My first post and I think it’s time for an upgrade.
Even if it will be total overkill the plan is to give a computer to my mother and use the CPU+Motherboard from my current build to another case I have with an older Corsar AX850 (I’ve not started it for a couple of years but I hope it’s still good :))
I totally understand the concept of “it’s never a good time to buy new components” but now it really feels like it’s end of a cycle and can I get ~20% performance for same money why not? At the same time, it would be fun for to get an upgrade NOW (GAS is real) !
Current parts:
PSU: Corsair RM850X v2
CPU: Intel i7 9700K
GPU: GTX1070 (partial broken, can’t use the outputs on it so need to connect monitors to my motherboard. Still works good tho’ )
Even if i’m doing some production-workload like programming/compiling it feels like maybe 7950X3D are too overkill since the main purpose are gaming. Maybe get an 7800X3D or 7900X3D instead and save some money and put that on another motherboard maybe?
I’ve also been considering a Radeon-card but all I read is “buggy drivers”. This is also the first time i’m getting a AMD-cpu.
In the words of Gendalf the Grey - There is never a good time (and never a bad time) to make an upgrade. An upgrade is done whenever the wizard seems fit. Never too early, never too late!
I myself am on the warpath of going 13900k. Which is a good processor. And which is a bad(problematic) processor. But same goes for the Ryzen.
Parts look good. Would doubt a 7950x3D, but guess AMD tuned out the burn out problem.
Looks good. You could get the 7800x3D for basically the same performance in games and less money, but you’d lose out on multithreaded performance. That’s just a question of priorities/budget.
The ‘burn out’ issue has been solved a while ago. I did not see any burnt out CPUs/motherboards since.
You could gain some performance with better memory (look for a kit from a reputable brand with EXPO at 6000MT and CL 32 or better). There is a small chance EXPO (AMD’s version of XMP for easy memory overclocking) isn’t stable but at 6000MT it most likely is. 6000MT is the sweet spot for performance without needing manual tuning.
This is like with 13900k right now.
Running PL1/2 at 4096 degrades the CPU Pull the drawbridge
We fixed it Lower the drawbridge
We found it happening again Pull the drawbridge
(A few days ago) Vendors are releasing a bios update, where they followed Intel’s recommendations Slightly lower the drawbridge
Yup this is pretty much the entire story basically.
You should ask yourself how important is compiling for you on a daily bases?
In regards to gaming the 7800X3D will deliver similar and sometimes even better performance.
But of course you will loose significantly in regards to multi threaded workloads.
However the 7800X3D is still a 8C / 16T cpu that is still pretty capable multi threaded.
The 7800X3D will of course save you some money and that money could be spend else where.
Like for example a better gpu, nicer motherboard, more storage or ram or whatnot.
although a RTX4080 is of course already a pretty high end card.
¨if¨ AMD is sticking to the same platform strategy as they did with am4,
than you could always upgrade the cpu down the line when new sku´s come out.
So it might be interesting to invest in a slightly nicer motherboard which has a bit more,
connectivity features or expansion options to stick with for a couple of years if that makes sense.
If compiling is truly important for example time is money.
Than the 7950X3D would of course be a good choice.
The 7900X3D is a little bit of a rare and kinda pointless chip imo.
I started to think about it and it’s not “heavy compiling” like compiling clang or the kernel but more dotnet-stuff in the end. Maybe also some docker/kubernetes related things if I want to lab with something work related so if it takes 1 more hour for example, it’s not a biggie
It’s probably more that i’m worried to lock my self into a system
Going for a 7800X3D also allows me to re-use an Dark Rock 4 I have laying around.
It’s a jungle out there. Do have any good tip on motherboards for like $100-200 more?
That could be an option although by design the Bequiet coolers generally perform a bit less great on am5 cpu´s and better on the intel ones.
However eventually you could re-use the cooler indeed.
Best price to performance coolers for am5 currently are the Thermalright Phantom spirit SE,
or the Thermalright Peerless Assasin both fairly budget friendly options.
They actually perform better than most expensive aircoolers on am5.
But of course the fans are a bit less refined and quiet as Noctua´s obviously.
That is pretty much where the price difference comes from.
But other that performance wise on AMD they still give Bequiet en Noctua,
a run for their money currently
That depends. One of the best options on AM5 is the $424 Asus X670E ProArt Creator, i think you will be hard pressed to find a more well-rounded motherboard, good VRMs and support most fancy stuff like ECC memory, a PCIe 5.0x16 slot and all slots can be populated though not at full capacity. Another one that I know has good reputation is the Asrock X670E Taichi for $409.
$400+ is a lot though, so if we compromise just a little on the features we have the MSI X670E TomaHawk WiFi for $259 and Asus Gaming TUF X670E-PLUS WiFi for $269. Both are solid boards but make sure you understand strengths and weaknesses of both.
You do get what you pay for here, but going more expensive than the Creator is paying more for features you are probably never going to use. The Asus Crosshair Hero for instance is just ridiculous and more e-peen than a good board
Yes, Asus not asrock, thanks for spotting that and do forgive a tired mind
That would be extremely helpful actually, though a bit hard to get it truly vendor neutral. There are a lot of pitfalls though, from the “A $50 board should be PLENTY for my $500 CPU” to “wait you mean not ALL motherboards support 7x16 PCIe slots???” Hmmmm…
I started look at those and the price-increases were steeper than I first thought but not going for 7950X3D makes the total almost the same. And I also dropped from 64GB RAM to 32 GB
One question about memory compatibility that came up is that i’ve found a set that says it should work with RYZEN 7000 but it’s not on the QVL-list on ASUS page.
Is the list on compatibility towards the CPU or motherboard?
Memory I look at is: CMK32GX5M2E6000Z36 and motherboard ASUS TUF Gaming X670E-Plus.
The timing is unfortunate; while it’s true that you should only upgrade if you actually need it since “something better will always be around the corner”, AMD is going to introduce Zen 5 AM5 Ryzen CPUs likely at CompuTex which should be available within around two months or so (similar to Zen 2’s 2019 launch).
The regular Zen 5 parts should be as fast in gaming as the Zen 4 X3D parts (Zen 5 X3D has to wait until CES 2025) BUT the introduction of Zen 5 will likely lead to Zen 4 deals this summer.
CPU - The 7900X costs around the same as the 7800X3D, you do lose like 5% gaming performance for 4 more cores / 8 more threads. Both are excellent CPUs. Motherboard - PCIe 5.0, four m.2 slots, decent VRMs. Not a bad alternative, though you do lose a bit of nice stuff. Memory - You could get $15 cheaper for a no-name stick, but sub-$200 for 64 GB of fast RAM is still decent today. Storage - 4TB at the price of PCIe 3.0 is not a bad deal GPU - ~10% more rasterisation at the cost of ~25% Raytracing performance, for $100 less. Unless you plan on going CUDA and/or AI, or you must have the latest DLSS tech, this is a compelling option. AMD drivers these days are pretty rock solid.
Hope that helps some, as always it is your gun and your feet. Feel free to experiment and mix what you think works best for you, I just provide a bang-for-buck alternative that may or may not tick all your boxes
Motherboard is the most important part in a system I believe. Everything else can be upgraded later on till the cpu cannot be changed.
Even then you will have long life with your computer since processors work for quite a long time and there speed will hold there own for years and years
I question the value of an X670E board over a B650E board, provided you’re not plugging in 4+ PCIe drives. The only real benefit you get is more PCIe lanes, that is a waste if you’re not plugging in a substantial number of NVMe drives. So a solid B650E based motherboard should be more than enough. You don’t really need to worry about “32 bajillion VRMs of penultimate quality” unless you’re planning on overclocking - the 7800X3D is remarkably efficient (power wise) for what you get out of it. Mine doesn’t get all that hot (on an air cooler), while running a power virus like compiling Chrome, or some “N number of prime95” instances, and consumes less power than my much-less-capable i7-6700k that it replaced (assuming that HWMonitor is somewhat accurate).
I don’t know whether dotnet IDEs can take advantage of significant numbers of cores, so I can’t talk to that. What I can say is that my Nodejs development application (Node frontend, separate node backend, postgresql backend, all running in multiple containers) runs just fine while testing, too. As usual YMMV.
As wertigon mentioned - if this system helps you to make money, then that’s much less of a concern.
EDIT: Looks like there’s minimal cost difference between “normal” X670E and B650E motherboards. Note that the xxxxE only means it includes the (currently not helpful - though the future might be slightly more interesting) PCIe gen 5 lanes. But the sky’s the limit for the cost of Motherboards for fancy, unused features
Agree with you in theory, if you plan on making a computer you plan to sell in three years or so and be an early adopter of AM6 then this is good advice.
If you plan on keeping your PC for 5 years and upgrade the CPU to either Zen 5 or Zen 6, though, the extra $80 for the X670E board is worth the investment in my opinion - as are the extra m.2 ports.
Whatever you choose though it is always a compromise between features, budget and availability.
The X670E advantage over the B650E really only provides extra “connectivity” (slightly more PCIe lanes, 6 → 12 USB3 10Gbps, 1 → 2 USB3 20Gbps connectors), and that’s about it. Theoretically it will also support “better VRMs” but that’s too amorphous to make a difference, I think, provided you’re not planning on significant oveclocking. It doesn’t support more PCIe Gen5 lanes, though. I think that I wasted money on the X670 that I bought, when I could have saved an additional ~$100 when I bought mine (just after the 7800 X3D came out).
I still don’t really see what the actual advantage is at this time. Even a theoretical one (unless Zen 6 and later are like 300+W parts, I guess?)
(EDIT: trimmed out some superfluous nested replies)
