[SOLVED] How's this workstation build?

[Charlielavoy]

Hello Tom's Hardware community! I'm building a new PC for motion graphics and animation. I'm mostly working in After Effects, very often with 3D comps containing large resolution layers, although my comps are generally set to 1080, as I rarely need to output 4K. I will occasionally dip into Cinema 4D for certain jobs, but it's not my primary workflow. Since my livelihood will take place on this machine, I won't do any manual overclocking, however I may use whatever built-in turbo mode comes with this CPU-MOBO combination. Thanks so much for any feedback you all may have!

Here's my PC part picker link: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/pwtpLP

AMD Ryzen 9 5950X
Arctic Liquid Freezer II 280
Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master
G.Skill Trident Z Neo 128 GB DDR4-3200
x2 Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1 TB M.2
X1 old M.2 drive from previous rig
Re-use my old GTX 980 Ti.
Corsair 5000D Airflow Case
EVGA P2 850+ Platinum

• Amazon is clearly price gauging on the 5950X right now since it's experiencing a stock shortage everywhere else, so I'm thinking I'll wait a bit for stock levels to recover - assuming they actually do.
• I'm not fond of the look of the Arctic Liquid Freezer II, but everything I'm seeing says it's the best balance of performance vs. noise vs. reliability. Also heard great things about the Corsair H100i Pro or the ekwb EK-AIO. In either case I'm looking at 280mm models.
• I'm getting an error in PC Partpicker about the Mobo, but the X570 Auros Master is touted all over the place as a good fit for the 5950X. Is this just a warning that I'll need to flash the BIOS, or is there a bigger issue here?
• A little torn between Aorus Master and the cheaper Ultra. Any thoughts? Am I gaining anything with Master?
• It's important for me to have the three M.2 drives. In AE, read-times are a huge bottleneck, as video files and assets need to get crammed into each comp. So, I am going to run my OA and programs on the first M.2 drive, keep source media on the second, and assign my scratch disk to the third.
• GPU isn't critical for my workflow, as long as there's enough VRAM. I thought I'd use my old one for now until the newer ones become re-stocked (they're hard to find now).
• For the case, I'm also considering a Lancool 2 Mesh, although I prefer the look of this 5000D.
• Power supply, I'd love to get one in white, but seems like it adds a lot of cost, and they often aren't available at the platinum level.

Any feedback you all have would be most welcome! Thank you!

 

[siaan312]

Seems like a pretty solid build to me.

The 5950X is currently priced higher than MSRP, but it's slowly coming down. If you look at ebay and see scalper prices, you can basically get it at 950-1050$, meaning it's 150$ above msrp.
That is much lower than the 1400$ minimum it used to be at a few months ago.
I give it 2 more months until ryzen is back in stock at msrp.
The lower scalper price is above msrp, the better stock is, and when stock is more than scalpers can buy, the price will even out to msrp.

Gpus are still much higher sadly, 3080 still selling for 2300 dollars...

As for white PSU, I think Seasonic has some good white ones.
The 5000D airflow is a pretty solid case, no complaints here.
The difference isn't major between the 3 AIOs listed, I would take the EK one though if it was the same price as the other 2.
I think yes, the problem with the board is that you need to update the bios.
Also, why are you opting for such a high end board?
You can get much cheaper boards that will do just fine.

 

[Charlielavoy]

Seems like a pretty solid build to me.

The 5950X is currently priced higher than MSRP, but it's slowly coming down. If you look at ebay and see scalper prices, you can basically get it at 950-1050$, meaning it's 150$ above msrp.
That is much lower than the 1400$ minimum it used to be at a few months ago.
I give it 2 more months until ryzen is back in stock at msrp.
The lower scalper price is above msrp, the better stock is, and when stock is more than scalpers can buy, the price will even out to msrp.

Gpus are still much higher sadly, 3080 still selling for 2300 dollars...

As for white PSU, I think Seasonic has some good white ones.
The 5000D airflow is a pretty solid case, no complaints here.
The difference isn't major between the 3 AIOs listed, I would take the EK one though if it was the same price as the other 2.
I think yes, the problem with the board is that you need to update the bios.
Also, why are you opting for such a high end board?
You can get much cheaper boards that will do just fine.

Siaan312, thanks so much! I'd be relieved to use the nicer looking EK, for sure.

Re Mobo, I just landed on the Master for the 3 M.2s, although I know the Ultra has that as well. I'm also eyeing the MSI Unify, but it's also pretty inflated in price right now.

Anyways, thanks again. I'll reply with pics once I get it built!

-Charlie