Planned Ryzen build sanity check

[luxiphr]

Hi there,

my current rig is based on a 7-year-old platform. Since it's original form it has been upgraded throughout, of course, when needed but lately, this makes less and less sense. However, it'd be time to do so again, since I can't play all current games in max detail at WQHD anymore, which I'd really like to do, given the little time I have for playing video games these days. That said, I've decided to build a new system in the foreseeable future.

Please take a look at my build plan below and be critical of it. The following criteria led to the plan:

• 
  ■ should be future proof: my current rig lasted me about 7 years, during which I gradually replaced components only as needed (new gpu, more ram, faster/larger SSD)
  ■ gaming performance: WQHD @ max details and >60 FPS or >>40FPS with 4xMSAA, barring very few exceptions. Limiting factor should be the GPU
  ■ resources: more is more. I'd like to keep my most used programs running and many browser tabs open (standby ftw) and I won't put any spinning rust into my new build
  ■ app performance: sometimes I use the system to run multiple VMs concurrently, develop software or edit media and I cannot stand a lagging system even under those loads
  ■ emissions and quality: the thing shouldn't be unnecessarily loud, nothing should rattle and it should look and feel premium

Based on that, here's the current parts list. Please suggest improvements or configuration alternatives (with an explanation). Thanks in advance!

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X
RAM: G.SKILL TridentZ Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3400 (PC4 27200) Intel Z170 Platform Desktop Memory Model F4-3400C16D-32GTZ
MB: ASRock X470 Taichi
GPU: Inno3D GeForce GTX 1080 Ti iChill X3 Ultra, 11GB GDDR5X, DVI, HDMI, 3x DP (C108T3-1SDN-Q6MNX) (couldn't find on newegg, so my original source will have to do, sorry!)
SSD: Samsung SSD 970 EVO 1TB, M.2 (MZ-V7E1T0BW)
CPU-Cooler: Alphacool Eisbaer LT360 (11446)
FAN: 3x Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM, 120mm (NF-A12x25) (see GPU; replacing the stock Alphacool fans)
FAN: EKL Alpenföhn Wing Boost 3, 140mm (84000000150) (see GPU, replacing the stock case fan)
CASE: Fractal Design Define R6 Blackout TG
PSU: Seasonic Prime Ultra Gold 750W ATX 2.4 (SSR-650GD2)

 

[Barty1884]

WQHD doesn't really translate to PC hardware - it's very much a TV term for 2,048×1,080

That would be closer to standard 1080p (1920x1080) than anything else ..... where a GTX1080 is probably overkill.
A 1080 would be more suited to 1440p/1440p ultrawide.....

Otherwise, the rig seems solid. 32GB RAM seems a little overkill for what you describe, but if you're looking at multiple VMs or ridiculous numbers of tasks/tabs open, then sure... why not, right?

All in all, that system should meet your needs and then some.


Some thoughts:
1. a 1070TI offers similar performance to a 1080, for less money (although the 1070TI would need to be OCd... and you could OC the 1080 to push it ahead anyway....)

2. Check the QVL for the motherboard to ensure the memory you propose is on there. While it'll "work", if it's not on the QVL, you may run at lower speeds.

 

[luxiphr]

Hi Barty1884,

thanks for your input

WQHD doesn't really translate to PC hardware - it's very much a TV term for 2,048×1,080

No, it really is the 1440p (nowadays) widely used in gaming (wikipedia)

That would be closer to standard 1080p (1920x1080) than anything else ..... where a GTX1080 is probably overkill.
A 1080 would be more suited to 1440p/1440p ultrawide.....
[...]
1. a 1070TI offers similar performance to a 1080, for less money (although the 1070TI would need to be OCd... and you could OC the 1080 to push it ahead anyway....)

Since I did mean 1440p (which WQHD is ;-)) that's why I've chosen the 1080 I've linked. It has a hefty stock OC of Base: 1759MHz, Boost: 1898MHz (and even a slight, 50MHz Memory OC) with a potent cooling solution and a lifted power target of 230W so I won't have to fiddle with that myself (you know, time and all ;-)) all while being moderately priced. win?

Otherwise, the rig seems solid. 32GB RAM seems a little overkill for what you describe, but if you're looking at multiple VMs or ridiculous numbers of tasks/tabs open, then sure... why not, right?

Well, I've upgraded my current rig from 16 to 32 GB in the past mainly because of Chrome but back then it ate way more mem than it does now. Still, right now I'm using a total of 11,2GB of RAM without running a game or a single VM or anything special... so... yeah :-D

2. Check the QVL for the motherboard to ensure the memory you propose is on there. While it'll "work", if it's not on the QVL, you may run at lower speeds.

memory QVL lists are utterly useless because they only tell you which memory the vendor could have been arsed to actually test. this is a laborious process and it adds liability, so... yeah. The kit I've chosen is heavily binned and specifically selected for Ryzen by the memory manufacturer, which is one of the reasons it's relatively pricey... and hey, if it really does not work, I'll just return it, get my money back and try another one... but from my research so far I find that highly unlikely to happen

Cheers

 

[Barty1884]

1. Widely is quite the exaggeration. When it takes to the 2nd page of a Google result to actually hit a monitor with that naming scheme, it's not "widely" used.... and I think ASUS are the only vendor to use it anyway.

Regardless

2. Price/performance, if the 1080 makes the most sense, go for it. The 1080 in general, is now pretty misplaced for me. 1070ti or 1080ti are cards I would focus on, but you make a solid case for that specific 1080.

3. yeah, it'll depend on your workloads. If you feel you can't utilize >16gb, go for it

4. No, QVLs are not "utterly useless", especially looking at higher clocked kits for Ryzen. If you checked & it's on there, great. I didn't look it up & you hadn't stated you had, so it was more of an FYI.

 

[luxiphr]

1. Widely is quite the exaggeration. When it takes to the 2nd page of a Google result to actually hit a monitor with that naming scheme, it's not "widely" used.... and I think ASUS are the only vendor to use it anyway.

Well, then there seems to be a huge regional difference in the usage of that term. I didn't realize that. Where I live, that abbreviation is widely used and if I just Google "WQHD" the results are only about monitors :-D The more you know

2. Price/performance, if the 1080 makes the most sense, go for it. The 1080 in general, is now pretty misplaced for me. 1070ti or 1080ti are cards I would focus on, but you make a solid case for that specific 1080.

yeah - again regional differences in the market I assume. searching on newegg showed me this :-D that specific 1080 has one of the highest stock OCs out there and is, at the same time, in the lower mid price range for 1080s. It's cheaper than the cheapest stock Vega64 and it should get near 1080ti performance but for hundreds less.

3. yeah, it'll depend on your workloads. If you feel you can't utilize >16gb, go for it

I already do :-D

4. No, QVLs are not "utterly useless", especially looking at higher clocked kits for Ryzen. If you checked & it's on there, great. I didn't look it up & you hadn't stated you had, so it was more of an FYI.

I had deliberately not looked it up because I found them to be immensely limiting in the past and, as said, I really don't see why a mainboard vendor would have any incentive to test a wide range of ram modules - especially as they still come out after the mb... BUT... as I write this I realized that the RAM vendor actually has an incentive to test with as many boards as possible so I checked the QVL of the RAM modules and sure enough it contained the board I'm looking at... so thanks for reinstantiating your point here

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

Since your graphics card is quite powerful and overclocked quite a bit out of the box as you mentioned, I would suggest perhaps looking into a higher wattage power supply? Maybe the same model you have now but 100 watts higher? I ran some quick numbers through the cooler master wattage calculator and it got quite close to the your current psu limit of 650w. If you're always pushing the computer near its limit then it would be worth it.

 

[luxiphr]

Since your graphics card is quite powerful and overclocked quite a bit out of the box as you mentioned, I would suggest perhaps looking into a higher wattage power supply? Maybe the same model you have now but 100 watts higher? I ran some quick numbers through the cooler master wattage calculator and it got quite close to the your current psu limit of 650w. If you're always pushing the computer near its limit then it would be worth it.

Yeah, I was doing this anyway since I also changed the MB to the Taichi... I just didn't update here because the thread seemed deserted. However, I didn't upgrade the psu for the wattage but the additional 4 pin 12V atx connector the taichi supports over the gigabyte board.

In terms of needed Wattage I'm looking at something close below 500W. Personally I wouldn't believe the wattage calc of someone selling PSUs - there's a clear conflict of interests there ;-)

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

Since your graphics card is quite powerful and overclocked quite a bit out of the box as you mentioned, I would suggest perhaps looking into a higher wattage power supply? Maybe the same model you have now but 100 watts higher? I ran some quick numbers through the cooler master wattage calculator and it got quite close to the your current psu limit of 650w. If you're always pushing the computer near its limit then it would be worth it.

Yeah, I was doing this anyway since I also changed the MB to the Taichi... I just didn't update here because the thread seemed deserted. However, I didn't upgrade the psu for the wattage but the additional 4 pin 12V atx connector the taichi supports over the gigabyte board.

In terms of needed Wattage I'm looking at something close below 500W. Personally I wouldn't believe the wattage calc of someone selling PSUs - there's a clear conflict of interests there ;-)

In my opinion, I think Cooler Master is a decently reputable company and their calculator doesn't only recommend their own PSUs. Just to make sure, I put the same numbers into seasonics, as well as outervisions wattage calculators and they came up with the same numbers. I think your current Seasonic prime 750w gold unit is completely fine though.

 

[luxiphr]

yeah, probably... but still... also depends on what you put in there...

i was basically doing
280w gpu pt +
105w cpu tdp +
50w mb & stuff
= 435W / 0.7 (target nt utilization)
= 612W

so I would have felt comfortable with 650W but getting the 750w one leaves me with an even nicer buffer of about 40% instead of 30% psu capacity

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

yeah, probably... but still... also depends on what you put in there...

i was basically doing
280w gpu pt +
105w cpu tdp +
50w mb & stuff
= 435W / 0.7 (target nt utilization)
= 612W

so I would have felt comfortable with 650W but getting the 750w one leaves me with an even nicer buffer of about 40% instead of 30% psu capacity

Agreed, the 750w is very nice. For the gpu and CPU I looked at some bench marks for your specific models and during gaming the gpu pulls around 350 watts and during heavy utilization, the CPU pulls around 190 watts.

 

[luxiphr]

yeah, probably... but still... also depends on what you put in there...

i was basically doing
280w gpu pt +
105w cpu tdp +
50w mb & stuff
= 435W / 0.7 (target nt utilization)
= 612W

so I would have felt comfortable with 650W but getting the 750w one leaves me with an even nicer buffer of about 40% instead of 30% psu capacity

Agreed, the 750w is very nice. For the gpu and CPU I looked at some bench marks for your specific models and during gaming the gpu pulls around 350 watts and during heavy utilization, the CPU pulls around 190 watts.

oh, that's nice to know. mind throwing me a link or two? I've been searching for these discrete numbers but didn't really find anything solid.

 

[Barty1884]

It would be useful to list those benches.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-7-2700x-review,5571-12.html

Torture loop (at stock speeds) and just barely hitting TDP.


I can't find too much on that specific GPU, but a 4K stress test was pulling marginally over 400W total from the wall here:
http://www.bit-tech.net/reviews/tech/graphics/inno3d-geforce-gtx-1080-ti/10/

With a 1500W, Titanium PSU (92% efficient @ 25% load)..... that 415W from the wall = approx 380W max load.

Given the test setup includes an overclocked 6700K, even calling it the stock 91W TDP (where it would probably be closer to 125W OC'd) + maybe 20-40W for the balance of the components....... that GPU is drawing somewhere in the 250-280W range...... barely even it's full TDP? 250W would be more realistic, 280W is if we're just calling the OC'd 6700K 91W.

Given the iChill x3 Ultra *only* requires 1x 6pin + 1x 8pin...... IF that GPU could draw >300W, then they've poorly designed the card.
A 6pin, based on wire-gauge etc, is rated for 75W and an 8pin for 150W. +the 75W available via PCIe slot power.... That's a max 300W available to the card.

While yes, a 6 pin *can* do more, GPU vendors have to assume people aren't using top-tier units with "overkill" gauge wires.

Shipping a GPU that could draw substantially >300W under load - and only providing the capabilities to (safely) draw 300W would be a huge oversight.

 

[luxiphr]

It would be useful to list those benches.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-7-2700x-review,5571-12.html

Torture loop (at stock speeds) and just barely hitting TDP.


I can't find too much on that specific GPU, but a 4K stress test was pulling marginally over 400W total from the wall here:
http://www.bit-tech.net/reviews/tech/graphics/inno3d-geforce-gtx-1080-ti/10/

With a 1500W, Titanium PSU (92% efficient @ 25% load)..... that 415W from the wall = approx 380W max load.

Given the test setup includes an overclocked 6700K, even calling it the stock 91W TDP (where it would probably be closer to 125W OC'd) + maybe 20-40W for the balance of the components....... that GPU is drawing somewhere in the 250-280W range...... barely even it's full TDP? 250W would be more realistic, 280W is if we're just calling the OC'd 6700K 91W.

Given the iChill x3 Ultra *only* requires 1x 6pin + 1x 8pin...... IF that GPU could draw >300W, then they've poorly designed the card.
A 6pin, based on wire-gauge etc, is rated for 75W and an 8pin for 150W. +the 75W available via PCIe slot power.... That's a max 300W available to the card.

While yes, a 6 pin *can* do more, GPU vendors have to assume people aren't using top-tier units with "overkill" gauge wires.

Shipping a GPU that could draw substantially >300W under load - and only providing the capabilities to (safely) draw 300W would be a huge oversight.

so my quick calc was pretty close after all... the gpu has a power target of 280 watts - so well within the 300W limit of its physical connections...

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

oh, that's nice to know. mind throwing me a link or two? I've been searching for these discrete numbers but didn't really find anything solid.[/quotemsg]

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/103423-inno3d-ichill-geforce-gtx-1080-ti-x3/?page=12
https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3287-amd-r7-2700-and-2700x-review-game-streaming-cpu-benchmarks-memory/page-3
http://www.bit-tech.net/reviews/tech/graphics/inno3d-geforce-gtx-1080-ti/10/
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-7-2700x-review,5571-12.html

Also, for the r7 2700x, it seems like it only reaches above 100 watts when running benchmarks. It seems to pull a lot less power when playing games or doing other less demanding tasks (50-100W?). For the gtx 1080, I didn't read the benches and mistook system power draw for gpu power draw. The complete system runs from 350 to 400 watts. the GTX 1080 itself runs something like 50 to 100 watts lower than that. Sorry for the misinformation.

 

[Barty1884]

The above numbers are system-wide and depict peak power consumption when gaming.

So those are peak system-wide power draws, not for the GPU alone.

Take the CPU (an i7-6700K @ 4.4GHz) from the equation and you're looking at <250W for the GPU.

And, if that's measured from the wall (typically is), that's using another Platinum unit @ 92% efficiency. The actual draw for the system would be nearer 300W total.

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

The above numbers are system-wide and depict peak power consumption when gaming.

So those are peak system-wide power draws, not for the GPU alone.

Take the CPU (an i7-6700K @ 4.4GHz) from the equation and you're looking at <250W for the GPU.

And, if that's measured from the wall (typically is), that's using another Platinum unit @ 92% efficiency. The actual draw for the system would be nearer 300W total.

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

I don't know about 300 watts, the total system power draws of the benchmarks were around 400 to 350. I would imagine that this build would pull around that much as well.

 

[Barty1884]

I was talking specifically that benchmark. You'd mentioned 350W for the GPU, but the actual benchmark showed 351W total peak draw for the entire benchmark system.

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

I was talking specifically that benchmark. You'd mentioned 350W for the GPU, but the actual benchmark showed 351W total peak draw for the entire benchmark system.

You're right. I made a mistake reading the article. For the OP s current total system power draw, though, I would put it similar to that 350 to 400 watt total. You are correct about the gpu drawing about 250 to 280 watts.

 

[Barty1884]

105W TDP + 280W TDP GPU. +Balance of components, say 50W or so.
So 435W

Add in some overclocking and you could realistically push that higher. I would fully expect the GPU won't have much OCing headroom (and there's only really +20W available to it. Even assuming you could double the TDP of the CPU (not overly realistic), you're looking at an absolute, theoretical max in the 550W range. Actual power draw, typically should be well <500W.

I'd be comfortable running this system on a quality 650W unit, easily.