Building a new modelling PC. AMD or Intel?

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Hello all,

I am building a new computer for my home office. Budget of up to 5K Australian dollars. For my work I model using this specific software which is CPU limited, not GPU limited. Fast threads, ram and disc are more important than graphics.

I’m not sure what to use, Intel or AMD. My previous computer was a 5950x with a 3070, which I then traded for a 12900h laptop with a 3080ti, which was way slower (always thermally throttled).
So I’m back to a desktop. I’d be interested in the 12900k, but with raptor lake refresh not far away, it doesn’t seem worth it. If I go AM5 I have plenty of pathways for upgrades in the future.

  • Budget. - up to 5K
  • Where do you live - Australia
  • Is there a retailer you prefer? Not really
  • Do you need or already have peripherals? I have mouse
  • What will you be using your Glorious computer for? Rendering/3d modelling
  • Do you overclock or want to get into overclocking? Yes i will overclock a bit.
  • Do you plan on going for custom water-cooling now, or in the future? Probably Not.
  • Operating System. Do you need a new one? Windows 11

I’ve come up with the following below. I will mildly overclock this system.

CPU AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 4.5 GHz 16-Core Processor $869.00

Good multi threaded system

CPU Cooler Arctic Liquid Freezer II 420mm AIO Liquid CPU Cooler $209.00
Keeping the cpu cool in the Australian summers.

Motherboard ASRock X670E Taichi Carrara EATX AM5 Motherboard $799.00

Why are motherboards soo expensive?

Memory G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6400 CL32 Memory $403.86

Fast ram. 2 dimms. Wish I could have 128gb but am5 =no.

Video Card Sapphire PULSE Radeon RX 6700 XT 12 GB Video Card $550.49
Program does not use graphics for processing. Just enough to power 2 4k screens.

Case Lian Li O11 Dynamic EVO ATX Mid Tower Case $250.00

Nice case, should fit the 420mm rad.

Power Supply SeaSonic FOCUS PLUS 850 Gold 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply $248.00

Operating System Microsoft Windows 11 Pro OEM - DVD 64-bit $120.00

I’ll be buying 2 4k screens as well, but not sure on them at the moment.

Any feedback or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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There are plenty of motherboards that are way cheaper
You aren’t gonna go much past 240w so you don’t need a vrm for ln2 overclocking, I could never get it to take more than 240w on pbo
They have 48GB dimms so you can have 96GB in a 2 dimm config

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ok thankyou, what would you suggest?

I would want to have good motherboard that I can put the next AM5 9950x into when it is released.

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Gigabyte has been on my shit list for a bit for poor quality control and weird issues
And Asus has been shoving it’s head up its ass recently too
My favorite brands so far are MSI and ASRock
I don’t have specific board in mind at the moment but I’m fixing to head to bed so I’ll take a look at what we got in the office tomorrow

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Thankyou, yes Asus is on my no go list, I’ve heard good things about asrock. that’s why i went for that brand.

I appreciate that, have a good evening.

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AMD vs Intel: If you plan on upgrading CPU before 2026, AMD will let you upgrade just the CPU to either a 9950X or 11950X (depends if AMD skip another gen or not). For Intel you will need to get a new Mobo and RAM too.

Up to you what to choose, Intel isn not a bad choice either way.

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If your modeling software can use AVX-512 instruction set, then AMD is at advantage, as Intel has it disabled in their big-little architecture.

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Thankyou yes that was my thinking. I was going to upgrade to the next generation when it comes out, with either AMD or Intel.

The dilemma i have is that until zen 5 comes out, i’ll be sticking with the 7950x. Which wont be till 2024.

Raptor lake refresh will be out later this year and from what i hear it will keep the same chipset and socket. I 'm quite sure the raptor lake refresh will be faster than the 7950x, but I need a computer in the next week or so.

I dont think leapfrog geo uses avx512.

I’m interested in getting an optane boot drive for modelling purposes, and the program aggressively read/writes the base database used for implicit modelling.

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Sorry to say, but with those plans you’re just needlessly burning through cash. Any computer you build should be capable enough for another 2 years, at the very least. If you need a new one every 6 months, you are doing something wrong and need to rethink your strategy.

If you really need that kind of compute, go all out Xeon, EPYC or Threadripper with 16-32 cores and ECC RAM, if you are willing to pay $5000 for a high end desktop every year, why not $6k-$7k for once every other year?

Don’t dabble, invest forcefully. Less money in the long run. :slight_smile:

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Unless you had to go mobile, this was your first mistake.
As far as the modelling software, seeing the rerecorded requirement is a Intel Xeon E5-2667 v4 which is 8-core 3.2Ghz CPU, you could go into the used market and get a Zen+ or Zen 2 24-core Threadripper CPU and still have more compute than the software needs. So the questions really are:

  1. what else do you plan to do with this PC?
  2. what is your upgrade horizon?
  3. how heavy are the models you are running?

The only advantage of the Intel cpu over AMD is the ability to use DDR4. When looking at reviews, you need to keep in mind that a few second to ~2min delta between CPUs, is not really much time. I run simulations that take days to complete on CPU, and even saving 1 day when the “faster” CPU takes 5 days vs 6 days on the slower CPU to complete the simulations, does not provide any real justification to go with the “faster” CPU if it is significantly more expensive or doesn’t fit with my upgrade schedule. Plus since you’re building from scratch and DDR5 prices seem to much cheaper now than this time last year, the Intel DDR4 and DDR5 support advantage over AMD is no longer a selling point. So it just comes down to use case and preference.

Guess, all that to say, if you like your pcpartpicker build, then just go for that. AM5 gives you the opportunity to swap out CPUs if suddenly AMD increase the desktop core count to 32-cores between now and AM6. Not sure about Intel.

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Hi Mate,

Where in Oz are you located?
For parts MWave and Scorptec are generally good for Sydney siders.

I must have missed the part where you say what applications you are using. So what are you using? :wink:

Is it $5k without monitors?

Do you need any expansion beyond a single GPU?

If so then you need to move up a level in processor as others have stated THREADRIPPER or Xeon.

Were there any memory requirements?

Henrik

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what specs do you actually need?

if 5950X was acceptable and you are interested in 128GB RAM, then you can get both with a high quality AM4 motherboard for far less money the equivalent AM5 system

the downside of course being lack of an upgrade path, but on the other hand, AM4 is pretty mature.

You can get a 5950X + 128GB DDR4 + high quality motherboard for less than $1200 USD

Then the rest of your budget can go towards anything else you wanted

example of the type of specs you can build on AM4 for <$5000 ; AI Dark Hero 2 by dk9 - AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, 2 x GeForce RTX 3090, Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower - PCPartPicker

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saying as your only looking to use it for 1 application suite.
i would look at how many cores the application benefits from.
it may be that it works well with 8 or 16 but works better with 32 or 64. or vice versa. works well on a 16 core but works more efficiently on an 8 core with 3d cache.
if thats the case consider building a cpu centric build rather than a balanced gaming grade build.

if your app doesnt use cuda or rtx then its probably worth skipping adding a higher end gpu.
a 1660 or even a 1050ti will do.

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It makes the most sense to get the fastest thing you can afford today. Chasing incrementally faster performance isn’t even remotely wise. Even with that mind set, it makes Intel that much more of a poor choice. RPL refresh is going to be the EOL for the socket, just to likely be surpassed by a chip on a socket that won’t be EOL. You could get the 7950X now, and use it up until a subsequent gen is discounted to a lower price, and only have to worry about the CPU.

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