Going Big 2023/2024

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I am semi-happy on my “Fast Horrizen”:

Current Setup:

Part Note
R7 5800x Does fine for Video Rendering, I suppose
2x 16GB 3600MHz DDR4 cutting it close
ASrock x570 Velocita Mobo
5700xt Too slow for 3440x1440p @120 Hz
HDDs 4 of them
SSDs 2 of them, I think
Corsair Carbide 300R :poop:

What I do:

Use case Explanation Time share
Game at 3440x1440 on a monitor that can display 144Hz. Currently, 60 can be an ask 30%
Video Editing Full HD, lots of audio tracks 25%
Office things A potato can handle a pdf and a few documents 10%
Photo Editing Eats Storage 25%
Misc ? 10%

Am currently on Win10 and Fedora KDE in a dual-boot setup (which is weirdly annoying…) VM would be neat, I think.
Video Editing happens in Resolve.
The network side, we do not talk about :upside_down_face:

Big Rig:

Part Note
TR 5965 WX 24c, PCIe galore
ASRock WRX80 Supports the CPU, so is good!
Seasonic 1300W Prime Hear me out on this!
Kingston Fury Beast 4x 32GB DDR4 3600 KF436C18BBK4/128, how close to my foot am I aiming here?
AMD 7900XT Gaming pixel pusher
Nvidia RTX 4000 Currently unused
Samsung PM1735 Video editing data grave
Phanteks Enthoo Primo
Fans I have a bunch of unused Noiseblocker fans…

My network card may be redundant depending on the NICs on the mainboard, but I have one on hand in case.

Now my genius (dumb?) idea:
Watercool the entire box! How hard can it be?
In my mind, a single 420mm radiator should suffice. Since I have only once helped a friend assemble a loop, can I just mix copper and nickle parts? Hardline, Soft Tube, reservoir size, etc… Halp? :thinking:

WRX80 has a TR4/SP3 sized socket, right? So this CPU block should fit.

With a combination of AlphaCool and EKWB stuff, I think I can cover all my cooling needs.

Suggestions, Tips, Tricks?

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Do the VM, and get 64GB on the memory.

Copper and nickel, yes. Copper and aluminum, no. Galvanic corrosion would eat your blocks and fill your loop with gunk. A lot of the blocks you’ll find around these days are nickel plated copper to help stop that from happening.

Not worth it. You’d need different fittings which you can’t reuse if you wanted to go with soft lines afterwards, and it just makes everything more difficult. A good soft tube setup often looks better than bad hardlines anyway.

Whatever fits on/in your case that allows for easier fill and bleed. A bigger res just means it takes longer to reach a steady state temperature of the loop.

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That Threadripper will not rip games any better than the 7950X(3D). Here are the relevant comparison specs of the three (USD, your market may differ slightly):

CPU Price Node Base Boost TDP L1 L2 L3
Threadripper 5965WX $1799 7nm 3.8GHz 4.5GHz 280W 1.5MB 12MB 128MB
Ryzen 9 7950X3D $639 5nm 5.7GHz 4.2GHz 120W 1MB 16MB 128MB
Ryzen 9 7950X $549 5nm 5.7GHz 4.5GHz 170W 1MB 16MB 64MB

Video editing really doesn’t need a ton of cores, it does need a few, but not a lot, so a 16 core is good enough for your use case in 2023. My hot take is to shift the threadripper money to a proper 4090 card, or just simply use your A4000 for gaming.

That isn’t to say threadripper is worthless, just that it is built for different use cases than yours. You want threadripper if cores really matter or if you really need to run high performance gear with full x16 PCIe lanes, which could be a thing if you want to run a 28 drive m.2 NVMe high performance storage device or something. Or if ECC memory is really really REALLY important to you.

For pro Audio and Video, capture cards and all that jazz has moved to USB3/USB4 and Thunderbolt. Low latency input is still important but a 3-4 GHz machine can easily do it even on the consumer side.

Now, here is a PCPartpicker for a 7950X with a Gigabyte Aorus X670E Extreme, replace the CPU with 7950X3D if you really need the extra 64 L3 cache. Not including the cooling or GPUs.

PCPartPicker Part List

Type Item Price
CPU AMD Ryzen 9 7950X $548.99
Motherboard ASRock X670E Taichi $499.99
Memory G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo 2x32 GB DDR5-6000 CL30 $209.99
Memory G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo 2x32 GB DDR5-6000 CL30 $209.99
Storage Western Digital Black SN850X 4 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 $279.99
Storage Western Digital Black SN850X 4 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 $279.99
Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo -
Power Supply SeaSonic PRIME PX-1300 1300W $316.61
Total $2345.55

This should fulfill all of your use cases while lasting you all the way to the AM6 platform. In terms of capacity and VFIO, you will be limited to two cards that share the PCIe lanes, so x16 if you have one, and x8+x8 if you have two - however, depending on where you put your gaming and productivity, you might just need a single card given the iGPU on the AMD chip can easily drive one display.

Do note, this is an anchor point for further discussion, not the end-all be-all build, and I am not claiming this will be a god tier build… Just a nice one that could be good enough. :slight_smile:

If you already invested in the Threadripper system, eh, it’s not bad, just not optimal. Enjoy it!

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Why “only” 64? I can fill up my 32 pretty good with Resolve Projects. Cost wise, :man_shrugging: :money_with_wings:

Okay. EKWB is quite clear no Cu and Al mix, but there is not Ni and Cu being fine note. Thanks.

Issue is the PCIe lanes to handle all the things.
Running dual GPU + >3 SSDs + 10Gig NIC on desktop may be an issue.

And that is a good thing. Man there were some Interfacecards that… :poop:

:+1:

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If 128 fits in the budget and your board supports it, then yeah why not. Last I looked some AM4 boards supported 128GB, and some didn’t.

I went with 128 for my machine because VMs. Virt-manager has been a little flakey, so I might try cockpit. Otherwise no problems.

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Yeah, that is a good argument. Threadripper is good if you want/need a ton of lanes, though the Taichi can support 3 m.2 drives, 2 x8 5.0 GPUs and one of these puppies:

I do think your argument holds merit however, you would basically be maxing out that poor Taichi from the get-go. So, maybe it is time to take the plunge for a Threadripper or EPYC workstation. If only the latest Intel HEDT chips weren’t such a no-show… :confused:

I do believe there is a strong possibility that, by the time AM6 rolls in, m.2 powered GPUs will be a thing, as will monoblocks that cools the GPU and CPU simultaneously. However, what good is something that will happen in 5 years, when you need it today?

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It is almost like AMD currently has no Enthusiast platform on the market…

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why a dual GPU setup, one for gaming and one for Resolve?
I wouldn’t buy a Threadripper system at this point.
With ZEN4 Threadripper we will get a HEDT platform again, Threadripper PRO is too much of everything, except single thread performance.

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AFAIK, there are some CUDA things that AMD does not handle.

Any sources for this claim?
Knowing my timing, should I decide to go TR, the moment I hit buy, AMD releases/announces something new.

To add to this: I maybe need TR for connectivity, not for compute directly.

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I second this sentiment, especially with how expensive wrx80 motherboards are. For my non-accelerated workload, a 16 core sapphire rapids workstation HEDT CPU is already ~60% faster than a 5995wx; there have been large improvements in the segment within the past year or so.

CPU-Z just added support for Storm Peak so it is definitely inbound.

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I would say there is a lot to be said for, Intel has one, albeit quite poorly implemented and AMD has announced Socket SP6 in addition to SP5, fewer PCIe lanes and fewer memory channels.
This means that all the necessary parts are on the table, once SP6 and its IO-Die are validated, they are already halfway to HEDT.

Edit: HEDT SP6-Sockel (LGA-4844) Release Sept. 2023

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The a4000 just might be faster than the 5700xt if you overclock it

Maybe not 144fps faster

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Yeah almost positive

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Yes, this will always be the case since Nvidia can change CUDA however they want. Are you using said unsupported things though? That’s like saying “I don’t want an EV because it can’t tow!” and then it turns out last time you towed something was 15 years ago… It is a legitimate concern in some cases, but is it relevant in your case?

That said, while Nvidia has made GeForce a second class citizen on Linux (anything not using Mesa is a second class citizen nowadays), it is not unusable or even bad on Linux. Just a 3.5 out of 5 stars experience, while the AMD experience is usually between 4-4.5 stars. So, getting a 4090 is viable if you plan on doing a lot of CUDA stuff on Linux.

Also, while the 7950X iGPU is weak, it’s still strong enough to drive a 4k screen, just don’t expect it to run any games at playable framerates.

Yeah, market right now… A 7950X is $450 and a decent motherboard is another $500, as opposed to a 5965WX for $1800 and $1100 for a motherboard, you’re looking at the cost of a 4090 for the difference. Same thing with the 13900k.

At those prices 5955WX and 5965WX are dumb for most use cases - but if you need those lanes, it’s one of the more affordable options. Right now I would wait until October if possible though!

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I have the A4000 sitting here, and if I can get some use out of it (NVENC?), unless it makes everything a pain, may as well put it to use.

Is there any AM5 mobo with 10Gig network?
Otherwise one of the x16 (x8) slots gets a big fat E810 to chew on. Ingesting footage can probably also happen on my storage server, but local storage is difficult right now (which is why I have the Samsung PM1735 in my OP).
Any 4TB SSD that can take a beating (yay ingesting footage!) would be fine really, and M.2 seems to be what AM5 boards have o-plenty.

Yeah, sounds like that is the best curse of action here.

Mini Rant:
AM5 boards all look like they made room for one 4-slot mega GPU and then slapped a few M.2 slots all over the place.
What do people do who kinda need more than 2.5Gbit and have some mildly idiotic storage needs?!

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You have to be kidding me…

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I keep forgetting you aren’t in America
Also something about the rev 2 people didn’t like about the lan controller

It does support PBO and curve optimizer which is a must for TR Pro in my opinion

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Found those comments in various places.

Supermicro M12SQA-TF can be had in germany for 776€

Basically /thread until AMD either bolts more lanes on to AM5 or gives me HEDT.

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probably have to wait for second gen am5 or zen 3 TR

TR pro just doesn’t have enough freq and uses too much power for me without PBO and CO