Workstation build threadripper 7970

Hello everyone,
I discovered this Forum through YouTube and thought it might be wise to join before building my 1st Enthusiast PC or let’s say Consumer workstation.
I am a 3D Artist working for Game Studios and therefore went for this system.

-Threadripper 7970
-Asus Sage Wifi Trx 50 Mainboard
-Noctua NH-D9 TR5-SP6 Str5 cooler
-64GB Kingston Fury Renegade Pro 6400MT/s
-GPU (planned) Rtx4080Super
-PSU Corsair HXi 1000
-3xM2 and couple SSDs.

So, questions I have in mind.

-I want to ask if that PSU is too small for my build?
-I am also not to sure about the Cooler.
But tbh. I read a lot about water coolers - and as much as they used and improved - it’s still a bit of uncertain terrain - especially if you need to rely on your machine - doing client work as a freelancer.

Saw this article tho :
pugetsystems " power-analysis-amd-ryzen-threadripper-7000 "
Seems the fan cooler is not to bad.

Another thing that makes me nervous is how to connect this board to the PSU. I did 2 builds (Intel consumer PC) before that and had no issues. On Reddit, people are stressing about the complexity of attaching this to a PSU.
So I thought it might be a good thing to ask for any traps. Other than that, I’ll go with what the manual (hopefully) points out.

Another thing that I don’t understand with these Boards and the Ram is AMD Expo. Are these over-clockable Rams always clocking lower than advertised - except you activate AMD Expo in the Bios?
If yes, will this change the Clock of my Threadripper too? As I heard about AMDs TR Fuse blowing popup.

So a lot to digest :slightly_smiling_face:

I hope this machine just will be straight forward to build.

Let me know what you think of the components.
Thank you very much

  • The Threadripper mainboards are notorious for easily overheat in “normal” cases, you need a lot of airflow over VRMs etc (don’t expect your box to be quiet).
  • You need much better cooling for that CPU than the dinky Noctua cooler
  • Official specs says 5200 MT/s, you likely want to stick to that.
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Cooler - If you are going to use an air-cooled cooler for this CPU, look into a larger and better cooler. The CPU is the heart of your system. Take care of it as if it is your very own.

PSU - If you are dumping off into the larger workstation boards, I would suggest getting at least a 1200 to 1600 PSU. I personally have a threadripper system. I discovered early that the Asus motherboard had more than one board power input outside of the 24-pin. If I remember correctly, it has the 24-pin, and I believe two more 8-pin. If I unplug that eight pen, my system will not wake up. And the bootup will kick me an error. So look at just how much power you need and just how many of those power connections you will have to use. I went with the EVGA T2 - 1600 PSU, and I keep the PSU in quiet mode, so technically, the fan on the PSU only ramps up under extreme loads.

During heavy workloads, I used a dual 3090 (rendering, etc.) and a professional PNY A GPU for all my personal workloads for design. I did not start off with the extra cards, but I did not have to go looking for additional PSUs when I inserted the extra cards for the time. The system was ready to go. I pulled the extra cards and now use a single card for the workloads. And I left the extra eight pens connected to the PSU. Just in case I get some more cards.

See the attached picture. If you’re going to use your system like a workstation, you will need to think ahead to what you could do down the road and prepare yourself for that now. Yes, you mentioned the 4080, but could you jump to the 4090 or 5090 in the next year? If that is the case. I promise what you will not want to do: pull out your existing PSU, install a larger PSU, and then install the newer GPU. Why not just pull the old GPU and install the new GPU? Your system is already ready for the growth to come.

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I have an AX1000 PSU, with 80% CPU load there is pull of 550-600 W from the UPS, so I think if you were loading the CPU and the GPU fully then you would be at the limit of the PSU. I didn’t have any issue but I didn’t push it like that.

I have custom loop with 420 mm radiator, the CPU gets to mid 70’s with the 80% load, I can think that cooler would cause throttling. I would get the biggest Noctua if you want air cooling.

I guess RTM carefully for the PSU setup.

I have some JEDC 5600 DIMMs, I just set the multiplier to 56 and it was good to go, I would imagine that EXPO is same.

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Thank you guys for the information.
@Ytterbium what is a UPS?
I think I will then quickly change my order on the store tomorrow and get the Corsair 1500 HXi instead of my 1000Hxi. I think I went a bit too conservative with that.

For the cooler, I am still lost. So many options. Even on Water cooled, there are many that have support brackets for this socket now.
I found 2 tests on the Web for Water vs that Noctua cooler on TR 7970x, and both were not bad for the Noctua. With the Water Cooler giving more headroom.

@diizzy I hope I can manage to make it to a kind of quiet system, I know from colleagues of their pre gen TR systems that they are loud. The thing is I work in Games/VFX and similar and am very sensitive to noise. My current setup is dead silent. But is just a consumer PC.

@CltSvs thank you, the only reason I still wait on the GPU is that I want to see more test results and user experiences. I am still remembering when the 3090 came out and some died very quickly. But I sure need more GPU power very soon. Good point with the plan ahead thing. I might be updating the CPU f.e.

I hope this board allows standby, as the system seems to drain quite some power in Idle!

UPS = Uninterruptible power supply. I will swap to a HX1500i as well.

NH-U14S TR4-SP3 (you might need the mount kit), was the go to for people wanting air cooling, for an AIO Alphacool Eisbaer Pro seems good as it has the large cold plate, don’t use the regular AIO’s they just don’t cover enough of the CPU. Custom loop, depends on what you want to do.

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Hello,
today I recieved the Noctua Noctua NH-D9 TR5-SP6 Str5 cooler.
tbh that thing looks like a Toy. My current DarkRock 3 Pro is bigger than that.

Not saying it cools better. but…uhm Ok. I should have checked the Specs better.

The Problem with the
Noctua NH-U14S TR5-SP6 Or NH-U14S TR4-SP3 is that the Fan points in the “wrong” direction.
ike you can see on this build

I ordered the BeQuiet chassis where you have the Front to rear Air stream.

Maybe a thing to switch quickly.

The NH-U14S TR5-SP6 on average was around three degrees cooler than the NH-D9 TR5-SP6 4U or about seven degrees cooler for the peak temperature. The difference is understandable given the NH-D9 being more compact to fit within 4U height requirements. The slightly better performance with the NH-U14S TR5-SP6 is even with this Noctua cooler for most TR5 socket orientations (including as tested) blowing the CPU hot air up towards the power supply rather than in a straight front-to-back orientation as with the NH-D9 and other common heatsinks. With both of these Noctua coolers costing similarly, it ultimately comes down to which heatsink will fit better within your chassis.

Cooler comparison between NH-D9 TR5-SP6 NH-U14S TR5-SP6



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After reading about the 12vhpwr connector issues (or users issues, seeing YouTube GamersNexus and igors lb) I thought it might be is to check the Connector that comes with my Corsair HX1500i.
So I am curious about your opinions…it seems they marked the Connector either to see if you plugged it in fully (scrape marks) or either as a quality control on their site?


I bought the corsair cable when it was launched as my AX1000 never came with one, no issue for me, just make sure its really plugged fully, no gap between plug and socket.

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Hey everyone.
I have a hard time understanding the function of the 2 supplied power adapter cables of this board.

Also that my board arrived with the switches “slow boot” and “RSVD” at ON. The manual says they must be off or can cause damage. I don’t even know what RSVD is, and it’s very difficult to find information about it?

RSVD = reserved I would assume for internal testing purposes hence why it should be off. Could be something like all protection limits are remove which would would need to pass certifications, hence why it could cause damage.

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Thanks again Ytterbium.
I reached out to Asus support, and they just rephrased the Infos on the Manual :upside_down_face:
I also by now figured out the power supply scheme, colore coded it:

Seems the Case itself is a bit too small for this Mainboard, as it just covers the Rubber Grommet passthroughs. But the Case is so super nice - I will keep it.
This Saturday iam going to connect the board to the PSU and see if its running.
By now I have all 4 Dimms installed+ the CPU in there.
For the Noctua Cooler I first want to dry fit the MB in the case to see if I have to offset the Noctuas bracket (allows +3mm and +6mm vi screws/sliders)

I hope I can just boot from my current PCs hard drive - which is a SSD.
I have tons of Software on my SSD - and am in midproduction - so I have no time to install them right now.

My plan is to go with some PCIe 5 NVMs soon (but more for caching).



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Hello everyone,
So the System is booting! I am so happy.
The only thing that I found out after 10 min idleing in Bios - is that my Corsair 1500W PSU semlls a bit like electronics so to say?Its like hand warm nothing more.
I only have the Threadripper and an old 1070 GPU connected.
And obviously all plugs that the Handbook says for a Single PSU layout…

So current issue, I did not YET install my old Pcs System SSD into the new machine,

On booting there was a message like for this guy:

I hit N when i remember correctly. Does this give me any issues now?
Also in Bios I sa this option and dont understand it.
I am nervous to put in my “old” windows 10pro SSD now, as I have lots of Software on it and need/want to use it as is for now at least (softwares on it and stuff)…

Ok, at least iam in windows now and everything seems to run. Even my harddrives (3x SSDs yet and 2 M2 coming soon)

So it seems I have tons of Error codes on the red Check display on the Board. Yet not sure where to find the correct List for these?
I have yet not installed any drivers except booted windows.

Codes:
31 (stays short)
32 (stays long)
33 (stays long)
34 pops up
35 pops up
36 pops up
38 pops up

Do you see these codes during boot, or do they appear after Windows has started? The TRX50 manual is missing an appendix, but if you look at the WRX90 manual you’ll find a table with most of the codes listed. (Some are missing like the infamous 0D.)

At least for the WRX90 board, codes 31-38 refer to initialization stages and don’t indicate an error.

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Hello voltara!
Yes, the codes are there after windows is initialized.

Oh ok, I will check the appendix of the WRX90, great tip!

Sorry, super nervous with that piece of hardware :]
Ok some more and seems all is fine?
31 memory initialization

32 CPU post memory initialization

33 CPU post memory initialization

34 CPU post memory initialization

35 CPU post memory initialization

36 CPU post memory initialization

38 pops up

40 System awakes from S4 ?!

It looks like according to the manual, the Q-Code LED can be configured in BIOS to display the CPU temperature after it’s done booting. Maybe it’s just indicating the temperature?

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Oh wow, thats a good feature, iam going to check it out.

I connected now all my hard drives and NVMs, runs pretty good yet, rendering works too, even this it seems my Rendering licences for Vray and Arnold are gone. Maybe because of a new hardware ID. I might need to contact the IT of the company I work for the licence things :slight_smile:

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Ok…, I couldn’t believe the (crappy) ArmoryCrate software (seems it adjusts fans based on CPU temp vs CPU Package temp(which is higher!))

So I installed a little temp tool.

Seems the Noctuah is at its very limits??

The Case has 5 Case fans now, 2 at the front, one on the rear, and 2 on the Top!
That is unexpected…