Question 10 years later, it's time for a new build!

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Edit: I can't believe I have been an AT Forum member for nearly 22 years!

Currently running an i7 3770 (non-k) that has served me fine since forever but is definitely getting long in the tooth. I had been wanting to upgrade in 2020 but prices spiked and I decided to make due with what I have until prices came back down from the stratosphere especially with all the new techs that are rolling out now (PCIe 5/USB4/DDR5/ATX 3.0 PSUs). My existing PC will be moved to server/Plex duties, here is the info I am looking at for my new PC

What will this new PC be used for:
A bit of everything. Some light photo editing (Luminar/Lightroom); light gaming, I mostly play older games so I don't need anything cutting edge; some programming, interested in doing more with AI/ML so Nvidia seems to be a pre-requisite for this. Most importantly, I am looking for a stable build that will last many years without giving me headaches.

What YOUR budget is:
3000ish CAD/2300ish USD, no monitor, no keyboard mouse, I am carrying these over

What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
Canada

IF you're buying parts OUTSIDE the US, please post a link to the vendor you'll be buying from.
Using PC Part Picker, see below.

IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.
Don't care about about brands except for the fact that running any AI/ML seems to require Nvidia? I usually prefer to buy slightly more expensive but reputable brands (eg Corsair, Asus, etc). One brand I will unconditionally buy forever is Seasonic for the PSU

If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
Reusing my monitor, keyboard, mouse, Mellanox NIC.

IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
No overclocking, if anything possibly underclocking to keep power down for both heat and noise. I fully intend to run my CPU below in ECO mode or similar.

What resolution, not monitor size, will you be using?
Currently running an older Dell 30" 1440p/60 Hz monitor, will probably upgrade to a 1440/144Hz OLED in a year or two.

WHEN do you plan to build it?
Once I get parts sorted out, the only question mark for now is PCIe 5.0 SSDs and ATX 3.0 PSUs

Do you need to purchase any software to go with the system, such as Windows or Blu Ray playback software?
Windows 11

Other considerations

• I have a Mellanox ConnectX-3 40G NIC in my current build and the appropriate switch to get 40G LAN speed to my desktop so that effectively my server SSD will be almost identical to my local SSD. The NIC is a PCIe 3.0 x16 card that I want to reuse. I don't think it would be an issue to run at PCIe x4 speed (which isn't quite 40g but the Windows networking stack probably won't handle 40G anyway. I do need an x16 slot available to plug it in somewhere. Ideally I would like to use the GPU and the NIC in x16 mechanical slots, both running in x8 electrical mode.
• I want this to be quiet, I have 0 interest in a screaming loud PC.
• I put a GPU here but in reality, I will be buying the GPU second hand on eBay or FB. 3070s tend to go for ~500ish CAD so the total build comes in under 3k CAD.
• I am interested in thoughts on ATX 3.0 PSUs, I can limp along with a spare PSU for a little while (I have a 750W seasonic in my current build which I can reuse temporarily)
• same for the PCIe 5.0 SSD storage, I have a spare SSD that I can use temporarily if need be.

Here is the proposed build:
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 4.7 GHz 12-Core Processor ($571.95 @ shopRBC)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler ($109.95 @ Amazon Canada)
Motherboard: Asus ROG STRIX B650E-E GAMING WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard ($473.99 @ PC-Canada)
Memory: Kingston Fury Renegade RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6400 CL32 Memory ($249.99 @ Canada Computers)
Storage: Western Digital Black SN850X 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($224.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Video Card: Gigabyte GAMING OC Rev 2.0 GeForce RTX 3070 LHR 8 GB Video Card ($799.00 @ Canada Computers) bought a used RTX 3080 for CAD650 / USD500 on ebay
Case: Fractal Design Torrent Compact ATX Mid Tower Case ($219.99 @ Memory Express)
Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS PX 850 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($277.98 @ Newegg Canada)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro OEM - DVD 64-bit ($155.25 @ Vuugo)
Total: $3083.09
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-01-19 10:20 EST-0500

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Use 8+4 anyway. Shouldn't hurt.

You don't need the extra 4 pin. According to buildzoid it is for serious overclocking, and the 8 pin is plenty otherwise.

BTW I am stoked to see you bought the sonic board; that's pretty cool.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Use 8+4 anyway. Shouldn't hurt.

My older PSU doesn’t have the extra 8 pin tagged for the CPU, I only have a single 8-pin that can be broken up into 4+4, I suppose I can use another PCIe connector as the 8-pin and use 4 of the 8 CPU pins as the 4-pin if I had to.

This is the max 8 pin connectors for my 650W power supply which has 4x for PCIe and 1x for the CPU. They would actually be “oversubscribed” since each 8-pin is theoretically good for 150W.

They would be as follows:

1. CPU 1
2. CPU 2
3. GPU 1
4. GPU 2
5. PCIe slot through the MB

At full load this would make sense since the 3080 is ~350W, 200W for the 7900X which leaves 100W for RAM, SSD, MB and 40G network.

It should be more than enough with 3080 undervolted and the CPU on eco mode. I will update once I stress test. I had to travel for work this week so this PC is sitting half-assembled at home at the moment…

 

[solidsnake1298]

My older PSU doesn’t have the extra 8 pin tagged for the CPU, I only have a single 8-pin that can be broken up into 4+4, I suppose I can use another PCIe connector as the 8-pin and use 4 of the 8 CPU pins as the 4-pin if I had to.

The CPU power connector and PCIe power connector may look the same but are actually keyed completely differently. But, as others have said, don't worry about that extra 4 pin connector. The 8-pin CPU connector is rated to carry a bit over 300w. 100% not going to go over that with ambient cooling (liquid or air) with any desktop CPU.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

The CPU power connector and PCIe power connector may look the same but are actually keyed completely differently. But, as others have said, don't worry about that extra 4 pin connector. The 8-pin CPU connector is rated to carry a bit over 300w. 100% not going to go over that with ambient cooling (liquid or air) with any desktop CPU.

View attachment 76180

Finally was able to put it together and it works just fine with only the 8-Pin EPS-12V connector. I set the CPU to run in 105W ECO mode and undervolted the 3080 a touch, now I need to spend some time tweaking this beast. Thanks for the suggestions and help everyone!

 

[Fanatical Meat]

The 850X 2TB

https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-black-sn850x-nvme-ssd#WDS200T2X0E

I upvoted ya.
I cannot stand how people in CPUs, Graphics and now here seemingly randomly down vote a post for apparently no reason because they never post.
WTF

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

@Fanatical Meat Thank you, sir

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Finally was able to put it together and it works just fine with only the 8-Pin EPS-12V connector. I set the CPU to run in 105W ECO mode and undervolted the 3080 a touch, now I need to spend some time tweaking this beast. Thanks for the suggestions and help everyone!

I’d still plug in the other four if you can, I know that’s mainly for over clocking but what the hell if you can do it plug them in.
Only minor issue I have with my Ryzen and it’s likely more to do with the motherboard. My memory seems to reset to 2400 every now and then. Doesn’t happen often but it absolutely happens.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

I’d still plug in the other four if you can, I know that’s mainly for over clocking but what the hell if you can do it plug them in.
Only minor issue I have with my Ryzen and it’s likely more to do with the motherboard. My memory seems to reset to 2400 every now and then. Doesn’t happen often but it absolutely happens.

My power supply doesn't have 12 pins for the CPU, only 8 as 4+4. To be honest it's made no difference to me since I am not overclocking anyway.

Either way I've been playing around with this build and it's a beast! My only tweaks so far are as follows:

1. Enabled EXPO for RAM so that it runs at DDR5-6000 CL32
2. Enable cTDP and set to 105W
3. Enable PBO - Set curve offset to -25. I haven't tried more but this seems very stable so far.
4. Tweaked 3080 using MSI afterburner: dropped max core freq to 1925 MHz and set max power to 90%

Results so far are:

• 3DMark Timespy - Total: 16734, Graphics Score: 17 239, CPU Score: 14 352
• Cinebench R23 - Single Core: 2026, Multi Core 29382
• And the most fun one is iPerf, see below (this is limited by my old i7 3770 which is now the server CPU and the Windows networking stack, the actual connection is a 40Gbps link)

General comments:

• This has been a lot of fun, the Torrent case is fantastic and was a really nice build. My only complaint is that the hardware was hidden under the top panel, but in the builder's guide, it doesn't tell you to take off the top panel before installing the MB so I spent at least 20 minutes looking for the MB screws 😂.
• The Thermalright heatsink is excellent, honestly I was a bit worried initially after reading the reviews about needing water cooling but I really wanted to avoid that for reliability reasons.
• 7900X with cTDP 105W and just a bit of undervolting is a fantastic way to run this system. Even under load the noise is extremely tolerable and I am pretty picky about that.
• The Dell 3080 is louder than I would like but still tolerable and doubly so considering how much these sell for on eBay.
• Temperatures and power seem very well behaved with these settings. GPU tops out at ~295W and CPU tops out at ~140W. Can't say too much about temps since I haven't looped the benchmarks but CPU and GPU have both stayed under 80C so far.

Very happy with the results so far!

 

[bigboxes]

Zen 4 works much better with EXPO RAM: https://www.newegg.ca/g-skill-32gb/p/N82E16820374429

Going above DDR5-6000 on Ryzen 7900X would be frustrating, to say the least. If you want stable and quick, "plug it in and use" operation, EXPO RAM kits are the way to go.

Go with the non-RGB version and save $25: https://www.newegg.ca/g-skill-32gb/p/N82E16820374424?Item=N82E16820374424