Considering 14900k for 3D/Gaming rig, looking for most PCIe lanes.

[Blue Proteus]

Time for an upgrade.

I do 3D work and GPU rendering, so use 1 card to drive the monitors (and gaming) and the other card for rendering.

Current system is an i7-6700K, with 2 gpu's, a GTX 1060 and a GTX 1070.
It has served me well for several years.

Looking now at an i9-14900k, and most likely an RTX 4070 for rendering, and a lesser card for gaming.

Open to suggestions re: cpu.

My main interest is keeping as many PCIe lanes as possible. With 2 gpus, multiple SATA drives and a couple M.2 SSD's, I run out of lanes quickly. So any motherboard suggestions welcome as well.

The 3D side of things is more critical than the gaming.

 

[chameleoneel]

Since you do GPU rendering, do you need more than 6 or 8 cores for that workload?

If not....the 7900X3D is on sale for $410 at Amazon, Newegg, and B&H. Great price and Would be a fantastic CPU to split the workloads. Games on the V-cache CCD and 3D work apps on the regular CCD.

 

[NattyKathy]

For a 14900K I'd go with Z790 motherboard, they usually have plenty of NVMe (1 from CPU, 2-4 from chipset) so you'd be set for storage.
Unfortunately modern boards aren't very likely to offer dual full-length PCIe slots from the CPU with x8/x8 switching for multiple GPUs, only a few high-end ($$$) boards do for Z790.
The good news is, you can probably get away with running a GPU on the chipset lanes. It'll be limited to PCIe 4.0x4 but in my experience that's not much of a bottleneck except for really high-end cards.

 

[LukeTbk]

you would maybe already know, but for some rendering workload you do not need that much bandwith (i.e. there a lot of long compute made on the gpu relative to the interaction with the rest, loading time, a bit like compiling and hard drive speed...), something with vast interaction-filling needed like an editing timeline would be diffferent, you probably want to be 4.0x8 at least in that case.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/a...-e-bandwidth-on-content-creation-performance/

AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Normalized Scores	PCI-e 4.0 x16	PCI-e 4.0 x8	PCI-e 4.0 x4	PCI-e 3.0 x16	PCI-e 3.0 x8	PCI-e 3.0 x4
Video Editing / Motion Graphics	100	97.41	89.93	97.82	89.61	77.76
Rendering	100	101.84	100.78	101.50	100.84	100.86
Stable Diffusion	100	102.05	99.10	97.31	93.26	99.10
Overall Score	100	100.41	96.49	98.86	94.45	91.94

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Normalized Scores	PCI-e 4.0 x16	PCI-e 4.0 x8	PCI-e 4.0 x4	PCI-e 3.0 x16	PCI-e 3.0 x8	PCI-e 3.0 x4
Video Editing / Motion Graphics	100	97.81	88.59	97.34	88.23	74.56
Rendering	100	99.62	98.53	99.20	98.09	95.77
Stable Diffusion	100	99.31	96.73	99.27	98.79	97.29
Overall Score	100	98.91	94.51	98.60	94.92	88.56

Blender optix for example, even with a 4080 going from pci 3.0x4 to 4.0x16, margin of error difference, people had not that terrible result with pci expres 3.0 x1 USB risers.

The lesser card for gaming would be also be quite fine at 4.0x8, it is barely an issue in most game even for stronger card.

With today platform, 4xsata drive, 2x m.2 drive (make that 3-4 even 5), 2x 4070 and less GPU specially if they support pci express 4 or 5 should not be really a challenge.

I am not sure about the strategy of having a lesser card for gaming, is it because there is rendering work done in the background during a gaming session ? Because the 4070 could be perfectly fine for gaming and the second gpu could be pick purely for optimising 3d work in mind otherwise.

 

[applegrcoug]

while not current gen, I have an x570s aorus master and it does bifurcate the x16 into 2x8.

My guess is you may find an x670 board that works, but you need to read some manuals.

 

[NattyKathy]

while not current gen, I have an x570s aorus master and it does bifurcate the x16 into 2x8.

My guess is you may find an x670 board that works, but you need to read some manuals.

I've got that same board, great platform and runs dual GPUs perfectly.

Unfortunately dual x8/x8 full-length slots from the CPU are becoming even more rare... Only a handful of Z690/Z790 have that, and it's extremely difficult to find for X670 :-(

 

[LukeTbk]

Do you need both gpu to be running from the CPU for your workload being a significant question here ?

 

[Blue Proteus]

Do you need both gpu to be running from the CPU for your workload being a significant question here ?

Good question. I'm guessing I don't. The rendering gpu might benefit from the direct cpu connection, but I'd think the other card driving the monitors might be ok on the chipset. Just guessing though.

 

[LukeTbk]

Good question. I'm guessing I don't. The rendering gpu might benefit from the direct cpu connection, but I'd think the other card driving the monitors might be ok on the chipset. Just guessing though.

I would even venture that maybe you do not need a different card to drive the monitors (could be worth a try to see if either what you do lag or if doing something on them significantly slow down your 3d work), 3d card have specialized hardware for some decoding work depending of what you need the gpu for during the background task, which could open the door to a single more powerful, more vram GPU instead of buying 2.

Maybe you could try with your current setup if it is not complicated, but could not tell you if it is a perfect test, Lovelace would have more up to date decoding capacity.

If it a piece of mind and you want to be sure (which is not nothing, piece of mind could be cheap), Asus list their motherbord by pcie bifurcation status:
https://www.asus.com/ca-en/support/faq/1037507/

Apparently relatively cheap option can work, like on AMD:
https://www.newegg.com/asus-rog-strix-b650-a-gaming-wifi/p/N82E16813119631?Item=N82E16813119631

$180, it has 4 full x16 pci-express slot that can work in 4x4x4x4 mode (which could be quite interesting for you if 4.0x4 do the trick) or x16 and x1, 8xsata, 2xm2

Or for x8/x8 in Intel:
https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z790 Taichi/#Specification
CPU:
- 2 x PCIe 5.0 x16 Slots (PCIE1 and PCIE2), support x16 or x8/x8 modes*

 

[applegrcoug]

always could just go threadripper.

 

[scoundrel]

always could just go threadripper.

Not ALWAYS. I work with CLO3D, which is a 3D software for creating clothes that utilizes CPU and GPU rendering. In such scenario an I5 12400 takes 1 additional second to finish rendering in comparison with a 5800x3D, both 32GB 3200Mhz RAM and a 4080. Intel uses Z690 and AMD a B550. No big difference. I tried the 13600k too, same results. Swapping the VGA to the 4090 made the biggest difference to me. Just for a matter of comparison, I also used to work with an i5 9400 which, even paired to the 4090 and all of its CUDA cores, had similar results, maybe taking a couple of seconds longer to finish, but nothing that would make the 5800x3D or the 13600k shine. I guess upgrading the VGA makes a little more difference here. A Threadripper would not help, while rising costs substantially.

 

[LukeTbk]

A Threadripper would not help,

I think the comment was more in regard of PCI lane count-motherboard option (you can think of an old used one), than ramping up core counts. Some Xeon could be maybe more priced interesting in that regard for the new option.

 

[applegrcoug]

Not ALWAYS. I work with CLO3D, which is a 3D software for creating clothes that utilizes CPU and GPU rendering. In such scenario an I5 12400 takes 1 additional second to finish rendering in comparison with a 5800x3D, both 32GB 3200Mhz RAM and a 4080. Intel uses Z690 and AMD a B550. No big difference. I tried the 13600k too, same results. Swapping the VGA to the 4090 made the biggest difference to me. Just for a matter of comparison, I also used to work with an i5 9400 which, even paired to the 4090 and all of its CUDA cores, had similar results, maybe taking a couple of seconds longer to finish, but nothing that would make the 5800x3D or the 13600k shine. I guess upgrading the VGA makes a little more difference here. A Threadripper would not help, while rising costs substantially.

but it has pcie slots and lanes....forget that they cost $5000.....they have lanes. It was mainly a tongue in cheek suggestion.

 

[Blue Proteus]

I would even venture that maybe you do not need a different card to drive the monitors (could be worth a try to see if either what you do lag or if doing something on them significantly slow down your 3d work), 3d card have specialized hardware for some decoding work depending of what you need the gpu for during the background task, which could open the door to a single more powerful, more vram GPU instead of buying 2.

Maybe you could try with your current setup if it is not complicated, but could not tell you if it is a perfect test, Lovelace would have more up to date decoding capacity.

If it a piece of mind and you want to be sure (which is not nothing, piece of mind could be cheap), Asus list their motherbord by pcie bifurcation status:
https://www.asus.com/ca-en/support/faq/1037507/

Apparently relatively cheap option can work, like on AMD:
https://www.newegg.com/asus-rog-strix-b650-a-gaming-wifi/p/N82E16813119631?Item=N82E16813119631

$180, it has 4 full x16 pci-express slot that can work in 4x4x4x4 mode (which could be quite interesting for you if 4.0x4 do the trick) or x16 and x1, 8xsata, 2xm2

Or for x8/x8 in Intel:
https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z790 Taichi/#Specification
CPU:
- 2 x PCIe 5.0 x16 Slots (PCIE1 and PCIE2), support x16 or x8/x8 modes*

This is something I've noticed in the past while working, there's a definite performance loss while you're actively working if you are using the same GPU to render with. If you offload the rendering to a dedicated gpu, it's like no performance issues at all, like you're not even rendering. I've asked about this on the rendering forums and it's still a thing even with higher end cards. So I'm pretty sure I want to stick with 2 cards.

At this point probably going to go with 2 4070 Supers.
As for the Mobo, I'm currently considering:

ASUS ProArt Z790-CREATOR WIFI $439
ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Hero $529
ASRock Z790 Taichi $479

All of them look like they'll do the PCIe split from the 16 down to 2 8x, which is fine. ("Bifurcation" as mentioned above.)

 

[xDiVolatilX]

I think Z790 only has 16 plus 4 right? Maybe AMD high core cpus have way more last time I checked. I have always gone Intel Nvidia because I only need 16 for GPU and 4 for a sound card but for creators it might be better to go AMD?

 

[Grebuloner]

I think Z790 only has 16 plus 4 right? Maybe AMD high core cpus have way more last time I checked. I have always gone Intel Nvidia because I only need 16 for GPU and 4 for a sound card but for creators it might be better to go AMD?

Both are the same from the cpu, 16+4+4, (aside from amd being all 5.0), but Z790 has 28 chipset lanes to X670's 20. The lanes are all flexible and can be used for other things (sata/m.2 storage, networking, etc.) by the motherboard maker. In the end, it's more looking for a board from either platform with the required expansion availability and then buying the appropriate cpu/ram.