Small-form factor 9800x3d and DDR5 RAM upgrade
My Small-Form Factor Dan A4-H20 build with a 4090 has been running great, but for whatever reason it felt like it was time for an upgrade. Since I don’t think I’ll be buying a 5090 anytime soon (the Founders Edition would be the only choice at this size and they are in short supply) it seemed like a new CPU was the next logical step.
I was running a slightly-dated AMD 5800x3d, so the latest of the AMD Ryzen lineup seemed like the obvious choice. Unfortunately since they’ve updated to use the new AM5 socket compared to my AM4 motherboard that meant a new motherboard and RAM upgrade were in order as well. In the end I ended up with an AMD 9800x3d, ASUS ROG STRIX B850-I motherboard, and G.SKILL Flare X5 96GB (2 x 48GB and an increase over my previous 64GB total) DDR5 6000mhz RAM.
I also went through the process of taking a heat gun to my NVME SSD and de-sheathed it to use the built-in heat sinks on the new motherboard. Honestly that was probably the most stressful part of the whole process as it was really stuck on there.
The whole process probably took an hour and I’m happy to say the operation was a success; This case is surprisingly easy to work in despite its small size. The remainder of the day was spent fiddling with the Windows install (Microsoft can never make things easy).
I leave you with some pictures of the process and a final spec list:
