Zen 4 incoming. Preparations for my build

So there are several reports that Zen4 is shipping to press/promotion right now, with scheduled release in about a month (mid september).

I considered TR Pro and EPYC, but TR Pro is beyond the budget and I don’t feel like populating 8 channels of DDR5 with Genoa later this year. This was mainly about PCIe lanes, not about cores. 24/28 lanes have to do for the next years.

Current (plan) for the Build:

  • Fractal Torrent (probably white without RGB, without window if I can find it somewhere. Call me old-school)

  • 1200W Be Quiet! Titanium PSU (PSUs last a while and I may re-use it in 2-3 years, also has to power 2xGPU)

  • X670 board with 10Gbit NIC(s) without nasty proprietary RGB bullshit and 30 VRM Phases for 800W Ryzen LN2 overclocks. Probably ASUS ProArt series, these are usually good boards with 10GbE, but I’m waiting for slot layouts and specifics.

  • CPU: 7950x

  • 2x32GB DDR5 memory (I’ve seen some 5600MT/s modules and I want to get some bandwidth considering only two channels and I’d like to avoid 2DPC. Sadly no 64GB modules available, because 64GB is lower limit to me)

  • Noctua tower cooler…the biggest one. AM5 seems to be compatible with existing AM4 aftermarket cooler brackets.

  • Storage: probably an NVMe mirror with ZFS-on-root. Consumer drives, some not overly expensive PCIe 4.0 drives. I got all the space in the world on my 10Gbit home server.

  • GPU: Plan is to wait for 7000 Radeon series and get a 7800 (hopefully with PCIe 5.0, so I can run two cards in two x8 slots). I probably use my old RTX 2060 until they get released.

  • OS: Arch or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed

I’m not sure whether to buy some of the stuff now or wait until everything is available. I’m a bit concerned about DDR5 prices following Zen4 launch. Not that much DDR5 in the market and prices already seem very volatile.

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I see nothing to complain about here :smiley:

I wish there were more plain-jane PCB “form not important only function important” type options for motherboards that don’t cost as much as (if not more than) their gaming counterparts for folks who use their machines for work. I would rather have a couple extra fan header or sata ports instead of an RGB controller.

For me the idea of 8/12/16 fast zen4 cores with an iGPU (even if it is just a display driver and nothing more) is a real step up and solves what I considered to be one of AMD’s shortcomings when it came to CPUs: the lack of an iGPU all the way up and down the product stack.

I rely on integrated graphics and don’t want to add £240+ to my build cost just to get a DisplayPort 1.4, so it will be awesome not to be limited to a “low-end APU”, relatively speaking of course… the 5000 series are no joke in any regard.

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I’m going to wait a bit and see how AM5 unfolds since AMDs track record for early adopters has been far from stellar historically.

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All those RGB stuff, Shrouds and stuff add to the cost. We’ve seen increasing board prices over the last years because of this stuff. There are still green PCB boards around without anything, but mostly server boards like the ones from AsRock Rack that are pricey for other reasons.

Just imagine how many HDMI ports on AM4 boards died a virgin and were never used because the owner didn’t have an iGPU to use it. I think having basic iGPU on every CPU is a good thing too.

I’m not sure if AM5 has DP or HDMI out in the rear I/O. Let’s find out, although I don’t rely on it.

I agree. But I’m still running a freaking Haswell quad core as daily driver. I need something now because that thing is falling apart :slight_smile:
I’m ok with teething issues and ready to compile my own kernel if need be to get proper Linux support. But that’s a matter of 2-3 months where things may be troublesome.

I was about to get an Alder Lake system in spring, but I just don’t like the big-little thing and power efficiency. So I waited another 5 months to get 5nm TSMC, PCIe 5.0 and DDR5.

Is it wise? probably not. Can I handle it? probably yes :slight_smile:

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They add pennies to the cost compared with the black and red plastic we were lumbered with before. I think motherboards are just subject to the same price inflation that has affected GPUs, CPUs and everything else in recent years. I can’t even blame Covid, mining or anything like that – there hasn’t been a good time to build a PC since like 2016.

Sooo, my question is…

TO PLAY WHAT GAMES, OR TO… Do What? NOT A USER-SIDE ISSUE, to be clear, I mean games are not able to keep up with these leaps of tech that just slam games from 2019 (pre-the ukno) with 300fps++ in some I have seen.

If you want to run Linux on the hardware, do not buy it before Linux support is confirmed. Back in time when I bought my 2400G (the notorious Raven Ridge), it was so unstable that it ended up on a shelf for almost 6 months before Linux support for it was stable…

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Likely between ASUS ProArt and EVGA FTW/Dark series
When coming to more minimalist presentation and [VERY] function driven boards

We’re at the point where consumer boards cost as much as server boards, some high-end boards are comparable in price to dual socket EPYC stuff. It’s feature creep on consumer boards that requires tooling and redesign. And of course everyone needs Wifi+BT on their desktop, because we like to move it along our UPS because mobile age.

I’m definitely prepared to pay the early adopter tax. But I’m following Linux 6.0 (same release window as Zen4) feature set and support seems to be there. Of course there will be bugs, I’m running bleeding edge Kernels after all, maybe even RC for some time. I expect quite some blood. If everything fails I have a backup machine or a Win10 iso :slight_smile:

Thanks! I don’t pay attention to EVGA usually, but I’ll have a look once we see some specs and everything is available.

I’m not that much of a Gamer, but I have some demanding titles. And I’m running scientific compute from time to time. And more cores more better if you’re doing stuff other than gaming or office. 32 threads gives me some breathing space.
And I can never have enough memory, really a shame DDR5 didn’t keep the promise of 64GB DIMMs yet. A couple of VMs, some Browser and other programs, a game and then ZFS ARC wants some memory to cache my stuff too. Memory brings opportunities :slight_smile:

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EVGA only recently got involved, in making AMD boards
Hopefully it was not a 1-off project - they were pretty good looking [overbuilt] boards

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The 7950x might still be overkill for that for the next few years, unless you are looking at starting virtualisation projects. Still, the 7950 will be guaranteed to last you to the end of AM5 lifespan, and at that point you can most probably upgrade to a Zen 6+ with 32 or 64 cores.

When it comes to graphics, unless you have extreme needs, the 7700 XT seems to be shaping Up to be a 6950 XT + better raytracing + a 250W power envelope. I do not think gaming will require more power than that to drive 4k for the next two to three generations. However, that is gaming, if you have scientific needs bigger could be worth it, we still need a 16x perf increase before 16k, which is pretty much as big a res as you will ever get (impossible to see individual pixels even in VR rigs). And of course still gotta train dem AIs and mine dem Coins ya?

As for RAM, 64 GB is a good start, though by the end of AM5 life you might want to be at 512 GB or so. Imagine when a 32 GB root RAMdisk isn’t a fancy dream anymore… :drooling_face:

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