Hi all,
I’m completely new to PC builds. I’m interested in booting and running the latest distro of linux Ubuntu on a build comprised of RTX 2080ti x2 and an i9-7940x cpu. I’m struggling to pick a motherboard capable of supporting 2 way sli RTX 2080ti and Linux Ubuntu. Any help would be really really appreciated. Cheers!
Whats your use case, there are some amazing deals on TR right now. What size case do you have?
Deep learning Research in the financial arena, so data preparation/processing via CPU is also important. Should I just opt for the x399 chipset TR has to offer? I haven’t considered my pc case yet. I’m focused on buying the appropriate CPU/GPU/ Mobo combination right now.
Depends on how much speed matters, if you need the speed intel offers stay that route(faster cores better ipc), if you just need raw power that scales well with cores TR is probably the better bet. You get more lanes as well with TR 64 vs 44? If you need a ton of ram you might look at the epyc route (assuming over 128gb)
Also wendell really like the $3k Nvidia card thats more tailored towards compute (forget the exact one) that would probably be bette then 2080ti’s
Do you have a rough budget?
has some good performance metrics on different software you can dig though
Yeah I would like to stay intel route if possible. I’m open to making the switch to TR. Running linux is very important to me, which is why I’ve been struggling on my decision. I’ll take a look at the graphics card as well!
My budget is no more than $5000 USD.
I think most of the early Bugs with Linux and TR have been ironed out, I dont run it on my 1950x build so cant say for sure.
Ideal Ram amount ECC important? (guessing no if intel)
I’m going with a 64 Gb for now ,but I’m going to update 128GB in the future. ECC isn’t that important for me right now.
Air cooling preferred? Aio? Custom loop?
Aio. As much as I would like to do a custom loop to cool the GPUs, I have no experience in that arena, nor does anyone I know, so I’m a little hesitant.
Its really not that hard, to be honest I would probably go air if this is a machine you cant have downtime
Hmm interesting. An AIO for CPU cooling is still preferable correct? Or did you mean to also air cool CPU as well?
Air cooled is going to be your most reliable with the least chance of any issues. AIO are pretty safe these days, but if the pump dies you are down till you get a replacement, where if fans die yous still have cooling. There is also the rare chance for a leak in an AIO. So if you are not very tolerant to downtime I would go AIR
Gotcha. Makes sense.
A good air cooler will be a bit behind a big AIO but you wont loose much performance and probably none if not overclocking.
Whats your goals for storage? Nvme XPoint Spinning rust?
He is honestly gonna be pretty PCIE lane limited if he wants to really hit NVME drives with dual GPU.
I’d grab a 2950X with either the MSI Creation or AsRock Professional Gaming (if you wanna spend a little less), and the Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3.
I feel like the MSI creation isnt worth the money unless you are planning on OC hard. (maybe on 32 core) Pretty sure next TR will be on a new socket (only AM4 was promised till 2020 or w/e)
Good point. I am a sucker for those beefy VRMs though haha.
But regardless I’d def go TR over Skylake-X for this one. The 2950X is quite a bit cheaper and will likely be faster in nearly all tasks. The stock clocks of both parts are similar (TR actually clocks slightly higher out of the box) and the extra cores as well as TR’s better performance overall on Linux would easily let it take it unless you OC’d the balls of the 7940X which you wouldn’t/shouldn’t/can’t lol. Also more PCIE lanes. Which once you’re running dual GPUs really starts to become important depending on your other accessories and NVME storage
No it likely will be. Both next gen Epyc “Rome” and the third Generation Epyc “Milan” do not/will not require a new motherboard. AMD confirmed that during the Zen 2 reveal a few weeks ago. I don’t see why TR (which is just a nerfed Epyc) would require a new board when the server counterpart doesn’t.
Was thinking we do 2 chips already on 32 core per ram bank if they move to 4 per bank it might be to slow (4 chiplets compared to the 2 that are currently used)