Intel 13th Gen DDR5 ATX Build

InWin A5 ATX Mid Tower Case $109
     - A5 at InWin's website

MSI Pro Z790-A WiFi DDR5 Intel ATX Motherboard $280

Intel Core i5-13600K Raptor Lake 14-Core CPU $320

Noctua NH-U12S 120mm CPU Cooler $80

Corsair Vengeance 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5 5600 RAM $136

Samsung 980 PRO M.2 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD $120

Samsung 980 PRO M.2 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD w/heatsink $200

EVGA SuperNOVA 650 P6 Platinum 650-watt PSU $130

Microsoft Windows 10 Professional $47 (MrKeyShop)

Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus $43 (MrKeyShop)

Build total (without GPU): $1,468


Undecided GPU:

     MSI Mech Radeon RX 6650 XT PCIe 4.0 Video Card $295

     MSI Ventus GeForce RTX 3060 12GB PCIe 4.0 Video Card $370

I have built several rigs since the year 2000, and this is easily the best mid-ATX case I've used. While it's not perfect, I have few complaints. I absolutely love the compact size, while easily holding an ATX motherboard and related components. Despite the smaller compartment, I had no space-related problems getting everything in place and neatly connecting wiring. The overall build quality of the case is very good, especially at this price point.

I had a minor issue with mounting the EVGA SuperNOVA P6 power supply, which has a small "ECO" rocker switch, in addition to the power switch. If you look closely at the photo with the area circled in red (2nd to last photo), you'll see that the fitment is a bit tight for this PSU. The frame bent up a little where it catches above the edge of the rocker switch, but it's holding the PSU just fine. I would have trimmed it with my Dremel, but I did not want to risk voiding the case's warranty in case I had to send it back. It's a minor quibble, and most PSUs don't have that rocker switch anyway.

My only other quibble with the case is the power button, and it's minor as well. The button has very little travel, and requires a somewhat firm push. At one point I had to reset the computer, and holding down the button to restart the computer took a couple of efforts. A little more travel, with a softer actuation point would be helpful. On the positive side, you're less likely to accidentally trip the switch.

The single rear-mounted 120mm RGB exhaust fan was okay, but I'm not into RGB. I replaced it with 120mm non-RGB 3-pin Antec case fans that I found on sale on Amazon ($20-ish for a 5-pack), and I added two more fans as intake at the bottom. I'm sorry that I didn't include a photo of the new fan array, but there was plenty of room for all of them.

I did not bother with adding two more fans at the top, but it would have been easy enough had I chosen to do so. All fans are controlled by the motherboard, and so far it's been exceptionally quiet, even with the 120mm Noctua CPU cooler, as well as the 2 GPU fans. I'll hear the fans slightly ramp up on occasion, but it's never been excessive or attention getting.

The dark tinted tempered glass panel is nice, but I would have been just as happy if it was a solid metal panel. It will easily change out with the backside metal panel, if you prefer. Both panels are very easy to remove and reinstall, and they firmly hold in place.

Click the images for the full size photo:

Nice build, Scuzzy!

Interesting case layout with the front PSU and the bottom intakes.

Decided to use the ole GTX 960 for now? If you're just using it for standard acceleration and no gaming, extreme rendering, etc., it's just fine.

Glad to see you're still active on here one in a while.

Thanks, Cars. Obviously I don't spend much time here since Bill's passing. I keep the site going mostly for its archival value.

As far as the build is concerned, I'm still quite happy with it. I doubt I would change anything if I were building another today. The case has been awesome in everyday use. As for the GTX 960... yeah, what you said. Maybe someday I'll change it out for something better, but the GPU prices always make me think twice. The GTX 960 does what I need, so the motivation to upgrade it is quite low.

On a different note, I fell head-over-heels for Chrome OS. I hope to find a good deal on a Chromebook Plus laptop during the upcoming Black Friday time frame. The day will come that I will permanently kick Windows to the curb, and Chrome OS is the most likely contender.

As for Windows 11... uh-uh. No way, no how. Not in my home.

Yeah, I totally understand. May Bill rest in peace.

It's unfortunate that this forum died out. There's all of what, 3 "active" members these days?

Yeah, GPU prices are still WAY to high. My wife and I have RTX3070s. I bought mine new after "Winning" the option to buy it for $800 from Newegg back when the price bubble was peaking. However, I let it mine Ethereum to recoup the ridiculous cost until it became too low profit to do so. Then I got hers for $350 right around the time the 40 series released, which was great timing. I learned from the 20 series used price crash when the 30s came out. Even with these cards, there are multiple games we play that still are limited by GPU performance at 1440p. Cities Skyline 2 and Call of Duty are two great examples... I've considered the RX7900XT, but I really try to stick with GPUs that run at under 200 watts in most cases. Plus, the cheapest I've seen for the version I want is like $740+tax, so still more than I'd want to spend on it. Will probably just wait for Nvidia 50 series...

Chrome OS is very good in a lot of cases. Windows is still the most functional for me, and I finally took the plunge into Windows 11 a month or two ago. My Home computer, Work Computer, and Server are all now Windows 11. Overall, I like it, but there are still some quirks & bugs that need addressing.

I often think of Bill and miss him enormously. 

Poasters got its start in the year 2000. In its heyday, we had over 2,300 members to our credit. I like to think we helped countless others, and continue to do so by keeping this site going. TBH, I'm not sure how much longer I'll leave the lights on. My current hosting plan expires Feb 2026, and that could well be when the party ends.

I hope someday GPU prices will come down to something that resembles reasonable. I have toyed with the idea of an Intel card, but I remain in no hurry. I've never been a gamer, content creator, graphics editor, etc., so motivation levels are low.

GPUs and their ridiculous prices aside, we finally moved up in the world in my Colorado rural neighborhood. Until literally just days ago, the best internet we could obtain was 50Mbps/15Mbps. I've been on Rise Broadband for years, with a 50Mbps plan that kept me chugging along for $53 a month.

We now have the option of two fiber providers. Both just finished building in our neighborhood a couple days apart. This Friday I'm getting (FINALLY!!!) a 400Mbps FIOS connection through Xfinity, as their pricing is much better than the competition. Xfinity only wanted $55 for their 400 plan, whereas the competition has a 55Mbps plan for $82, or a 1Gbps plan for $112. It also helped that Xfinity has free installation, while the other guy charges $99 for the same.

I did a service upgrade (VOIP) that brought my grand total to $78 a month, but even at full price after the 2-yr intro, Xfinity remains competitive. The other carrot that Xfinity offers is their millions of free hot spots throughout the nation.

My current computer's mobo has a WiFi 6E modem built in, but my wife's computer is an older model with a much slower WiFi 5 modem. Last night I ordered a WavLink 6E PCIe card with Bluetooth 5.3, and it should be in tomorrow. Once installed, both of these systems are coming off of the patch cable. The computers will be within 10-feet of Xfinity's xFi 6E router, and on 6E they should move like they have a purpose.

BTW, I got my HP X360 Chromebook a couple weeks back. It automatically upgraded to Chromebook Plus during setup, and I couldn't be happier with the unit. It was a Best Buy open-box special, and got it delivered for all of $273. Not bad, considering that MSRP was at one point $699.

I'm glad Win 11 is working out for you, but my goal is to permanently kick Microsoft to the curb. If nothing else, I'll at least make it sleep on the couch.

Good to know the lights will still be on until 2026 at the very least. Hard to justify going any further with such little Activity.

If you're not doing anything that requires a powerful GPU, no reason to upgrade. Maybe an entry level intel card would work well for you, such as the A380. Should be far more efficient than the GTX 960, slightly better performance in general, and more modern support. But it's likely best for you to wait until you need and upgrade for some reason.

Glad to here fast internet has made it to your area. A gig of symmetrical optical will spoil a person! We pay $95 for a business line from Frontier, which supposedly gives us bandwidth & support priorities over Residential customers who pay maybe $70-80 instead. I'm skeptical this is real, and may try to switch to residential, lol. But still, $95 for the service isn't horrendous, even though the promised me $90 forever when I signed up.

We're mostly hard wired, with our Home Server and our two computers on a 2.5gbe switch. The rest of house and computer are on a 1gig setup with 2 routers. We're still using the Netgear R7800 as our main after several years. Chose it for the low bufferbloat, which it was top of the stack when we bought it. Eventually will upgrade to a newer 2.5gb router, but it's really not necessary. The R7800 still gives 500mbps measured speeds on wi-fi devices, which is more than enough since most of our essential devices are wired anyways.

Glad you like your chromebooks! We use our Android phones for internet around the house, otherwise we just use desktops. We've always had laptops, too, but we just never use them unless we're traveling. My Sager 17" with Core i7-740QM & 5870 mobility still works fine. My dad also gave me a Sager 17 with a 2nd gen i6 & GT540 that he was having problems with. It was overheating due to thermal paste issues, which I fixed. now my son can use this one when we travel. I do have my work laptop for when I need a serious laptop while traveling. It's an Asus TUF 17 with i5-11260H & RTX3050.

Anyways, for your use case, it sounds like windows is not necessary most of the time. I recently updated our server to Windows 11, which kind of scared me since I have a 2012 Server grade RAID card that was initially hard to find Windows 10 drivers for. But they worked fine in Windows 11.

Not sure if I ever mentioned our home server, but it normally acts as a Plex server and NAS for us. I left it windows due to my comfort with Windows, as well as the ability to run game servers and such. Plus, I can log into it from anywhere and use it as a computer since it's always on. I have it do Handbrake transcoding and other tasks that I want to offload.

Just realized, I did mention the server in another thread long ago.

cars... Obviously it's been months since you poasted, and I apologize for the extreme delay in replying. However, I will cut straight to the point...

I just set the entire forum to Read Only. As I previously mentioned, my current hosting plan expires February 2026, and it's unlikely I'll renew. The only reason Poasters is even on life support is for its historical content, but I can't justify keeping it going any longer. At some point, it's time to move on.

Thanks for being part of the crew that made Poasters successful.

As Ace would say, "This place already smells dead. Or is that Scuzzy's feet?"