I love PC building. It started ages ago when I was stuck gaming on a MacBook from 2007 with World of Warcraft and Eve Online running in potato mode and my best friend gave me an old Dell that I was able to put an EVGA 9600GT graphics card in. My eyes were opened to the glory of PC gaming even on low end hardware.
Several years and computers later, it’s time for another upgrade. This new build is going to reuse several components from my existing build in order to save some money. That means the list of new components is fairly short, starting with an Intel Core i9-10900k processor. I’ve chose this processor because of its very high single core clock speeds, and because I’m an Intel fanboy. Intel is often overpriced and fails to compete with AMD on a number of fronts, but they still reign supreme in single core clock speed and at this point that’s the most important consideration for the CPU needs of X-Plane 11. I have been very interested in custom loop watercooling for the last several years but I had not gotten to the point of actually implementing it until I recently put together a simple loop with flexible tubing to cool my existing CPU with a single 280mm radiator. I’ll be sticking with the custom loop to cool my new CPU as well, although with case and motherboard changes I’ll be planning to add the VRMs on the motherboard and the GPU to the loop.
The next major component for the build will be the Asus Z490 ROG Maximus XII Formula. I’m choosing this motherboard basically because all but one of my other builds have been Asus motherboards and I am very comfortable with them, and this board comes with a waterblock on the VRMs already that you can elect not to use if desired.
After that it’ll be 64 gb of some decent looking RAM to round out the build, and a new case. I’ll be switching into a Fractal Design Vector RS in pursuit of external looks that I love as well as vastly improved radiator support over my current case.