First AMD build I've ever done

killernerd

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 8, 2012
Messages
215
Previously on [H]ardforum: https://hardforum.com/threads/computer-hardlocks-possibly-gpu.1961828/

In short: GPU is dying, rest of system is getting up there in terms of age (initial build was something like 2011 or 2012). Which means time for an upgrade!

And I haven't been paying attention to the hardware world for at least as long as this system is old so I've got a lot of reading up to do.

In any case, i'll be using this system for my day-to-day items, being:
- gaming
- netflixing and general internet browsing
- work (i'm a programmer)
- possibly VR in the future

From my current system i'll be re-using the PSU and harddrives everything else has to go.

After about an hour of researching I came up with this build:

PC Hound Part List

CPU: AMD AMD Ryzen 7 2700X ($319.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Crosshair VII Hero ($258.37 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.SKILL 16GB (2 x 8GB) Ripjaws V Series ($160.98 @ Newegg)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti GTX 1080 Ti AERO 11G OC ($709.48 @ B&H)
Total: $1,448.82
Price may include shipping, rebates, promotions, and tax
Generated by PC Hound


First: holy shit RAM is expensive. WTF happened?

Second: what do you guys think of this?

The 2700x comes with a cooler but opinions are mixed on it. Some say it's good, others say it could bottleneck the boost feature. I do have an overkill hunk of copper sitting on my current CPU (I believeit's a noctua nh-d15) that I might be able to re-use though I'll have to find an AM4 adapter bracket for it.

I've (briefly) considered going for an I7 8700K but it's €200 more expensive and, if the reviews are to be believed, is only marginally faster. So not sure if it's worth it.

I might be able to stretch my budget a bit and go for a RTX2080 but it's apparantly only as fast as a 1080TI for (again) a €200 price increase. PLUS RTX will only be supported on a game by game basis and for the moment there aren't many (if any?) games out there that support it.

What happened to AMD GPUs? They seem to have fallen behind quite heavily on Nvidia?

i'm also in need of a new case but i haven't decided on one yet, if any of you have any recommendations let me know.
 
I would shoot for a RTX 2080. Similar cost and the 2080 is a little faster with new tech in it.

I would also consider getting a new power supply if it is 7 or 8 years old.

Yes, I would get an AM4 kit for your Noctua.
 
I would shoot for a RTX 2080. Similar cost and the 2080 is a little faster with new tech in it.

If you can get a RTX 2080 for anywhere the cost of a 1080 Ti, then get the 2080. I doubt that'll be the case though, and you haven't picked the least expensive 1080 Ti for some reason either. For the moment, Newegg has this card for $669. Coincidentally, that's the identical 1080 Ti that I have in my rig, but they're basically all the same. The cheapest 2080 on Newegg is $789, so you can decide if the gulf between them is worth $120.

For additional cost savings, you've picked a fancy, expensive motherboard; if you're going to do super-powered overclocking then perhaps there might be a reason to spend $260 on a motherboard, but if you're a bit more casual in the overclocking, or don't need some specific fancy feature on that board (can't imagine what it would be) then you can likely save $100 or more by going with a less expensive motherboard. Just off hand, this ASRock X470 Master is $135 and shit, it's even got WiFi if you want it. If you don't need SLI you can also drop to a B450 chipset with no issues and drop even further down the price list.

If you do stick with the motherboard you have, be aware that the G.SKILL memory kit you've picked out is not on the ASUS memory QVL for that motherboard. The 2000 series Ryzens aren't as picky as their 1000 series brethren, but you still might have issues as the ASUS board does not support any memory frequencies above 3466 and that's 3600 RAM. It might work, but it also might not and you'd be stuck running lower, potentially significantly lower, than 3600. Get something off the QVL of any board you purchase to be sure.

I like Fractal Design cases. They're not small, but they're (generally) inexpensive, minimalist, and quiet. I'm not one for fancy lights or windows, so that affects my preference.

On the topic of the PSU, your PSU is quite old, but you will absolutely not be stressing it with the chosen hardware, just like you're not stressing it now. We're likely talking 50% utilization under full gaming load. I'd probably not worry about it.
 
If you can get a RTX 2080 for anywhere the cost of a 1080 Ti, then get the 2080. I doubt that'll be the case though, and you haven't picked the least expensive 1080 Ti for some reason either. For the moment, Newegg has this card for $669. Coincidentally, that's the identical 1080 Ti that I have in my rig, but they're basically all the same. The cheapest 2080 on Newegg is $789, so you can decide if the gulf between them is worth $120.

For additional cost savings, you've picked a fancy, expensive motherboard; if you're going to do super-powered overclocking then perhaps there might be a reason to spend $260 on a motherboard, but if you're a bit more casual in the overclocking, or don't need some specific fancy feature on that board (can't imagine what it would be) then you can likely save $100 or more by going with a less expensive motherboard. Just off hand, this ASRock X470 Master is $135 and shit, it's even got WiFi if you want it. If you don't need SLI you can also drop to a B450 chipset with no issues and drop even further down the price list.

If you do stick with the motherboard you have, be aware that the G.SKILL memory kit you've picked out is not on the ASUS memory QVL for that motherboard. The 2000 series Ryzens aren't as picky as their 1000 series brethren, but you still might have issues as the ASUS board does not support any memory frequencies above 3466 and that's 3600 RAM. It might work, but it also might not and you'd be stuck running lower, potentially significantly lower, than 3600. Get something off the QVL of any board you purchase to be sure.

I like Fractal Design cases. They're not small, but they're (generally) inexpensive, minimalist, and quiet. I'm not one for fancy lights or windows, so that affects my preference.

On the topic of the PSU, your PSU is quite old, but you will absolutely not be stressing it with the chosen hardware, just like you're not stressing it now. We're likely talking 50% utilization under full gaming load. I'd probably not worry about it.

All very valid feedback. I didn't even think to check the supported ram speeds and voltages, guess it's really been too long since i last build a system.
I'm not too worried about the PSU either, it never saw any real load especially after I replaced my dual 7970's with the 980ti and since the custom waterloop I had planned never materialized.

Also I didn't know that newegg delivered to Belgium, they're significantly cheaper than the local options I've been considering too.
Almost suspiciously so... The same components as I've listed above are about €500 less via newegg than through local retailers, you probably just saved me a shitton of money.

With them there's practically no difference in price between a 1080ti (€621) and a 2080 (€685) either which almost makes it a no-brainer.

I'm currently telling myself that I'll be doing some overclocking but I probably won't nor am I planning on going with multi-GPU solutions so I could probably drop way down on the fancy-ness (and price) of the motherboard and save another couple hundred right there.
On the other hand I do like upgradability and future-proofing so if I do end up upgrading down the line with either an additional GPU or a new CPU it might be more interesting to stick to the higher-end of motherboards, no?
(And I'm a sucker for Asus RoG for some reason)
Though I must admit that Asrock does look nice.
 
if I do end up upgrading down the line with either an additional GPU or a new CPU it might be more interesting to stick to the higher-end of motherboards

Eh, probably not. My reasoning is this- if instead of buying a $260 motherboard you instead buy a $130 motherboard, then two years down the line want a new CPU that for some reason the $130 motherboard doesn't support but the $260 one would (unlikely, but go with me), well you've still got $130 in your pocket to buy a NEW $130 motherboard that's two years more advanced. You could get USB 4 or whatever the shit is out in two years at that point.
 
Sound reasoning. Sometimes I just need to be reminded that you don't have to go for fanciest and most expensive to have a decent system :)
 
Sound reasoning. Sometimes I just need to be reminded that you don't have to go for fanciest and most expensive to have a decent system :)

Haha, that's fair. I've been building PCs for a long time now, and so much stuff has developed into the scenario where 'overboard' is the status quo that sometimes I wonder where everyone's brains have gone. People buying 800W power supplies left and right, $300 motherboards, $200 headphones, $200 keyboards, blah blah blah. I'm old, get off my lawn, etc, but it's crazy.
 
Haha, that's fair. I've been building PCs for a long time now, and so much stuff has developed into the scenario where 'overboard' is the status quo that sometimes I wonder where everyone's brains have gone. People buying 800W power supplies left and right, $300 motherboards, $200 headphones, $200 keyboards, blah blah blah. I'm old, get off my lawn, etc, but it's crazy.

On one hand true, on the other hand for many people this is a hobby. So they buy things that are more expensive and fancy than is required.
But yes, it is kinda silly to go with super-fancy hardware you'll never even use a fraction off. Even if I'm guilty of this myself as is pretty obvious :p

Also i've been looking into newegg delivering here and apparently they still ship everything from the USA so duty/import fees will apply (as does a pretty hefty €60+ shipping fee). I knew it was too good to be true.
Newegg gives an estimate of what the duty fees are going to be and with those added on the total I end up with pretty much what i'd pay here anyway.
So i guess i'll keep using those local retailers then.

Gotta love the overpriced EU market.
 
Ah, well bummer about the Newegg import. Your PCHound links you had included in your original post included some parts sourced from Newegg, so I had assumed them safe. Regardless, all the advice still holds, you'll probably just pay a bit more :)
 
This will anger some people reading this, but I really don't care.

If I was building a PC for programming and business use, I'd go with an Intel based rig. <------- Note I said, "If I was building a PC..." meaning my opinion.
The comments above about the AMD may or may not run at certain memory speeds confirms one of my reasons for my comment.

You don't want any memory issues on a system you are using to write and debug code.

Just saying.....

.
 
The comments above about the AMD may or may not run at certain memory speeds confirms one of my reasons for my comment.

You don't want any memory issues on a system you are using to write and debug code.

No anger here, do whatever you like obviously. And I'm pretty sure you don't want any memory issues on any system, regardless of use case. But the QVLs exist for a reason, and as long as you stick to them you're fine on the AMD platform.

AMD currently represents a pretty awesome value proposition for their processors - a higher core count for less money, mostly competitive in lower threadcount applications, and significantly lower performance impacts from speculative execution vulnerability mitigation - but Intel certainly isn't in the dog-shit house or anything; both team red and team blue have good products and that's only good for the industry.
 
Ah, well bummer about the Newegg import. Your PCHound links you had included in your original post included some parts sourced from Newegg, so I had assumed them safe. Regardless, all the advice still holds, you'll probably just pay a bit more :)

Aah yeah that's because at the top of the board it said to "give PCHound a try" if you wanted to list components :)
I didn't check the actual code it generated before posting so I didn't notice it contained links to webshops.

This will anger some people reading this, but I really don't care.

If I was building a PC for programming and business use, I'd go with an Intel based rig. <------- Note I said, "If I was building a PC..." meaning my opinion.
The comments above about the AMD may or may not run at certain memory speeds confirms one of my reasons for my comment.

You don't want any memory issues on a system you are using to write and debug code.

Just saying.....

.

Why would I get angry? I'm actively looking for feedback, if the i7 is really that much better I might reconsider.
As the title implies: i've always had intel systems because AMD sucked pretty bad after the phenom IIs.

But I think the possible RAM issues had to do with the motherboard and not the CPU though? I simply didn't check Asus' website for supported ram-speeds and voltages.
Also I thought the ryzen was the better CPU for multi-tasking because higher-core count while the I7 would be better for single-threaded applications (such as gaming) because of its higher clockspeed?
The reason i wanted to go for the ryzen is because it's €200 cheaper here than the i7 8700k and doesn't lose out too hard on single-threaded operations (at stock clocks at least).
 
Not slamming AMD at all, I had several of their CPUs in the past and was happy with them.

It's been many years since I did any coding, but I do seem to remember that there were a few rare cases
where AMD compiled or ran certain code differently than Intel. That may be a non-issue now, dunno.

Intel still has the large majority of CPUs out there, so if that's the platform most people have, that would
be the platform I would run if I'm selling code.

.
 
It's been many years since I did any coding, but I do seem to remember that there were a few rare cases
where AMD compiled or ran certain code differently than Intel. That may be a non-issue now, dunno.

It can absolutely still be an issue, but it's during execution not during the coding process, and 99.99% of the time it's only stuff compiled with the Intel-branded compilers that has a problem executing on AMD hardware, which is of course a big surprise. Typically the code still executes, but the Intel compiler-provided code-paths refuse to execute SSE-type code optimizations on AMD hardware even when the CPUID bits flag support for it, instead reverting to native x86 FPU code which of course runs comparably horribly. Thankfully, this isn't much of an issue for the vast bulk of folks out there, both because Intel has been publicly spanked on occasion for the practice and because usage of Intel's compiler for publicly available software is relatively rare. Neither GCC nor Microsoft's compilers have any of the issues.
 
Back
Top