Hi everyone I am new to this forum but enjoy Level 1 videos on youtube very education and very well done. I have been learning a lot from those videos. I almost been building pc for many years however as of recent I have been stuck with a decision that I cannot make my mind and hope I can get some clarification from here or advice.
Here is the issue I have, I want the new ASUS ROG ZENITH EXTREME ALPHA Motherboard. Reason is I already have the Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 and an EK first gen block for the Threadripper with full custom water cooling. I use to own a Threadripper but sold it to a friend to help him get into the TR4 world. In the process I kept a few of those cooler with the idea that maybe I may want to go back into one. After experimenting with the i9-9900K and z390 motherboards I ended having worse experience ever. I know a lot of Intel fans will say something about that but to put a long story short.
The Gigabyte z390 AORUS Master ended up with a reboot bios bug. The ASUS ROG MAXIMUS FORMULA audio interface issues with my case. I return both back got full refund form newegg. Now I am debating between Ryzen 2700X and ASUS Crosshair VII HERO or 1900X/1920X for ASUS ROG ZENITH EXTREME ALPHA. I feel I am maxing out Ryzen platform and has less features than the Threadripper will provide to me. Maybe I am looking at this whole thing wrong. I am still open to Intel options as well.
The true I like the looks a features of the Extreme Alpha, but that mobo by itself cost an arm and a leg @ $650.00 USD, however; all I need is a cpu and a mobo since i have everything else. Below i posted the hardwares on hand, some of the software I use and such. To determind what is a good platform and cpu to get into. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. My studio room stay within 60F to 70F so cooling is not an issue.
Hardwares:
CPU:
COOLER: Noctua & EK block
MOBO:
RAM: 32GB Corsair Vengeance RGB 3000Mhz
VIDEO: Radeon Vega Frontier Edition Air & EK waterblock with Vega FE LCS Bios.
M.2: 500GB Samsung 970 NVME
M.2: 256GB Samsung 970 NVME
SSD: 500GB Samsung 850 EVO
HDD: (6x +) 1TB HP STORAGE 7200rpm drives
PSU: CORSAIR RMx Series RM850X 850W 80 PLUS GOLD
CASE: Thermaltake Core X71 Temper Glass
Audio Applications:
FL STUDIO 20
CUBASE 8
Ableton Live 10
Many VSTi to list
Programming Software:
Visual Studio for C#
Unity
Experimental AI stuff using Python.
*Cisco Network Simulation GN3 & Virtualbox / Vmware
Games:
Overwatch
Minecraft (Modded Direwolf20)
Diablo 3
Call of Duty Black Ops 4
SIM: ATS & EURO-Trucking and Race Cars games such as Rally & Dirt 4 etc…
Thank you, I have a feeling the way I wrote this I was forcing to go Threadripper and just realized that during lunch. I am open to any suggestions even if is Intel.
if you go intel then your only choice is the x99 or above platform as you need more pcie lanes than then z line can handle. and the price priemuim would be a bit more than the threadripper. seriously the thread ripper is currently the king when it comes to PCIE connectivity and price to performance.
I see, true. Someone was just telling me you can use the PCIE to put adapter for more M.2 / Sata into the system. That I won’t max out PCI Lane even on a 2700X. Honestly I have no idea about Lanes and such. People talk to me like I know this stuff and I don’t even though I know a lot about technology just not stuff like PCI Lanes since I never in my life needed to worry about it until now. Since i use to run servers to host my drives as a home NAS which I don’t anymore.
your not doing anything real exotic you could use a ryzen 2700x and a m.2 adapter and be good. it just depends on how much effort and money you are willing to throw at it. ( i am out of the pricing loop of daughter boards)
I will add this - if you need any sort of audio gear hooked up to your machine, ensure you don’t have to rely on Thunderbolt, as if you were to go with Threadripper, Intel’s patented Thunderbolt will not be supported.
I was looking at your use case and it seems you’d be doing quite a bit of audio work and that may or may not involve peripherals that require a certain port or connection. I would look into that thoroughly before selecting your MOBO.
True most of my hardware connects via USB which the amount of USB is critical to me. I fill up the back and the front of a z390 ROG Formula. The back of a ASUS ROG Crosshair VII HERO is the minimum usb usage same about the Extreme Alpha on the Threadripper side. I do have an audio card I drop in from time to time but my main Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 is USB base until I upgrade to the Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 later on. However; that will be a good while since computer parts will eat up my budget fast. However nothing that a usb hub can’t fix I think. lol
Just wanted to make sure you were factoring that in… I was thinking about this other thread which a fellow L1T user ran into some audio gear compatibility issues after he had his new build up and running.
Hopefully since you’re already trying to map it out ahead of time we can help you avoid headache down the road.
Here is the setup as you can see on the right was a TR4 1920X with AsRock Fatality Professional Gaming. Which I sold to my friend, my suffering there was lack of USB and wanting to do hackintosh which is why I played around with the z390 platform and the 9900K. Once again suffer form usb on the ROG Forumla. Also the odd issues I ran which had me down for a few weeks. Now I am down again until I figure a build out.
Hey Grokas thanks for pointing out the Thunderbolt 3 issue. I was not aware that these motherboards didn’t bring it but the z390 ASUS Maximus Extreme seems to bring one that you can put an adapter card into it. hmmm…
But question THunderbolt 3 is more of a mac thing right so more useful to them and hackintosh machine?
Thunderbolt 3 is an Intel thing, so the thing I wanted you to know about was that if you expected to be able to use a media or audio device that demanded the use of Thunderbolt 3 and you had chosen to build a Threadripper build, you would then have to DIY your connection. It can work, but it might have brought pain and suffering.
You are somewhat correct, newer macs have this port. Its an amazing interface, but unfortunate it isn’t on both team red and team blue.
Man thank you, as a hardware lover older and newer that requires sometimes Thunderbolt plugin etc… I was not even thinking on that direction at all. I do appreciate your taking the time to point that out to me because I completely forgot all about that since I have not been looking lately for hardware that uses that. I was a few weeks ago before this whole madness but never though about the motherboard having the header or the port for it.
Well as a fellow hardware lover and audiophile, I wanted to make sure that was a part of your process when selecting your parts.
You’ve got a good bit of gear there and I didn’t want you to end up not being able to use the latest and greatest.
Of course there is always an adapter or a dongle or a USB hub that has a million ports or a hack… but whatever you do, make sure its going to work with your use case.
USB 3.1 Type C is (in my opinion) the new hotness.
Its got amazing throughput, but “Thunderbolt” seems to be an Intel-Only deal which makes Apple love that proprietary markup potential. It is arguable whether or not this is a good idea.
I for one wish that it wasn’t so proprietary and more of a true standard so that all facets of technology could make use of the potential it has… that said…
It gets confusing when talking Thunderbolt 2 vs MiniDisplayPort, or Thunderbolt 3 vs USB Type C
They’re the same form factor but there is some difference in “modes”
True true. Thanks! Friend thinks is silly I would go with Intel because of one feature. lol I don’t get it since he is so hyped up about AMD Ryzen 3000 series matching and possibility beating the 9900K. Well he knows for sure that will happen but I am not after future distance tech, I need to get my machine up now and get it working again. So I must look to what there is out now and not in the near future.
so ryzen 3000 8 core beat the 9900k at ces, and amd has hinted and their have been leaks of a 12 and 16 core that can hit 5ghz. i would wait to see how that does, because if nothing else it will lower the price of threadripper which seems to be what youre leaning towards.
if however you cant wait, thread ripper 2 seems to be where its at, with all the cores and features at lower prices.
as for motherboard, look for something with a beefy vrm cooler and active cooling if you can find one.
and more importantly i would consider running a 1000 watt psu. not including your vega cooler or modified bios, you’ll be pulling 750 watts at stock. with the bios and cooler its going to be over 800 possibly over 850 before overclocking. this is assuming ofc the 2990wx, but even if you go lower i would up the power.
your not doing anything real exotic you could use a ryzen 2700x and a m.2 adapter and be good. it just depends on how much effort and money you are willing to throw at it. ( i am out of the pricing loop of daughter boards)