For a while now I've wondered how to build the most stable gaming/workstation possible. I'm sick of crashes, stutters, and general un-reliability. However, it's a balancing act between price, performance, and reliability. (for example ECC memory is stable, but more expensive and slower)
Ideas I've had:
- ECC memory
- CSM sku motherboard
- Hugely overkill power supply, or even dual redundant PSUs
- RAID M.2 boot drives
- All air cooled
What do you all think? If you were to spec out a (realistic) ultra-reliable PC what parts would you use and why?
P.S. I'm looking less for specific recommendations as I am for general ideas, which is why I didn't specify the use case or budget. I'm more interested in the concept and if it's feasible.
I would consider a passive CPU heatsink (Noctua makes one, for example) and a high quality thermal pad like the Kryosheet from Thermal Grizzly.
Fans are a point of failure, so reducing your reliance would be best, and a thermal pad wouldn't dry out, like paste does.
Fans generally don't fail, and if you use a cooler that has at least two fans, you have some redundancy.
Using a non-passive cooler is better I feel as reduced heat adds to the reliability.
They specified stable (which I think means "least prone to failure"), and I still maintain that a passive setup with a 65W or less TDP would do better than a fan-bound setup for that purpose, though you'd have to go with a mesh case or no case at all. The Noctua cooler I mentioned can handle 65W just fine, so as long as you don't go overboard on the CPU, it shouldn't be an issue.
You're right that fans don't often fail and usually give mechanical warnings that they will, and I would also recommend fans normally, but this sounds like a min/max dream build.
I'm trying to think which will go longer (part of the least failure bit), hence my emphasis on reduced life expectancy from heat.
Speaking of case, that's another important point; I can't bear the idea of going caseless, dust build up is going to cause problems as well.
You'd certainly have to keep up on your dusting regimen, but it would probably give better cooling performance overall, provided you do.