Question New Build - "Sanity check"

[MechEng]

Hi,

Long post, but want to give you the information I think you need to be able to best help me. I have to upgrade my current i7-3770k based PC (2013 build!), which with small upgrades along the way looks like this today:

https://dk.pcpartpicker.com/list/V7B7Bj

I haven't really been following the hardware scene as closely as I once used to, and quite a few things have happened since 2013... surprise surprise


I like to try and do my homework, but have been struggling with a few things:

1. DDR4 and DDR5
   1. I have ended up with a DDR4 build due mainly to price/maturity considerations.
2. NVME M.2 drives
   1. I think I have figured out what I need to check with regards to compatibility etc., but would greatly appreciate a third party check (You).
3. MB / Chipset
   1. I wanted to look for a B660/Z690 board in order to save some money, but it was a pain to find out which boards could be BIOS upgraded without a compatible CPU and the boards I found was not significantly cheaper. (Did not find any B660 boards that could)
4. i5 vs i7
   1. For gaming I will get no benefit from an i7 with the GPU I currently have (1660 Super) and I do not think I will miss much with regards to the use cases I have in Lightroom and CAD/FEA.
   2. When I need serious power for FEA I can access some nice workstations I have built at work (Dual EPYC 7513, 16 x 32GB ECC-Ram etc. etc...)

In principle I do not plan to over-clock, but have been doing that a lot back in the day from mid 90'es until my current build, so might want to again at some point... Knowing myself I will want to fiddle with it, if it turns out I can get significant benefit from it, which requires a board that will support it, which I believe requires Zxxx boards. Is that correct?


The PC is used for different things:

1. Gaming(Casual relaxation etx.) these days mostly
   1. Skyrim
   2. The Witcher 3
   3. soon Cyberpunk 2077.
2. Work/Hobby
   1. Lightroom photo importing, editing and exporting
   2. A little 3D CAD here and there
   3. A little FEA here and there

I intend to use the 970 EVO NVME as boot drive and the 980 Pro for games and working files for Lightroom, CAD and FEA etc. The HDD is just for storage and other files where speed is no concern.


The build I have come up with is this one, which is a mix of old parts that I will re-use and the new components I intend to purchase. I have alist of newly purchased parts further below.

https://dk.pcpartpicker.com/list/ZLQgxs

Purchase list:

https://dk.pcpartpicker.com/list/D9MDyK

 

[Tech Junky]

DDR4 is my pick since the premium for DDR5 and the lack of significant performance increase doesn't make sense.

NVME drives depend on what you intend to use them for. The speed boost are only applicable to boot times and game loads to the GPU. Gen3 is the cheapest option and you gain a little bit with Gen4 but, Gen5 would be the fastest option, The controllers used on different drives make a big difference though in some cases though

Comparing m SN850 to the SN770 in my TB4 enclosure showed a difference. The 850 which is a more premium drive performed slower than the 770 in the enclosure. The 770 maxed out the throughput when multi stream copying files to/from the drive hitting 3GB/s where the 850 was about 1/3 slower. Now, as a system drive the 850 performs great with the DRAM it has on board.

Chipsets have added performance when using Z over B options.

intend to use the 970 EVO NVME as boot drive and the 980 Pro for games and working files for Lightroom, CAD and FEA etc. The HDD is just for storage and other files where speed is no concern.

I would put the OS on the faster drive and partition Windows for a max of 100GB and use the rest for storing your files you access most frequently. This will give you better performance without needing to cross the PCH/DMI to get the data to the OS resulting in faster load times .

 

[MechEng]

Thank you very much for the feedback. Something to keep in mind.

By the way, this was the DDR5 alternative build I was considering:

https://dk.pcpartpicker.com/list/3b79Ls

Given that the two builds would cost me almost the same (+50$ for DDR5) , would you still go with DDR4?

In a comparison test on Tom's HW site it seems that Lightroom (which I use) benefits from DDR5, but other than that special case speed gains seem negligible across the board.

https://www.tomshardware.com/features/ddr5-vs-ddr4-is-it-time-to-upgrade-your-ram

 

[Tech Junky]

I see DDR5 as a gimmick still at this point and overall build pricing is still inflated for using it.

Considering AMD has switched to DDR5 only board and Intel still works with both it's an option to save a few bucks now. Performance wise they're going to be on par with each other to the point you won't notice a difference in speed of whatever you're doing. Benchmarks don't mean much in the real world and application of tasks to the hardware.

I can benchmark my drives at 7GB/s but, IRL they hit ~1.5GB/s between 2 drives in system. Now, crossing the bus to TB4 can hit ~3GB/s.

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/compare/rTkWGX,XsqPxr/ $90 vs $150

Then looking at DDR4/5 boards you'll see another hit to the wallet.

That extra say $100 can go towards a cheap air cooler and decent fans. I use a SE226XT with Arctic fans and when stressing the CPU stay below 50C w/ 2 fans on the cooler w/ a graphite pad between the cooler and IHS.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/LmCFf7

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/62hKHx

 

[igor_kavinski]

If you are interested in future upgradability, you may want to consider the Ryzen 7700X.

AMD Ryzen 7 7700X Vs Intel Core i7-12700K: Which Should You Buy?

How fast is AMD's new Ryzen 7 7700X Zen 4 processor?

www.forbes.com

Make sure to pair it with DDR5-6000 CL30 EXPO RAM.

However, this CPU makes sense for you only if you want good Adobe software performance and want your mobo to be able to upgrade to Zen 5 in 2024/25. It would be a good idea to get a 280mm AIO for it.

Regarding NVMe SSD, I personally would trust Crucial P5 Plus/Corsair/Kingston/Solidigm/Hynix PCIe 4.0 drives because WD can't keep themselves from using bait-and-switch tactics by silently switching to lower endurance NAND in their drives and Samsung 980 Pro is also getting some bad reports from users regarding data integrity after few months of use.

However, don't get me wrong. The 13600K is still a great CPU. Only the Z690 may prove to be a dead-end in the future with no upgrade path. Z790 may have the ability to upgrade to Raptor Lake refresh if rumors happen to be true. But no official confirmation on that.

If you decide to go with 13600K, for RAM you really should get https://dk.pcpartpicker.com/product...dr5-7200-cl34-memory-f5-7200j3445g16gx2-tz5rs because this CPU can make good use of the extra bandwidth in multithreaded apps. Spending a little more now may pay off in the long term with much improved performance.

 

[Tech Junky]

Only the Z690 may prove to be a dead-end in the future with no upgrade path. Z790 may have the ability to upgrade to Raptor Lake refresh if rumors happen to be true. But no official confirmation on that.

As far as Intel goes at this point it's a 2 gens and done socket.

AMD is yet to disclose their roadmap for socket use as they just switched to LGA this gen and expect to use it for the next gen but, who knows at this point if they will simply follow suit with Intel and change things every other generation to keep pace in the battel for performance.

Is it necessary? No. It just keeps dumb people from doing dumb things by mismatching components.

At this point it would be more ideal to just sell them as a slab like a laptop and kind of make it a hybrid setup of BGA w/ slots. Bundling the CPU to the PCB would potentially bring costs down as well instead of making open socket boards. Cookie cutter BGA with set options on the board leaves less for OEM's to mess up. Negatives would be in place upgrades of CPU if you change your mind later and want a higher class core count for some program that can use it.

it wouldn't surprise me if we start seeing this happen in a few years with the way things have been changing in recent years. This would get CPU transistor counts up to where they say they're going upwards of 1Billion in the next few years a lot easier. Looking at the Apple M series footprint seems they left room to grow the count w/o changing their board / socket configuration as the number grows.

For Intel part of the move on each gen is the DMI changing speeds from 3.0 to 4.0 w/ 690/790 vs prior gens. Doubling the speed of peripheral devices not directly attached to the CPU. Now, with MTL / ARL they better come up with something significant again to convince people to buy into going chiplet besides just that. I'm not sure why they don't natively support gen5 drives when there's a few boards that do with RPL and even ADL. Things are moving forward but, it's a bit choppy in how they're pushing board designers to integrate the changes./ upgrades.

For instance the ADL desktop got PCIE 5 but the laptop side didn't. RPL doesn't seem much better but, at this point who knows on the laptop side if they'll unlock it now with RPL or wait for MTL/ARL or even bother with it on laptops at all. Might come down to the laptop OEM's to find a way to add it to their individual boards rather than Intel / AMD baking it into the chipset / controller.

 

[igor_kavinski]

For instance the ADL desktop got PCIE 5 but the laptop side didn't. RPL doesn't seem much better but, at this point who knows on the laptop side if they'll unlock it now with RPL or wait for MTL/ARL or even bother with it on laptops at all. Might come down to the laptop OEM's to find a way to add it to their individual boards rather than Intel / AMD baking it into the chipset / controller.

I think they may go PCIe 5.0 with 13900HX mobile DTR laptops only. Gotta give the rich people something the lesser folks don't have to make them feel superior.

 

[igor_kavinski]

At this point it would be more ideal to just sell them as a slab like a laptop and kind of make it a hybrid setup of BGA w/ slots. Bundling the CPU to the PCB would potentially bring costs down as well instead of making open socket boards. Cookie cutter BGA with set options on the board leaves less for OEM's to mess up. Negatives would be in place upgrades of CPU if you change your mind later and want a higher class core count for some program that can use it.

It is possible that they may do this with Dell/HP office PCs since people rarely upgrade the CPU on them.

 

[In2Photos]

AMD officially announced support for AM5 through 2025+, which should be 2 more generations beyond Zen 4.

 

[VirtualLarry]

For instance the ADL desktop got PCIE 5 but the laptop side didn't.

PCI-E 5.0 requires more power, that might have been a consideration. You see thre same thing in prior-gen SATA laptops de-tuning the chipset's SATA6G interface down to SATA3G to save power. (This was before SSDs became more commonplace.)

 

[igor_kavinski]

AMD officially announced support for AM5 through 2025+, which should be 2 more generations beyond Zen 4.

Realistically speaking, we should just expect AM5 to accommodate Zen 5 and nothing more. The industry could change significantly after Zen 5 (PCIe 6 or 7, very high DDR5 speeds that may not work on existing X670E mobos etc.).

 

[In2Photos]

Realistically speaking, we should just expect AM5 to accommodate Zen 5 and nothing more. The industry could change significantly after Zen 5 (PCIe 6 or 7, very high DDR5 speeds that may not work on existing X670E mobos etc.).

Zen 3 introduced PCIe 4 to AM4 yet those CPUs still worked on previous AM4 chipsets.

 

[Tech Junky]

@In2Photos @igor_kavinski @VirtualLarry

It's all speculation until it happens.

RPL laptop hasn't been released yet so, that's till speculation until OEM's start configuring their PCB's and whether or not they'll accept PCIE 5 for the NVME's or not.

AMD - they say 2025 but, there's something in the air that suggests there will be another size change on the socket moving forward as Intel is already planning a shift again with MTL/ARL.

I still think Apple has the right idea with going big on the socket to be able to change things around on the die if they want to w/o having to rejig everything as often. If you leave yourself enough real estate on the package you have flexibility to make changes rather than require a complete overhaul every 2 generations. No one really cares if the CPU outline is 60x60 if it saves on replacing everything else it attaches to. It's a real PITA to deal with when there's a significant update if you're not one to stick with a build every 10-15 years. Now that Gen5 is wired into most boards since 2021 there's no real update unless someone finds a way to efficiently MUX more lanes out of the CPU. This is where AMD is slightly better as they let you use lanes as wanted not just blocking off 16 to the top x16 and then 4 more to a NVME and push everything else through the DMI for shared bandwidth.

 

[MechEng]

Thank you all for the input.

"future proofing" is not a concern to me, to be honest. I expect/hope this build to last me another 5-10 years.
I already have an upgrade path going to i7 or i9 if I need better threaded performance.

Given that I have been able to live with my i7-3770k until now, probably also indicates where I am these days

My strategi (simplified) used to be to find out what the best hardware is, then go one step down. *Half the price, 98% of the performance"

I am however shocked how expensive even middle of the lines systems have become, and I no longer consider myself an enthuist with half yearly major upgrades to stay on top...

What I take with me so far is some good tips to consider, but that the DDR4 build I have come up with is probably not all bad.

 

[igor_kavinski]

but that the DDR4 build I have come up with is probably not all bad.

Except you may not be able to run DDR4 at its rated 4400 speed (typically people have reached 4000 on their builds. ADL/RPL memory controllers are not tweaked well for high speed DDR4). The DDR5-6000 will easily run at 6000 MT/s. I would nudge you towards your DDR5 config. You can also upgrade it years later to much higher speed memory with CL30 or lower.

 

[MechEng]

Except you may not be able to run DDR4 at its rated 4400 speed (typically people have reached 4000 on their builds. ADL/RPL memory controllers are not tweaked well for high speed DDR4). The DDR5-6000 will easily run at 6000 MT/s. I would nudge you towards your DDR5 config. You can also upgrade it years later to much higher speed memory with CL30 or lower.

I just spoke to a colleague of mine who said something similar to what you're saying and given that the DDR5 build only costs 50$ more than the DDR4, I am now moving towards the DDR5 build...

Prices are from a Danish price comparison web site:

• DDR4: DKr. 7.383 ($1046)
  • https://www.pricerunner.dk/list/2650520599642129265-2023-pc-ddr4-performance
• DDR5: DKr. 7.737 ($1097)
  • https://www.pricerunner.dk/list/7887495890487627286-2023-pc-ddr5-performance

 

[MechEng]

*SNIP*
I would put the OS on the faster drive and partition Windows for a max of 100GB and use the rest for storing your files you access most frequently. This will give you better performance without needing to cross the PCH/DMI to get the data to the OS resulting in faster load times .

Not sure I understand this one.
I am not super concerned about performance difference between "regular" SSD and NVME when it comes to my OS/programs drive.

Therefore I wanted to keep OS and regular programs on the OS-drive "C:" and games / working files on a separate drive, which traditionally would be the optimum configuration.


Last night it turned out my father had a 500GB 970 EVO plus NVME drive lying on the shelf doing nothing, and could have it for free. So I plan to use that one as OS drive instead of the regular SSD.

So...
- 500GB 970 EVO Plus as C: drive for OS and programs
- 1TB Samsung 980 Pro for Game installs and files where high read and write speeds are nice to have, for example Ligtroom photo's, preview caches etc.
- 2TB HDD for storage

Are you saying it would be better to skip the 970 drive and have everything on the partitioned 980 (OS partition + games/data partition)?

My current C: drive has about 140GB on it:
- Windows 10: 18GB
- Page file: 16GB
- Hiber file: 6.3GB)
- Programs + user files + caches and crap

 

[igor_kavinski]

Are you saying it would be better to skip the 970 drive and have everything on the partitioned 980 (OS partition + games/data partition)?

The 970 is an older drive so you can use it as a scratch/working drive where you can edit your files while working on them and once you are satisfied with the end result, you can move the file to the 980 Pro. I also think it would be better to move the OS and most frequently used programs/games to the 980 Pro to take advantage of its better speed and throughput.

 

[MechEng]

The 970 is an older drive so you can use it as a scratch/working drive where you can edit your files while working on them and once you are satisfied with the end result, you can move the file to the 980 Pro. I also think it would be better to move the OS and most frequently used programs/games to the 980 Pro to take advantage of its better speed and throughput.

In my proposed setup I would work on files using the 980 and when done store them on the HDD. The 970 would be used for OS and program installs, so the lower speed should only affect load times when opening Word, Lightroom etc.

I don't think I would be able to actually feel much difference between the 970 and 980 for that, since it's mostly loading a bunch of small(er) files... but I may well be wrong on that


https://ssdsphere.com/samsung-980-pro-vs-samsung-970-evo-plus-ssd-1tb/


EDIT:
I currently have a 256GB Crucial MX100 as OS drive and think that programs open OK fast. Not super fast, but OK...
Read/write rating of this SSD is about 550/330 if I recall correctly.

 

[MechEng]

Just to finish this thread

I went with the DDR5 setup, because I found that the price difference to the DDR4 was pretty much insignificant.

https://dk.pcpartpicker.com/list/3b79Ls