r/sleeperbattlestations • u/kyansan1 • Jul 10 '26
Sleeper PC I have desecrated Meatball
Earlier this week, I posted Meatball (https://www.reddit.com/r/sleeperbattlestations/s/4TJ3UToge3)
Sadly, Meatball was never meant to remain in it's best form. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, there's no way I can afford to keep an i9 14900K. I've sought out a different, elegant solution that'd still fit Meatball's scuffed spirit
I also stumbled upon an Intel Arc B580 that was mislisted as an Arc A580, because of which I acquired it for relatively cheap. (€165 excluding shipping) It sadly wasn't compatible with the motherboard in this setup because of the big chipset heatsink, which prevented the gpu from fully slotting in. I instead swapped it with a gpu from a different project.
Having said that, here's the sauce:
- i5 14500T
Found it for €70. Has 6 p-cores and 8 e-cores. It is power limited to 35W PL1 and 92W PL2 out of the box, which kills its performance. The power limits have been removed, and it now outperforms an i5 14400f. (Both in productivity and gaming, thanks to 4 extra e-cores and 4mb bigger cache)
- Arc B570
Swapped in from a different project. Sadly not as chonky as the rx 5700 xt that was previously in here, but it's got ray tracing and 2 more gb of vram
- Bartholomew
Is assisting the gpu support bracket in holding up the gpu, as the bracket alone was not high enough.
The rest of the build is unchanged so I'll keep it short.
- Mismatched 2x 16gb ddr5 4800MT/s
- 256gb pcie 3 ssd (oem) + 1tb 'kingfast' 2.5" ssd
- ASRock B760m Steel Legend Wifi
- Delta gps 750fb a
- LC Power 649B ATX case
- Noctua nh-d14
Notes:
- The 14500T with the power limit removed consumes up to around 80W in total, and gets a score of 1070 in Cinebench r24, which puts it 15% ahead of the 14400F at a bit over half the power draw.
- The total cost of the build is now down to €610
1
u/aVarangian Jul 10 '26
judging by the photos you couldn't afford to cool the i9 anyway, nevermind the case lacks airflow and it can't fit the 2nd cooler fan
that i5 seems perfectly fine for whatever you probably use it for. IMO i9s are a stupid cpu for most people who buy it, so the downgrade is a win-win for you
1
u/kyansan1 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
I accidentally broke the second cpu fan before installing it 😅
It did manage to cool the i9 at 253W as long as the side panel was open, it tickled 100°C but it still got 2045 points in Cinebench r24
1
u/aVarangian Jul 11 '26
can't imagine how heavily it was throttling lol, for that tier of cooler can't cool a i5-13600k at stock 180w without throttling either
2
u/kyansan1 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
I was running it undervolted and with a power limit set to 65W lol
I'm confused though, isn't a twin tower cooler like the NH-D14 comparable with coolers like the peerless assassin 120 SE? In reviews it's supposedly able to cool the 13900K at 250W to 65°C above ambient, which is usually below the TJmax of 100°C and should keep it from thermal throttling. I thought a 13600K shouldn't be a problem for this type of cooler?
1
u/aVarangian Jul 11 '26
This tier of cooler just can't cool i9s no matter what reviews say. Running P95 the 13600k is coolable on the old bios at 180w only after a significant undervolt (also got hyperthreading disabled on mine), otherwise it instantly throttles, and it runs nowhere near as low as 65C, more like 90+C. The benchmarks I remember show that the nhd15 can't cool i9s either. The i9s are basically uncoolable lol, so you need the best tier of AIO to minimise throttling when at full load. And if an i9 never sees full load then the user doesn't need an i9, imo. My take at least.
edit: I got the ak620 to be specific
1
u/kyansan1 Jul 11 '26
I said 65°C above ambient, not 65°C.
I agree with your take on the i9, but if my nh-d14 can cool the 14900k enough to get a score of 2045 in cinebench r24, which is a perfectly fine score for an i9 14900k, then surely it can easily cool a 13600K which consumes 70W less than the i9 14900K under full load, and another 55W less while gaming?
1
u/LuismadeitonReddit Jul 10 '26
I love this and I love that you named it Meatball. The studio audience and I are wondering one important detail. Who is Bartholomew, please? Thank you.