New build advice

[dugdiamond]

Hey guys and gals,

Dugdiamond here (ex-admin & "Snow White" comp 3rd place winner).

I haven't been here for a while, but still watch TTL's YT vids.

Now the time has come for me to seriously overhaul my PC rig.

My current rig is very old (in fact most of it IS the "Snow White" rig)... i7-870K and P55A mobo are still being used (6-7yrs old) but everything else has been upgraded:

GTX1060 6GB windforce OC
16gb x hyperX 1600 DDR3
H110 AIO cooler
AX1200 PSU
Xigamatek Ellysium case with window
4 x 4TB 7200rpm HDDs
1 x blu-ray XL re-writer
1 x 512 evo SSD
dual-boot: win10 x64 and hackintosh

so.....

I am looking for the best bang-for-the-bucks Mobo + i7 + DDR4 combo.

Budget = £1600.
MUST have 6 sata3 ports.
NVME 'may' come at a later date, but it is not important at the moment.
No need for SLI at the moment.

I use it mainly for FULL nextgen game developement (rendering and CAD, audio sequencing, debugging, adobe, etc...).

i have been thinking of:
ROG Maximus X Hero (non wifi)
i7-8700K
32gb 3200mhz DDR4

thoughts?

thanks

 

[Excalabur50]

Have you considered going with an AMD build does it have to be Intel if not then think about a 1700/1800x or even a 1920x

 

[mutantaxe]

I have the 8700k, hero and 32G and they are good but a threadripper 1920X or 1950X (if you can afford )would be better for what you do along with a ASRock X399 Taichi Motherboard

 

[dugdiamond]

Would TR require a new water cooling solution, as i have heard that they get scorchio during very long render runs.

If I am going to invest some decent money, I want it to last me another 6-7years before upgrading again.

The TR mobo and cpu would set me back over £1200, before memory.
The TR is quad channel - so i would be looking at 4 x 8gb of 3200 dominator plats (nicest timings). that takes the total to £1660 BEFORE cooling.

 

[AlienALX]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/AMD-Ryzen-...1517390657&sr=8-1&keywords=threadripper+1950x

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASRock-X39...s&ie=UTF8&qid=1517390675&sr=1-4&keywords=x399

You've been looking for love in all the wrong places

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/nzxt-kraken-am4-brackets-hs-019-nx.html

Yes you can use your cooler.

As for whether it is worth going TR? absolutely. The only CPU on the market Intel sell that is faster stock is their 18 core and that costs double. Even the 10 core 7900x is £838 as I type this.

I think it's a case of Del Boy really. "You know it makes sense"

 

[dugdiamond]

thanks guys - going to do some more research, but so far this seems like a no brainer.
it's gonna be weird going back to AMD since my trusty old phenom 1090t

 

[AlienALX]

thanks guys - going to do some more research, but so far this seems like a no brainer.
it's gonna be weird going back to AMD since my trusty old phenom 1090t

To be brutally honest that was their last CPU worth having if you gamed. The BD/PD chips were fantastic on a budget for things like VMware (because I5s and K I7s did not have the correct instructions needed for VM Machines) or if you were using cores (PD had the same IPC as the original I7 920 w/o HT though).


1950x came out at the same price as the 10 core 6950x and made a mess out of it. However, a grand is a lot of money. I would surmise that's why the price drop. However, all things considered (IE the price drop) it's a no brainer now if you have that sort of cash to spend. It will last you years, and years, and years.

 

[Excalabur50]

The 1950x is a bloody good cpu but if you need to drop price a touch just get the 1920x and if you're worried about cooling then use the money saved for a new cooler as the 1920x will smash what you're using now anyway

 

[AlienALX]

1920x is very close to being not worth it, IMO. It certainly wasn't worth it at launch price because the 10 core Intel was only a little more and beat it in nearly everything (because of the higher clocks). The 1950x however was better value.

A magazine I read did not rate the 1920x as highly as the 1950x. Mostly because if you're in for a penny etc.. IE - the 16 core wins in pretty much every scenario and was only a little bit more expensive.

But yeah, if you factor in board price (X299 is slightly cheaper) and so on? the 1950x is the one to have.

Dug. Be sure to do your homework too. There are many tricks and so on you can do with TR. It has a gaming mode, where it disables certain cores on reboot and then runs the ones active at much higher speeds (up to 4.2ghz if you are lucky but 4ghz pretty much every time). Yeah, a lot of cool features with TR tbh.

 

[tinytomlogan]

My advice would be think about the 7900X too.

Do you need cores or clock speed?

Worth a look at the blender graphs in our CPU reviews too.....

 

[dugdiamond]

okay.
i am foremost a nextgen games dev... and i scoured the net looking for issues when building a hackintosh on a TR4 system.
i found NONE.
there are alot of vids that are claiming that there are several issues with TR4, but they are months old, and i have checked the AMD site and BIOS updates are now available to fix them.

with the money saved from not having to buy a new AIO cooler... i may put that extra dosh towards a 960 evo m.2, and then bin (sell) the current SSD i use as a scratch disk

 

[dugdiamond]

speed is key, along with the hackintosh abilities for high sierra.

blender graphs mean pants to me, as i use 3dsmax and it uses my 1060 cudas.

 

[AlienALX]

The 7900x is the better CPU to have now. As in right now.. However, games are starting to improve and use more cores. I know a 10 core will have you covered no matter what the outcome RE - games, but all threads to the wall the 1950x does rip it a new one. You would need to go higher up on Intel for more multi threaded power. You would also need to step up to the 7920x

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-i9-7...F8&qid=1517396693&sr=8-1&keywords=intel+7920x

In order to level things out a bit more, but you would also need to overclock it pretty darn hard in order to achieve the sort of threaded results you would get from the 1950x TR.

I also wouldn't buy an Intel now, as they are about to receive price cuts from the looks of things.

I was watching Linus yesterday fiddling around with some Xeon Platinums (28/56) and TBH? I wasn't that impressed. They scored 7200 in CB (two of them) and the 1950x scores around 3000 in a crap rig (Alienware) with no overclock. I've seen TRs hitting as much as 3500.

EDIT. As for Hackintosh? yeah, I doubt you would be able to get that working on a TR. Then again you would need to do some hard research before buying an Intel board too, as some of those won't work either.

HS will need a new kernel written for Ryzen tbh. There is one kicking around for PD/AM3 and older (like Phenom 2 etc) but I could never get that working on my P2.

Oddly enough it's funny you mention it tbh. I have been doing tons of research on it myself. I want to run it on my dianoga rig. It's getting a 10 core 20t Xeon. Not sure whether I will get the Alienware board to like it, though. Will probably have to try Clover and no UEFI.

 

[tinytomlogan]

Have a look at 7900X price bundles.

Dont forget they do 12,14,16,18 core options too

 

[dugdiamond]

i currently have clover running in legacy mode, running sierra with the latest alternative nvidia drivers.
i cannot get it to install HS though (i am on tonymac86 almost every day), as the old P55A is the main issue.
hence the need for a new build.

just found this though... https://www.scan.co.uk/products/3xs...LZm5KC2QIV6rXtCh08sQR3EAQYAiABEgJ-E_D_BwE&v=c

i would probably ask them if they could do me an offer without the cooler, as my h110 will work.

this build would have no issues with with a HS hacky.

if i could get the parts seperately for cheaper, i would defo get a nvme

strix-e
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B072V52HWY/ref=psdc_430512031_t1_B072MCN1FD

i9 12core (4.4ghz OC should be easy)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-i9-7...=UTF8&qid=1517400578&sr=1-1&keywords=i9-7920x

trident RGB
https://www.amazon.co.uk/G-Skill-Tr...&sr=1-14&keywords=ddr4+3200+32gb+quad+channel

seems like a better build - for everything (£1660) !!!

the "msi x299 xpower gaming ac" appears to be a better 2066 mobo than the strix-e (IMO).

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi...Ly552C2QIVTjobCh2WjgjfEAkYASABEgJnRvD_BwE&v=c

 

[AlienALX]

One thing I will say. Be very, very, very careful about which board you buy. Most of those are designed to run and OC 8 core CPUs, not 12. For that you will need some serious VRM cake, so make sure you do your research first. With TR it's easy, because there are only 8+ core CPUs on it.

Yeah the price is gonna hurt. Welcome to Intel... What sort of thing do you do with OSX man? it might even work out cheaper to go 1950x and then build something small and poo to run OSX.

 

[dugdiamond]

i write games for mobiles (iOS and android)
https://iglabs.co.uk/ (Innuendo Game Labs)
i released a new game yesterday.

i currently have 19 releases (10 on android and 9 on iOS).

i dual boot in clover.
OSX on 1 HDD
wind10 on another HDD
then shared drives for storage.

i dev mainly on windows in visual studio/xamarin, saving the projects to the storage drive(s).
then i reboot into OSX and bring in the projects into xcode, and debug the iphones there.

 

[AlienALX]

That's cool AF man. I would build a ITX hack then in that case. You don't need buckets of power do you?

You *may* be able to run it on a TR using VMware (IE running it virtual). I will try that at some point and let you know how it goes. It's a cheat way of running it without any headaches.

 

[tinytomlogan]

If you want to clock hard dug - get the Rampage

 

[dugdiamond]

If you want to clock hard dug - get the Rampage

uberkill for my needs, and too pricey for what i'll be using it for. (unless someone has lying around that they dont need and want to make a few bucks out of it!)

4.4ghz on all 12 cores will be fine for my needs, and with the bios on the msi xpower it'll be easy-peasy.

it's alot easier to OC using UEFI and a reset button.
the last time i OC'd anything, removing the battery and switching a jumper was the only way to reset BIOS. lol