Well folks, the geek bug has bitten me once again. All I ever wanted this time around (initially anyway) was to build a budget rig with a reasonably fast storage/workspace and a decent processing capability to mainly accommodate a few ever-growing blockchains for the crypto nodes that I run and maintain. Besides, my past builds are showing their age though they are still very capable machines. However, as usual, I always get carried away with thoughts of other use case for it (mining, gaming, content editing/encoding/consumption, WIPs, etc.). The best laid plans...blah blah blah, I suppose. It's called a general computing device after all for a good reason. I'm not building a mere PSX or Xbox or the like here. I think it's still a budget build though (i.e. "bang for buck") in spite of my failure to stick to the original plan but at least, it has some semblance of utilizing current tech. So here it is with pictures galore (for those of you who'd rather browse through comic books than diligently read full-on pictureless novels)...thereby qualifying as a gaming-rig porn. Enloy!

The components/parts...
DIYPC J180-BL. A budget case but it doesn't feel like it at all. It's a very sleek and compact mid-tower ATX case. Though it's a couple of inches longer and taller than the case of a
Mini ITX I built years ago, it's however a few inches narrower. It's not perfect (nothing ever really is) but it has most of the features and layout/size combo that I was looking for...
https://i.postimg.cc/9f1zP82z/IMG-0013.jpghttps://i.postimg.cc/02WC2fFG/IMG-0016.jpghttps://i.postimg.cc/28KXXrkf/IMG-0022.jpgNice vertically mounted front panel ports and switches; prevents dust accumulation over time and it still has 2 USB 2.0 ports...
https://i.postimg.cc/nzmHM03X/IMG-0017.jpgInstalled 3 anti-RGB black 120mm fans in front...
https://i.postimg.cc/FKgpm44z/IMG-0170.jpgASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac budget motherboard. As with other current tech, this motherboard (and Ryzen) supposedly only supports Windows 10. Like many others, I tinkered with Windows 7 before installing W10 on it cuz it was a challenge to overcome and did it successfully so...like many others. As you know, W7 will eventually no longer be supported very soon just like XP was. So we must move on but that's another story...
https://i.postimg.cc/GpVyZgBt/IMG-0026.jpghttps://i.postimg.cc/TwnpBdMN/IMG-0032.jpgAMD RYZEN 7 1700 budget 8-Core CPU. It came with an AMD Wraith Spire RGB LED Cooler but I apparently wouldn't be using it...
https://i.postimg.cc/P5NNTznw/IMG-0044.jpgXPG Gammix D10 DDR4 3000MHz (PC4 24000) 16G (8GBx2) Memory Module Kit (ADATA). An ASRock-QVL'd budget RAM. It's interesting that ASRock has QVL'd a lot more ADATA XPG RAM models for this particular motherboard than the flagship brands...
https://i.postimg.cc/MTJG7CM7/IMG-0056.jpgSamsung 970 EVO Plus Series 500GB PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe 1.3 M.2 SSD. This would be the boot drive. Well, it's not exactly budget. In fact, it's at the top of the leaderboard speed, reliability and performance wise but it was on sale and priced competitively with the budget ones. So it is in fact a budget buy...
https://i.postimg.cc/gcD0hBYh/IMG-0047.jpgIntel 660p Series 1TB M.2 NVMe 2280 PCIe Gen3 x4 3D NAND Internal SSD. This would be the fast work drive (blockchains, content editing/encoding, WIPs, etc. It's not as fast as the 970 EVO Plus but it's plenty fast for a work drive and at 1TB with a budget price, it's a no-brainer...
https://i.postimg.cc/yYpYQg3Y/IMG-0053.jpgSeagate BarraCuda 2TB 7200 RPM 256MB Cache SATA3 6.0Gb/s 3.5" budget (bare) HDD. The quietest fast HDD I've ever used. As much as it's nice to have the NVMe SSD speed demons above to do work, HDDs can't be beat when it comes to secure and reliable long-term mass-storage at dirt-cheap $/GB cost. These two HDDs would be striped (RAID 0) to make them twice as fast and for a total of 4TB of storage space...
https://i.postimg.cc/W37sMhPV/IMG-0107.jpgMSI Radeon RX Vega 56 OC DirectX 12 Air Boost 8GB 2048-Bit HBM2 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support. Well, it's a budget card since it's the lowest-priced Radeon RX Vega 56 I could get with a reference blower-type card shroud to boot which is exactly what I wanted for a closed rig (expels all the hot air through the rear exhaust port instead of in the case)...
https://i.postimg.cc/KjHSNTq6/IMG-0110.jpghttps://i.postimg.cc/pV1g3DC7/IMG-0118.jpgRosewill PHOTON Series 1200W budget PSU. The least expensive full modular 1200W power supply that's 80 PLUS Gold Certified. It's at least half the price of comparable flagship brands...
https://i.postimg.cc/V6kVV6Cm/IMG-0037.jpghttps://i.postimg.cc/mZFvfPng/IMG-0040.jpgCORSAIR Hydro Series H75 AIO Liquid CPU Cooler. Push-pull radiator fan configuration...
https://i.postimg.cc/zGD2BvxW/IMG-0042.jpgPutting it together...
Motherboard on tray with all power and front panel connections hooked up...
https://i.postimg.cc/g2Bs2DXF/IMG-0091.jpgCPU on socket and a 140mm exhaust fan mounted on the roof. Sight of that nice-looking white protective shroud over the I/O components on the left would eventually be blocked by the AIO radiator/fans...
https://i.postimg.cc/nzxDFjkf/IMG-0063.jpgThe 500GB Samsung 970 EVO Plus boot/system drive mounted on its respective NVMe M.2 socket that supports the full PCIe Gen3 x4 speed (32 Gb/s)...
https://i.postimg.cc/G2zHbMtv/IMG-0069.jpgThe 1TB Intel 660P work drive mounted on the second M.2 socket which primarily supports SATA3 (6 Gb/s) M.2 SSDs. It also supports NVMe M.2 SSDs but only up to PCIe Gen2 x2 speed (10 Gb/s). So the Intel 660P would still be faster than a standard SATA3 M.2 SSD on this interface. Besides, the cheapest SATA3 M.2 SSD of the same capacity cost more than the Intel 660P (I don't get it). Therefore, it is a budget and a win-win item...
https://i.postimg.cc/4dFs8jn2/IMG-0077.jpgCorsair AIO installed as well as two 120mm fans on the floor drawing cool air from the basement and pushing it upward...
https://i.postimg.cc/FKrvhhLn/IMG-0098.jpgXPG Gammix D10 RAM modules on the slots...
https://i.postimg.cc/brkYs3N6/IMG-0103.jpgMotherboard I/O and GPU ports...
https://i.postimg.cc/BQCsk881/IMG-0156.jpghttps://i.postimg.cc/SxNqhy81/IMG-0160.jpgCable management was a breeze with this case. Obviously a non-issue front side -- only a coupla small zip ties in the back side and that was it...
https://i.postimg.cc/ZR6XNgpy/IMG-0137.jpgHDDs and PSU snug and secure in the basement...
https://i.postimg.cc/DZ3M7gHf/IMG-0148.jpghttps://i.postimg.cc/RVhX5yhQ/IMG-0153.jpgTa-da!...
Even when it's off, the damn RGB LED underneath the PCH on this mobo stays on. Initially, it was annoyingly pulsating in red. It changed to this steady green color after installing the GPU. I haven't even bothered installing and fiddling with their RGB LED app. I left it the way it is. So much for the anti-RGB theme of this build...
https://i.postimg.cc/fW2fKCC3/IMG-0185.jpgMagnetic dust filter over the top 140mm exhaust fan is pointless but serves as a fan grill dust cover when the rig is off which is gonna be rare...
https://i.postimg.cc/Fz8cQPCD/IMG-0254.jpgThe bling in the dark (no ambient lighting)...
https://i.postimg.cc/q74K06QV/IMG-0120.jpgWindow panel off...
https://i.postimg.cc/Pf98JRKM/IMG-0240.jpghttps://i.postimg.cc/QMfF34H1/IMG-0216.jpgWindow panel on...
https://i.postimg.cc/CMXcGYwB/IMG-0245.jpgIn all its glory.
https://i.postimg.cc/tgv39tTZ/IMG-0214.jpgOut of the box, the RX Vega 56 does around 1680 h/s mining with the CryptonightR algo. I have some RX 570 cards (2048 stream processors) which do around 575 h/s each out of the box. From my experience, an AMD card's hashing performance had pretty much been linearly related to the number of stream processors. The RX Vega 56 has 3584 stream processors; 75% more than the RX 570. I figured that it would hash around 1000 h/s (relatively also around 75% more than that of the RX 570) but such a concept of stream-processor-based linearity obviously does not apply in this case as the RX Vega 56 apparently hashes 192% more than the RX 570 instead. After some undervolting and core/memory frequency tweaking, the RX Vega 56 does around 1900 h/s.
With the same tweak for mining (not necessarily optimal for gaming performance), here are some Unigine Superposition benchmarks in different settings:
8K Optimized...
https://i.postimg.cc/pLSsj9ck/superposition-oc-8k-opt.png4K Optimized...
https://i.postimg.cc/zBwmpw9q/superposition-oc-4k-opt.png1080p Extreme...
https://i.postimg.cc/R0ysf3h4/superposition-oc-1080p-extreme.png1080p High...
https://i.postimg.cc/nhkMC7d9/superposition-oc-1080p-high.png1080p Medium.
https://i.postimg.cc/V65gkX8z/superposition-oc-1080p-medium.pngOther benchmarks:
Cinebench R20 CPU benchmark. It seems the Ryzen 7 1700 is up there with the Xeons and Threadrippers...
https://i.postimg.cc/wxfJzD5w/cinebench-r20-c.pngATTO Benchmark: Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe SSD. Well, what can I say? It's a 970 EVO Plus...
https://i.postimg.cc/t45BG2kY/evo-970-plus-atto-c.pngATTO Benchmark: Intel 660P NVMe SSD. As noted above, the M.2 slot that it is on is only capable of up to PCIe Gen2 x2 speed (10 Gb/s). So these numbers do not really represent its true performance. Nevertheless, it still performs better than a SATA3 SSD...
https://i.postimg.cc/QMZK4RMp/intel-660p-atto-c.pngATTO Benchmark: Seagate Barracuda (RAID 0). Not bad. It's almost closing the gap with SATA3 SSDs...
https://i.postimg.cc/hj5drhQG/barracuda-raid0-atto-c.pngTo put these numbers into perspective, the following are ATTO benchmarks of the drives in the Mini ITX box I referenced in the beginning of this post...
Corsair Force Series GS SATA3 SSD...
https://i.postimg.cc/7hZVGrvh/corsair-force-gs-sata3-atto-c.pngWestern Digital WD Green...
https://i.postimg.cc/YCPqT62s/wd-green-hdd-atto-c.png