Compact workstation advice needed

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I’m building a new workstation and would appreciate some advice. It’s been a decade since I built a PC and a lot has changed.

I mostly do embedded software development and some amateur photo/video work. Also Kicad and some other CAD apps (Freecad at the moment). I need to run VMs in VirtualBox often. OS will be Windows 11, already have a licence.

I will use the CPU’s built in GPU initially, and look at a GPU later perhaps. I only really need to drive 2x 4k monitors, and do video encoding. Later I may look at light AI.

2.5G ethernet is desired. No Intel CPUs. It will live under my desk, probably hung in a bracket.

I already have all peripherals I need. I also have a 550W Be Quiet PSU that is only about a year old. Budget is around £1500, UK based.

My current plan is:

Ryzen 7 7700X
Asus TUF GAMING B650M-PLUS WIFI Micro ATX
DDR5 6800 RAM, 2x32GB
2x Samsung 980 Pro 2 TB M.2-2280

I need to pick a case. I want compact - I don’t game and will never need a massive GPU. I will probably want PCIe USB cards though, as I need a lot of ports and hubs only get you so far. Hence mATX instead of ITX.

General question - is this a good config? For most of what I do, multicore performance is most important, and having lots of RAM. NVMe performance is important too. Stability above all.

I need a CPU cooler. Gamers Nexus recommends the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120. I could get an AIO if it would help with sustained loads, but I guess I’ll need a slightly larger case then.

I was considering the ASUS Prime AP201, but need to do more research. Dust is a massive problem here so I’m wondering if filters might be a good idea, or if I should just unplug everything and periodically blast it with compressed air.

I’ve probably missed something, but this is long already, so thanks for reading!

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If your workload is bursty, Crucial T700 are stupid fast.
For sustained loads, follow wendell’s advice and get server SSDs.

Could also go semi-passive on the CPU cooler. Noctua NH-P1 with a fan strapped to it should cool nicely while being somewhat immune to dust. Regular compressed-air is not a bad idea either way.

Case wise, LianLi A4-H2O might be worth looking at when you are planning to use a 240mm-AIO.

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Thanks. I think the issue is that we don’t get the kinds of deals on server SSDs that people in the US do. Same with Optane.

That case looks nice, but it’s ITX only. Can you suggest an ITX motherboard with masses of USB ports that I can route to a bracket? I’m still a little hesitant as I like having a slot for whatever comes in the next decade this thing will serve me for, but will consider it.

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  • The CPU is IMHO the price/performance leader for AMD. You didn’t say where you’re starting from, but expect a nice performance boost compared to pretty much any system built a decade ago.
  • The mobo should do you fine.
  • The RAM is probably overkill. There are many reports of DDR5-6400 working well with AM5, I think the DDR5-6800 is a gamble. Also, it probably demands a premium price and higher power consumption that don’t provide equal improvement in performance. I’d look for a cheaper DDR5-(6000|6400) kit.
  • The SSDs are good performers. I doubt investing in faster, more modern SSDs will yield benefits.
  • I have a system with Ryzen 7700X cooled by a Peerless Assassin 120. Again: price performance leader. I cannot detect any hint of throttling even with CPU overclocked. Size may be an issue depending on the case
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I am a fan of the Fractal Design Meshify cases and they come in multiple sizes Meshify — Fractal Design

I previously had a Meshify 2 Nano and liked it a lot, but it is mITX only.

Note that the Meshify cases generally should all have built-in dust filters which you can remove for cleaning as needed. I have a big hairy dog and this keeps a significant proportion of the dust out, only the smallest layer of the most fine dust ever makes it through. Make sure you read the manuals carefully to see how to remove all the panels and filters without breaking anything

all your other specs look just fine, and while my prefence these days is to go with mITX unless I absolutely need something bigger, only having 1 PCIe slot is a big hindrance the moment you start considering add-on cards of any type

since all your parts are standard desktop fare, you should check out PC Part Picker for more ideas

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Not a terrible build, however, speccing out your core on PC Part Picker, I think there is room for improvement:

PCPartPicker Part List

Type Item Price
CPU AMD Ryzen 7 7700X £296.99
CPU Cooler Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE £39.00
Motherboard Asus TUF GAMING B650M-PLUS WIFI £203.99
Memory G.Skill Ripjaws S5 2x32 GB DDR5-6800 CL34 £266.82
Storage Samsung 980 Pro w/Heatsink 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 £154.99
Storage Samsung 980 Pro w/Heatsink 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 £154.99
Total £1116.78

This is not a bad core build, but, the jump from a 7700X costing £295 (without cooler) to a 7900 costing £380 (with cooler) is pretty much a no-brainer, you pay around 20% more for a 40% performance boost for VM and compilation, that also draws less power.

The Asus board, 6800 MT/s RAM and Samsung 980 are all coming with premium price tags. There is no reason to go with that Asus board unless you absolutely must have ECC RAM.

Here is what I would build. It is slightly more expensive but everything is better in most ways. Twice the capacity, 50% more cores, less power usage, et cetera et cetera… You can probably find a few bargains too, but this is an absolute beast of a PC and while you do pay slightly more for it, well, it has more of all the important bits.

PCPartPicker Part List

Type Item Price
CPU AMD Ryzen 9 7900 £379.99
CPU Cooler AMD Wraith Prism RGB LED CPU Cooler —
Motherboard Gigabyte X670 AORUS ELITE AX £243.97
Memory TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 2x32 GB DDR5-6000 CL34 £183.96
Storage TEAMGROUP MP34 4 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 £186.95
Storage TEAMGROUP MP34 4 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 £186.95
Video Card PowerColor Fighter Radeon RX 6600 £195.00
Case Silverstone GD09 Type-C £118.23
System Total £1495.05

I would not get the 6600 at this point; for the extra £200 in the budget, I would save another £150 and invest £350 into the 7600 XT 16GB card that is released next month. Like, seriously. That card is just way too good in the budget segment. Still, I include the 6600 to fit the budget.

As for the SSDs being gen 3.0 - you won’t notice much of a difference here. It’s still a DRAM disk and it is twice the capacity of the 980 for the same price, give or take ten quid.

Hope this helps, as always, this build is not chipped in stone, anything can be changed, but this should be a solid compact build.

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Thanks Jode, validating my build was really helpful. I’m coming from a 2700K, so yes I’m expecting a massive boost.

Gc71, those cases look nice, thanks. If there were ITX mobos with USB4 I might consider going that route, as I can then add a Thunderbolt dock later, but mATX is probably best.

wertigon, the CPU upgrade might be worth it. Is the AMD cooler any good though? I want it to be quiet, at least at idle. At least a 7800 is probably worth it to get more cores.

The SSDs need to support OPAL for self encryption. I’ve found Samsung ones to have good support for it. I’m hesitant to try others unless I know they are going to work well with sedutil. There is BitLocker, but SED support is broken with two drives.

Edit: forgot to ask. Is 4 channel RAM worth it?

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The Prism cooler is not whisper quiet but also pretty good for a stock cooler, here is one datapoint:

If you want to go custom cooler the Peerless Assassin + 7900X combo is also available for roughly the same price. The 7900X can be power limited from 105W to 65W too, essentially making it into a 7900.

You will probably have timing problems if you populate more than 2 slots at the moment. No idea why AM5 behaves that way, or if it is a CPU, motherboard or chipset problem.

Check out this thread for more info:

Full disk encryption on workstations is such a nice idea in theory and such a dumb idea in practice. Not saying FDE is completely worthless, but it’s all about the threat model.

In the data center, you want FDE on all drives that are hot swappable, and quite possibly servers handling classified data, too. Making this move smoothly is a pain but can be done.

In a home setting, you have two options. Either your computer is stolen by a burglar for money and/or heroin, at which point they will not care about your data, at all. Chances are they will just sell it as-is on the second hand market after doing a Windows wipe.

The other option is that you are being personally targeted, and if this is the case, well…

image

Bottom line, outside the datacenter I see very few advantages to FDE, and unless you are working with highly classified stuff then it does not add any security whatsoever. Having a single FDE NVMe drive for 2TB or so could be an option, if the data is critical enough - but FDE only protects against physical theft, you’re still wide open against all the other digital threats. Key handling is best done via USB, preferrably encoded to your biometrics.

If you still feel you need it, those Samsung drives are good drives, but also expensive drives. :slight_smile:

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I would highly consider Crucial P5 Plus or T500 (faster) due firmware stability/concerns

As for the memory I’d go for something more solid and likely save some as 5200 is the official stock speed and I wouldn’t go past 5600 due to stability, reliability and heat concerns.

Something like Crucials Pro series or their “generic one”
CT32G56C46U5 , CP2K32G56C46U5, KSM56E46BD8KM-32HA that do not violate JEDEC specs

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If I’m going to stay with slower memory then I’d be tempted to get ECC. But doesn’t memory speed make a massive difference on Ryzen?

On the case front, I had a look at the Mechanic Master C28 in person and it’s exactly what I’m looking for. Naturally it’s not available in the UK, except to order from AliExpress. The hazards of living in a shit-tier country. There might be something similar though.

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Barely any at all if you use it for production,

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Neat case actually, trying to find their webpage but having shitty luck, however I did find this newegg page. Might ship to the U.K.?

https://www.newegg.com/Seller-Store/Mechanic-Master-Office-Store

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Thanks everyone. I’ve been doing more research and am trying to decide on a motherboard. I’m leaning towards the ASRock B650M-HDV/M.2, because it has a couple of useful extra PCIe ports, and is fairly cheap. The only downside is that it has only two DIMM sockets, but I’m not sure it matters. 96GB maximum is likely to be enough for the lifetime of the machine.

The other options are the B650M Pro RS, which is 4 DIMM sockets but one fewer PCIe socket. Probably not worth the trade-off to get the extra DIMM sockets.

The B650M PG Riptide has 4 PCI sockets, but one is likely to be blocked by the GPU. It does have 4 DIMMs, but I don’t think it’s worth the extra cost.

I looked at ASUS and Gigabyte but couldn’t find any boards that were better than those.

The CPU is getting upgraded, probably to a 7900X. The 7950 are too expensive to justify their cost. My only concern is power draw. The PSU is a Be Quiet Pure Power 11 FM 550W. I’ll never have a high end GPU, at most a low end RTX for some messing about with AI, and I can always upgrade it later I guess. I think it should be okay with a 200W CPU.

That also means I’ll probably have to go with an AIO.

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Thanks, that’s really helpful.

Thing is, I can’t fund any unbuffered ECC RAM in 32GB modules, at least not available in the UK. Anyone have any ideas?

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Make sure that MB supports ECC, this is not a guarantee.

Will you really use that many PCIe expansions?

Yeah, a 550W with only 300W for GPU is a bit iffy. You can run the 7900X in low power mode, essentially turning it to a 7900, but at the cost of a little performance.

I recommend a 7600 XT at the moment, although if you want to play with AI the RTX 4060 Ti 16GB is probably the better option… For now. However, the backlash for Nvidias AI domination is growing, so in the future AMD GPUs will have much better AI support too.

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Micron 32GB DDR5-4800 ECC UDIMM 2Rx8 CL40 | MTC20C2085S1EC48BR | Crucial UK ?

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Thanks diizzy, I was looking at the 5600 memory on their site and it’s not available to buy anywhere. I didn’t notice that the slower type was available to buy.

The difference will be small, but it’s still annoying that they make faster memory but you can’t get it.

“Memory Cow” seem to have some in stock, but don’t state a manufacturer. I think it’s basically “whatever we have on the shelf”.

Edit: Kingston have some too:

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In the end I ordered:

Ryzen 9 7900X
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120
ASRock B650M Pro RS
Kingston KSM56E46BD8KM-32HA 32GB DDR5 5600MT/s ECC Unbuffered
Samsung 990 Pro 2TB x2

I am still deciding on a case, but there is no rush for that as I can run on the desk for now. I am leaning towards the Mechanic Master C28, as it’s much more compact than almost any other mATX case, and I don’t need a lot of space for a GPU.

Decided to get the mobo with 2x PCIe slots and 3x M.2 slots in the end. Worst comes to worst I can use one of the M.2 slots with an adapter for a PCIe card, but looking at the board I think it probably has enough USB for all I’ll ever really need. Some of it is via mobo headers but I should have a spare slot or two. In fact I’ll see about ordering the brackets in a minute.

Thanks to everyone for your help. I’ll report back on my experiences when the kit arrives. I’ve only ever used sedutil for one drive, but it should be the same for two. The PBA is likely to be the tricky part. I’d just use BitLocker, but it’s broken for >1 drive. Incredible work by Microsoft.

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I have the system running on my desk now, seems very lively. The fan ramps up quote often, even after I tweaked it to stay on slow up to 50C. Wondering if I attached the cooler properly, as it stays cold to the touch. I did at least remove the plastic sheet from it… Maybe too much thermal paste, I tried to do a pea but ended up with a little bit more.

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the problem is the 7900X, it will keep burning more power until it hits 95C. If you don’t mind losing about 19% all core perf. you can turn on eco mode and it will be much more quiet. about 65W to 100W. In games and single threaded stuff there is not a big difference.

Or you can increase your fan curve so the fan goes slower in higher temperatures.

I’ve had the same issue on a 7700X with a big air cooler. There is no air cooler that can tame 200W so the cpu will keep boosting until it hits its max temp at 90C.

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