z390 - i9 build - Optane boot

[kirkdickinson]

I am wanting to build a bleeding edge Photoshop and Video Editing computer. I looked for an existing z390 build thread and didn't find one. I hope this isn't posted in the wrong place.

My last build was 2011 and it has held up well. I used a i7-3630K Sandy Bridge-E 6 Core CPU and even today, it has decent Passmark CPU ratings. it dropped off the charts at cpubenchmark.net, but was 11,999 and had a pretty high single thread cpu score (1684), which with Photoshop is the most important score.

Here is my tentative list:
Intel Core i9-9900K Coffee Lake 8-Core
Cooler Master MasterLiquid 240 AIO CPU Liquid Cooler
ASRock Z390 Taichi LGA 1151 (300 Series) Intel Z390
G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 32GB (4 x 16GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3600
GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1080 DirectX 12 GV-N1080WF3OC-8GD 8GB 256-Bit GDDR5X PCI Express 3.0 x16
Rosewill White Edition, Gaming ATX Full Tower Computer Case
Intel Optane SSD 905P Series 2.5" U.2 480GB PCI-Express 3.0 x4 3D XPoint
ASRock Model U.2 Kit M.2 to U.2 Add-on Card
SAMSUNG 960 PRO M.2 1TB NVMe PCI-Express 3.0 x4
Seasonic FOCUS Plus Series SSR-850PX 850W 80+ Platinum ATX12V
LG Electronics 14x SATA Blu-ray Internal Rewriter
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit - OEM

https://secure.newegg.com/Wishlist/SharedWishlistDetail?ID=gXqToQLIexM=&&cm_mmc=snc-email-_-sr-_-wishlist-gXqToQLIexM=-_-10/24/2018

I want to use the Optane drive for the boot drive and programs and keep all user data on the Samsung drive. I will use a couple large WD red drives that I already have for bulk storage.

Any gotchas?

 

[Flayed]

Hi just had a quick look at your newegg list. Not sure you need an Asrock U2 kit I'd remove that. Seeing as you are buying all high end stuff might as well get a Samsung 970 Pro instead of 960 Pro. I would but a 2070 instead of a 1080, oh and the case is really ugly lol

 

[kirkdickinson]

Thanks,

Hi just had a quick look at your newegg list. Not sure you need an Asrock U2 kit I'd remove that.

The Optane model that I picked is for U2 port which the board doesn't have. I was under the impression that I need the adapter... Unless I am completely misunderstanding the m.2 vs u2 ports.

Seeing as you are buying all high end stuff might as well get a Samsung 970 Pro instead of 960 Pro.

Done, that one is actually cheaper on Newegg right now.

I would but a 2070 instead of a 1080

I picked the 1080 because it is on Adobe's supported list for Photoshop. The 2070 is newer and may be supported, but it isn't on the supported list yet.
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cc-gpu-card-faq.html

oh and the case is really ugly lol

Yeah, I really don't care what the case looks like, but needed one with 6 5-1/2 slots on the front. Those are slim pickins. The current computer I have is in a Cooler Master HAF X case and those run nearly $400 now. Not locked into that Fugly case that is in my list.

 

[kirkdickinson]

I have seen some benchmarks with the Optane drives that are so crazy fast. I decided to use the Optane for my boot drive and the Samsung for my working drive. Wonder though if I would be better off spending less money, getting more storage and not using up as many PCI lanes if I would just get the Samsung 970 EVO in 2TB? Nah!

 

[Campy]

The Optane model that I picked is for U2 port which the board doesn't have. I was under the impression that I need the adapter... Unless I am completely misunderstanding the m.2 vs u2 ports.

There are two versions of those U.2 Optane drives, one includes a M.2 adapter cable whilst the other just has the regular U.2 cable. The manufacturer product nr. ending in "M3" that you selected is the one with the M.2 adapter cable. Link for reference.

Wonder though if I would be better off spending less money, getting more storage and not using up as many PCI lanes if I would just get the Samsung 970 EVO in 2TB? Nah!

Since you're buying M.2 drives, you won't be using any extra PCIe lanes from the CPU, as all M.2 slots go through the PCH on Intel mainstream platforms.

Your memory has pretty bad CL, so you might consider some 3200CL14 or 3600CL17 memory, but I don't know how much of an effect better memory will have on your workloads, perhaps another forum member can advise you better on that point.

Here are a couple very good memory kits with Samsung B-die chips.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/BZwqqs/gskill-memory-f43200c14d32gvk
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/gw...4-x-16gb-ddr4-3600-memory-f4-3600c17q-64gtzkw

 

[kirkdickinson]

There are two versions of those U.2 Optane drives, one includes a M.2 adapter cable whilst the other just has the regular U.2 cable. The manufacturer product nr. ending in "M3" that you selected is the one with the M.2 adapter cable. Link for reference.

Cool, I missed that it included that adapter.

Since you're buying M.2 drives, you won't be using any extra PCIe lanes from the CPU, as all M.2 slots go through the PCH on Intel mainstream platforms.

I guess I don't fully understand all this lane stuff. I just read the specs on the motherboard and it looks like for every M.2 slot I fill, I lose one or two SATA lanes.
* M2_1, SATA3_0 and SATA3_1 share lanes. If either one of them is in use, the others will be disabled.
* If M2_2 is occupied by a SATA-type M.2 device, SATA3_3 will be disabled.
* M2_3, SATA3_4 and SATA3_5 share lanes. If either one of them is in use, the others will be disabled.

I thought that SATA lanes were PCI lanes?

If I want to run multiple SATA drives, would I be better getting the Optane the plugs into the PCIe x4 slot instead?

Your memory has pretty bad CL, so you might consider some 3200CL14 or 3600CL17 memory, but I don't know how much of an effect better memory will have on your workloads, perhaps another forum member can advise you better on that point.

Here are a couple very good memory kits with Samsung B-die chips.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/BZwqqs/gskill-memory-f43200c14d32gvk
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/gw...4-x-16gb-ddr4-3600-memory-f4-3600c17q-64gtzkw

Thanks, I will dig into that. Don't want to spend this much and skimp on memory.

 

[Campy]

I thought that SATA lanes were PCI lanes?

If I want to run multiple SATA drives, would I be better getting the Optane the plugs into the PCIe x4 slot instead?

Not exactly the same thing, but SATA ports do use chipset lanes, yes. It varies between different motherboards/chipsets which devices share lanes, it's largely up to the motherboard manufacturers.

You won't lose any SATA ports on that Taichi motherboard if you use an M.2 NVMe drive (such as your Optane drive) in the M.2_2 slot. If you use two M.2 slots you will lose 2 SATA ports but still have 6 available.

If you use a PCIe slot Optane drive you will get lower latency between the drive and CPU, because it's connected directly to the CPU and not through the chipset, but your main PCIe slot (graphics card slot) will run in x8 mode instead of x16 mode because the lanes will be split between the PCIe slots.


edit: I think I misunderstood what you were saying about the 970 Evo though, I see now that you meant getting a single 970 Evo instead of two different M.2 drives.

 

[kirkdickinson]

Not exactly the same thing, but SATA ports do use chipset lanes, yes. It varies between different motherboards/chipsets which devices share lanes, it's largely up to the motherboard manufacturers.

You won't lose any SATA ports on that Taichi motherboard if you use an M.2 NVMe drive (such as your Optane drive) in the M.2_2 slot. If you use two M.2 slots you will lose 2 SATA ports but still have 6 available.

I read through that again. It sure looks like no matter where you plug into M2, you will lose some Sata. I don't mind losing a couple, but would like to preserve 5 Sata connections in addition to the 2 sdd/mve drives.

If you use a PCIe slot Optane drive you will get lower latency between the drive and CPU, because it's connected directly to the CPU and not through the chipset, but your main PCIe slot (graphics card slot) will run in x8 mode instead of x16 mode because the lanes will be split between the PCIe slots.

If I read the info about those lanes correctly, there are only 24 PCIe lanes available. I a 16x graphics card would eat up 16 leaving 8 left. If you run two cards, you can't run the 2nd card at 16. But the Optane is only 4x, so it should allow 16 lanes for graphics and 4 for Optane. Right?

edit: I think I misunderstood what you were saying about the 970 Evo though, I see now that you meant getting a single 970 Evo instead of two different M.2 drives.

I was only musing about the EVO, I have had bad experience with Samsung EVO series stuff in the past. I only use their PRO series from then on.

 

[Campy]

I read through that again. It sure looks like no matter where you plug into M2, you will lose some Sata. I don't mind losing a couple, but would like to preserve 5 Sata connections in addition to the 2 sdd/mve drives.

"If M2_2 is occupied by a SATA-type M.2 device, SATA3_3 will be disabled." If you plug an NVMe type M.2 drive into this slot you will not lose the SATA port.

If I read the info about those lanes correctly, there are only 24 PCIe lanes available. I a 16x graphics card would eat up 16 leaving 8 left. If you run two cards, you can't run the 2nd card at 16. But the Optane is only 4x, so it should allow 16 lanes for graphics and 4 for Optane. Right?

You are confusing CPU PCIe lanes with chipset PCIe lanes. The CPU has only 16 lanes that go to the physical PCIe slots. The only configurations available are: x16 x0 x0 or x8 x8 x0 or x8 x4 x4

In addition to this, the chipset(Z390) has up to 24 lanes to use for extra PCIe devices and storage, I/O etc.

There is a link between the CPU and chipset called DMI 3.0, this has x4 lanes of bandwidth.

Spoiler

 

[kirkdickinson]

"If M2_2 is occupied by a SATA-type M.2 device, SATA3_3 will be disabled." If you plug an NVMe type M.2 drive into this slot you will not lose the SATA port.

You are confusing CPU PCIe lanes with chipset PCIe lanes. The CPU has only 16 lanes that go to the physical PCIe slots. The only configurations available are: x16 x0 x0 or x8 x8 x0 or x8 x4 x4

In addition to this, the chipset(Z390) has up to 24 lanes to use for extra PCIe devices and storage, I/O etc.

OK, thanks for your very patient explanations. Apparently, I am a slow learner. I think I understand now.

 

[Campy]

No problem, I know how confusing it can be.

Did you consider an HEDT platform like Intel X299? I know the single core performance of the 9900K will do well in photoshop, but for lots of high end storage HEDT platforms are superior.

 

[kirkdickinson]

No problem, I know how confusing it can be.

Did you consider an HEDT platform like Intel X299? I know the single core performance of the 9900K will do well in photoshop, but for lots of high end storage HEDT platforms are superior.

What is considered "High end storage"? Speed? Reliability? Security?

From what I am reading x299 does not suport ECC Ram.

All my long term storage is on a FreeNAS box with a Xeon Processor, SuperMicro Mobo and ECC Ram. I have a 4 year old server that has been humming along flawlessly. I have a NewEgg list that I keep updating to replace that one, but probably won't do it for another year. Still fun to keep the list updated:

https://secure.newegg.com/Wishlist/...vY_48TIC7RMAAcWkWGwxFscwDCecDgP5V83apqcPCbzqo

 

[Campy]

What is considered "High end storage"?

I was thinking NVMe storage, like M.2 or PCIe add in cards. But if you don't need much more you will be fine on Z390.

I don't think the 9900K supports ECC RAM either.

 

[kirkdickinson]

I was thinking NVMe storage, like M.2 or PCIe add in cards. But if you don't need much more you will be fine on Z390.

I don't think the 9900K supports ECC RAM either.

Yeah, For Photoshop work, I don't think I need any more than this system. I don't think I need the HEDT. I like the security of the ECC Ram on a server, but don't really see the need for it on a Photoshop workstation.