[rippin' jazz tunes] [boxes plopping down] Greetings and welcome to an LGR computer thing thatās a smidge more modern than usual. Cuz yeah, today we are putting together a
brand new workstation / editing rig using all these lovely parts here, among other things. Ahh this is always exciting, weāre gonna
be going over the parts I chose, dismantling my old build, putting together this brand
new one, setting everything up with Windows, and then putting it through its paces with
a few select programs. Yeah, upgrading my work PC is something I
do every four or five years or so, with my last build being back in early 2016. I didnāt do a video on that, but it was
this machine right here, what I called my mini-fridge monolith. Iām actually gonna be using this exact same
case for todayās build and just swapping out all the internals, cuz I dunno, Iām
still quite fond of it. Itās a Fractal Design Define XL R2, one
I chose not only for its brushed steel industrial kitchen aesthetic, but because I was actively seeking something with a ton of space thatās super quiet. Itās got these giant, slow-moving fans on
the front, the back, the bottom, a huge BeQuiet CPU cooler installed, and tons of room for
everything I wanted for parts and cable management. And what Iāve had in here since 2016 was
an Intel i7-6700 CPU, 64 gigs of DDR4-3000 RAM, a couple of M.2 drives, a couple SSDs, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. Oh and an old Avermedia capture card, which
Iāve been meaning to upgrade for years but it does the job so whatever. And yeah, I mean, all this stuff works fine
still. But only just fine, because my workflow has changed quite a bit since 2016. Iāve used Adobe Premiere since forever,
so thatās nothing new. But Iāve also started using After Effects
more for things like my intro and text graphics, as well as a bunch of filters and plugins
that really bog things down. Not to mention Iāve upgraded cameras three
times since then, with my current one being a Lumix GH5S recording at 4K 60fps and 150 megabits per second. And ah, yeah, all that combined has slowed
things down a lot while editing, even with proxies, and render times have gone through the roof. So thatās why I decided to go all out this
time and grab a buncha stuff thatās admittedly unjustifiable if it werenāt for my job. The centerpiece being this insane processor
here, the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X. Iāve been setting aside cash for it ever
since I saw what it could do when it launched in late 2019, and then when I got my tax refund
this year I just decided to take the plunge. [chuckles] This thing alone cost two thirds
of what my entire previous PC cost, and again, if it wasnāt a business expense I would not be able to justify it. 32 cores, 64 threads, 144 megs combined cache. Yeah just complete nonsense thatās really
all about getting me a smoother time editing and rendering, this is not a gaming build
or anything like that. Not to say it canāt game, Iām sure itād
do just fine in that regard. But if I was building a new gaming PC Iād
go with an i9-9900KS or something with fewer cores. In fact, Iāve got an Intel-based PC in my
living room that I use exclusively for playing games, thatās a whole ānother rig that
doesnāt do any work and is just built for gaming. This is all about the work, and to that effect,
Iāve also chosen a motherboard that seems like itāll do what I need: an MSI Creator
TRX40. Iāve gone with Gigabyte boards for the longest
time, but Iāve been impressed with the MSI board I have in my gaming PC and figured Iād
give one of their sTRX4 models a try. Itās got a crapload of ports and overclocking
features and things Iāll never use. The sound chip for instance, I donāt use
on-board sound at all, itās all external solutions for me and work these days. Currently a Mackie Big Knob Studio for both
recording and playback, it works well for my mics that needs XLR phantom power and uh. I like the big knob. Anyway yeah, moving onto the memory situation,
and Iām going with my longtime preference Corsair, this time 128 gigabytes of their
Vengeance LPX DDR4-3600 CL18 RAM. Should be a tad faster than what I had before,
and of course itās twice the amount. Believe it or not I do push 45, 50 gigabytes
of memory used in certain projects, sometimes even more with really big videos like the
E3 one I did a while back, so the extra headroom will be nice. Speaking of which, I also really wanted to
boost my storage speed, so I went with three of these Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 NVMe sticks,
which should be stupidly fast. Even more so than the 950 Pros I had in my
last build, and those were already quite quick, just far lower in capacity. These are two, one, and one terabyte, so Iāll
be using the two for my main video assets, one for proxies and screen captures, and the other one for the operating system and application files. Iāve got another 4 terabyte SSD already
that Iāll keep as well, but itās a lot slower so itāll likely be for overflow of
things that havenāt been moved onto my network storage. Yeah thatās other stuff, thereās about
128 terabytes both here and off-site that I used for storage and backups. Continuing with these parts though and my
search for silence. I went with another BeQuiet CPU cooler since
I was so happy with the last one I had, this one being the Dark Rock Pro TR4. I donāt wanna do liquid cooling or have
any audible pumps or motors or loud fans, so these huge coolers of theirs are fantastic. Just a couple of enormous, slow-moving fans and a monstrous heatsink thatās about as big as your head. In terms of power, Iām going with -- well
this is actually my old power supply but itās still awesome so Iām keeping it. Itās an EVGA Supernova thousand watt power
supply, one of their 80 plus platinum ones for whatever thatās worth. Itās served me well for years now, never
left me hanging on power needs, and itās got all modular connections and itās super
quiet, so yeah, it makes the cut. Lastly thereās the video card, this EVGA
RTX 2080 Super FTW3 whatever the heck. Not the best card in existence for gaming,
but again, itās not a gaming build so itāll do the job with its 8 gigs of video memory
and such. Less than the 11 gigs I had before, but itās
still faster overall, supports RTX, and I didnāt see the need to shell out for a Ti
or a Titan on this rig. Iām holding out for the 3080 before going
whole hog on a new GPU, and even then thatāll be dropping into my living room PC and not
this one, so the 2080 Super works fine. Oh and uh, yeah 64-bit Windows 10 Pro, I guess
thereās that too. Nothing exciting there but there it is. Right! So thatās it for the parts, I am more than
ready to put this thing together. But first, letās take the old one apart
real quick, and start assembling all this Threadripper goodness! [music softly fades out] Alrighty so, first order of business is getting
my 2016 build disassembled, at least most of the way. As discussed, Iām gonna be keeping the power supply and one of the 2.5ā SSDs installed in the new machine, and the video capture card will be sticking around as well for the time being. Same goes for all the 120 and 140 millimeter case fans, along with the blu-ray burner I have in there. Which uh, heh, come to think of it Iāve never once used for burning or even reading blu-rays. But I like having it on-hand for all the older
optical media that Iām constantly reading and writing for other LGR projects. Hereās one part that wonāt be sticking
around though, this older Sandisk Ultra 3D SSD. I think this oneās only 250 gigs and itās
quite a bit slower than the others, so yeah, itās better suited to an old laptop or something. Then thereās the 4 terabyte SSD that I will
be keeping installed. Even though its read/write speeds are slower
than the M.2 sticks, itās still nice to have the additional local storage for lesser-used
files. I really dig Fractal Designās removable
drive trays by the way, just one of the many things I love in this case. That and the fact that itās so wide open
inside, making it super easy to reach all the screws on the motherboard, something I canāt say for most of my previous ATX cases. Seems like thereās always some weird metal
doohickey in the way of one little screw or another, or large CPU coolers would bump up against the sides but nope, not here! Anyway thatās that. The motherboard is outta there, along with
all the rest, so letās move onto the new stuff! Starting with the MSI motherboard and its
ridiculous number of quirks and features. THIS! Is one appealing design, I gotta say. Those eight RAM slots bring to mind heftier
server boards, I quite like it. And itās not too far off the deep end of
ātry-hard gamer boiā aesthetic either, thankfully. Though it does have some RGB nonsense happening on the I/O panel, a crystal-looking thing they call āThe Mystic Light.ā Eh itās fine, I can turn it off if itās
bothersome. I just prefer minimal or no RGB lighting and
purposely avoid things like glowing memory modules and LED fans. I swear, half the builds I see online these
days are lit up like the Vegas Strip on acid, I donāt get it. Ah well, enough old man being old, letās
see what else is in here. We got a bag full of drive cables and things,
nothing I need since I already have everything in there from the last rig. Thereās also this impressive-looking wi-fi
antenna, again not needed since cāmon now, 10 gig ethernet is where itās at. And then thereās this PCI Express card,
one of the more intriguing inclusions with this board. MSI calls this the M.2 Xpander Aero Gen4,
an unappealing mouthful of a name, but a highly useful card that takes the mainboardās M.2
slots from 3 to 7. Yeah, this whole top part of the card comes
off letting you insert 4 more M.2 SSDs. Awesome for any future expansion! But seeing as I only have 3 of them right
now, letās set the card aside and go ahead and get these installed on the motherboard
itself. The way this works on the TRX40 is that you
have two metal heatsink bars screwed on there. Removing them provides access to the M.2 slots, complete with thermal pads covered in blue protective film. Pretty dang fancy compared to what Iāve
had before, Iāve only ever had a couple slots out in the open with no built-in heat
dissipation at all. So yeah, just gonna remove the blue film on
the thermal pads, slot each of the three modules into place, and screw those heatsink plates
on top of them to keep everything down. Nice. Should keep things a bit cooler, and it also just looks snazzy as crap all tucked away like that. With that outta the way itās time to whip
out the Threadripper, and man, this is some [chuckles]
excessive packaging, to say the least. Honestly it looks more like a plasma rifle
power cell or some sci-fi macguffin than it does a CPU holder. What are you even supposed to do with it afterwards,
set it on a shelf, just empty? Extraneous packaging aside though, this is
truly a gorgeous bit of hardware. Kinda reminds me of the Pentium Pro in terms
of how oversized the processor is, what a mesmerizing piece of high tech art. It also came with a big olā watercooling
mount, as well as this Threadripper-branded screwdriver. The latter is used to unlock this metal socket
covering, so you can remove the plastic pin shields and get to the uh, sliding insertion
thingy. Heh, yeah this is new to me man, check this out. The whole CPU, orange plastic and everything,
slides right down into this little cradle and clicks down into place over the pins. Then you screw it all back in there so it
connects, and it is now good to go! Sure have come a long way from ZIF sockets. Next up is the RAM since it goes underneath
the CPU cooler, and since Iāve got four identical modules, theyāll go in these four
slots spaced apart from one another in order for optimal quad-channel support. Then weāre ready for the Dark Rock Pro cooler in all its comically-sized copper aluminum glory. Pretty sure Iāve seen smaller children actually. And hey neat, it came with its own screwdriver. A pretty nice one too from the feel of it. First step here is to screw in these metal
brackets and plastic standoffs around the socket itself, which is where the heatsink
will screw into here soon. And it actually came with some generic thermal
paste in the box, but Iām gonna use some of my trusty olā Arctic MX-4 instead. How much do I use? Enough, thatās how much. Got that slathered on the Threadripper, and
now we can just plop down the whole cooler on top, place the metal bracket in between,
and screw that down through two holes in the top of the heatsink. Sure glad it came with that screwdriver, otherwise
I donāt know if I had any that were long and skinny enough to get down in there. Lastly, thereās a 135mm fan that goes in
the middle of the heatsink assembly. That clips right into place with these little
metal brackets and gets plugged into the CPU fan header on the motherboard right alongside
the other fan so theyāre both able to be controlled at once. Alrighty, things are moving quickly at this
point! Just gonna get everything weāve done so
far dropped into the case and screwed into the existing standoffs, conveniently theyāre
all the same as last time. And Iāll start connecting some of the power
cables for the motherboard, CPU power, and the case fans. As well as the SATA drive cables, USB ports,
and all the different front panel connections. At this point the expansion cards are about
all thatās left, with the graphics first on the agenda since itās so large. And yeah, these RTX cards are monstrous, taking
up three PCI brackets around back. It still seems crazy to me when cards take
up two slots, three is just hilarious. Now, normally Iād install the GPU into the
first PCI Express slot, but ah. Yeah, doing that would completely cover up
the chipset fan on the motherboard, something Iād rather avoid if I can. So Iām gonna install it a couple slots down
so it sits below the fan. Not exactly ideal I suppose, but itāll work
since each slot is PCIe 4.0 x16 anyway, and I only have one more card to install. That being the old Avermedia Game Broadcaster HD, which I use to capture old PC footage below 1080p. Itās just a tiny little thing, slots in
there no problem. And yeah, thatās about it! Other than spending a while tidying things
up and generally taking care of cable management, the only thing left to do will be installing
Windows and setting up all my software. Check it out! The new LGR Threadripper workstation is lookinā
mighty fine indeed. Iām gonna assume I didnāt miss anything
stupid and get the side panels put back on there. Then hook everything back up, power it on, and see what happens! [music fades] [computer powers on in near silence] Ahh, the sweet sound of nothing! It can be hard to tell if itās turned on
at all audibly, just the way I like it since I record so much in this room. And yeah, once itās tested out all the components
and memory and stuff, we reach the MSI BIOS. Success! Everything seems to be plugged in and working
as intended, so thatās a good sign. And dang there sure is an extravagant amount
of junk to look at and tweak in here, which is one reason I wanted another MSI board. I particularly like the Board Explorer screen,
where you can mouseover and see each and every component, cable, add-on card, and peripheral
thatās currently active on the PC. I mean, I guess you could just look down and
see for yourself, but whatever, this amuses me and I enjoy its existence. After this, itās Windows setup time! And yeah yeah, Windows 10 setup, blah blah
it is what is. After a few minutes itās all done. The only thing that needed to be manually
set up was my capture card, but otherwise itās back to business as usual. So letās test some crap out! I mean, just look at all those threads [laughs]
64 threads across 32 cores, resulting in about 128 times my previous level of arousal, mmm. Naturally the first thing I had to try was
SkiFree for Windows 3.1. Oh yeah, smooth as silk even in ultrawide. Itās barely even taxing the CPU at all,
what a beast! Yeah okay, enough joking around. So the actual first thing I tried was Duke
Nukem 3D Atomic Edition from 1996. Amazingly, it runs flawlessly in DOSBox, with
hardly a skipped frame or a hint of slowdown! The Ryzen Threadripper is truly the future. All right for real now though, letās go
for Premiere Pro. One of the biggest reasons I wanted the upgrade
was to improve rendering times, and hereās some footage of the previous 6700K machine
encoding a typical 12 minute LGR video with all the settings and stuff I normally use. On there it took over an hour to finish rendering
that particular video. And that was one of the better scenarios, some of my longer videos took three or four hours. Now letās try it out on the new PC, same
exact file, settings, all that. We know itāll be faster, but by how much? A lot!
[chuckle of disbelief] Yeah it only took 25 minutes to
finish rendering the project, using identical plugins and export settings as before. Ahh, fantastic, thatās seriously like a
weight lifted off my shoulders right there. And yeah, thatās about it for the new work
PC! Even knowing what kinda numbers Iād be getting
beforehand, having looked at endless tests and benchmarks online, itās still somewhat
mind-boggling to see for myself what this setup can do with my own video projects. Including this very video youāre watching,
this entire thing was edited and rendered in record time using the new rig, and it was a buttery smooth experience the whole way through. As youād hope for how much it cost, jeez, imagine if it sucked. Thankfully it doesnāt though, and Iāve
used some of the extra time to enjoy a few maps of Doom Eternal, and appreciate how well it makes use of all those processor threads. What a bonkers thing. I know some games will require disabling a
number of cores or they wonāt run, something the included MSI software makes pretty simple, thankfully. But so far, all the games Iāve tried have
worked great without having to disable or tweak anything, itās all been rock solid. Yeah, even though itās a work PC itās
still been undeniably fun messing around with games just to see what it can do. And hey, if itās in this video, that means
itās technically work right? Oh yeah for sure, this is definitely work. Doom, Wreckfest, Red Dead Redemption 2, Minecraft RTX, I say theyāre all sortakinda work at this particular moment in time. Doing YouTube as a job is bizarre. Speaking of which, I hope you enjoyed this
video! I know itās not my usual fare but I tried
making it enjoyable regardless. Do check out some more LGR if ya like this
kinda thing. Especially if youāre into retro computing,
I post new videos each week. And as always, thank you very much for watching!
Bro, how is the inside of the old build so freakin clean?
I dig mine out and clean it once per year, and it's never that spotless! Especially the CPU cooler fan. I don't think it's even that clean after I am done cleaning it!
TIL, LGR has a 128 terabyte disk rig for storage and backups.
This video really reminds me how little I know about current hardware compared to how much I know about 90's/2000's hardware. I guess growing up in the 90's, and 10 years of watching LGR will do that to a person.
Even though Iām not building one now, this was still informative. So much has changed since building computers 20 years ago. Used to hate getting cuts all over my hands. But this is beautiful.
Daaaaaaaamn that's some serious hardware
Wow a threadripper cpu they are insanely expensive.