[SOLVED] New System Builds - Opinions?

[Yeldur]

Hi all,

I'm currently building a new rig, so far I've got two possibilities

1. Go down the AMD rabbit hole
2. Stick with Intel and hope that they release something that beats back AMD's closing in superiority for the purpose of future-proofing.

On that note, I've built two rigs (Storage not included because I don't need/want to replace my storage devices):

AMD Rig
Intel Rig

Either way, I'm looking to gather opinions on three things:

1. Is AMD the way to go now? Are Intel likely to clap back with a CPU that is going to beat AMD's new 5000 series out of the park?
2. Are these builds OK? Are there any changes I should make? Anything that could make things better? Have I done something stupid that makes them incompatible?
3. Are both of these motherboards all good on the audio side of things? I'm a bit of an audiophile and want to keep my audio quality as high as possible. Is it worth investing in a Sound Card for either of these or are they fine?

Important note:

• Price is not an issue, within reason. I'm not going to spend £10k on a rig, but besides that so long as the price is reasonable I'm down for improvements.
• The rig will be used primarily for gaming, the main types of games I play are RTS's with the occasional single-player game like Far Cry, CyberPunk, Red Dead Redemption 2. RTS Wise we're talking: Stellaris, Europa Universalis IV, Crusader Kings 3, Total War games (Any and all)

Thanks in advance



EDIT & UPDATE:

So, based on the feedback here I've made the following changes:

UPDATED AMD RIG

Thoughts?

Some more queries:

I'm currently rocking an ASUS ROG Strix Z370-H - I've got two M.2 drives installed there, does anyone know if the two drives would be compatible with the mobo?

I'm seeing the following warnings when looking at the build:

• Warning!Some AMD X570 chipset motherboards may need a BIOS update prior to using Vermeer CPUs. Upgrading the BIOS may require a different CPU that is supported by older BIOS revisions.
• Note:The Noctua NH-U14S 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler may require a separately available mounting adapter to fit the Gigabyte X570 AORUS PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard.
• Note:Some physical dimension restrictions cannot (yet) be automatically checked, such as cpu cooler / RAM clearance with modules using tall heat spreaders.

Should I be worried about this? I don't have an alternative CPU that I can use to do this, so if this is the case would this not render the entire rig useless? This seems like something incredibly stupid to have as an issue, which is why I'm a bit doubtful as to whether it's even true.

Am I likely to need another mounting adapter for the MOBO?

 

[Ak47Egy]

well there is no comparison between the two processors you posted, the 5950x wins with a landslide, and it better, considering the price gap and how expensive that thing is, you wouldn't expect otherwise, even in gaming it is at least as good as the i9 or better, but in virtually everything else it kicks the i9's ass hard, regarding your comment as of now AMD is the way to go, I can't say anything on the future, but for now AMD is indeed king, and I can guarantee that 5950x is good for at least 4-5 years gaming at max settings without breaking a sweat, just look at Cyberpunk's max requirements or Metro Exodus', they 5950x doesn't even come close to breaking a sweat working those games (with an adequate card of course)

 

[Yeldur]

well there is no comparison between the two processors you posted, the 5950x wins with a landslide, and it better, considering the price gap and how expensive that thing is, you wouldn't expect otherwise, even in gaming it is at least as good as the i9 or better, but in virtually everything else it kicks the i9's ass hard, regarding your comment as of now AMD is the way to go, I can't say anything on the future, but for now AMD is indeed king, and I can guarantee that 5950x is good for at least 4-5 years gaming at max settings without breaking a sweat, just look at Cyberpunk's max requirements or Metro Exodus', they 5950x doesn't even come close to breaking a sweat working those games (with an adequate card of course)

Would you say that the 3090 would be the "best" pairing with the 5950 given it's power?

 

[Dj0gany]

Hi all,

I'm currently building a new rig, so far I've got two possibilities

1. Go down the AMD rabbit hole
2. Stick with Intel and hope that they release something that beats back AMD's closing in superiority for the purpose of future-proofing.

On that note, I've built two rigs (Storage not included because I don't need/want to replace my storage devices):

AMD Rig
Intel Rig

Either way, I'm looking to gather opinions on three things:

1. Is AMD the way to go now? Are Intel likely to clap back with a CPU that is going to beat AMD's new 5000 series out of the park?
2. Are these builds OK? Are there any changes I should make? Anything that could make things better? Have I done something stupid that makes them incompatible?
3. Are both of these motherboards all good on the audio side of things? I'm a bit of an audiophile and want to keep my audio quality as high as possible. Is it worth investing in a Sound Card for either of these or are they fine?

Importante note:

Price is not an issue, within reason. I'm not going to spend £10k on a rig, but besides that so long as the price is reasonable I'm down for improvements.

Thanks in advance

You would really need to do some crazy stuff to push 5950X to its limits,in my opinion 5900X is more than enough.
You can keep the 3080,add faster ram for AMD build,you dont need to pay 100$ for windows,there are much cheaper ways of doing that.
Here is my version of your AMD build:
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 3.7 GHz 12-Core Processor (£611.51 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC LIQUID FREEZER II 360 56.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£110.39 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Motherboard: Gigabyte X570 AORUS PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard (£210.94 @ More Computers)
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory (£197.63 @ Newegg UK)
Video Card: MSI GeForce RTX 3080 10 GB GAMING X TRIO Video Card (£843.67 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Case: Corsair Obsidian 500D RGB SE ATX Mid Tower Case (£247.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair RM (2019) 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£114.95 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £2337.08
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-01-17 23:44 GMT+0000
Also if i were you,i would buy a whole liquid cooling kit and water cool this whole rig.
And as mentioned,intel is a no go compared to ryzen.
Also in AAA titles you will be using most of your GPU,rather than the CPU.

 

[Yeldur]

You would really need to do some crazy stuff to push 5950X to its limits,in my opinion 5900X is more than enough.
You can keep the 3080,add faster ram for AMD build,you dont need to pay 100$ for windows,there are much cheaper ways of doing that.
Here is my version of your AMD build:
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 3.7 GHz 12-Core Processor (£611.51 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC LIQUID FREEZER II 360 56.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£110.39 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Motherboard: Gigabyte X570 AORUS PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard (£210.94 @ More Computers)
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory (£197.63 @ Newegg UK)
Video Card: MSI GeForce RTX 3080 10 GB GAMING X TRIO Video Card (£843.67 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Case: Corsair Obsidian 500D RGB SE ATX Mid Tower Case (£247.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair RM (2019) 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£114.95 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £2337.08
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-01-17 23:44 GMT+0000
Also if i were you,i would buy a whole liquid cooling kit and water cool this whole rig.
And as mentioned,intel is a no go compared to ryzen.
Also in AAA titles you will be using most of your GPU,rather than the CPU.

The main reason I'm avoiding liquid cooling is that I'm not much of a maintenance heavy person. To put it simply: I'm lazy and will avoid doing it as much as possible.

With liquid cooling comes a need to replace the water (Unless I go closed loop, which is definitely an option) - The main reason I was looking to switch it back over to fan based cooling was for two reasons:

• A video I saw displaying that in terms of cooling, fan based cooling performs on roughly the same level as liquid cooling
• Liquid cooling pumps when they stop working don't really have any "identifier" as such, so, the only indication you'd really get is that your rig would overheat and fall over

Would you say a 3090 is worth the difference in price compared to a 3080?

(I updated the OP with some more pertinent info as to the types of games I play etc etc, which I probably should have done to begin with 😛)

 

[Ak47Egy]

Would you say that the 3090 would be the "best" pairing with the 5950 given it's power?

if money is a non issue, absolutely more power to you go for the 3090 if you can, it definitely wouldn't hurt having lots more GPU power and VRAM, just don't expect to fully utilize the system to it's full capabilities unless you're playing on 4K, no game at the moment requires that much power, especially for the CPU

 

[USAFRet]

The one thing that hasn't been stated...what is this system to be used for?

 

[Yeldur]

The one thing that hasn't been stated...what is this system to be used for?

Apologies, I updated the OP a moment ago to state that, that's my mistake 😛

For reference:

"The rig will be used primarily for gaming, the main types of games I play are RTS's with the occasional single-player game like Far Cry. RTS Wise we're talking: Stellaris, Europa Universalis IV, Crusader Kings 3, Total War games (Any and all)"

 

[Yeldur]

if money is a non issue, absolutely more power to you go for the 3090 if you can, it definitely wouldn't hurt having lots more GPU power and VRAM, just don't expect to fully utilize the system to it's full capabilities unless you're playing on 4K, no game at the moment requires that much power, especially for the CPU

I'm okay with that for the most part, I'm mostly looking to run everything I possibly can at max settings whilst still achieving as close to 240Hz as possible on a 1440p display, which my hope is that this will be able to do so.

 

[USAFRet]

Apologies, I updated the OP a moment ago to state that, that's my mistake 😛

For reference:

"The rig will be used primarily for gaming, the main types of games I play are RTS's with the occasional single-player game like Far Cry. RTS Wise we're talking: Stellaris, Europa Universalis IV, Crusader Kings 3, Total War games (Any and all)"

Both way overkill for a gaming system.
IMHO, of course.

 

[Dj0gany]

The main reason I'm avoiding liquid cooling is that I'm not much of a maintenance heavy person. To put it simply: I'm lazy and will avoid doing it as much as possible.

With liquid cooling comes a need to replace the water (Unless I go closed loop, which is definitely an option) - The main reason I was looking to switch it back over to fan based cooling was for two reasons:

• A video I saw displaying that in terms of cooling, fan based cooling performs on roughly the same level as liquid cooling
• Liquid cooling pumps when they stop working don't really have any "identifier" as such, so, the only indication you'd really get is that your rig would overheat and fall over

Would you say a 3090 is worth the difference in price compared to a 3080?

(I updated the OP with some more pertinent info as to the types of games I play etc etc, which I probably should have done to begin with 😛)

I agree on the maintainance and problem solving.
NHD-14 is more than capable to cool 5900X,so go with it if you feel like its a good idea,it wont fail you.
Games wont utilize more than 8 Cores at max,so going with a 5950X only for gaming is (not that useless is a word but) its kinda overkill and you would really leave some performance on the table.
When it comes to AAA games,besides ingame settings,resolution is the most demanding part.
3080 can handle all of those games that you listed at 4K max settings,so i really wouldnt be going above 5900X/3080.
I would rather spend that money on a nice monitor/s or something else.

 

[Yeldur]

I agree on the maintainance and problem solving.
NHD-14 is more than capable to cool 5900X,so go with it if you feel like its a good idea,it wont fail you.
Games wont utilize more than 8 Cores at max,so going with a 5950X only for gaming is (not that useless is a word but) its kinda overkill and you would really leave some performance on the table.
When it comes to AAA games,besides ingame settings,resolution is the most demanding part.
3080 can handle all of those games that you listed at 4K max settings,so i really wouldnt be going above 5900X/3080.
I would rather spend that money on a nice monitor/s or something else.

Would you say it's capable of running those games at 240 FPS constant though? As that's what I'm looking to obtain mostly, my current rig can't manage that, which is mostly why I'm going admittedly a bit overboard. I know with a 240Hz display, the aim is to hit 240fps, or you're not taking advantage of that displays full capability.

 

[Ak47Egy]

I'm okay with that for the most part, I'm mostly looking to run everything I possibly can at max settings whilst still achieving as close to 240Hz as possible on a 1440p display, which my hope is that this will be able to do so.

Well that is the best gaming hardware money can buy, it's definitely overkill, but still getting close to that 240hz on max settings on demanding games means you're going to have to play on 1080P, I would aim for 1440P and 144hz instead, it'd be a shame to play on 1080P with that kind of system,

 

[Yeldur]

Both way overkill for a gaming system.
IMHO, of course.

I would agree, but at this stage I went a bit underspecced and whilst I don't mind doing that, it put me at a disadvantage when things requiring bigger power came out, which is why this time I'm sort of future-proofing myself for any potential "new" stuff that comes out in the future.

 

[Yeldur]

Well that is the best gaming hardware money can buy, it's definitely overkill, but still getting close to that 240hz on max settings on demanding games means you're going to have to play on 1080P, I would aim for 1440P and 144hz instead, it'd be a shame to play on 1080P with that kind of system,

Gotcha, I can certainly manage 144Hz + 1440p no problem, I don't mind that. I definitely don't want to be playing on 1080p hahahaha.

 

[Ak47Egy]

Also consider this:
The difference between 30-60FPS is 6ms
between 60-144hz is 2ms
between 144-240hz is <0.5ms
unless you're a pro Esports gamer, you don't need that kind of refresh rate

 

[Dj0gany]

Would you say it's capable of running those games at 240 FPS constant though? As that's what I'm looking to obtain mostly, my current rig can't manage that, which is mostly why I'm going admittedly a bit overboard. I know with a 240Hz display, the aim is to hit 240fps, or you're not taking advantage of that displays full capability.

In AAA titles your goal should be max settings with 60FPS (or more),there is rarelly any system out there that can run a modern AAA title at max settings 4K at 240FPS.

 

[Yeldur]

In AAA titles your goal should be max settings with 60FPS (or more),there is rarelly any system out there that can run a modern AAA title at max settings 4K at 240FPS.

Oh I know that much, 4K is hard to achieve, I was more thinking because I'm currently running a 1440p display 😛

 

[Dj0gany]

Oh I know that much, 4K is hard to achieve, I was more thinking because I'm currently running a 1440p display 😛

1440p is maybe doable,but 4K is so demanding even on low settings,let alone max settings

 

[Yeldur]

Also consider this:
The difference between 30-60FPS is 6ms
between 60-144hz is 2ms
between 144-240hz is <0.5ms
unless you're a pro Esports gamer, you don't need that kind of refresh rate

Fair point, I'll aim for 144Hz for games in that case 😛

 

[Yeldur]

1440p is maybe doable,but 4K is so demanding even on low settings,let alone max settings

Gotcha, I think for now I'll aim for a perfect 144 FPS on 144Hz @ 1440p - In the future I may move up to 4k in which case I may get the 3090 for the purpose of future proofing myself for when I do that.

 

[Dj0gany]

Gotcha, I think for now I'll aim for a perfect 144 FPS on 144Hz @ 1440p - In the future I may move up to 4k in which case I may get the 3090 for the purpose of future proofing myself for when I do that.

Im sure some new cards would pop up so we will see whats new

 

[Yeldur]

So, based on the feedback here I've made the following changes:

UPDATED AMD RIG

Thoughts?

Some more queries:

I'm currently rocking an ASUS ROG Strix Z370-H - I've got two M.2 drives installed there, does anyone know if the two drives would be compatible with the mobo?

I'm seeing the following warnings when looking at the build:

• Warning!Some AMD X570 chipset motherboards may need a BIOS update prior to using Vermeer CPUs. Upgrading the BIOS may require a different CPU that is supported by older BIOS revisions.
• Note:The Noctua NH-U14S 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler may require a separately available mounting adapter to fit the Gigabyte X570 AORUS PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard.
• Note:Some physical dimension restrictions cannot (yet) be automatically checked, such as cpu cooler / RAM clearance with modules using tall heat spreaders.

Should I be worried about this? I don't have an alternative CPU that I can use to do this, so if this is the case would this not render the entire rig useless? This seems like something incredibly stupid to have as an issue, which is why I'm a bit doubtful as to whether it's even true.

Am I likely to need another mounting adapter for the MOBO?

 

[Dj0gany]

So, based on the feedback here I've made the following changes:

UPDATED AMD RIG

Thoughts?

Some more queries:

I'm currently rocking an ASUS ROG Strix Z370-H - I've got two M.2 drives installed there, does anyone know if the two drives would be compatible with the mobo?

I'm seeing the following warnings when looking at the build:

• Warning!Some AMD X570 chipset motherboards may need a BIOS update prior to using Vermeer CPUs. Upgrading the BIOS may require a different CPU that is supported by older BIOS revisions.
• Note:The Noctua NH-U14S 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler may require a separately available mounting adapter to fit the Gigabyte X570 AORUS PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard.
• Note:Some physical dimension restrictions cannot (yet) be automatically checked, such as cpu cooler / RAM clearance with modules using tall heat spreaders.

Should I be worried about this? I don't have an alternative CPU that I can use to do this, so if this is the case would this not render the entire rig useless? This seems like something incredibly stupid to have as an issue, which is why I'm a bit doubtful as to whether it's even true.

Am I likely to need another mounting adapter for the MOBO?

That gigabyte board has Q flash plus which means you can update the bios without cpu and ram,there are quides on yt about thatif the nhd 14 is a newer model (from 2019 to today) it comes with am4 bracket.Also pcpartpicker cant determine if everything will go in correctly i terms of clearance,but everything should be fine.
You might need to raise the front fan of the nhd14 a bit,sincs of the ram height.

 

[Yeldur]

That gigabyte board has Q flash plus which means you can update the bios without cpu and ram,there are quides on yt about thatif the nhd 14 is a newer model (from 2019 to today) it comes with am4 bracket.Also pcpartpicker cant determine if everything will go in correctly i terms of clearance,but everything should be fine.
You might need to raise the front fan of the nhd14 a bit,sincs of the ram height.

When I'd need to raise the front fan, that's the point I'd be using the bracket if so, am I right?