i9-11900K & RTX 3080 Build Guide
First off, I need to make it clear this video is sponsored by ASRock, and we are going to be using their Z590 Taichi board. It’s a high end board with 14 phase Dr.MOS VRMs – plenty of capacity for the 11900K we’ve got for the build too. Of course it’s plenty stylish with ASRock’s Polychrome RGB lighting, and both standard and addressable RGB headers. It’s even got a rotating gear assembly in the VRM heatsink cover, very cool!
Interestingly, the board also uses ASRock’s new “Lightning gaming ports”, which are USB ports on the back that are connected via both a USB controller, and via PCIe, so your mouse clicks and keyboard keypresses can’t interrupt each other and keep traffic smooth.
It also supports PCIe Gen 4 with the new 11th generation CPUs, so I’ll be using this Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus too, a ‘full fat’ gen 4 drive capable of over 7GB/s reads, and 6.9GB/s on writes. Nice. And since we are going all out here, I’ll be using this RTX 3080 too. We’ve also got a 1000W BeQuiet PSU, 32GB of 3000MHz DDR4 – RGB of course – and a Corsair H110i Elite Capellix for the peak RGB life. All in a Phanteks P350X! That’s it for parts, let’s get to building!
Let’s start with the all important CPU. On the motherboard, use the arm on the side of the socket to unhook it, then lift the retaining plate up. Line up the little gold triangle on the CPU corner with the triangle on the socket, then gently place it down and in. Once you are sure it’s seated, drop the plate back down, hook it under the bolt, then use the arm to tighten it down and hook it under.
Next up, RAM. Open all the clips on the top of the slots, line up the notch in the slot with the notch in the sticks. Slot it in, then press firmly on both sides. Repeat that for all four sticks and you are sorted there.
The M.2 is next – ASRock use a Torx screw to hold their M.2 heatsinks down, so you can either use the screwdriver included in the box, or if like me you’ve got an iFixit kit you can use that. Remove the two screws holding the top cover on, as that’s the slot that is directly connected to the CPU at full PCIe Gen 4 speeds, then you can slide in the M.2 in at an angle, then remove the cover on the thermal pad on the heatsink and place it down on top, replacing the two screws either side.
One final bit of prep we will do is attaching the CPU cooler bracket to the board, it’s just the backplate and four standoffs that screw into it, so once that’s done we are ready to install things in the case.
I’m going to start with fitting the power supply, as I find it easier to route the cables first, then fit the motherboard. So to get started I’m removing both side panels, then sliding the PSU in from the side towards the back and fitting the four screws at each corner, then you can route the wires. First is the 8 pin headers, you’ll want both if you are running the i9 here. The tuck up in the top left, there’s a hole they can pass through. Pass the 24 pin through the hole in the right side, in the center. Then it’s just the case wires, like the USB 3 front panel header, HD audio, front panel headers for power and reset.
Next comes the motherboard, this has in I/O shield included, so you don’t need to worry about that, and the case comes with all the standoffs preinstalled so all we have to do is line it up, then place it in, lining up all the standoffs with their associated holes. The Phanteks cases have the central standoff with a little lip to hang the board on making it really easy to build in. It’s 9 screws in total, in a 3×3 grid across the board.
Once that’s in you can connect up the 8 pin connections at the top, then the 24 pin on the right, and the USB 3 connector just below it. HD audio is at the bottom left, then front panel connectors on the lower right. CPU cooler comes next, that needs screwing into the top of the case, with 8 screws and washers. You’ll need to feed the wires out of the back, then a little blob of thermal paste before you drop the block down on, and tighten the four screws that hold it down. It’s a bit of a mess of wires to get this sorted, but you just plug the pump into the hub, as well as the fans and RGB headers, then plug the SATA power cable in, and connect the USB cable to the header on the bottom center of the board.
Lastly, we have the monster of a GPU to install. We are going to be using ASRock’s new included GPU holder to support the card, so all you need is the two longer screws that come in the kit, attach the foot to the rail, then screw the rail into the board on the bottom right, then adjust the height to match the card. Then it’s just two screws on the back to remove the covers, then it slots into the top PCIe slot, stick the two screws back in, then the two PCIe power connectors clip in and we are done.
So that’s it built! Now we can set up the Killer DoubleShot Pro interface, that’s what lets you connect both via wired ethernet AND wifi, and having less urgent traffic like Windows updates or background game downloads going over WiFi, whereas your urgent game traffic goes over Ethernet instead.
Now lets have a play and see what this thing can do! I’ve got OCAT up so you can see the performance, and I’m playing at 1440p 165Hz as that’s going to be the best pairing for an all-out system like this. What’s better is I’m also recording the screen using OBS, so you are seeing the game plus streaming performance here.
So, there you have it, top end gaming system! As always, if you want to check out any of the parts I’ll leave links to them all in the description below, and of course thank you to ASRock for sponsoring the video. Don’t forget to check out the Z590 Taichi for your next 11th gen build, and you can find out more about the board at the link in the description below too.
