I’ve googled and chatted with various models a lot and the best possible upgrade for AM4 platform seems to be:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D (AMD recently released aniversary edition and it’s avaliable for purchase)
GPU: RTX 5070 Ti
I’m planning this upgrade mainly for:
gaming
experimenting with running LLMs locally
With this context I would ask for your advice on following:
Is it worth sticking with AM4? Maybe it would be better to switch to AM5 or wait for AM6? The upgrade is not really needed immediately and I would like to cut the needless spending if possible.
How likely is that NVIDIA will release new GPUs soon? Should I hold on and wait for the new ones or for price drop of 5070 Ti?
I’ve checked couple of bottleneck calculators online. All of them are showing bottleneck at 1440p for 5800X3D and 5070 Ti combo. I read many opinions that these calculators are bs, but I still have some concerns. What do you think, is the bottleneck possible here, is this combo a bad idea?
So I have an asrock x570 from cyberpower. The bios is “custom” in that it requires the name of the new version to match the old. That means, unless cyberpowerpc were to release a new version, im on my own to flash it, or restore it.
3700x. 650w psu, 5700xt was replaced with a 6600 (i don’t game). I did a 5950x as I didn’t want to deal with the bios issue.
What went wrong?
tldr: psu
Odd lockups, nvme drives falling to read-only… My initial tests all seemed fine, even after a long heatsoak. The first 4 weeks were rough. Replaced the psu, no issues yet. (Three weeks so far with “new” psu I found in a storage bin)
What works?
Ram. The 3700x would not run my ram (64gb) at sticker speeds. Now… I can overclock and its just… snappier.
I had to use a bit more aggressive fan curves, but nothing is louder than the x570 vrm fan.
Bought the machine when I heard human migration for Chinese new year was cancelled in early 2020. Figured id better update from my Athlon a9.
The 5950x uses more power, but the new, more efficient, psu actually gave me a similar draw from the outlet.
The first thing I did was batch convert my cd rips to a format that would fit on a digital audio player. The speedup from so many threads was killer. I can compile zephyr, qmk, and other one offs so much quicker.
$300 for a 6 year old cpu still hurts my brain. Kde and hyprland are even more responsive and code i sometimes compile does so faster.
For me it was worthwhile, annoying, and sad all at the same time.
I kept the 3700x, and paired it with a r9700 gpu and shoved it in a 4u case. Sign of the times I guess. Someday, when I need to retire, I’ll sell my ddr4.
Our son’s 5800X (non 3D) with 3200 Mhz ECC ram with a 4070 Super (non-Ti), I can play 1440p of MechWarrior Clans (most intense game on that system) at a solid 100-120 FPS with DLSS x2 enabled (frame generation). 120 FPS as the monitor is only 120 Hz, so beyond to keep the power usage, and heat, down.
DLSS is the cheat Nvidia uses to game at 4k. AMD version calls it Frame Generation, or I think FMR, on my 7900X and R9700 GPUs (yeah I game on my $1300 Ai card, so what? Lol)
I tested Cyberpunk 2077 at first build/upgrade to 5800X with Nvidia’s DLSS x2+ and Path Tracing (more intense than Ray Tracing) and it hovered around 70 FPS at 1440p, but that was before Nvidia updated the drivers.
I’ve used that 4070 Super in my sweet L1 9950X3D2 build and seen Cyberpunk hit 90 FPS with Path Tracing (remember, this was not only AM5 but also Nvidia’s DLSS fixes and updates not present when I tested the 4070 Super with the 5800X AM4). And a solid 120 FPS (120 Hz vsync) with Ray Tracing, all with DLSS x2 required to be enabled.
5800X Results? Extremely fun, and pegs the 120 Hz monitor. All other games we don’t even bother with DLSS and run at full 1440p and it pegs at 120 FPS with vsync. For example, ATS runs at a solid 120 FPS with only 70% GPU usage - cause of vsync limiting to only needing 120 FPS.
All Linux BTW, with Bazzite. Staying all AMD also really helps. Bazzite allows me to switch images back and forth between AMD and Nvidia images with a single command.
IMO, don’t pay the Nvidia tax. Pickup an AMD 9070, or even the new 9060, or 7900 X or XT (XTX is $$$ due to its 24gb ram). AMD also supports a bit of Ray Tracing too, btw.
Lastly, 1440 likes 12GB of VRAM with Ultra settings in games. But a few times I’ve seen it go over to 13GB on the 4070 Clans gaming. So at the super edge or Ultra graphics settings at all times, you may want 16GB of VRAM. But it’s such an edge case that knocking down the bitmaps to High instead of Ultra will be fine for 12 GB.
The only time the CPU became the bottleneck was in KSP, which is completely a CPU bottlenecked game and runs poorly anyways. Atari Vault also pegs the CPU, but it runs at 2000 FPS without vsync so that’s not really anything to worry about. Hehe.
Hope that helps!
EDIT: Oh, that’s also 1440p Ultrawide! That 21:9 ratio is 40% more intense/more pixels than regular 16:9 1440p! So if you have a standard 1440p 16:9 monitor, you’ll be much faster than what I all posted above.
I’m very happy with the 4070 Super on the Ultrawide 1440p on the AM4 platform.
Yes. Absolutely, YES! Even Wendell says so (recent videos).
The Ai tax on AM5/DDR5 is absolutely ridiculous. If you got $1000 to waste on Ai taxes, use that for a vacation instead.
It’s hard to predict what happens when (not if) the Ai bubble bursts and stocks crash. The fabs have stopped producing memory chips for DDR5 and instead have retooled for HBM and alike. What this means is when the bubble bursts, there will NOT be an over supply of DDR5. So prices will remain high until they retool for DDR6. So we may never have DDR5 come back down, even after the bubble.
Whether looking at the RAM EXP/EXPO support and/or the architectural bump
The extremes for CPU upgrades, are either chasing L3 cache [___X3D] or more cores [5950]
Most likely the Zen4 or Strix videos. Other previous videos too.
As I mentioned above, I have an AM5 9950X3D2 beast of a system along with the AM4 5800X and I can’t tell a difference between the AM4 and AM5 platforms as they all play at Ultra settings and 120 FPS - with that Nvidia 4070 Super in both machines. I also have another 7900X AM5 cpu machine I’m building for someone, and it has the same experience with the 4070 Super and 7900XT GPU (yeah, 7900X CPU and 7900XT GPU - not confusing at all!).
The OP mentioned getting a 5070 Ti, but I think it’s overkill as the 4070 Super pegs our Ultrawide 1440p monitors. So what’s the point of getting anything faster?
Maybe it’s a Linux thing, but I plop down at any of the free machines to get in some Cyberpunk or MechWarriors every day or so and they all play smooth and fast at 120 fps.
Cut scenes on the Gen5 M.2 do seem quicker than the Gen3 M.2 I have in the AM4, but that’s about it. But I don’t call that a win because that Gen5 M.2, even with the massive heatsink, runs way way too hot. I’ll never get a Gen5 M.2 again.
I would stay on AM4 for now, 5800X3D should still be a very good upgrade from the 3700X and pair well with the 5070 Ti. I wouldnt worry too much about those bottleneck calculators, especially at 1440p. I would probably look at something like the Asus TUF Gaming RTX 5070 Ti OC Edition if the cooling and noise reviews are good. Since youre not in a rush, I would wait and see if 5070 Ti prices drop a bit before buying.
I’d stay on AM4, then, since moving to AM5 means having to buy DIMMs. While 128+ GB’s common in LLM use the most effective spend’s very likely one or two 24-32 GB cards.
Raising the power consumption from ~220 W (4070 Super) to ~320 W (5070 Ti) enhances the burnt plastic reek experience by increasing the probability the 12VHPWR plug melts?
Unfortunately R9700s are also 12V-2x6, but at least the connectors are at the cool upwind side of the card rather than being embedded in the finstack with the exhaust also heating the 12V-2x6 cable.
Indeed! In addition to being well under recommended bending radii there, Asus’ inverted 12V-2x6 has a higher melt rate than the usual way round. Fortunately 4070 Super’s low enough power the use of 12-pin power seems probably down around the 8-pin risk floor. Be a few years yet to tell how much risk aging adds.
Too bad, really, I built some of PNY’s 40 series and, Nvidia mandated janky power connector aside on 4070 Super/4070 Ti and up, those were nice cards. The 9070 [XT] Hellhouds I’ve switched to are good too, though.
Not sure when Corsair’s going to start shipping PinProtect[+] but hopefully that’ll provide a robust PSU-side workaround for Nvidia’s fail in the next few months.
Fortunately 4070 Super’s low enough power the use of 12-pin power seems probably down around the 8-pin risk floor. Be a few years yet to tell how much risk aging adds.