I’ve been on my current I7 2600K for several years now, and it’s time for an upgrade.
This machine will be used as a daily driver, both for compiling code (ADA and COBOL, much to my irritation) and gaming, hence the RTX2080.
The last time I had an AMD machine it was an Athlon 64, so I’ve been doing a little reading up on the new cpu’s and motherboards and whilst the CPU side of things was fairly easy to segregate, the motherboard side of things has been a nightmare, as I couldn’t really find a single page where I could compare and contrast the various motherboard features. I’ll admit I’ve picked the current board, almost at random, so I thought I’d best get the build looked over by people who are more current than I am.
Anything where I’m going overboard, or not going overboard enough, or I could get a “better” piece of kit, etc. Look sensible or daft?
With regards to the m.2 drives, the Samsung will host the OS (Windows and Linux), the Intel 660P will end up hosting a number of databases, so I’m not too bothered about write performance - it’s a cheap way of filling an m.2 slot with a decent lump of storage.
The hybrid drive is bulk storage. Figured I might as well get a hybrid rather than a traditional 7200rpm drive… right?
Looks good overall, I don’t know on the motherboard since I haven’t been keeping up with stuff as much.
I am not sure if the hybrid drive will actually give you any benefit, since the benefits are workload dependent. It certainly won’t hurt performance though compared to a normal drive.
It looks good if I could make a suggestion or two.
I would go with an Ironwolf drive they’re mildly slower but they’ll live longer and also quieter. They also have a lot of N.A.S. heritage like handling their own defragmentation and better error recovery e.t.c…
And it’s always personal preference with mice but have you considered the G502 Spectrum (G Hub Software takes it to a new level).
My current machine runs 24/7 and has “normal” drives in it, mostly because when I built it in 2012 or thereabouts, I’d not heard of NAS/Server drives! Something to consider though.
I did have a Noctua U112A on the build list, but I figured I’d see how I got on with the boxed cooler, seeing as I keep reading good things about them - if it’s insufficient for multi-hour compile tasks I’ll remove it and drop the hundred on the Noctua.
I’ve not yet tried a Das Keyboard in the flesh - no-where to try one out. The one I’ve picked has the brown switches, which I believe are the “lightest” touch of the range. I think…
I’m actually using a Logitech G413 at the moment but my wife likes it, so she’ll get this one along with the current tin, leaving me to treat myself to a fully mechanical keyboard.
Not exactly but for typing as well as gaming they are fine. The lightest would be the red ones. Those also don’t have a tactile feel, so they are linear. I have a Corsair K65 RGB with brown switches and I’ve added o-rings, it is my daily driver keyboard and I think MX-browns are great.
Mouse - the only reason that’s on there is because I’m currently using that model and it’s adequate. I need something as my wife will also be taking my mouse in addition to my keyboard, so I’ll have a sniff around. If I can turn off all of the irritating RGB stuff on it, I’ll consider it.
I always come back to razer mice. They are not perfect, they break, freeze, cut out sometimes…
But for me nothing has better ergonomics than a Razer Mamba Tournament Edition.
On Razer mice you can set a simple profile and save that on the device. That way you don’t need the software at all. Pretty neat for linux. My Corsair K65 RGB can do that as well.
Maybe you might consider spending a bit more towards a different X570 board,
that offers a few more features.
The Aorus X570 Elite is kinda a little bit bare bones when it comes to connectivity,
options like usb, and m.2.
However if you would be fine with all the base features that the Aorus Elite offers.
And you don’t really need more then that.
Then it would be a totally fine choice.
The Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite is one of the boards that i trully like in terms of bang for buck.
But if money isn’t necessarily an issue, then there are also board for like a 80 pounds more,
that offer a bit more in terms of connectivity options.
However i also would not recommend to overspend on a board either.
Because there are also ridiculously over price X570 boards,
that generally don’t make much sense to buy.
Of course i don’t know about the UK pricings.
But boards some boards that are interesting to look at as well are:
Asrock X570 Taichi.
Asrock X570 Phantom Gaming X <— although not sure if the minor additions to this board would really be worth it over the Taichi.
This is precisely that kind of advice I appreciate. Like most of the other kit in the build, I picked it because it looked “ok”.
I’ll have a look at the other boards you mentioned - in all honesty I struggled to find a side-by-side comparison of what X offered over Y for the extra 200 euro/pounds it cost, but now that you’ve mentioned some specific boards, I’ll seek them out in some reviews.
Well yeah there are also boards that cost well over €400,-.
But to me that is just ridiculous, because we talk about a main stream system here.
I personally would not spend more then €350 on a mainstream X570 board.
Beyond that in my opinion it’s pretty hard to justify in comparison to a HEDT platform,
like Threadripper.
You can compare those boards in terms of features.
And depending on the features that you would really need,
and the features you can totally life without.
There will definitely be a board in the ones i suggested above that will suite your needs.
I mean there are boards that even cost well over €500,- and even €700,- +.
But that is just a waste of money.
Because other then a few aditional usb type C ports with ThunderBolt support,
or an 10Gb/e Aquantia Nic, those boards generally don’t offer anything interesting,
over the < €400,- boards in my opinion.
I mean you can very well just buy a Asrock X570 taichi for example,
Which is a very decent board, great vrm.
And with the additional money you save, you can trow that towards a nice gpu.
Which makes more sense in general in my opinion.
And when it comes to vrm implementations, if you have any questions on that,
you can also ask me.
But the boards i recommend have what i consider a decent enough vrm,
for any Ryzen 3000 chip.
The Taichi is more than the Aorus Elite tho? I agree that the x570 situation above 250 especially is kinda overkill unless you want Audio and sometimes the extra NVMe drive, which I could understand though. I am looking at them mostly in interest for next yearish cuz I need a bunch of other things, but the 200 dollar price point is kinda perfect, but it just depends what you need. I disagree with those who say to go with an x470 since there are lower end x570 that are at a similar and good price that are great. X570 Steel Legend is nice at that price point, though the VRM is a little iffy, but all the GB boards are pretty good. Just depends what you need and plan to do I suppose.
Ahm yeah, the Taichi is significantly more expensive then the GB Aorus Elite indeed.
But there is of course a reason for that.
The Taichi offers a little bit more connectivity features.
Better pci-e layout etc.
And the Gigabyte X570 Aorus elite will not be the best choice,
if you are an overclocker.
Because it lacks certain usefull features like post code readout,
or troubleshooting leds.
But i agree that around the $250,- price point there are already very decent boards to grab.