Question Advice on building a Workstation/ML/gaming rig

[quantleap]

Hi everyone, thanks for considering this thread. I'm new to the forum, and keen to be part of the community.

I'm spec-ing out a build for the following use cases:

Workstation - Big Data Software Engineering ( Top priority )
Ubuntu Linux / Kubernetes / Apache Spark / Apache Kafka / Scala

Machine Learning / Data Science (Research)
Tensorflow / PyTorch / Jupyter - Mostly Forecast / NLP / Deep Learning

Gaming ( Non Competitive)
Windows 10 Pro Dual Boot / 4k Gaming / (CyberPunk 2077 / Tomb Raider / Civilization VI / DOOM Eternal )


With that in mind, my current target:

CPU: Ryzen 3700X 8 C / 16 T 3.6/4.3 + Wraith Prism // No Overclocking intended
£350
Memory: Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4 3200 MHz C16 XMP 2.0
£350
Motherboard: X470 AORUS ULTRA GAMING, AMD X470, DDR4, Dual M.2, 2-Way SLi/CrossFire, GbE, USB3.1 Gen2
£125

Storage:
1x 1TB NVMe Samung 970 Evo Plus
£220

1x 4TB Seagate Barracuda
£88

Case: Corsair Carbide Spec-06 w/ 2x 120mm Fans
£85
PSU: Seasonic Focus Plus+ 850 Watt, Full Modular, 80PLUS Gold, SLI/CrossFire, Single Rail, 70A, 120mm Fan
£90

-----------------------------------------------
£1300
-----------------------------------------------

GPU: Nvidia RTX 2080 (Asus Turbo 8GB) - Blower, single fan.
£730

-----------------------------------------------
£2030
-----------------------------------------------


Important notes/ doubts:

PCI4:
This setup ignores PCI 4, which there's very little detail on parts. It seems to me that in 2+ years, PCI 6.0 should be out, and PCI 4.0 and 5.0 would be as short lived as 1.0 and 2.0. By the time NVMes/GPUs are ready to take advantage of it, and price comes down, you'll need a whole set of new kit anyways.

Motherboard:
Bios upgrade doesn't seem to be available for the mentioned motherboard. I could upgrade it to X570 of the same model if the price isn't ridiculous. Big issue here is that it needs to be able to plug the latest Ryzen.

CPU:

More cores would be amazing, but for a lot of distributed applications, it sounds a reasonable price / performance ratio particularly when paired to RAM. It'll offer 4GB per vCore, so great for a large, self contained cluster.

GPU:

8GB is probably not a lot of GPU RAM, but it'll offer enough to get some interesting work done.
Leaving room for a potential second GPU, in case one is needed, or at least headroom for efficient use of the existing GPU.
Besides, games rarely support SLI correctly, and ML engines tend to struggle, often delivering about 80% of the combined power.
Given that we are one year in on the RTX 20xx generation, which is only the first product of a new line. Because of that it doesn't seem like a great idea to spend too much right now, so 2080Ti avoided. Probably in 2 years time, a much more powerful unit with a lot more Tensor Cores would trounce the 2080, which i could still keep, assuming i could pair different gens.
The single fan GPU was based on recommendations that dual fans just don't dissipate heat well when paired.

I've not built a PC in decades, so any advice on cooling, and anything to optimize the build would be greatly appreciated. Anything from PSU, case, you name it. I've joined the forum explicitly to get your feedback.

Here's the bill of materials (several key prices missing since items have not been released yet):
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/sFDpfH

Budget can be stretched, most important thing is to get a great system, but fit for purpose..

 

[Lutfij]

I'd wait for the X570 because if the B350 chipset gave us any indication, a beefy CPU(with more cores) will need more power from the VRM area, meaning that BIOS updates only allow yu to drop in processors and leave them at stock clocks. Overclocking them or going to higher targets will leave you with more issues than stability if you go for the X470.

I'm an advocate of buying the single most powerful GPU your wallet can afford, for both gaming and app's merely because SLI or crossfire is very limited with game dev's and a little more with app developers.

 

[quantleap]

I'd wait for the X570 because if the B350 chipset gave us any indication, a beefy CPU(with more cores) will need more power from the VRM area, meaning that BIOS updates only allow yu to drop in processors and leave them at stock clocks. Overclocking them or going to higher targets will leave you with more issues than stability if you go for the X470.

I'll certainly be waiting until the X570s are launched, and prices advertised. I get the feeling that they may be somewhat expensive though. As mentioned, i'm not really planning on overclocking. System stability matters more in my case.

I'm an advocate of buying the single most powerful GPU your wallet can afford, for both gaming and app's merely because SLI or crossfire is very limited with game dev's and a little more with app developers.

that's a fair point. there are some 2080 Tis for about £1000, which is 30% more expensive for 30% extra cost, so you get what you pay for. the extra RAM would certainly be benefitial for Deep Learning. It'd be interesting to know what the new "Super"s will bring.

 

[Karadjgne]

It's amd. Not Intel. So pricing on the x570's shouldn't be totally rediculous. AMD wants to sell this new line, and that means not hanging around on the B550, but making the x570 available.

The Zen2 should be using 3200MHz as base speeds on ram, the way the 2nd Gen use 2666 and 1st gen used 2133, so it might be advantageous to go for something a little faster like 3466 or 3600 and take advantage of xmp/docp settings. Not sure exactly if ram speeds benefit the programs, but should benefit Ryzen infinity fabric speeds.

A slight OC has advantages. Stock settings tend to over compensate on the voltages, just to cover every cpu. Dumping eco settings can help with multiple things as there's little/no chance of performance downgrading. OC usually involves a decent cpu cooler. This is actually a benefit. TDP is the average power used by the cpu in a specific set of apps at base clocks on all cores. That includes eco/Thermal downgrading for all core use. So a 65w TDP cpu under seriously heavy usage will easily hit 130w of heat output. That's a lot for that stock cooler, even the Wraiths. For peace of mind, I'd be looking at a decent size cooler, such as the Dark Rock Pro 3/4, Cryorig H5, Noctua NH-D14 etc.

 

[quantleap]

It's amd. Not Intel. So pricing on the x570's shouldn't be totally rediculous. AMD wants to sell this new line, and that means not hanging around on the B550, but making the x570 available.

Up until £200, I'd definitely go for the X570, beyond that, it doesn't like to offer that much.
Besides, Zen3 probably won't be using AM4, or until will only be supported until 2020. With PCIe 5/6 and DDR5 around the corner, this is an area that would probably only deliver so much in the long run.

The Zen2 should be using 3200MHz as base speeds on ram, the way the 2nd Gen use 2666 and 1st gen used 2133, so it might be advantageous to go for something a little faster like 3466 or 3600 and take advantage of xmp/docp settings. Not sure exactly if ram speeds benefit the programs, but should benefit Ryzen infinity fabric speeds.

This is definitely interesting. I've been looking for faster RAM, and there's nowhere to be found. at least not a sensible price. For 64GB, the price can literally double from ~£350 to £700 for just a tiny bit faster RAM. If this doesn't change in any meaningful way for launch, I'd probably have buy the more price sensible ones 🙁

Most providers i've looked at in United Kingdom, where I'm based, seem to have that problem:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=64+GB+DDR4+3600&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

DDR4 3600 MHz Memory Available at Overclockers UK

We stock a range of DDR4 3600 MHz memory from leading memory manufacturers including Corsair, Kingston and Crucial. DDR4 memory is available in single, dual or quad channel kits. If you’re unsure which memory you need why not contact us today?

www.overclockers.co.uk

A slight OC has advantages. Stock settings tend to over compensate on the voltages, just to cover every cpu. Dumping eco settings can help with multiple things as there's little/no chance of performance downgrading. OC usually involves a decent cpu cooler. This is actually a benefit. TDP is the average power used by the cpu in a specific set of apps at base clocks on all cores. That includes eco/Thermal downgrading for all core use. So a 65w TDP cpu under seriously heavy usage will easily hit 130w of heat output. That's a lot for that stock cooler, even the Wraiths. For peace of mind, I'd be looking at a decent size cooler, such as the Dark Rock Pro 3/4, Cryorig H5, Noctua NH-D14 etc.

Thanks, that's really interesting data.
Many of my workloads involve lots and lots of threads (with many services running), and typically, quite bursty activity (such as code compilation), which is mostly parallel work. So many cores with lots of memory definitely helps.

for this, i was hoping that Precision Boost 2 would be a great help, just optimising on the spot with best available data:
https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2017/11/27/asdasd

https://community.amd.com/community...imate-cpu-for-gamers-creators-and-enthusiasts

Importantly, these tasks are not very long lived, so there's room for efficientl temperature management.

the Wraith Prism seems like a fairly decent cooler, and importantly, I'm already paying for it. This is an area where i could probably buy the hardware, test it out on real conditions, perhaps do some controlled overclocking, and if an upgrade feels justified, i could just order a different cooler like the ones you've mentioned. Does that make sense? Would you disagree?

The Dark Rock Pro 4 looks like a good choice.

 

[King Dranzer]

Here is the list:

PCPartPicker Part List

Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£148.38 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Crucial - P1 1 TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£94.79 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 3 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£81.25 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB VENTUS Video Card (£973.48 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Fractal Design - Define C ATX Mid Tower Case (£75.26 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair - RMx (2018) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£94.00 @ AWD-IT)
Custom: RYZEN R9 3900X 12C/24T (£475.00)
Custom: GIGABYTE X570 (£175.00)
Total: £2117.16
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-06-26 09:16 BST+0100

Little over budget but completely worth it. You are getting huge performance leap going from R7 3700X | RTX 2080 combo to R9 3900X | RTX 2080Ti combo.
Another 32GB RAM can be added later no problem. It is and easy upgrade and no money will be wasted as nothing is getting replaced unlike CPU or GPU upgrade. RGB RAM not required.
That Crucial SSD is very fast(not SAMSUNG 970 EVO lvl) 2000MB/s sequential read and 1700MB/s sequential write. Not bad at all for that low price and comes with 5Yr warranty.
As this is workstation build I would go with silent case like Define C over flashy case. Define C cuts down the noise quite a bit.

 

[Dragos Manea]

Honestly King Dranzer posted the best build for the money and your use, i would follow his advice.

 

[quantleap]

There are some great suggestions here, i'll pick them one by one:

Here is the list:

PCPartPicker Part List

Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£148.38 @ Aria PC)
Another 32GB RAM can be added later no problem. It is and easy upgrade and no money will be wasted as nothing is getting replaced unlike CPU or GPU upgrade. RGB RAM not required.

That's an interesting suggestion. I can easily add extra RAM later on. however, RAM is something i do use a lot of, and it ties quite well with having many cores. with 16 or more, i'd want to have a dedicated 4GB per vCore. I'm happy to go over budget here.

Storage: Crucial - P1 1 TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£94.79 @ Amazon UK)

That Crucial SSD is very fast(not SAMSUNG 970 EVO lvl) 2000MB/s sequential read and 1700MB/s sequential write. Not bad at all for that low price and comes with 5Yr warranty.

It's certainly cheap. thanks for the tip! NVMe is a must, and the higher speed would be appreciated, particularly since a lot of the work I involves heavy I/O. Still, I'll go over reviews on this one and comment back.

Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 3 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£81.25 @ Amazon UK)

The extra speed is certainly beneficial. sounds like a good choice. I feel that StoreMI could provide some real value here by fusing the disks. However, i had Fusion Drive on an old iMac, and it burnt through the SSD, which ended up with SMART failures...

Video Card: MSI - GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB VENTUS Video Card (£973.48 @ Ebuyer)

The GPU is an area where I'm quite torn, and I've been trying to compromise on. This may sound heresy on a costly build this, but £1000 just for the graphic card looks like it'll erode quite quickly, particularly when AMD already offers 16GB HBM2 for the price of a 2080 - https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-vii.c3358

Case: Fractal Design - Define C ATX Mid Tower Case (£75.26 @ Amazon UK)
As this is workstation build I would go with silent case like Define C over flashy case. Define C cuts down the noise quite a bit.

I'll go over some of the reviews, but so far, this looks like a much better choice than the one I had in mind.

Power Supply: Corsair - RMx (2018) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£94.00 @ AWD-IT)

I'm hopeless in this department. the Seasonic i had found, with excellent reviews, could be found for £85 and it's 850w, potentially supporting a dual card. any good reason to change?
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/850...sli-crossfire-single-rail-70a-120mm-fan-atx-p

Custom: RYZEN R9 3900X 12C/24T (£475.00)

It is a clever move indeed. if there was something i'd like to add to my build is more cores! the price difference with the 3700 isn't huge, and it'll definitely pay off. i'm dying to see some reviews, but chances are, this is money well spent.

Custom: GIGABYTE X570 (£175.00)

for that money, i'd buy it. however, i cannot find even a hint of a price for now.

Total: £2117.16
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-06-26 09:16 BST+0100

Little over budget but completely worth it. You are getting huge performance leap going from R7 3700X | RTX 2080 combo to R9 3900X | RTX 2080Ti combo.

indeed, parts complement each other quite well. if I'd be honest, I'd probably bump RAM and NVMe. all put together they seem very justifiable choices.

I haven't mentioned it yet, but I already have a powerful laptop (Dell XPS 15 i7700K 16 GB RAM, 512 NVMe, Nvidia 1050 ), which i use for daily work when i'm out on my clients, so this is more of a private cloud server than it is my main desktop.

Thanks a lot for the advice, really interesting suggestions.

 

[Karadjgne]

The Seasonic Focus Plus and the Corsair RMx are pretty much equitable in terms of build quality and outputs although the Corsair has been said to run slightly quieter. Considering the psu is upside down, in the back and there's other fans in the case that are louder in general, it's not something of any real weight.

You can pretty much guarantee the necessity of a good sized cooler with the 3900x. Even at a TDP of just 105w, under heavy loads, full core usage etc it's going to push at least 2x that much in heat. I'd be comparing it to the 9900k which under full thread loads can dump 250w stock. NH-D15S class coolers, 280/360mm AIO's would be recommended.

 

[quantleap]

The Seasonic Focus Plus and the Corsair RMx are pretty much equitable in terms of build quality and outputs although the Corsair has been said to run slightly quieter. Considering the psu is upside down, in the back and there's other fans in the case that are louder in general, it's not something of any real weight.

👍

You can pretty much guarantee the necessity of a good sized cooler with the 3900x. Even at a TDP of just 105w, under heavy loads, full core usage etc it's going to push at least 2x that much in heat. I'd be comparing it to the 9900k which under full thread loads can dump 250w stock. NH-D15S class coolers, 280/360mm AIO's would be recommended.

Agree. If I get the 3900X, it stands to reason to get a better cooler. At 65W, the Wraith Prism looks like a decent cooler that AMD feels confident to bundle even with much more powerful CPUs, so probably good enough unless you push it with overclocking, which i'm not so desperate about.
Really looking forward to the reviews !

 

[King Dranzer]

There are some great suggestions here, i'll pick them one by one:



That's an interesting suggestion. I can easily add extra RAM later on. however, RAM is something i do use a lot of, and it ties quite well with having many cores. with 16 or more, i'd want to have a dedicated 4GB per vCore. I'm happy to go over budget here.

Yes if RAM is priority and if you can up the budget then get below memory kit and manually OC it instead of spending huge amount to get higher frequency memory out of the box.
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product...4-x-16gb-ddr4-3000-memory-cmu64gx4m4c3000c15b

It's certainly cheap. thanks for the tip! NVMe is a must, and the higher speed would be appreciated, particularly since a lot of the work I involves heavy I/O. Still, I'll go over reviews on this one and comment back.

That Crucial P1 is NVMe drive and not a basic SATAm.2 but speeds are not as great as SAMSUNG NVMe. But yes check the benchmarks before finalizing.

The extra speed is certainly beneficial. sounds like a good choice. I feel that StoreMI could provide some real value here by fusing the disks. However, i had Fusion Drive on an old iMac, and it burnt through the SSD, which ended up with SMART failures...

Don't know which HDD you were initially planing to go with but if it was 5400RPM Drive then yes 7200RPM Drive will be faster.

The GPU is an area where I'm quite torn, and I've been trying to compromise on. This may sound heresy on a costly build this, but £1000 just for the graphic card looks like it'll erode quite quickly, particularly when AMD already offers 16GB HBM2 for the price of a 2080 - https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-vii.c3358

If the software you use is more dependent on compute power for faster renders or fps RTX2080Ti will be a huge improvement and is worth spending extra. But if software you use needs higher amount of VRAM to access and load larger scenes for processing while the requirement of compute power not being main priority VEGA VII will be good. Thing is that RTX2080Ti packs great compute performance while having second best VRAM capacity of 11GB so probably that will cover larger spectrum of requirements for different software better. Check your Software requirements and then decide.

I'll go over some of the reviews, but so far, this looks like a much better choice than the one I had in mind.

That case is well laid out easy to build and cuts down noise to some extent. You really ddon't need anything flashy. Check reviews.

I'm hopeless in this department. the Seasonic i had found, with excellent reviews, could be found for £85 and it's 850w, potentially supporting a dual card. any good reason to change?
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/850...sli-crossfire-single-rail-70a-120mm-fan-atx-p

Both are good.

It is a clever move indeed. if there was something i'd like to add to my build is more cores! the price difference with the 3700 isn't huge, and it'll definitely pay off. i'm dying to see some reviews, but chances are, this is money well spent.

For your requirement more cores will definitely come in handy. I highly recommend going with R9 3900X over R7 3700X

for that money, i'd buy it. however, i cannot find even a hint of a price for now.

I expect the price oc X570 to start around that price point. If it is even lower then it is better but I doubt it.

indeed, parts complement each other quite well. if I'd be honest, I'd probably bump RAM and NVMe. all put together they seem very justifiable choices.

I haven't mentioned it yet, but I already have a powerful laptop (Dell XPS 15 i7700K 16 GB RAM, 512 NVMe, Nvidia 1050 ), which i use for daily work when i'm out on my clients, so this is more of a private cloud server than it is my main desktop.

Thanks a lot for the advice, really interesting suggestions.

I say spend bit extra and get a satisfactory build instead of trying to cut down on price and be compromised.

 

[Karadjgne]

Computers are always getting faster. A newer part nearly always will be faster than an older part. (more so if you stay in the same general price bracket.) A new 5400/5900RPM drive will be faster than an older 7200RPM drive simply because it has newer technology in it. One big difference for HDDs is the increase in areal density. By packing the bits closer to together you don't have to wait as long for the disc to spin back around to read the next bit.

Areal density (computer storage) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Newer drives can also have newer firmware which can have better read/writing algorithms, and will have more cache on the drive to help with burst reads. I have two 4TB 5900 drives for mass storage and they can hit as fast as ~180MBps read. Here is PCMags review of the speedy Velociraptor.

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410360,00.asp

Notice they measure ~214MBps read which is only ~30MBps faster than my "slow" 5900RPM drive. You might think a 10K RPM drive would be tons faster, but that drive is older now and doesn't carry the newest tech. Finally I'd like to also point out that you CAN'T look at only one number and think X is going to be faster than Y. A chip at 3GHz can be slower than one at 2.4GHz. A 7200RPM drive can be slower than a 5400RPM drive. A SATA III drive can be slower than a SATA II drive. You CAN'T look at only one part of something and assume that it's better than something else. You have to consider the devices as a whole.

If data security is a real concern, can't afford any errors, I'd be looking at the newer 5900rpm enterprise large TB drives, not so much the slightly older 7200rpm cheapo gamer specials like the WD Blue etc.

 

[quantleap]

This is still been heavily revised, and I still have several reviews to go through on some of the material you've kindly presented.

I've tiered the options and compiled them into a spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aB4dPwyWHk_75YcysPXL_yifWRUWCfn1U0ETdkdfZI8/edit?usp=sharing

It can be summarized as such:

Bronze Tier:
Ryzen 3700X
64GB Ram
RTX 2080

Silver Tier:
Ryzen 3700X
32GB Ram
RTX 2080ti
No HDD

Both tied at £2250

Gold Tier:
Ryzen 3900X
Be Quiet DarkRock Pro 4
64GB Ram
RTX 2080ti

Coming in at £2730

This will be used with an LG 27UK850 monitor 27" 4K HDR10 IPS FreeSync 60Hz (No need for insane FPS on games)

Both Bronze and Silver deliver a ton of value for my use cases, particularly Bronze in the most immediate term (ML is more of an investment in the future than a present demand).

Gold looks amazing, but it's a bit steep. I've got not questions regarding the performance, it's a bit more of a question of whether to take the plunge and spend an extra 25% on nice to haves.

Suggestions much appreciated!

 

[Karadjgne]

When you buy a car, there's several things that are absolute.

1. Get the color you really want. Nothing worse than walking out into the driveway and looking at a champagne colored sports car sitting next to the identical color car driven by your mother in law.
2. Get the engine you want. It's a sports car, and when grandma passes you on the interstate, it's far to late to chastise yourself.
3. Get the gimmicks. Power windows, power locks, child restraint system, rims, radio, leather, bucket seats, sports package, everything. Because you probably won't go back to the dealer and have it all installed later, you'll just live with it as is. Cringing the whole time.

Why is a pc any different.

1. You have to look at it every day, so the case is important, as is the keyboard and mouse. If you dislike them, it's money twice, and the first time was a waste.
2. You have to use it, a lot. It's got to perform to your expectations and desires or you'll end up either seriously disgruntled with the pathetic waste of cash or apathetic towards what should be a joy to use.
3. If you spend £700+ on a gpu, it's done. Seriously doubtful you'll turn around a month later and spend another £1000 on what you really should have done in the first place. Cpu or mobo or especially main OS/storage drive, same thing but cheaper overall. You aren't going to swap them out anytime soon, that's downtime, expenses, money lost not invested.

Get what you absolutely need to have, the extras are fluff, but the core components must do the job, do it well and do so without doubts or your dream machine goes from a matter of pride in ownership, to just another way to get from A to B and who cares if it gets dirty.

A comparison:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel - Core i9-9900K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor (£460.38 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Fractal Design - Celsius S36 87.6 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£109.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI - MPG Z390 GAMING PLUS ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£119.65 @ Box Limited)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£326.39 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung - 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£199.98 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Toshiba - X300 4 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£101.69 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB VENTUS OC Video Card (£1015.20 @ Box Limited)
Case: Fractal Design - Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case (£82.99 @ Box Limited)
Power Supply: Corsair - RMx (2018) 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£107.99 @ AWD-IT)
Total: £2524.26
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-06-26 23:37 BST+0100

Right now, your best bet is to research exactly what your software does. In Adobe CC, the 9900k is King, by a good margin, it stomps Ryzens, which are all on the bottom of the list. It even tops any of the HEDT cpus that run 8 or more cores with hyperthreading. As does the 9700k. The 9900k is no slouch at all. So just how does the Ryzens currently do vrs Intel in the programs you use, use the 9900k as the comparison, as that's the closest equivalent for Intel vrs 3900x. For current Ryzens, use the 2700x and add 20%-30%.

 

[quantleap]

I've been reading up a lot on a number of subjects,
In particular some amazing spreadsheets helped a lot:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...FnsZYZiW1pfiDZnKCjaXyzd1o/edit#gid=2112472504

AM4 Vcore VRM Ratings v1.4 (2019-11-07)

docs.google.com

I've updated the workstation parts to this list. The most obvious stand out, is that build cost has gone up, since it's using much better parts:

Category	Name	Description	Price	Notes
CPU	Ryzen 3900X	12 C / 24 T 3.8/4.6	500	105W - Aprox 24W Heat output @ Stock ~100A
CPU Cooler	AMD Wraith Prism	120 mm	0	Precision Boost 2.0 - 105W Ready
Motherboard	X570 Aorus Pro WiFi	PCI-e 4.0, 2x M.2, 2-Way SLi	250	6+6 VRM, dual heatsinks, WiFi 6, BT 5
Memory	Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 64 GB	4x16 GB 3200 Mhz	350	OCeable to 4600 - Ryzen Optimized
Storage	NVMe Samung 970 Evo Plus	1TB, R 3.5GB/s, W 3.3GB/s, 600k/550k IOPS	220	Linux Drive
	Seagate 2TB 3.5" SATA3 FireCuda SSHD	8GB cMLC NAND, 6Gb/s, 5400KRPM, 128MB Cache	78	Windows 10 on 2x1TB Partitions (Win/Linux)
Case	Fractal Design Meshify S2 - TG	3x140mm Cooler, USB 3.1 Gen 2 USBC	140
PSU	Seasonic Focus+ Gold	850W 80+ Gold	90	TOMSH
OS	Windows 10	Professional 64 Bits	125
SubTotal			1753
GPU	Nvidia RTX 2080Ti 11GB	EVGA Blower Gaming	1000
Total			2753

As described before, the core use cases are:

* Software Development / Private Cloud Server (High Core, Lots of RAM, High IO) @ Linux Ubuntu 19.04 - Kubernetes, Spark, Kafka, Scala
* Machine Learning (GPU intensive, fast NVidia cards) @ Linux 19.04
* Development / Gaming / Video :
Windows 10 + WSL 2
Gaming @ 4K


Still questions on the new PCIe 4.0 NVMe's been launched (they seem to be price competitive, but would probably launch in August - September.)

I've downgraded the Windows HDD to a cheap fast SATA 3, so i can keep a second M2 slot available if later on i want to add another SSD.

Whilst it'd be very unlikely that i would add a second 2080Ti, it should still support it.

The case is meant to be cool, and heard good reviews, but not stellar, and feels pricey. I just couldn't find a better one that i liked for less money. Coolermaster H500P seems more powerful for less, but I'm not convinced on the design.

I'm still betting that the AMD Wraith cooler should be enough to power the 3900X on a decent airflow case.

would be great to have real benchmarks, but this is the current state of the build. Thoughts / Suggestions ?

Full spreadsheet here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...PXL_yifWRUWCfn1U0ETdkdfZI8/edit#gid=869227173

 

[King Dranzer]

Here is the list:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU Cooler: Corsair - H115i PRO 55.4 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£109.99 @ AWD-IT)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance RGB Pro 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£357.97 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Samsung - 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£197.49 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda Computer 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£49.98 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB Black Video Card (£1018.96 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Phanteks - Enthoo Pro Tempered Glass ATX Full Tower Case (£97.99 @ AWD-IT)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£95.47 @ Amazon UK)
Custom: Windows 10 Professional 32-bit/64-bit English International (£64.99 @ Amazon UK)
Custom: RYZEN R9 3900X 12C/24T (£500.00)
Custom: GIGABYTE X570 AORUS PRO WiFi (£250.00)
Total: £2742.84
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-07-02 09:52 BST+0100

Few little changes but bit more stable PC so that it can be used to its limit continuously.

 

[quantleap]

Available CPU Prices are starting to appear !
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/c86qdp/ryzen_3000_prices_in_portugal/

€ 549 should hopefully translate to £500 in UK


Interesting Case you have there, i'll definitely check it out. It seems that for the quality of build, a good case would be no less than £100, so perhaps i wasn't that wrong after all.

I'm not yet convinced on Liquid cooler, but i'll read more on it.

The Windows license was a surprise. it's much cheaper than i had seen it elsewhere. Thanks for the info!

I wonder what the new Thread Rippers would look like. there's been no leak whatsoever, but as i go through raising the cores to twelve, it really eats into the territory of the TR4 2920X 12C.

Anyone has any details on the new Thread Rippers?

 

[King Dranzer]

Available CPU Prices are starting to appear !
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/c86qdp/ryzen_3000_prices_in_portugal/

€ 549 should hopefully translate to £500 in UK


Interesting Case you have there, i'll definitely check it out. It seems that for the quality of build, a good case would be no less than £100, so perhaps i wasn't that wrong after all.

I'm not yet convinced on Liquid cooler, but i'll read more on it.

The Windows license was a surprise. it's much cheaper than i had seen it elsewhere. Thanks for the info!

I wonder what the new Thread Rippers would look like. there's been no leak whatsoever, but as i go through raising the cores to twelve, it really eats into the territory of the TR4 2920X 12C.

Anyone has any details on the new Thread Rippers?

Only info we have is that new Thread ripper lineup will go up to 64C/128T and that's it. It will not be launching any time soon. You will have to wait till end of the year.

Water coolers specially since past 4-5Yrs have become reliable and recently they have even become lot quieter than what they used to be even 2Yrs ago. There shouldn't be any issue purchasing AIO as lot many people are doing that.

 

[quantleap]

Only info we have is that new Thread ripper lineup will go up to 64C/128T and that's it. It will not be launching any time soon. You will have to wait till end of the year.

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/a3b0sp/amd_zen_2_ryzen_threadripper_processor_rumors_wow/


It all points out that AMD is going to raise the bar and never look back.

If this estimage is reasonable...

We are now a long way from the Treadripper 1900X 8 core processor.

1. Threadripper 3900X 24 cores 48 threads 4.0GHz base 4.7GHz boost 750 USD
2. Threadripper 3920X 32 cores 64 threads 4.3GHz base 5.0GHz boost 1000 USD
3. Threadripper 3950X 48 cores 96 threads 4.5GHz base 5.0GHz boost 1350 USD
4. Threadripper 3970WX 64 cores 128 threads 3.7GHz base 4.3GHz boost 1700 USD
5. Threadripper 3990WX 64 cores 128 threads 5.0GHz base ???GHz boost 2000 USD

24C/48T would be the new baseline, which makes a lot of sense.

At those price points, I'm more than happy with the Ryzen 9 3900X

Water coolers specially since past 4-5Yrs have become reliable and recently they have even become lot quieter than what they used to be even 2Yrs ago. There shouldn't be any issue purchasing AIO as lot many people are doing that.

It does look very promising. However, as this is mostly a work computer, I'm biased towards stock clocks, stability and reliability over enthusiast performance.

Either way, i'll do some research. Thanks!

 

[King Dranzer]

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/a3b0sp/amd_zen_2_ryzen_threadripper_processor_rumors_wow/


It all points out that AMD is going to raise the bar and never look back.

If this estimage is reasonable...

We are now a long way from the Treadripper 1900X 8 core processor.

1. Threadripper 3900X 24 cores 48 threads 4.0GHz base 4.7GHz boost 750 USD
2. Threadripper 3920X 32 cores 64 threads 4.3GHz base 5.0GHz boost 1000 USD
3. Threadripper 3950X 48 cores 96 threads 4.5GHz base 5.0GHz boost 1350 USD
4. Threadripper 3970WX 64 cores 128 threads 3.7GHz base 4.3GHz boost 1700 USD
5. Threadripper 3990WX 64 cores 128 threads 5.0GHz base ???GHz boost 2000 USD

24C/48T would be the new baseline, which makes a lot of sense.

At those price points, I'm more than happy with the Ryzen 9 3900X

As thee 16C/32T part is going to be priced $750 the 24C/48T will most likely be around $1000. Top-end 64T/128C will be above $2000 for sure.

It does look very promising. However, as this is mostly a work computer, I'm biased towards stock clocks, stability and reliability over enthusiast performance.

Either way, i'll do some research. Thanks!

AIO is not requiered to OC and it can maintain temps in check even for base clocks while being quiet and as you are using tempered-glass case it will also be a better looking and go well with RGB RAM. There is nothing negative in going with AIO anymore as it used to year ago.

 

[quantleap]

First results are in:

https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/13698306

Single-Core Score	Multi-Core Score
5905	44849

Competes with the likes of:
https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/multicore?page=430

older ThreadRippers, Xeons, and Skylake-X

I found these comparisons really interesting

Motherboard Google Google Compute Engine
Memory 128938 MB
Topology 1 Processor, 32 Cores, 64 Threads
Base Frequency 2.30 GHz

Single: 3650
Multi: 49032

https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/2119166

Motherboard Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. X399 AORUS Gaming 7
Memory 32111 MB
Name AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X
Topology 1 Processor, 16 Cores, 32 Threads
Base Frequency 3.40 GHz

Single: 4789
Multi: 49019

https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/8866844

 

[quantleap]

I have some questions regarding PCI-E lanes, i was hoping someone can help.

According to this motherboard:
https://aorus.com/X570-I-AORUS-PRO-WIFI-rev-10#pd_spec

Expansion Slots

Integrated in the CPU (PCIEX16): 3rd Generation AMD Ryzen™ processors: 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, supporting PCIe 4.0 and running at x16 (PCIEX16) 2nd Generation AMD Ryzen™ processors: 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, supporting PCIe 3.0 and running at x16 (PCIEX16) 2nd Generation AMD Ryzen™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics processors/AMD Ryzen™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics processors: 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, supporting PCIe 3.0 and running at x8 (PCIEX16) Integrated in the Chipset: 1 x M.2 Socket 1 connector for the wireless communication module (M2_WIFI)

Storage Interface

Integrated in the CPU (M2A_SOCKET): 3rd Generation AMD Ryzen™ processors: 1 x M.2 connector (Socket 3, M key, type 2260/2280 SATA and PCIe 4.0 x4/x2 SSD support) 2nd Generation AMD Ryzen™ processors/2nd Generation AMD Ryzen™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics processors/AMD Ryzen™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics processors: 1 x M.2 connector (Socket 3, M key, type 2260/2280 SATA and PCIe 3.0 x4/x2 SSD support) Integrated in the Chipset (M2B_SOCKET): 1 x M.2 connector on the back of the motherboard (Socket 3, M key, type 2260/2280 SATA and PCIe* x4/x2 SSD support) * For 3rd Generation AMD Ryzen™ processors only. 4 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 10

It should be possible to run all this parts at once on this system (even though it may support more, say, SATA devices):

1 x PCI-E 4.0 M2 NVMe SSD (From Chipset M2A_Socket)
2 x GPUs on PCI-E 3 X 16 on SLI
1 x M2 Socket for WIFI 6
1 x SATA 3 HDD

It seems correct according to the spreadsheet, but i'm slightly confused given several diagrams:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...FnsZYZiW1pfiDZnKCjaXyzd1o/edit#gid=2112472504

Additionally, this card looks even better value than before:
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/nvida-geforce-rtx-2070-super/34.html

At £500, it's effectively a 2080, with SLI, but 100% cheaper than a 2080 Ti. Besides the memory advantage for ML, it's not great anymore. Even a 2X 2070 Super would be better value than a 2080 Ti at that point...

Choices, Choices !

 

[Karadjgne]

Define sli.

SLI had its hay-day in DX10 to Dx11 Era. Many games were sli optimized and could take decent advantage, upto @ 70% performance boost. Just as many games didn't do so well, averaging 40%-50% boost, and some had such dismal sli support that you'd actually get negative performance, literally you were better off with a single card.

But that was then. DX12 is not sli native, but mgpu (multiple gpu) native. Has no support at all for sli. So any sli configuration will require a DX11 capable game. Which are becoming out-moded. Sli and mgpu are totally different in approach, so much so that game devs still haven't gotten it workable and small enough to be download able content per game without huge data usage.

So unless you play older games, you'll not see much sli support at all, and not close to the 70ish% it used to be.

Most commercial apps like Vegas, Adobe etc don't use sli at all, so while gaming might possibly show some benefit with smaller cards in sli, anything gpu related won't. You'd be far better off with a single, stronger, more resource available card.

Or.

Use mgpu and not SLI configuration, which can benefit commercial apps, if setup to do so.

“TensorFlow with multiple GPUs”

Deep learning

jhui.github.io

But then gaming is second place. As is anything that doesn't accept SLI or mgpu.

 

[quantleap]

Hello again!

I've been doing lots of reading given the latest reviews published, and final pricing availability.

The latest configuration, with some much improved hardware choices, is as follows:

Category	Name	Description	Price
CPU	Ryzen 3900X	12 C / 24 T 3.8/4.6 @ 105W	480
CPU Cooler	AMD Wraith Prism	120 mm	0
Motherboard	MSI MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon WIFI	2x M.2 + 3 USB 3g2 + WiFI 6 + BT 5 + Intel GbE	260
Memory	Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 64 GB	4x16 GB 3200 Mhz Ryzen Optimized	350
Storage	Corsair Force MP510 2TB	M.2 PCIe Gen 3 NVMe, R 3.5GBs, W 2.7GB/s, 485k/530k IOPS	250
	Corsair Force MP510 1TB	M.2 PCIe Gen 3 NVMe, R 3.5GBs, W 3GB/s, 610k/570k IOPS	125
Case	Fractal Design Meshify S2 - TG	3x140mm Cooler, USB 3.1 Gen 2 USBC	140
PSU	Seasonic Focus+ Gold	850W 80+ Gold	90
OS	Windows 10	Home 64 Bits	105
SubTotal			1800
GPU	NVidia RTX 2070 Super 8GB	EVGA Blower - 2560 C - 9 TFLops - 448/ bndw - 52 T	500
	NVidia RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB	EVGA Blower - 4352 C - 13.45 TFLops - 616/ bndw - 76 T	1000
Silver			2300
Gold			2800

Full details available here as usual:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...XL_yifWRUWCfn1U0ETdkdfZI8/edit#gid=1311126045

The Silver / Gold is just to represent the GPU tiers. With the new 2070 Super, the performance is just high enough that it's not really worth anymore doubling the cost for only a 15-20% increase in performance, depending on the usage. It'll certainly do more than enough.

Regarding the motherboard, the prices are quite ihgh, so i settled on the Gaming Pro Carbon WiFi.

Some concerns are the high temperatures that the 3900X seems to reach, so i've considered adding an additional case Fan (Fractal Design Venturi HF-14?)

Overall, I'm quite happy with the choices, particularly the M.2 drives, which i've decided to use both slots, on PCI 3, just because they are really well priced, and current PCI-4 SSDs are actually not fully utilizing all the bandwidth (5 GBPs vs 8 GBps). So the build has room to grow, but still delivers a huge amount today.

Unfortunately the memory is not readily available, same as the CPU, so i'm unable to order just yet.

Thoughts?

 

[Karadjgne]

Hmm, I like the red one. But the blue really shines in the sun better. The green one though is very classy.

All very important decisions, can't have doubts, recriminations or regrets. You've done all the work, all the research, all we ended up doing was playing devil's advocate, what if... And that's good.

My thoughts? Drop the hammer, seal the deal and don't look back.

And enjoy your pc, you earned it. 👍

Oh, I like the spreadsheet. Easy to deal with, and the reviews and comments.. Nice