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Build help Gathering Information for a New Rig


Rocket Man

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Hey guys, I know there is a lot of knowledge to tap into here in the SCB forums.  I have had a few conversations with close friends about their opinions and knowledge on various current hardware and want to continue hearing what I should aim for.  This is all for a new rig.

I am going with a budget of $4,000 for the tower.  This is going to be a gaming computer, so I am looking for high performance and graphics integrity.  The tower is going to support three 30" 2k monitors (I don't think 4k is in reasonable price range yet). 

 

Case: Still looking - want something that is visually appealing (show off cooling/components)

CPU: i9 or Ryzen?  (Friends suggest the Threadrippers)  Discussions I saw here on SCB say i7 is good for SC - I am still learning what the differences are between all options

RAM: 32GB or I just may go to 64GB because reasons (memory is so cheap!)

SSD: Samsung M.2 2TB (Samsung 960 PRO?) - looking to have more M.2s connected in the future, maybe one (smaller) that is SC only

HDD: Looking for a mass storage (maybe 10TB) array in a RAID parity, can come later (months) after initial build

Motherboard: Looking at a GIGABYTE one - something that gives me the versatility I am looking for

GFX: 1080Ti (x2) - looking for 2k at 100+ FPS (3 monitors)

Cooling: I want to go all liquid cooling, maybe multiple circuits.

PSU: I have not looked into a power supply yet, waiting to see what the rest demands with room to add more stuff later.

 

Again, this is early in developing what I want and I am always welcome to suggestions.  I want this thing to be upgradeable, particularly to add to it (M.2 SSDs and HDs for example).  I already have keyboard, mouse, HOTAS, and G27 to plug into this thing.  Looking forward to see what the minds in SCB present!

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Made this with the specs you requested, however I'm not exactly sure what the incompatibility is with Gigabyte and the ram you want (or if it's just an error on their end). 

I've also included my own build and my own Intel build to compare after benchmarks are released if you're curious what I'll be going with. For myself all video cards are priced at $499 to budget what a Vega card would be in there.

 

Yours:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/PzmcD8

 

AMD Ryzen 7

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Donut310/saved/GQ4Pxr

 

Intel x299

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Donut310/saved/VJpf7P

 

AMD Threadripper (CPU price reflects the 1900x when that releases)

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Donut310/saved/6YhsYJ

 

 

In the end I'll probably end up with Threadripper and take the 10-15% performance loss over Intel because of the PCI-E lanes. But still giving Intel a shot when reviewer benchmarks are released.

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Personally I wouldn't ever go anything AMD. I see AMD as budget parts... sounds like your budget is good enough to get Intel parts. I wouldn't get a 2TB SSD.. instead get 4x 500gb SSD. Look at charts for parts that are as recent as a month ago for parts rankings. Also you can find lots of good information by browsing forums such as tomshardware where people build computers for fun and the bigger the budget ($4,000 is a good amount) the funner it is. 
 

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15 minutes ago, Ganja said:

Personally I wouldn't ever go anything AMD. I see AMD as budget parts... sounds like your budget is good enough to get Intel parts. I wouldn't get a 2TB SSD.. instead get 4x 500gb SSD. Look at charts for parts that are as recent as a month ago for parts rankings. Also you can find lots of good information by browsing forums such as tomshardware where people build computers for fun and the bigger the budget ($4,000 is a good amount) the funner it is. 
 

I would agree with this statement with the last gen AM3 Platform. But this is not factual with AM4 and how superior it is over Kabylake X & Skylake X.

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29 minutes ago, Basard said:

I would agree with this statement with the last gen AM3 Platform. But this is not factual with AM4 and how superior it is over Kabylake X & Skylake X.

I'd go with ASUS PRIME X299-DELUXE + Intel Core i9-7900X with a $4,000 budget

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33 minutes ago, Basard said:

I would agree with this statement with the last gen AM3 Platform. But this is not factual with AM4 and how superior it is over Kabylake X & Skylake X.

For multicore? Yes, Ryzen makes Intel look like a bunch of chumps (especially with their $400 chip outperforming Intel's $1000 6900K at multicore work.) However, their single core performance is still lagging. Besides, at 4000 bucks to blow on the tower alone, the 7900X will outperform anything. What Rocket Man is going to do with all that power is best not known to us mere mortals however.

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2 hours ago, Caldon said:

For multicore? Yes, Ryzen makes Intel look like a bunch of chumps (especially with their $400 chip outperforming Intel's $1000 6900K at multicore work.) However, their single core performance is still lagging. Besides, at 4000 bucks to blow on the tower alone, the 7900X will outperform anything. What Rocket Man is going to do with all that power is best not known to us mere mortals however.

 

 

ThreadRipper's IPC is unknown to alot of people here who don't follow the tech press as closely as I do, but check this article out.

 

ThreadRipper's 1950X is the best CPU currently out in the enthusiast market.

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7 minutes ago, Basard said:

 

 

Thread Rippers IPC is unknown to alot of people here who don't follow the tech press as closely as I do, but check this article out.

 

Thread Ripper's 1950X is the best CPU currently out in the enthusiast market.

Yeah I didn't actually take this processor into consideration because it is not released yet. I simply by rule of thumb choose Intel over AMD due to previous let downs. I also find Intel drivers and performance to be more stable and updated more frequently. I guess you could say at this point I would buy the tried and true name, even if the numbers for this new AMD CPU are better. Perhaps my loss and your advantage :)

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http://www.techradar.com/news/the-amd-ryzen-threadripper-is-the-most-powerful-processor-weve-ever-tested

 

"TechRadar received an early review unit of the Alienware Area 51 Threadripper Edition, and we can confidently say it is the most powerful system we’ve ever tested. Not only does it feature a 16-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X processor, there’s also an Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti graphics card included as well. "

 

It's truly good to have competition again. :)

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I would wait for reviews on the Threadripper platform before making a purchase.  At those resolutions the CPU will not be the bottleneck, so even a i7 7700k/R7 1700 would work fine.  It depends on what else you're trying do with the computer and how that impacts the chip choice.  Is that 10TB of storage raw or after RAID (1 to 10)?  I also would suggest against SLI to begin with.  See what one card can do and decide if it's worth the upgrade.

What other than gaming are you going to be doing on this computer?  If it's just games and not VMs/workloads then your budget is inflated and can be cut down.  Even a $2k PC now and a $2k PC 4 years from now would perform better than a single $4k PC after those 4 years.  Let me know what your plans are.  I have 16TB+ raw storage and have built/supported workstation and personal infrastructures.

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It isn't worth it to spend twice as much to build an i9 for the 5 to 8% faster single threaded IPC (based on patched Ryzen values) over the R9. Especially since the Multithreaded performance of the R9 is far better than the i9. Save yourself $1000+ and go with Threadripper. Buy yourself some RGBs or gold plated cup holder ... you would get more out of it than spending it on the Intel name.

 

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Thanks for all of the replies!  I have been out of the hardware game for a while now, so I am trying to catch up and understand what is out there.

I would say the worst I will put this computer through would be running and streaming SC (both in 2k resolution) in the foreseeable future.  I want a lot of power to allow some "breathing room" to allow the computer to last a while without major upgrades. 

15 hours ago, Ganja said:

I'd go with ASUS PRIME X299-DELUXE + Intel Core i9-7900X with a $4,000 budget

Is this just maxing out what performance I can get with the budget?

21 hours ago, Donut said:

In the end I'll probably end up with Threadripper and take the 10-15% performance loss over Intel because of the PCI-E lanes. But still giving Intel a shot when reviewer benchmarks are released.

Is this the performance difference between the Intel i9 and the AMD Ryzen/Threadripper?

I can see the argument of a $400 chipset compared to a $1000 chipset when the performance difference is 15%, a big investment to jump up a modest amount.  But from what I've read so far is that the 8-core i9 performs better than the latest Threadripper, but the Threadripper makes up with having more threads to process data?

As for the graphics card(s), I just do not know how powerful one is in supporting three 2k monitors.  What if I wanted to add a fourth monitor [1080p] (maybe to show TeamSpeak/chats/Spectrum or computer monitoring information) from the floor level?  - Just an idea, probably not worth it.

13 hours ago, rimmer59 said:

Is that 10TB of storage raw or after RAID (1 to 10)?

After.  Actually, I should just say I want 10-12TB for mass storage.  This is to hold pictures, videos, music, and other media.  I was thinking of 3-4 4TB drives or 5-6 2TB drives.  Just something to dump media onto and the RAID Parity just protects it from HDD breakdown.

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5 hours ago, Rocket Man said:

Is this the performance difference between the Intel i9 and the AMD Ryzen/Threadripper?

I can see the argument of a $400 chipset compared to a $1000 chipset when the performance difference is 15%, a big investment to jump up a modest amount.  But from what I've read so far is that the 8-core i9 performs better than the latest Threadripper, but the Threadripper makes up with having more threads to process data?

As for the graphics card(s), I just do not know how powerful one is in supporting three 2k monitors.  What if I wanted to add a fourth monitor [1080p] (maybe to show TeamSpeak/chats/Spectrum or computer monitoring information) from the floor level?  - Just an idea, probably not worth it.

 

That's usually been the case between AMD and Intel is Intel generally has a 10% lead over AMD. For multithreaded applications so far, it looks like AMD performs almost twice as much as Intel's i9 series. 

As far as the GPU's, I'll be running a single Vega 64 and using four monitors. An Acer 37.5" and three 21" 1080p monitors. A single 1080ti should have no problem running four monitors much less two.

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Threadripper is designed to target the Xeon marketshare of Intel.  They have targeted a high core count market such as servers and workstations with the allure of a significant price decrease compared to the competition.  Intel has higher single core performance while AMD has the higher core count.  The typical performance difference is about 10% with single core applications (in favor of Intel).  

I do think it is important to remember that buying a Threadripper compared to even an R7 1800X (basically a higher-binned R7 1700)  will be minimal performance gains on single core reliant applications (games).  So dropping $1k on a chip that will do for you the same as a $350 chip isn't ideal; especially when you factor in the cost of motherboards.  I would recommend a Threadripper only if owning it will benefit your workflow.  People will quote and say that "X" chip is YY% faster than "Z" chip; but remember what matters to you and your applications.  Benchmarks of Handbrake or Cinebench does not represent real world gaming performance.  

As for storage, if it's only for cold storage (eg: photos/movies/etc) that will be accessed now and again; go RAID1 with 2x10TB disks.  RAID is not a backup; it instead tries to improve data integrity.  The benefit to adding more drives is to allow for further array degradation and higher I/O.  Windows Storage Spaces or a Mirrior in Disk Management would work well for this application and reduce cost in regards to bulk storage.  There are multiple solutions but what I said would be easiest for you.

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1 hour ago, rimmer59 said:

I do think it is important to remember that buying a Threadripper compared to even an R7 1800X (basically a higher-binned R7 1700)  will be minimal performance gains on single core reliant applications (games).  So dropping $1k on a chip that will do for you the same as a $350 chip isn't ideal; especially when you factor in the cost of motherboards.  I would recommend a Threadripper only if owning it will benefit your workflow.  People will quote and say that "X" chip is YY% faster than "Z" chip; but remember what matters to you and your applications.  Benchmarks of Handbrake or Cinebench does not represent real world gaming performance.  
 

I kind of have to disagree here, because AMD is also releasing Pro versions of their chips which are locked and lower clocked, encrypted and come with security software which are the true Xeon versions of AMD. Also, any game utilizing Vulkan will benefit high core count as has been quoted from the announcement of going with the Vulkan game engine, "Star Citizen will utilize every core available". Threadripper is the enthusiast chip the same as x99 was Intel's enthusiast chip and could not only beast through games but also multitask.

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I will believe (and buy into) that when I see it.  There have been claims for years and years that more cores will be used and tasks will be queued on them rather than cores 0-3.  I really want that to be true as apart from workstation tasks and heavy multitasking there's no benefit to having more than those 4 cores (direct consumer and prosumer).  Also the Xeon line has many different types of chips that fall under the consumer, prosumer, and enterprise umbrellas designed for different tasks.  Threadripper can be directly compared to Xeon/Epyc as they're product names that fit a broad range of applications.  

e: I should add in that I do NOT recommend buying a quad core CPU.  Get something that will last, either a Ryzen 7 1700 (or better) or wait for Intel Coffee-Lake.

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Leaked review 1:

AMD-Ryzen-Threadripper-1950X-Cinebench-R

AMD-Ryzen-Threadripper-1950X-Cinebench-R

AMD-Ryzen-Threadripper-1950X-Cinebench-R

AMD-Ryzen-Threadripper-1950X-Cinebench-R

From the leaked review 2:
Let’s start out with the Cinebench R15 result first. Here, the 1950X manages to deliver a whopping 3337 points with all sixteen of its cores running at 4.0GHz. By comparison a similarly priced Intel Core i7 7900X gets 2169 points at stock and maxes out at 2464 with a hefty 4.6GHz overclock. That comes out to a 35%+ difference when both chips are overclocked. Not even the world record Cinebench R15 run of the 7900X at 5.96GHz with liquid nitrogen cooling is enough to surpass Threadripper’s score.
 
At 4.1GHz the figures become even more astronomical for Threadripper. The chip manages to score 58391 points in Geekbench 3. Which not only is by far the highest score for any desktop processor we have ever seen but also secures it a 37% lead over a 7900X overclocked to 4.5GHz which manages to score around ~42600 points in the same test.
 

5d017aaa85c3593494754572d9c8d5e37f06d58e

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3 hours ago, rimmer59 said:

... I do think it is important to remember that buying a Threadripper compared to even an R7 1800X (basically a higher-binned R7 1700)  will be minimal performance gains on single core reliant applications (games).  So dropping $1k on a chip that will do for you the same as a $350 chip isn't ideal; especially when you factor in the cost of motherboards.  I would recommend a Threadripper only if owning it will benefit your workflow.  People will quote and say that "X" chip is YY% faster than "Z" chip; but remember what matters to you and your applications.  Benchmarks of Handbrake or Cinebench does not represent real world gaming performance.  ...


I'm not saying that it's not an impressive chip.  I'm saying to be smart with your money and wait for real benchmarks and real-world performance.  Make sure it matters to the person buying it; not numbers for a renderfarm.
 

On 8/7/2017 at 6:34 PM, rimmer59 said:

I would wait for reviews on the Threadripper platform before making a purchase.  At those resolutions the CPU will not be the bottleneck, so even a i7 7700k/R7 1700 would work fine.  It depends on what else you're trying do with the computer and how that impacts the chip choice. ...


What other than gaming are you going to be doing on this computer?  If it's just games and not VMs/workloads then your budget is inflated and can be cut down. ...


Raw numbers for price per dollar put Ryzen and Threadripper/Epyc ahead of Intel; but they still hold the single core lead.  That benchmark shows a 10 core versus a 16 core chip.  That can't be ignored for those numbers (although it is a $/$ comparison).  The last thing I want to happen is have RocketMan buy a god tier computer and not use it; or buy a junk one and want more performance.  Lets get some gaming benchmarks on the table (because that is what he said was his key focus).

 

On 8/7/2017 at 9:16 AM, Rocket Man said:

... This is going to be a gaming computer, so I am looking for high performance and graphics integrity. ...


Wait for benchmarks (which should be here any day) then make a decision and let's talk then.  

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51 minutes ago, rimmer59 said:

I will believe (and buy into) that when I see it.  There have been claims for years and years that more cores will be used and tasks will be queued on them rather than cores 0-3.  I really want that to be true as apart from workstation tasks and heavy multitasking there's no benefit to having more than those 4 cores (direct consumer and prosumer).  Also the Xeon line has many different types of chips that fall under the consumer, prosumer, and enterprise umbrellas designed for different tasks.  Threadripper can be directly compared to Xeon/Epyc as they're product names that fit a broad range of applications.  

e: I should add in that I do NOT recommend buying a quad core CPU.  Get something that will last, either a Ryzen 7 1700 (or better) or wait for Intel Coffee-Lake.

Chicken, meet egg ... exact same thing happened around the time that AMD started pushing 64-bit x86 ... people spoke about the rumors of the benefits of 64-bit, but no one was making the hardware which resulted in the lack of software to take advantage of it to support the need for the hardware.

Game and API developers targeted what consumers had which limited it to single (or no more than 2/4 core) development which Intel used as an excuse not to push past their 2/4 core HT/No-HT offerings. Now that the theme post-2017 is MORE CORES ... you will see Vulkan/DX12 API's being used and enhanced to use far more cores and games taking advantage of the extra horsepower.

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Well, he said he wants to blow 4000 bucks on this thing. May as well help him find the best performing processor since money is no issue.

With that said, Intel's CPU's are still better core-by-core. The reason AMD is outpacing them so bad is due to their ridiculous amount of cores. Since games still don't use 16C/32Th, it's probably better to get a CPU with a few less, more powerful cores. I wouldn't recommend an i9 though, just get the biggest & baddest i7-X and use the extra money to get some really powerful cooling going on to OC them to their limits. I believe that would net you more performance than threadripper or stock-cooled/not custom watercooled i9.

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8 hours ago, rimmer59 said:

Wait for benchmarks (which should be here any day) then make a decision and let's talk then.  

I had no idea more information is coming out soon.  I was under the assumption some was already known.

What I am getting from everyone is that we still don't have enough information released to make a solid decision.  I get that Intel has the single-core advantage, which right now is great for gaming, since most use only one core.  But if the future of gaming is to go multi-core (i.e. Star Citizen, which is what Chris has said for years), then maybe that is the better path?

2 hours ago, Caldon said:

Well, he said he wants to blow 4000 bucks on this thing. May as well help him find the best performing processor since money is no issue.

In the simplest form, yes, I am just looking for what my money can buy.  What is best going forward?  What about future upgrades?  Should I look at having the ability to go with more cores later?

17 hours ago, Donut said:

As far as the GPU's, I'll be running a single Vega 64 and using four monitors. An Acer 37.5" and three 21" 1080p monitors. A single 1080ti should have no problem running four monitors much less two.

See, I assumed I needed two GPUs based on how they were years ago.  If one has the power to run three 2k monitors, then that means the budget can go elsewhere or much less.  I was just under the assumption I would be spending $1500-2000 for GPUs alone to match what I want.  How are you arraying your four monitors, especially with the one being so wide?

 

I want thank everyone for their help here, I am learning a lot from this discussion.  Thanks!

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3 hours ago, Caldon said:

Well, he said he wants to blow 4000 bucks on this thing. May as well help him find the best performing processor since money is no issue.

With that said, Intel's CPU's are still better core-by-core. The reason AMD is outpacing them so bad is due to their ridiculous amount of cores. Since games still don't use 16C/32Th, it's probably better to get a CPU with a few less, more powerful cores. I wouldn't recommend an i9 though, just get the biggest & baddest i7-X and use the extra money to get some really powerful cooling going on to OC them to their limits. I believe that would net you more performance than threadripper or stock-cooled/not custom watercooled i9.

Three things to add ...

  1. Developers have already come out and said that the reason they didn't focus on multi-core was that consumers did not have the hardware to take advantage of it. This has now changed and many different development companies have stated they are excited to have the oppertunity to explore it. Meaning, not having more cores may end up hurting you in the near future and a 4k gaming system is not something you are going to want to replace any time soon.
  2. The 3 to 8% IPC difference (at stock memory clocks) we have been seeing per core is not noticeable in game. We aren't talking about dips below 30 fps here: we are talking about the max frequency which is quite often far above the max refresh frequency of your gaming monitors. With memory overclocks (something intel sees very little benefit from in game) it is FAR closer for Zen cores CPUs. In fact, they overtook intel in a few benchmarks.
  3. Current game are not optimized for Zen cores. Intel has basically owned the compiler optimizations for the last decade since they were the only game in town. Recent games that received Ryzen optimization patches have seen gains of up to 35% in fps. All future games will receive Zen core optimizations by default.

In short, spending this sort of money ... you want to future proof your investment. Don't get stuck with what works well given the current offerings. Read the tea leaves. There is a shift coming in game development.

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27 minutes ago, Taldren said:

Three things to add ...

  1. Developers have already come out and said that the reason they didn't focus on multi-core was that consumers did not have the hardware to take advantage of it. This has now changed and many different development companies have stated they are excited to have the oppertunity to explore it. Meaning, not having more cores may end up hurting you in the near future and a 4k gaming system is not something you are going to want to replace any time soon.
  2. The 3 to 8% IPC difference (at stock memory clocks) we have been seeing per core is not noticeable in game. We aren't talking about dips below 30 fps here: we are talking about the max frequency which is quite often far above the max refresh frequency of your gaming monitors. With memory overclocks (something intel sees very little benefit from in game) it is FAR closer for Zen cores CPUs. In fact, they overtook intel in a few benchmarks.
  3. Current game are not optimized for Zen cores. Intel has basically owned the compiler optimizations for the last decade since they were the only game in town. Recent games that received Ryzen optimization patches have seen gains of up to 35% in fps. All future games will receive Zen core optimizations by default.

In short, spending this sort of money ... you want to future proof your investment. Don't get stuck with what works well given the current offerings. Read the tea leaves. There is a shift coming in game development.

Considering how long it took for devs to move from 2 to 4 cores, I think having an 8 core with a hefty OC will work for you just fine. 6-core CPU's are only now slowly starting to become mainstream desktop CPU's, so I think by the time that 8 cores are considered the norm, everything you can buy today will fall behind, even the 1900X. He'll be fine with a 7820X I think. As for Zen optimization? Welllll..... Don't hold your breath just yet. Remember when Vulcan was to be the next best thing? Yeah... I'm betting that Intel will hold on to their little golden throne for a while when it comes to optimization.

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