Case
The Core P1's open industrial design is extremely compelling visually. I never get tired of looking at it, you could say it was the case that launched a thousand dollars worth of purchases. It's available in black or white.
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Wire management is excellent and it's a really flexible case to work with. There is a ton of place to pass wires and hide them on the other side of the case:
My only complaint is that it only accepts a Mini ITX board, which it is too big for. They could have easily made it shorter and narrower. As soon as I finish my custom water loop, I plan to shorten the glass support studs as much as possible to give it a narrower profile.
The
coolest thing, is they cater to v
Makers! Seeing as I have a 3D printer and the goal of this build was to design parts in CAD, it seemed like a match made in heaven for me.
Motherboard
I was concerned about Z390s not being Hackintosh validated, but buying a Z370 motherboard with the Z390s around the corner was out of the question. As a life long tech enthusiast, I was used to waiting for the next gen products to be released before I would buy. This worked to my advantage because I was able to plan extensively and acquire parts when they came up on sale.
Determined to keep the physical size small, I decided on a mini-ITX board, but true to form, I would accept no compromises. Then reality hit me. After a frank evaluation of my needs, I realized I would never have more than 1 graphics card and that anything over 16GB of memory was a waste for my use case. As a certified Asus fanboy (no idea why) I settled on the Asus Z390-i Gaming. It's jewel-like high tech look, 3 M.2 slots (2 for SSD and one for a WiFi card) and well equipped rear panel just reeks of cool.[
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CPU
I am so ENRAGED at Intel's pricing that I cheer AMD every time they hand Intel their asses. I guess I hope they will force Intel to lower their prices. I just couldn't morally stomach the asking price of the 9900K so I ended up with a very respectable 8700K. I'm glad I did because if you look at my Geekbench scores below, you can see how well it keeps up. Especially when you consider I wasn't doing anything other than CAD and some light gaming. I will definitely upgrade when Intel comes to it senses.
Cooling
The case is built to accept a 240mm radiator for water cooling. If you have no intention of water cooling the CPU, you will end up with a big empty space in front and this may not be the best case for you.
I plan on installing a super custom loop and over specked radiator but it is taking me forever to assemble the components. Seeing as I wanted to get up and running, I looked into AIOs and was very surprised to find an affordable solution from DEEPCOOL. I absolutely love the kit and ended up getting the kit for close to what a premium Noctua air cooled solution would cost me.
I will update this post with a pic of my final config but here is an idea of what I am going for, except I will be using red coolant.
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Choose carefully if you go the DEEPCOOL route because there are several options available from. I went with the red LED model because I was planning on using different fans and was planning to replace it with a custom loop. There are several packages that include an RGB Aura sync compatible package with illuminated fans, and even a full addressable RGB package. The coolest thing is that you can plug the pump into the AIO header on the motherboard and read the pump speed!
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Speaking of fans, aesthetics are critical to me. After much deliberation, I got the Enermax T.B. RGB fan pack. Why the deliberation you ask? From an aesthetic point of view, I knew they were the ones the moment I saw them. The outer light rings and black center makes them look incredibly clean and futuristic. Reviews were very positive but SP was a little low and several Newegg reviews reported bearing failures with would fail in a few weeks. I took a gamble and so far too good.
The one thing about these fans I don't like is the hub. When you use the included hub, the motherboard cannot control the fan speed as a function of CPU temperature. You need to preselect the speed from the remote which is very inconvenient. I may hack up the wiring to bypass that limitation, but even then there is no yellow wire for RPM so you can't monitor them. I know that's a lot of concessions to make for aesthetics and I may eventually go another route if I can't mod them for speed control.
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Graphics card
Pick a card, any card. Again, I was anxious to see what was coming so I bought a Sapphire RX-580 8GB card to tide me over until the new AMDs were released. I was all for the Radeon VII but the current prices of used Vega 64s are sorely tempting. I am still debating but knowing me, I will get a Radeon VII the moment they are supported. By the way, I could care less about heat since I have an open case AND I will be water-cooling the card.
Memory
Nothing is more boring to look at or buy than memory unless you get G.Skill Trident RGB modules that is. Memory is stupidly expensive for no reason other than price fixing. Rage in check, I chose 3200s as the best bang for the buck.
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Drives
This is a tough one. The Samsung 970 EVO is so venerated I bought it without researching other options. It's a great drive to be sure, but also quite pricey. After finishing the OSX part of my build, I needed a 500GB SSD for the Windows side. As I was up and running I took time to evaluate other options, eventually deciding on the next generation WD Black NVMe M.2 3D NAND SSD. Not only does it perform just as well as the EVO 970, but it's also substantially less expensive.
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Power Supply
I was getting tired of researching everything so I just caved and got a Thermal Take Grand RGB because it was on sale and Aura compatible. I paid ridiculously low $59 after rebate during Christmas. I am delighted with the quality and included cables, which I believe I can take apart and sleeve. Rebate is a little slow to arrive, but I did get confirmation it would get here by March 10th, 2019. You might be interested to know I bought it on November 22, 2018. Not complaining, just saying.
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WiFi & Bluetooth
We are an exclusively Apple family so it was critical that the rig delivers the Apple experience. By pure dumb luck, I bought a used OEM Dell DW1560 M.2 card. What a coup that was! Not only does
EVERYTHING work but the Dell DW 1560 is a drop in replacement for the Asus factory installed WiFi card. Here they are side by side:
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Asus Intel Wifi ----------
Dell DW1560
The swap wasn't very hard but did get a little fiddly at times. The end result was definitely worth it because I ended up with OEM fitment, operation, and look.
Peripherals
The peripherals were as important to me as every other aspect of the build.
After much perusing and pondering, I picked up a Logitech craft keyboard on sale. I absolutely love this keyboard. I hate mechanical keyboards with their crazy travel and clickity clackity racket but finding a good slim profile keyboard is a chore. Most are made for travel and the Apple one just wasn't doing it for me anymore. The only thing I don't like is that it is wireless, uses a lot of power, and needs to be charged every few days. I may end up getting a nice thin USB-C cable and just leave it plugged in.
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For the mouse, I choose a Roccatt Kova corded mouse. It was such a revelation in mouse technology compared to my 8-year-old Microsoft optical mouse. All I can say is wow, it's super programmable in Windows, remembers it's settings in OSX, fast for gaming, and feels great. The RGB looks awesome too!
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I rounded this out with some Mackie CR4 studio speakers (still need to paint the rings red and swap LED for a red one) and a nice Ergotron adjustable arm.
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