Need last min advice: building 3700x system after 9 years

Hardware Build a PC
,
1

Greetings!

So, this is my first AMD, and my first new build in 9 years!!! Yes!!! Asus Prime x470, 3700x, Ballistic Sport LT 32GB 3200 Ram, 1TB ADATA NVMe.

I am waiting for a CPU so I can flash the MB.

In the meantime, I’ve installed my PSU, DRAM, M.2.

I have all the Asus drivers. I am going to use NTLite to slipstream my drivers, and the 2 Hotfixes so I can use my NVMe. By the way this will be a Win7 x64. I have the latest updates, I have added my drivers.

Should I preformat my NVMe? I think I want a second partition 100GB or so as a scratch disk for Photoshop, Bridge, Lightroom etc, that can use the faster storage, but not clutter up my C drive. Make it easier to back up my system without all that temp garbage.

Should I format the M.2 differently? Not MBR?

I read I could install Win 7 and the drivers on my current system, but shut it down before it does the last reboot. That way it will configure itself with my 3700x.

I did read there is some MS software to make a Universal installer,. I can’t find that article now. It used the ISO and made it plain vanilla so you could just copy the installed C drive to any PC and it would then load the specific drivers. Anyone know what I’m talking about?

I may just install Win 7 on an SSD to start, then clone it to the M.2.

Thanks!

I’m excited to have the fast storage, tons of USB 3 ports and double my RAM. Photoshop will be very happy:-)

Max

2

Windows 7 has issues with USB drivers on Ryzen. Windows 8.1 works, but need to be careful not to install the updates that force the Windows 10 upgrades

3

Thank you. I do have the 2 HotFix to make NVMe work on 7. I’m looking at an app called Flashboot Pro that may do a better job than NTlite.

4

Don’t get me wrong I’m not trying to talk you out of your plans. You must have your reasons for sticking with Win7 and it most likely centers around Photoshop and/or other tools. But I’m wondering why running Win7 in a virtual machine wasn’t an option for you? If you did so you could sidestep a lot of the hardware headache and could even passthru a graphics card if you needed a GPU for your software. The added bonus being you could sandbox Win7 a bit. I mean update support for Win7 is finally drying up soon right? Next year at the latest? MS kept pushing it out and I honestly lost track.

Honestly just curious because I’ve known people with certain workflows that can’t be (easily) taken off a certain OS or hardware over the years.

5

I used 10 for awhile and hated it. I saw no advantage in how I use my computer. I found only one plug-in for PS that needed the latest 10 release. I don’t want the spying and auto updates. One month I was only on mobile data, And with metering turned on, and all updates switched off, Win 10 still sucked up 15 gigs of mobile data.

I was going to use the Win 10 LTSB, but even that version would not be updated enough for the one Plug-in.

I thought 7 would not work on Ryzen. After some reading I see it does. I’ll go 10 LTSB if I can’t get 7 x64 working.

But honestly I see no advantage in 10 I really need.

6

I never mentioned Win10 though? Would your workload not run inside a VM? Or do you just not wish to mess with Linux at all? Sorry for the questions. I figure there might be family/friends running into the same trouble before long and it pays to know about gotchas in software you don’t personally use (PS, etc).

Yeah, I’m not surprised about Win10 sucking up data despite the settings saying the contrary. I love how it forces the install of some things on shutdown/reboot even with metering on. Wtf? I guess at this point they’ve assumed everyone is using metering to get past auto-updates on the home version. But there are still people that actually have metered connections MS.

7

Honestly, if I saw some useful features or speed in 10, I’d take the red pill. But after my test, I thought it might even be slower since I have a very lean Win 7.

I wouldn’t go VM as my main system. I work on large Photoshop files, several gigs and many layers, often multiple docs at once, Lightroom is a HOG, but I need it open as well, And I am terrible have chrome and FF running with tons of tabs.

I’m hoping going from an old SATA SSD to an NVMe M.2, 16 gigs of RAM to 32 gigs, and a shinny new 3700x, I will see some major performance. I know a VM trades off some of your performance.

I’m pretty sure I can get Win 7 running. There somethings I don’t like, like searching for a file on multiple large external drives takes forever, but Win 10 was equally slow.

8

The tradeoffs might not be as big as you imagine, and it’s certainly something to consider if you fail at loading Win7 baremetal and your only alternative is going back to Win10.

I imagine the external drives are hooked via usb or on a NAS or some such?

9

7 is soon to be EOL. One major advantage to 10 is security updates. Re: spying and auto updates… Spying was added to 7 with updates so unless you arent going to update at all then you’ll eventually have the same spying but without any switches to turn it off. Auto updates can be halted on 10 with a simple disable of the automatic update service. shutup10 combined with open shell makes for a very usable day to day experience IMO. The other big advantage to 10 is driver support.

Definitely less hassle to me than trying to deal with driver support on 7.

That said, back on topic.

If you think it will help you, I dont see any reason to. This can be done in disk manager later.

I would definitely go for GPT on the M.2 personally. MBR is legacy compatibility at this point.

I doubt this. The chipset drivers for zen2 arent even available from AMD for Windows 7. I wish you the best of luck though.

Sounds like some kind of unattended install setup. I dont think it will help necessarily.

1 Like
10

Interestingly, Asus had all the Win7 Drivers for my Prime x470. And I have the NVMe hotfixes so I’m pretty sure drivers will be fine once I can get it running.

I’m still a couple days out until I can flash my board and get started. This is just asking in prep.

People are happily running 7 on the 3700x. Just some hoops to jump through.

And I know i will eventually have to move to 10. One day Adobe will stop supporting 7, but until then I will stay on 7. Everything I use on a daily, works just fine on 7.

Thanks, I will definitely go GPT, then,

Yes I have so many USB devices. 4 printers, 3D printer, several spinning external drives, My old comp only has 2 USB 3. Even transferring a 128gb SD card with photos can be very slow. I use a 3.0 hub, But I definitely see limitations transferring from one drive to another.

I use Fusion 360 and even on a SATA SSD, it can be slow to launch. Can’t wait to see it launch on the NVMe. Has to be 10x faster transfer.

11

Yes, they would. Zen+ was fully supported on windows 7. Zen2 though is another story. Should work of course but there will be some caveats.

NVMe isnt really any faster than typical sata for the average loading of applications. It might be good for your adobe workflow. The problem lies in the data access. See, NVMe is really good at sequential things… so large continuous reads and writes allow it to really stretch its legs. Many smaller files on the other hand, arent really any faster than a typical sata SSD.

The manufacturers of course dont put those numbers in their advertisement because they just arent impressive.

12

If you don’t need them external for portability sake you might consider either setting up a raid on the local machine or setting up a NAS if you need to share files between machines. The later speed depends on your network. Either way you’d get the advantage of keeping your working files redundant. Probably something you’ve already considered so I’ll shutup now :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
13

You might also consider a Linux distro ? Instead of eol 7. Pop Os is the latest flavor of the day . Mint just came out with latest version. Fedora even. I lean towards Mint as a decent 7 like experience.

If you have hung on to windows 7 this long… You have enough techinical chops to use Mint/ any Linux distro.

14

Yeah, good luck getting Adobe to run well on Linux though. It’s a royal pain.

15

I see that at the bottom… What are the alternatives ? People and their photoshop… They basically have a gun to their head.

I can not recommend staying on 7.

16

Asking people to change the software they use for their job is like asking someone that works with tools for a living to change from their favorite brand. You just don’t do it unless you’re prepared to hear both the practical and the completely subjective reasons they don’t want to. And that’s oversimplifying things because in software sometimes your forced to use certain tools because of your clients, etc. Nevermind their preference or even desire to find another workflow but don’t have the time (or money) to devote to it.

I agree there, but what can you do? I have family I can’t convince, I’m not going to convince a stranger and he does have his reasons.

17

openshell and tell them there was a huge update to 7 :wink:

18

For Photoshop, not a whole lot. Gimp has a bunch of features that Photoshop has, but not all and it has a different flow. Krita is in the same boat as Gimp where it’s close, but still isn’t PS.

1 Like
19

No, Novastark, I appreciate your advice.:wink:

20

Frankly, I don’t consider that I’m running Win 7 or Win 10 or Mac OS. I spend 95% of my time in Photoshop, illustrator, Lightroom, Firefox and Chrome. Then VLC. All of these run about the same on any of those platforms.