The time has come: I am building a new Threadripper Pro workstation.
I ordered the Asus Pro WS WRX80E-Sage SE Wifi II today, but I am still not entirely set on the cooler. Initially this will be paired with a 5955WX, but later this year I will have an upgrade budget for a 5975WX, so I want the cooler to be a little “future proof” for that. Since PBO overclocking on the new Asus board is now a thing, I will make use of that.
As the system will sometimes run unattended for a couple of weeks, I’d prefer an air cooler to not risk dead pumps or coolant leaks to kill it. I saw @wendell recommending the Arctic Freezer SP3 in another thread a while back, but I wonder how noisy it is?
I also noticed a lot of people, including some SIs are going with the Noctua NH-U14, but as I am planning (for now) to get a Fractal Torrent, I am a little sceptical as to how that airflow will work out without a top exhaust.
Another point that is still open is the RAM. I plan on installing 1TB, so any recommendations for the most cost effective kit of 3200 MT/s will also be appreciated.
I will update you on the build as it is progressing, and I promise to include photos!
I have a 5975WX with Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML360 RGB Thread Ripper TR4 Edition AIO. This is my second (I replaced the infamous Enermax LiqTech when I had my 1950X) and I have had zero issues with them so far. I replaced the AIO fans with BeQuiet Silent Wings 4 and it is really hard to hear, even under load.
As for overclocking. Unless you are doing something REALLY far out, you shouldn’t need to OC anything. My PC idles at 0% and the 5975WX is a powerhouse.
If I had to get an air cooler for my workstation, I’d get the Dark Rock Pro TR4 from BeQuiet!
Just my opinion based on using the items listed. I have no affiliation with either company.
Has anyone confirmed that 1TB of memory and a 5000 series threadripper will work on the WRX80E-Sage II?
It appears that bios bug is preventing that amount of memory and a 5000 series threadripper (3000 series works though) from working properly on the seemingly identical WRX80E-Sage I.
I am hoping this is resolved, since the board also comes with a new bios revision. I will report back as soon as I have 1TB of RAM, but it might be March or April until that’s the case.
I have a MSI SUPRIM X 3090 in there which is utilized for the video stuff (and gaming to be honest). Even though I have a large case, I suspect the 4090 would be a challenge to fit in there.
Does anyone have any experience yet with the Micron MTA72ASS16G72LZ 128 GB LR-DIMMS and Threadripper Pro 5000? I can’t find AMD’s qualification list, and Asus’ doesn’t list any Micron modules over 32GB.
I am curious if anyone tried the 128GB variant of those sticks, since the 64GB ones won’t let me get to 1TB and I have a few workloads I’d like to be able to prototype locally that stretch beyond 600GB
I ordered that one in the end yesterday, just to test it myself since I heard good things and it is cheap in the grand scheme of things. Not with industrial fans though, I’ll see how I like the stock version first.
I didn’t trust the stock ones much to test with those.
So far it has not exceeded 55oC at any circumstance, I’m curious to see how it will fare during summertime, if it’s acceptable (below 80oC), I will keep the pc like that.
The first parts already arrived faster than I expected:
The cooler looks bigger than I thought it would be and is only marginally smaller than the BeQuiet TR4 I have on my old 1920X.
Since availability for the Fractal Torrent in Germany is kind of bad right now, I am going to build at first inside of my Fractal Meshify S2 until I can get my hands on one without paying 50% markup.
For RAM I am still undecided, but I will ask Asus support if they have an updates compatibility list. For some Reason, the one attached to the support page is tied to Threadripper (none Pro) 3000, whilst for the older board version you can choose Threadripper 3000 (none Pro) and TR Pro 3000, but neither one even lists RAM support for 5000 series.
Until I make a decision, I will try with what I have (some DDR4 3200 UDIMMs, some 2666 UDIMMS and some 2400 RDIMMS I think) and see what works… well once the CPU is here.
Since the Fractal Torrent is not really easy to get right now in Germany, I initially just wanted to build inside of my old Meshify S2 - but the motherboard doesn’t fit. The motherboard tray has a lip that’s in the way and I am scared it puts too much pressure on the motherboard, so instead I ordered a Torrent now and hope it will arrive soon-ish. In the meantime, I guess, it is running without a case
Got it running for now, while I am still waiting for a case that fits.
The Asus Pro WS WRX80E-Sage WIFI II came with the up to date UEFI version, but an older BMC Firmware which I updated.
For some unknown to me reason it failed booting into the ElementaryOS installer (I tried both flashed to a stick and to Ventoy, both worked on a different machine with the same GPU), but even in safe graphics mode it just boots into a black screen, same also with Ubuntu server, but Fedora works fine, so I went with that, for now.
I am still using the older Asus Hyper M.2 instead of the one that came with the motherboard, because it currently is only housing PCIe 3.0 drives and I am too lazy to stop them over and will instead keep that card ready for when I buy some more NVMes. The GPU is in a lower slot to get more airflow which in my old system was quite blocked by the Hyper M.2.
I can’t believe how much speeder it feels than the already speedy Threadripper 1920X system it replaced.
