do want to try a custom loop. The only thing I would attempt is to get the drain port even lower, below the GPUs water block if possible.


I know I would mess up rigid tubes if I tried; I have watched enough videos to know I would waste tons of tube making complex bends. So, what this guy did with soft tubes was inspirational and likely within my skill set.

I was reading today that the Micron DRAM factory had a contamination incident which will close it down for awhile. This is shaping up to be a bad year to build a computer.

Oh, well, what can you do...they market place is the marketplace. Still thrilled to think about building a new computer this fall. It not like this isn't an existing year too...its just going to cost 10% to 15% more.

Starting to rethink the Ryzen build in terms of size. I think I might forgo the custom loop, just to take that off the table. I will still modify the Lian-Li case to get as much cooling as I can hidden in the back, but I will just work with a closed-loop as a base. I don't need, nor does Ryzen like, much of an overclock - so I will be modest

Buying RAM, Storage or graphics cards is daunting now because of teh price hikes. Even if you know what you want, often it is out-of-stock because what you want is what everyone else is desperate to get their hands on too. I really wanted a mATX Ryzen motherboards with a decent power controllers, but most of the mATX chocies are the B350 boards with rather weak power delivery. So I'm looking more closely at a ASRocks ITX board...its a bit to flashy for my taste, but you can't have everything. I could just remove the aluminum heat sinks to have them re-anodized in gun-metal color at a car shop.

Until I can buy a Vega 64 I really don't want to jump into buying the other parts. It could easily take several months for prices to lower even mostly and to have Vega 64 in stock, During that wait upgrades or revisions could be happening to all the other hardware. This is my current conception if Vega 64 dropped in my lap.

I'm not militant that I have to have a AMD Vega card - I'd just like one. There will be nothing wrong with Nvida's current lineup or the upcoming Volta-based gaming cards; but I was just liking the idea of a Ryzen/Vega build.