I bought a 2560x1440p, 144Hz panel and a Vega56 about four months ago.
I want the option to mess around with Linux and Windows VMs. This is a general use/gaming PC. I do not upgrade often. My current PC is running a 3570K.
3600 non x, with x470 (something that can be flashed without a CPU) might be worthwhile. Only reason to go x570 is if you want/need pcie 4.0 right now.
Could VM with 16 but I’m afraid you’ll bump that limit from time to time with browsers n such. I do at work.
One benefits of going for the X570 boards that isn’t discussed as much is supported memory speed. A lot of the older boards weren’t made with the expectation of RAM having to go much faster than 3200Mhz. The limiting factor previously was the CPU. That changed with Zen 2 so the traces on X570 boards for the memory seem to be substantially better. If you know your use cases are sensitive to memory speed I’d go this route. I would see if you can budget 3600Mhz RAM with a lower CL than 19 for that build.
If your use cases are not very dependent on memory speed past 3200, go with the X470. I don’t see PCIe 4.0 mattering too much. If it benefits you, it’s very likely you already know.
I’d also second the suggestion of going with a 3600 or 3600X, the performance difference with the 3700X is negligible with a mild OC or simply turning on PBO.
The 2700 would be okay if you’re trying to save a bit or want to put that money towards the GPU. Otherwise I’d recommend jumping to the 3000 series for the frequency increase, which is especially important for gaming.
You can also go 3rd gen Ryzen with X470 with a BIOS update. The system won’t fire up with the new CPU without it, but there are a few options around that. Some boards let you update the BIOS without a chip installed, the feature is usually called “BIOS flashback”. Additionally some sellers will update the board for you on request. Just something to keep in mind.
I think 32GB is fine for VMs, depends what you need to do in them and how many VMs you need to spin up at the same time. I personally wouldn’t go lower than 32GB if VMs are going to be used regularly.
If I was only running Windows, the 6 core would be enough. I want the eight cores to have as many cores available for games. I really thought about the 3600, but I really want to try out linux. I don’t want to find myself wishing I had more cores.
I orginaly had 16GB, but I realized that can go fast once VMs are introduced. I am going to start looking for X470 boards with usb bios flashing… that is a good idea. Buildzoid referenced the chipset fan (X570) as just another point of failure. I fail to find a good reason to disagree with him.
I disagree with this for a couple reasons. You absolutely can go higher than 3200mhz on older chipsets. Also theres more than just frequency at play here. 3600mhz higher than cl16 arent really any faster than 3200 at cl14, also at cl16 exactly, they are basically the same. cl15 3600 is when you really start to benefit. Also on the topic of ram speed… beyond 3733, IF clock at a 2:1 ratio meaning 3800 even at a low latency is going to be slower.
I wouldnt put a ton of stock in that here. Bios updates down the road could change fan curves so you really dont even need the chipset fan to run unless you were doing something like pcie4.0 nvme raid.
see above explanation about latency which often gets overlooked.
also a quick side note, for GPUs it basically wont matter at all but for nvme storage its already something to consider. Kind of fringe though if you consider the workload where NVME starts to make sense. Think large files where sequential writes or reads would be a big deal.
Just to clarify, I never said you couldn’t get higher than 3200. I said a lot of the boards didn’t seem to be designed with that in mind. It’s not about the chipset since the MC is on the CPU. Its just about the quality of the traces for the DIMMs. It’s just one less thing to have to fight with.
Some of the older boards might advertise 3466+ or so on paper but there were some models that would never get completely stable at the listed speed. Even though the same CPU could manage it on another board with the same RAM kit.
I agree there is some nuance with latency vs speed. It’s usually cheaper to go for more speed than lower latency though. It gives more freedom for upgrades going forward too. Might not be worth the premium price tag but if the person’s work loads are memory sensitive its worth considering.
Yup this is really depending on the used kits as well.
But raw memory clocks isnt everything indeed.
Timings also matter allot, and at a certain clock speed,
you will see deminishing returns anyways.
I would generally look at the best balance between tight timings,
and memory clocks.
And since the top kits with the highest clocks and best timings,
are rediculous expensive anyways,
and that the given fact of the deminishing returns at a certain clock speed.
I think it won´t really be worth it investing in those kits.
Unless you are really doing something very memory demanding.
But then i guess you would be better off with ecc memory anyways.
Not because of the clock speeds, but for error correction.
Kinda depends on which particular cpu you want to use on it.
But in general non of the B-350 / B-450 series of boards,
are really great when it comes to their vrm implementations.
I believe out of my head the Msi B450 Gaming pro carbon,
has kinda the best vrm from all the B450 series.
If you could afford it i would jump up for a decent X470 board if you can.
Or when you go with a Zen2 cpu, i would say go with an X570 board.
There are also reasonably priced X570 boards that don´t suck vrm wise.