[Project] [Complete] "Get all the stuff out of my gaming PC and put it somewhere else"

[vivster]

Ok, let's officially start project "Get all the shit out of my gaming PC and put it somewhere else". Or GATSOOMGPCAPISE for short.

For anyone who doesn't know, for this project I'm going to remove everything that is not needed for gaming from my giant gaming PC. I do not want any other shit on there that might impair its ability to give me maximum performance.

Steps are as follows:

1. Define & Design

2. Build a small PC that can take all of the abuse my current big rig takes

3. Move the shit to the new PC

4. Reinstall gaming rig

5. Enjoy Rocket League without drops

 

Let's begin with Step 1. Define & Design

What's the purpose of each of the PCs. Let's call them GPC (Gaming PC) and SPC (Small Shit PC).

GPC is naturally only for gaming. It will need 1 SSD for the OS and another SSD for gaming. The most important thing is that I need only one sound pipeline. The best way here is to tunnel the gaming sound through the SPC, where my headphones will be plugged in. For now I don't think I will need a sound card in the GPC unless I can see some benefit for it.
For software we will have the Windows 10 that's currently installed, which will be wiped completely and reinstalled. Games on my games SSD will remain untouched. Of course it'll need all the usual gaming clients. And 1 browser to download GPU updates, drivers and mods and patches and stuff. Probably not chrome, as that is synced and I don't need additional baggage from my SPC. Vivaldi will probably the browser of choice.

SPC is every other shit that is not core gaming. Surfing, videos, light gaming, communication. It's gonna have my side monitor for gaming and my TV at my couch attached to it. Due to the multi TV setup and high requirements for high quality video and light gaming it is gonna need a dedicated GPU as well as a dedicated sound card for various sound in- and outputs.
It'll also need plenty of room for storage. My current PC houses 4x3TB HDDs in a RAID5 as well as a 8TB on a single HDD as my active and main storage. I would like to use this opportunity to consolidate my storage once and for all into a 4x8TB or 4x10TB setup in a RAID10 for both speed and reliability. I'm open for suggestions here, since I don't know a lot about storage. 
Software it will basically need everything. My trusty Chrome, video player, Steam, Battle.net, download manager, teamviewer, office etc. I think this will give me the opportunity to finally be able to turn off my gaming PC when it's not used, saving me a lot of noise and electricity.

For hardware I still own my trusty little Lian Li ITX case from my old mini home server. It's cool and small and already comes with an awesome 4x 3.5" HDD bay that can be powered with only 2 Molex connectors. Perfect for my new RAID. It also has room for 2 PCIE slots. So that's what I'm going to build it on unless there is something better. I could keep the 350W PSU but I'm gonna check first if I can't score a neat little digital PSU. It still has an ITX board with an i3 on it but that shit's gotta go, I want new stuff. Aside from the big storage it'll need a new SSD, preferably M.2 if the board allows it.

So I basically need all new hardware for the SPC. I am open to suggestions.

 

I will keep this thread as sort of my diary for this project that's very dear to my heart. Feel free to pop in and leave some comments or suggestions.

Last edited by vivster - on 27 January 2018