Advice on finishing Threadripper 3960 video editing build please

Kirika

Gawd
Joined
Aug 10, 2006
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Looking to finalize my Threadripper 3960x video editing workstation build and order the rest of the stuff soon. Spoke with some friends and this is what we came up with. Please advise if you based on your builds would be greatly appreciated.
CPU:
Threadripper 3960x
Just received today.
First single processor build ever, up till recently 2 has been better then one. Friend convinced me to get threadripper over dual epyc since 24 cores at 3.8 ghz is faster then 32 cores at 2.8 ghz although epyc can upgrade to more cores later it is low clocked.
Cooler
Noctua NH-U14S-sp3
$89 on amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074DX2SX7?tag=pcpapi-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1
never did water cooling before afraid of it leaking and ruining my pc and probably won't over clock. only times I over clocked was the Asus PC-DL and EVGA Super record 2.
Motherboard
trx40 designare has 5 pci slots and comes with thunder bolt and nvme cards.
$629 from new egg.
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813145174?Description=trx40 designaire&cm_re=trx40_designaire-_-13-145-174-_-Product
My big question is gigabyte reliable long term. Will this board last me 5+ years. Never had a a gigabyte board. The Asus TRX4 board doesn't have 5 pci slots or the extras.
Ram 64 gb
4x Samsung ECC Registered 16 gb
$37 each ebay ($148 total)
OR
4 x Corsair Dominiator Platinum 16 gb
$329 on amazon
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...c45-cd78f07a84d8&pf_rd_r=FZYKN0A5WTY8XQBGZ2JM
(I have Corsair Dominator in my EVGA SR2 which still works so will get again. Friend always buys corsair dominator told me to buy it for the SR2.)
Is there a point to getting overpriced rgb gaming ram when I can just get used samsung pulls from epyc servers for a fraction of the cost if not over clocking? AMD said Threadripper supports ecc so this seems by far the better option yet most builds I see are using gaming ram is there a reason? I also dislike RGB since it offers not performance benefit for additional cost. How much of an over clock can be expected on air coolers? If spending for gaming over clocking ram would like to over clock. The SR2 overclocked fairly well on air cooling with corsair dominator ram.
Power Supply -
EVGA SuperNova 1200 G2.
Have this from previous build is that enough power or should I get something beefier.
Case
Lian Li PC-A75
have this from previous build
will this work for XL-ATX or am I drill and taping screw holes like I had to for the supermicro board. May be time to buy a new case? PC parts picker does not list my case as compatible.
May be getting the corsair 750D.
NVME storage
6 x crucial 1 tb nvme
$99 each from crucial.com
OR
6x Inland Pro 1TB nvm
$109 each from micro center.
Are these reliable? Price and performance wise they seem good but I could get a crucial SSD I would always get crucial sandisk ssds before this and have had 0 failures. Have crucial ssds in my laptop and current laptop
Video Card
GTX 980 ti
from previous build should I be spending on a video card right now with the new cards coming soon? Could pull a 580 from the mining rig.
Bulk Storage
2 x 12 tb WD raid 1
shucked from best buy external deal.
Capture
Black Magic capture card from previous build.
Raid
Gigabyte AORUS Gen4 AIC Adaptor card with ssds raid 1
comes with motherboard.
Game streaming
Elgato HD60
had it from previous build

Apps used Adobe After Effects, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Indesign, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, Divinci Resolve, Lightroom, HyperV Virtual Machines, Maya, Light gaming current: Final Fantasy 14 Future: Starcitizen, Cyberpunk 2077

Previous rig was 20 cores 2 x 2680v2 on a supermicro x9dai, 128 gb of hypernix, 980ti, crucial ssds for system and raid on a areca controller. 2x wd black raid 1 for data. black magic card, elgato.

Friend went with a 3960x, 32 gb of corsair dominator, Asus TRX40 Rog zenith II. 2 inland 1 tb nvmes, evga 2060 super, evga 1000 g3 , whatever case was hot deals for $59.
 
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I suggest you go thru your technical details of your parts. There's a lot that is off.

TR does not support registered dimms, not to mention that ECC is wasted on video content. That said stay away from Corsair, it sucks ass on AMD. If yer using TR3, you need gen4 nvme m.2 devices not gen3. You can use gen3 but not sure the point in choosing a Designaire.

PSU wise that is enough to run a 3960x. TR is not power hungry as much as people think. I don't know about your cooling. I would not attempt it on air.
 
thesmokingman
Thank you for the feedback.

What 64 gb 4x 16 ram kit do you suggest? Sorry, I am used to buying used server pull ecc ram cause I usually build dual cpu builds on server motherboards and thought it was supported. This is my first single processor build. The corsair dominator was on the pc parts picker list and it works in my friend's threadripper build. What is so bad about it?

What nvm. m.2 drives do you suggest? I think the inland I was looking at also is nvme 3.0.

I picked the designaire for the 5 pci-e slots and dual ethernet. I need the slots and will be running hyper v vms so want dual ethernet.

I would hope air cooling is adequate for stock speeds. Did not intend on over clocking but if I have to pay extra for overclocking gaming ram I wanted to use the potential.
 
thesmokingman
Thank you for the feedback.

What 64 gb 4x 16 ram kit do you suggest? Sorry, I am used to buying used server pull ecc ram cause I usually build dual cpu builds on server motherboards and thought it was supported. This is my first single processor build. The corsair dominator was on the pc parts picker list and it works in my friend's threadripper build. What is so bad about it?

What nvm. m.2 drives do you suggest? I think the inland I was looking at also is nvme 3.0.

I picked the designaire for the 5 pci-e slots and dual ethernet. I need the slots and will be running hyper v vms so want dual ethernet.

I would hope air cooling is adequate for stock speeds. Did not intend on over clocking but if I have to pay extra for overclocking gaming ram I wanted to use the potential.

Ram, it depends on what speed you want and in that regard memory does affect performance so the closer you get to 3600mhz the better and the tightest timings will net a few % improvement. thus in general, you want to get the ram speed as close to the ceiling as possible which is 3600mhz. Beyond 3600mhz and a memory divider kicks in, 2:1 which then forces you to force a 1:1 ratio. The easiest way about it is to run 3600mhz ram because higher speed ram doesn't really get us much benefit because of the divider then forcing 1:1 which them puts evem more stress on the IMC. TR3 can run 4x16gb at 3600mhz w/o much fuss but 8x16gb will force you to reduce the memory speed, how much depends on your chips IMC. I've seen others have success with 3600mhz memory in 8x16gb at 3400mhz. Technically 8x16gb is only supported at 2666mhz. I used 4x16gb 3600mhz Gskill at 16-16-16 timings. They are expensive though...

SSD, I used Sabrent gen4 m.2 drives. Be aware the gen4 drives are like 60% more then the gen3 drives. I assume you will want to use the Aorus AIC card, so follow the thread below. especially towards the end in regards to how I dealt with the AIC card.

Yea, the Designaire is probably the sweet spot for all the trx40 boards. You get 4 true spaced slots and its bundled with the titan ridge and aic card.

Cooling wise, air is not recommended. There's a reason they did not even bother to include an aircooler. At a minimum I suggest you find a 360mm AIO, a good one at that.

* I should add that if you must stay on air, you can try out eco-mode to reduce the TDP which will keep your aircooler from being overloaded. You can get it with the latest ryzen master.

https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-threadripper-3970x-32-core-efficient-monster-cpu-eco-mode-tests/


https://hardforum.com/threads/build-3970x-dual-2080ti-8tb-m-2-raid-render-monster.1990145/
 
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Ram, it depends on what speed you want and in that regard memory does affect performance so the closer you get to 3600mhz the better and the tightest timings will net a few % improvement. thus in general, you want to get the ram speed as close to the ceiling as possible which is 3600mhz. Beyond 3600mhz and a memory divider kicks in, 2:1 which then forces you to force a 1:1 ratio. The easiest way about it is to run 3600mhz ram because higher speed ram doesn't really get us much benefit because of the divider then forcing 1:1 which them puts evem more stress on the IMC. TR3 can run 4x16gb at 3600mhz w/o much fuss but 8x16gb will force you to reduce the memory speed, how much depends on your chips IMC. I've seen others have success with 3600mhz memory in 8x16gb at 3400mhz. Technically 8x16gb is only supported at 2666mhz. I used 4x16gb 3600mhz Gskill at 16-16-16 timings. They are expensive though...

SSD, I used Sabrent gen4 m.2 drives. Be aware the gen4 drives are like 60% more then the gen3 drives. I assume you will want to use the Aorus AIC card, so follow the thread below. especially towards the end in regards to how I dealt with the AIC card.

Yea, the Designaire is probably the sweet spot for all the trx40 boards. You get 4 true spaced slots and its bundled with the titan ridge and aic card.

Cooling wise, air is not recommended. There's a reason they did not even bother to include an aircooler. At a minimum I suggest you find a 360mm AIO, a good one at that.

* I should add that if you must stay on air, you can try out eco-mode to reduce the TDP which will keep your aircooler from being overloaded. You can get it with the latest ryzen master.

https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-threadripper-3970x-32-core-efficient-monster-cpu-eco-mode-tests/


https://hardforum.com/threads/build-3970x-dual-2080ti-8tb-m-2-raid-render-monster.1990145/

Thank you. I would like the option to upgrade to 8 x 16 gb but will be getting 64 gb to start. Does the ram speed matter that much if you just running stock speed?

I will be using the Aorus AIC card. I will have to look into Sabrent and if its worth the premium in price. I just went with Crucial SSDs in all my previous builds.

According to this the Air coolers work decently well for previous generations I have never worked with water cooling and am afraid of it leaking. Rather avoid it if possible. I am reading most of the AIOs do not cover the whole chip.
https://www.cgdirector.com/best-cpu-coolers-ryzen-threadripper/

Your build looks really impressive.
 
Fyi Microcenter has the inland pcie 4 phision drives as well if you wanted to go that route. I did have success in a dual 130w xeon build using the dark rock 3 coolers but they were huge.
 
Ok now thesmokingman easy now lmao :)

Corsair doesnt suck all the way on AMD because all corsair is, is a brand.

I have corsair Dominator platinum modules that are samsung B die and I can run cas 14 @ 3600 all day long. Unless your talking about large 16 and 32gb modules. Then I dont know.

@op

AIO can work on Threadripper now because they are a very cool running chip. Also AMD probably applied indium differently to better distribute thermals to the IHS. You will be fine with a good AIO. Dont get a budget one.

As far as storage, unless you want a benchmark beauty queen, i recommend phison e12 base pcie 3.0 x4 drives to save you money. You will NOT be able to even remotely notice the speed increase vs the price premium of 4.0 in day to day use.

You said your running a video workstation. I recommend the highest speed ram you can afford. Your encoding FPS is affected by ram speed as well as CPU throughput.

I'm running 3600 and it helps alot in Davinci especially using fusion with all the rediculous amounts of pre rendering that happens in the editor. I'm running 32gb ram. At 1080p it's more than enough. But at 4k you can swallow 32gb whole. I'll be upping to 64 in a couple months. My rendering is not professional and strictly hobby.

Rgb is looks only - nothing more.

Gigabyte boards are top notch. You cant go wrong!
 
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Thank you. I would like the option to upgrade to 8 x 16 gb but will be getting 64 gb to start. Does the ram speed matter that much if you just running stock speed?

I will be using the Aorus AIC card. I will have to look into Sabrent and if its worth the premium in price. I just went with Crucial SSDs in all my previous builds.

According to this the Air coolers work decently well for previous generations I have never worked with water cooling and am afraid of it leaking. Rather avoid it if possible. I am reading most of the AIOs do not cover the whole chip.
https://www.cgdirector.com/best-cpu-coolers-ryzen-threadripper/

Your build looks really impressive.

Whatever that link is doesn't matter as that was on Threadripper 2. Again, read what AMD states, they do not recommend air cooling. As I wrote above, you can try air cooling but I would imagine you need a massive one coz this chip's TDP is 280w stock. If yer really sticvking to air, look at the Deep Cool Assassin III.

Memory speed is very important on AMD chips in general and especially on the high end.

SSD wise, brand doesn't matter so much. We went Sabrent coz they were on sale during xmas.


Ok now thesmokingman easy now lmao :)

Corsair doesnt suck all the way on AMD because all corsair is, is a brand.

I have corsair Dominator platinum modules that are samsung B die and I can run cas 14 @ 3600 all day long. Unless your talking about large 16 and 32gb modules. Then I dont know.

@op

AIO can work on Threadripper now because they are a very cool running chip. Also AMD probably applied indium differently to better distribute thermals to the IHS. You will be fine with a good AIO. Dont get a budget one.

As far as storage, unless you want a benchmark beauty queen, i recommend phison e12 base pcie 3.0 x4 drives to save you money. You will NOT be able to even remotely notice the speed increase vs the price premium of 4.0 in day to day use.

You said your running a video workstation. I recommend the highest speed ram you can afford. Your encoding FPS is affected by ram speed as well as CPU throughput.

I'm running 3600 and it helps alot in Davinci especially using fusion with all the rediculous amounts of pre rendering that happens in the editor. I'm running 32gb ram. At 1080p it's more than enough. But at 4k you can swallow 32gb whole. I'll be upping to 64 in a couple months. My rendering is not professional and strictly hobby.

Rgb is looks only - nothing more.

Gigabyte boards are top notch. You cant go wrong!

Corsair is damn problematic on AMD and they have a terrible habit of switching components on their dimms. It's like that dirty old habit Sapphire had during the 7970 days of making 101 iterations of the card each one getting more gimped than the last. I'll agree that they don't pollute their high end lines though.

Gen4 m.2 wise... You know, the build I just completed is centered AROUND the 8TB raid that achieves 15gbs read and write speeds. Maybe centered is too strong but it is the MAIN reason we went Gigabyte, for that darn card. I concur that you won't notice individual drive speed, but that is not how it is used.

The OP is asking about air cooling.
 
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The OP is asking about air cooling.

Yeah your build is very storage centric for obvious reasons and it will make you vomit from the power waves emanating from its central quantum matrix lmao mere human flesh cant handle the powah!! Haha

As far as air cooling I absolutely agree NOT to waste your effort. Water cooling period. AIO may not be true water cooling but it has been proven to be far more effective in many cases than vanilla air. So at minimum I suggest OP go with a 3x120mm AIO from a reputable vendor of choice. Maybe not minimum because it will work great! After AMD directly and officially started they designed TR for watercoolers and that's why they include an Asetek adapter in the clamshell package.

Lots to read, I'm not sure if you Smokingman, recommended a thermal goop, but I have had great results with Kryonaut and Noctua goop. @OP Use your finger tip and get down and massage a thin layer on your chip. Dont use stupid spatulas and all that jive. Just finger fcuk that goop on your chip nice and thin. She will run cool guaranteed. All these stupid videos about X patterns and dot patterns and criss cross applesauce patterns are just YouTube view magnets. Jay's and Linus and Nexus NEED to generate constant content to keep the bills paid even if its laughable content.

I've been building for 2 and half decades, and hundreds of machines and several servers. Just massage that goop on.

Computers and definitely a blast to build but alas I must digress and install this brand new garbage disposal thing under my sink!

2019-12-29 16.27.45.jpg
 
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Thank you for the feedback.
@rhansen5_999
the Inland 1tb 4.0 nvme drives are $179 vs $109 for the 1tb 3.0 nvme is a significant premium esp when I want to pick up 6 drive. I have noctua coolers on my current xeon build and they work well.
tangoseal
Which corsair dominator platinum modules did you get?
The bigger corsair dominator modules like the 16 gb max out at 3200hz and you can't get 3600 mhz. I was looking to get 64 gb ram now would 3200 mhz be good enogh?
https://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Dominator-Platinum-3200MHz-Desktop/dp/B01BGZEWO2?th=1
Actually been liking Davinci over final cut. I still do mostly 1080p but will be moving to do more 4k soon.
I used Noctua goob for my dual xeon build.
thesmokingman
I have never used water cooling before and I am worried about it leaking and ruining things.
What is a good AIO for threadripper the AIOs I look at most of them do not cover the big threadripper chip.
This review has them using a NZXT Kraken water cooler and corsair dominator ram. they say the temps on the noctua cooler is a little high on the 3960x so may go with the AIO but which is the NZXT one good never heard of them?
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd-linux-3960x-3970x&num=1
I was going to do the same thing and do a 4 drive raid on the gigabyte card have a friend that did the same thing but with samsung evos.
 
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Someone collected temps from reviews on reddit. I'd check it out. Differences in the block shapes aside, I would lean towards a 360mm or higher rad setup. You want the extra water volume.


Also, if water is a concern with an aio, cut a piece of high absorbancy sponge and wedge it under the tubes. I do this for aio that I use for other ppls systems.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B079R933X5/
 
I have that same trx40 designare board on my 3970x, highly recommended. The only unexpected thing is that the titan ridge card doesn't fit in the PCIE X1 slot and needs to use one of the 4 x16 slots. If you end up using that card, plus the SSD AIC, you've killed off two of your slots, add in a 40g Infiniband card and video card and all the slots but the x1 are used. When the 3080ti or whatever it ends up being is released I'll probably end up with 2x video cards, the 40G IB card for ZFS network storage, and the thunderbolt card using all the PCIE 16 slots. I don't have much of a use for the AIC since I prefer to store my data on ZFS to prevent against silent corruption.

If you want to go with ECC and don't care that much about ram performance I can confirm 4x of CT16G4WFD8266 works. I think that is still the fastest ECC option available. ECC isn't required for a video build but I always retire my desktops to my ZFS server when I upgrade so prefer to just get ECC from the start.

Edit: also if you are using resolve for 4k60 a few minutes can eat through 50 to 60g of ram, I'll probably switch to 128, wouldn't go 32gb. 2080ti cards work excellent with resolve.
 
Howdy!

I use 8gb modules. This is so I can run 3600mhz speeds. Right now I have 32GB. Davinci 16 doesnt need more than 16gb at 1080p even with fusion. However, go to 32gb and you benefit largely at 4k. 8k/4k 60 fps you need 64 to get by with a really fast nvme to offload too or 128gb to really keep workloads in ram. But no one here is shooting 8k, I can almost guarantee it.I shoot in 4k from my phone, drones, and SLR cameras. If you need help learning something in Resolve PM me or look on youtube. There are a huge variety of how to's on yt. I notice some performance drop and slow downs during export when everything is rendering if its 4k 60fps even on my 2080ti doing the rendering due to my low ram. I'm going to be upgrading to 64 soon. I dont forsee needing more. If you are not a heavy fusion user you can get away with far less ram than most people recommend. Fusion is just a dog on ram man.

Also the corsair dom plats at 3600 are true samsung B die and overclock so good. Instead of running higher mhz you'll see more benefit in running cas 14/15 timings.

Dont get the modules though just because they're B die. Remember your also paying an RGB premium. So if you dont care about RGB you can save money and get some nice modules elsewhere.

4x8gb at 3600 is a really good speed considering its quad channel. If you go 8x8 I'm not sure you can get 3600. You might only get 3400 or so.

At 3200mhz though if you tighten timings you might see the same or more benefit than 3600mhz at c18 which is the modules I have but I run mine tighter. 8 modules and your expectations might change a lot.
 
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Someone collected temps from reviews on reddit. I'd check it out. Differences in the block shapes aside, I would lean towards a 360mm or higher rad setup. You want the extra water volume.


Also, if water is a concern with an aio, cut a piece of high absorbancy sponge and wedge it under the tubes. I do this for aio that I use for other ppls systems.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B079R933X5/

Dont forget the wraith ripper. It's a good cooler on air.
https://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-MAM-D7PN-DWRPS-T1-Wraith-Ripper/dp/B07H25DZ3M
 
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All this looks very weird. I'm kind of having the opposite behaviour.
I like a very stable setup without looking into the 3% gains everywhere. No OC, only ECC RAM (unbuffered only on Ryzen and Threadripper). I bought plenty of 16GB ECC RAM from Kingston 2400 and 2666 all Micron chips. Kingston which is a good quality RAM Taiwanese manufacturer is very much tested on Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers (all of them) vs less often for Crucial. You can find them on Amazon quite cheap.
I also avoid SSDs on Nvme for compatibility reasons. I use sata SSDs on trustworthy Raid 1 setups, booting on that Raid1. I use Optane on Nvme to cache the ssds on raid1 with primocache and I disable write cache for 100% security in case of failure, and also use the same optant Nvme for the exchange file of the OS.
For raid1 SSD, you need for the sake of security 2 different brands. Most of the time the SSD failure is because of some weakness on the drive, not because you used it too much till something breaks. Even though, endurance is the same on the same kind of drive so you may have a failure on both drives if they are of the same model, same brand, and you have used them to that point.
 
Someone collected temps from reviews on reddit. I'd check it out. Differences in the block shapes aside, I would lean towards a 360mm or higher rad setup. You want the extra water volume.


Also, if water is a concern with an aio, cut a piece of high absorbancy sponge and wedge it under the tubes. I do this for aio that I use for other ppls systems.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B079R933X5/
9 cm fans. Is that even serious ? Looks like. Interesting.

I'm not quite confident in moving water into my PC box. :)
 
9 cm fans. Is that even serious ? Looks like. Interesting.

I'm not quite confident in moving water into my PC box. :)

Hey man 9cm delta fans are BEAST! I have a few 9cm delta fans that are like 9000 rpm. Loud AF but will inflate a weather balloon.
 
I have that same trx40 designare board on my 3970x, highly recommended. The only unexpected thing is that the titan ridge card doesn't fit in the PCIE X1 slot and needs to use one of the 4 x16 slots. If you end up using that card, plus the SSD AIC, you've killed off two of your slots, add in a 40g Infiniband card and video card and all the slots but the x1 are used. When the 3080ti or whatever it ends up being is released I'll probably end up with 2x video cards, the 40G IB card for ZFS network storage, and the thunderbolt card using all the PCIE 16 slots. I don't have much of a use for the AIC since I prefer to store my data on ZFS to prevent against silent corruption.

If you want to go with ECC and don't care that much about ram performance I can confirm 4x of CT16G4WFD8266 works. I think that is still the fastest ECC option available. ECC isn't required for a video build but I always retire my desktops to my ZFS server when I upgrade so prefer to just get ECC from the start.

Edit: also if you are using resolve for 4k60 a few minutes can eat through 50 to 60g of ram, I'll probably switch to 128, wouldn't go 32gb. 2080ti cards work excellent with resolve.

The slots in the designaire and xtreme are very precious. You only get four and the AIC has to go in the 3rd slot leaving the last and 4th slot for the titan ridge card since it requires x4 lanes. The top two slots for gpu and whatever else or a 2nd gpu. And at least the 4 slots are actually usable unlike a lot of the other idiotic board slot layouts with their 2.5/1.5 slot setups. It is what it is, shrugs. If you wanted more than that then the trx80 or wrx80 is what yer looking for. Remember, trx40 is light I/O and is the beginner board chipset. This is not even hardcore yet.
 
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thesmokingman
Thank you for the information on heat temperatures.
From the temps on reddit it seems like the 3960x runs hotter then the 3970x. AIO doesn't seem that much better then air coolers. I am really skeptical about water cooling because I am really afraid of it leaking or having pump failure and I have no experience with water cooling.
The TRX40 Designare costs almost as much as a super micro dual epyc board, how expensive will the WRX80 be if it has more features.
I have not heard anything about WRX80 at all was rumored to release in Jan 2020 but doesn't seem to be much info.
mikeo
Thank you. I value stability and reliablity which is why I been getting dual cpu server builds and 2 was better then one.
The Crucial ecc sticks you mentioned are $100 each on crucial.com but are faster then the Samsung ecc 16 gb sticks I saw on ebay but I am not sure the samsung ecc sticks work in a threadripper. A friend has 128 gb of those samsung sticks on a dual epyc build.
My current machine actually has 128 gb of ram since ecc ddr3 server pulls are so cheap on ebay. I mostly work in 1080p still but will be moving to 4k more.
My storage server probably needs an upgrade is a dual opteron 24 bay supermicro I picked up from the deal thread here years ago. I was going to see if I could put the dual xeon 2680v2 with 128 gb of ram in it.
tangoseal
Thank you. I entended on going with 4x16 gb now and upgrade to 128 gb later. I also run VMs on hyperV although I may move most of them to my esxi server once I upgrade it. Its running old dual opterons now and also is my storage server.
64 gb (4x16) Crucial dominator 3200 not RGB isn't much cheaper $381 on amazon. is that worth getting or should I get other ram if I want 16 gb sticks? This was $329 not to long ago maybe should wait for it to go back down?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BGZEQNY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Just learning Davinci resolve coming from Final Cut Pro which I liked better then Adobe Premire.
MWraithripper looks like it should be good but the reviews show it at 81 degrees on the 3960x similar to the Noctua and the AIO's don't seem much better. Seems that custom water may be the way to go for cooler temps but I have no experience with that and am afraid of leaks or pump failure. Friend is running a Noctua on 3960x with 2 fans but its pushing 80C under load same as the reviewers.
Not sure I want to spend for a RTX 2080ti right now if the 3000 series is out soon and would like to see what the AMD 7nm cards do.
Jandor
I am like you value stability and reliability so been going with dual cpu server stuff for all builds. This is my first single cpu build and first one with nvme. Maybe I should just return the threadripper 4960x and go for a dual epyc?
 
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Thank you. I would like the option to upgrade to 8 x 16 gb but will be getting 64 gb to start. Does the ram speed matter that much if you just running stock speed?

I will be using the Aorus AIC card. I will have to look into Sabrent and if its worth the premium in price. I just went with Crucial SSDs in all my previous builds.

According to this the Air coolers work decently well for previous generations I have never worked with water cooling and am afraid of it leaking. Rather avoid it if possible. I am reading most of the AIOs do not cover the whole chip.
https://www.cgdirector.com/best-cpu-coolers-ryzen-threadripper/

Your build looks really impressive.

The Thermaltake Riing AIO mentioned in that link can barely handle the Threadripper 2920X and 2950X. It cannot handle a 32 core Threadripper 2990WX. I've tried it. It's a damn good AIO and the best I've ever used.
 
I'm good with the equal spread of resources.
I'm not good with the idea this build is going to last 5+ years.
In the content creation scenario I assume you can crank enough invoices thru the build, after writing the build cost off, that you can derive a profit formula that tells you when to jump on the next future thing to either maintain or increase your invoice clearing velocity.

I've worked in enough studios doing jobs for HBO & Universal that when the accountant starts freaking out about invoices log jamming and asking me what we can do to upgrade process to see diff upgrade triggers.
 
Still undecided on how I will cool the 3960x since according to the reddit thread the AIOs are not much better then the air coolers and they all run hotter then the recommended 68 degrees. Friend is running Noctua air cooler but is in the high 70s for temps Is that fine?

Maybe I should return the 3960x and build a dual epyc 7282 instead? That I know I can cool on air and ram is cheaper and its cheaper over all but it clocks at 2.8 but has 32 cores vs 3.8 of the threadripper 3960 w 24 cores. Afraid of leaks from water cooling.

somebrains
Lasting 5 + years doesn't mean I will be using it for work for 5 years. I want something reliable that lasts until I want to upgrade and then some. I still have my dual p3 asus p2b-ds running windows 2000, dual p4 pc-dl running xp I use for old xp games. evga sr2 that sees some use for games if friends are over. This is my first single processor build not using server motherboard.
 
Still undecided on how I will cool the 3960x since according to the reddit thread the AIOs are not much better then the air coolers and they all run hotter then the recommended 68 degrees. Friend is running Noctua air cooler but is in the high 70s for temps Is that fine?

Maybe I should return the 3960x and build a dual epyc 7282 instead? That I know I can cool on air and ram is cheaper and its cheaper over all but it clocks at 2.8 but has 32 cores vs 3.8 of the threadripper 3960 w 24 cores. Afraid of leaks from water cooling.

somebrains
Lasting 5 + years doesn't mean I will be using it for work for 5 years. I want something reliable that lasts until I want to upgrade and then some. I still have my dual p3 asus p2b-ds running windows 2000, dual p4 pc-dl running xp I use for old xp games. evga sr2 that sees some use for games if friends are over. This is my first single processor build not using server motherboard.

Fine? It is what it is. The chip is not going to die because it is stupid smart, will regulate itself, throttle etc to keep from overheating. What you should be concerned with is how much performance you are leaving on the table due to less than ideal cooling. Some ppl want to extract and capitalize on every % of performance and to some its not that big of a loss.

Why would you even consider an an Epyc? What sort of workload is this system intended for? Edit re-read yer OP. You don't even need a 3960x. You mostly use Adobe poorly threaded ware. Going to an Epyc would reduce performance lol. A 3950x would be better for its higher single thread boost behavior.
 
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I use m
Fine? It is what it is. The chip is not going to die because it is stupid smart, will regulate itself, throttle etc to keep from overheating. What you should be concerned with is how much performance you are leaving on the table due to less than ideal cooling. Some ppl want to extract and capitalize on every % of performance and to some its not that big of a loss.

Why would you even consider an an Epyc? What sort of workload is this system intended for? Edit re-read yer OP. You don't even need a 3960x. You mostly use Adobe poorly threaded ware. Going to an Epyc would reduce performance lol. A 3950x would be better for its higher single thread boost behavior.

Just get a 9900k for Adobe. Save a SHIT ton of money.
 
Should i go with the Corsair Dominator 64 gb 4x16 DDR4-3200 sticks or should I be looking at the G.Skill Trident Z Neo 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory?

thesmokingman
Thank you.

I was worried about the CPU running to hot since the recommended operating temperature was 68 degrees. I rather air cool and lose some performance then take the risk of leakage or damage with water cooling. So I can go with the Noctua cooler and it can run at 75 ish and it will just slow down a bit.

Been working more with in Final Cut Pro and starting to use Davinci resolve for video work use adobe for photoshop and lightroom though. 3d work is done in Maya. I also have the backup domain controller and some other test vms running on my machine the others are on my dual opteron esx server. I may repurpose the dual 2680v2s to do some of the virtual machines.

I was considering dual epyc since I have only build dual cpu workstations so far and have good luck with long term reliability and stability using server hardware. A friend just built a dual epyc for video and 3d work and is in the over clocking phase.

tangoseal
9900k doesn't have enough cores was looking to get more then 40 cores not less. Probably stick with the 3960x using Noctua air cooler then or is the Wraith ripper better? Doesn't seem so from the temps off reddit. Just very worried about water cooling leaking. Several friends had aios or custom loops leak.
 
Should i go with the Corsair Dominator 64 gb 4x16 DDR4-3200 sticks or should I be looking at the G.Skill Trident Z Neo 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory?

A friend just built a dual epyc for video and 3d work and is in the over clocking phase.

tangoseal
9900k doesn't have enough cores was looking to get more then 40 cores not less. Probably stick with the 3960x using Noctua air cooler then or is the Wraith ripper better? Doesn't seem so from the temps off reddit. Just very worried about water cooling leaking. Several friends had aios or custom loops leak.

I avoid Corsair ram like the plague, but to each his own.

Dual Epyc and not in a server makes me wonder.... WHY!!? That's just throwing money away lol, when there is TR3. Pick your poison, 24/32/64 cores. There is no point to Epyc on the desktop/hedt.

Oh back to your chip, it seems you do a bit of other multi threaded workload outside of Adobe, so yea an 8 core intel is probably not ideal.
 
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I was worried about the CPU running to hot since the recommended operating temperature was 68 degrees.
max temp is 68c, so 75c is going to throttle a lot... get over your fears and get proper cooling aka water.
 
for a 3960x? you sure aboot that? amd's site says max temp = 68c

For everything. Not sure you've thought it out clearly, 68 throttle point. That would make the cpu not useable. Fyi, they've stamped every cpu at one point or another with 68 max temp. It's meaningless except to give one a delta to 95c throttle point.
 
For everything. Not sure you've thought it out clearly, 68 throttle point. That would make the cpu not useable. Fyi, they've stamped every cpu at one point or another with 68 max temp. It's meaningless except to give one a delta to 95c throttle point.
my 2600x is rated at 90something, the 3960x and up are listed at 68c. if you know better, fine.
 
my 2600x is rated at 90something, the 3960x and up are listed at 68c. if you know better, fine.

It's NOT that I know better, it is a fact. But wtf would I know, its not like I built a TR3 rig yet or anything.
 
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I was considering dual epyc since I have only build dual cpu workstations so far and have good luck with long term reliability and stability using server hardware. A friend just built a dual epyc for video and 3d work and is in the over clocking phase.

Dual Epyc is largely pointless for the desktop. While this would potentially extend your core counts, it would also drastically reduce your CPU clocks. Not everything is infinitely parallel. That is, you reach a point of diminishing returns on core count, but not clock speeds. Individual architectures may run into clock speed walls, but clocks themselves by their nature never find diminishing returns. Or at the very least, we aren't going to see them anytime soon.

9900k doesn't have enough cores was looking to get more then 40 cores not less. Probably stick with the 3960x using Noctua air cooler then or is the Wraith ripper better? Doesn't seem so from the temps off reddit. Just very worried about water cooling leaking. Several friends had aios or custom loops leak.

By in large, water cooling when done properly is perfectly safe. Even if it leaks, coolant is generally non-conductive. Air cooling limits your performance on parts like the 3900X and 3950X. The single-core boost clock for the 3960X is behind the 3900X and 3950X, but not by a lot. The base clock is at 3.8GHz. In other words, you have some 40% more cores to cool at similar clocks. Despite being better binned, air cooling just isn't going to cut it. Why the hell would you want to reduce your CPU's performance when you put so much emphasis on having it in the first place? Going to liquid cooling for a CPU you intend to work hard like the 3960X makes perfect sense.

It's scary for first timers. I understand that but there are a lot of videos out there to help you on the subject. If you take your time and take a few precautions it will be fine.

As for the 9900K, the recommendation was about Adobe products which do very well on Intel processors. Often, Intel leads here despite having a disadvantage in core counts.

I avoid Corsair ram like the plague, but to each his own.

Dual Epyc and not in a server makes me wonder.... WHY!!? That's just throwing money away lol, when there is TR3. Pick your poison, 24/32/64 cores. There is no point to Epyc on the desktop/hedt.

Oh back to your chip, it seems you do a bit of other multi threaded workload outside of Adobe, so yea an 8 core intel is probably not ideal.

Agreed on all counts. Dual Epyc on the desktop would really be for niche purposes. I know there are some specialized scientific programs that benefit from it and that sort of thing, but your really better off spending that money on GPU compute units for stuff like that.

max temp is 68c, so 75c is going to throttle a lot... get over your fears and get proper cooling aka water.

This is false. I know what it says on the website, and how you arrived at this number but frankly, you can't trust what's on these sites a lot of times. A 3950X has similar clocks and won't run that cool if you push it hard under water cooling. There is no chance you can keep under 68c on a Threadripper 3960X on water, much less air cooling. General use it might operate that way, but not at 100% load or anything close to it.

for a 3960x? you sure aboot that? amd's site says max temp = 68c

Don't trust this figure. I don't see how it could be true.

For everything. Not sure you've thought it out clearly, 68 throttle point. That would make the cpu not useable. Fyi, they've stamped every cpu at one point or another with 68 max temp. It's meaningless except to give one a delta to 95c throttle point.

AMD's specifications aren't very detailed. How they arrive at that number is beyond me. All that really matters is what the throttle point is, and I'm damn sure 68c isn't it.
 
ok then, 95 it is then. i still think air isnt going to cool it properly.
 
for a 3960x? you sure aboot that? amd's site says max temp = 68c

68c means that you get rated boost up to that point. Past that point you get less and less boost until.you hit max of 95c at which actual base clocks are throttled back. Until 68c its boost clocks, after 68 its reduced, approach 95 and were talking reduced base clock and zero boosting. Past 95 you will trigger thermal protection and the chip will cut all voltage and freeze machine.

Its misunderstood. Dont worry OP.
 
ok then, 95 it is then. i still think air isnt going to cool it properly.

No, it won't. You can't even really keep a 3950X cool with one. There is no way you can cool a Threadripper 3960X effectively using the same means. Granted, you have a bit more surface area to work with but there are also a lot more cores in a third generation Threadripper too.
 
You know... the other obvious place to confirm this is Ryzen Master as it displays throttle point prominently top left pie chart.
 
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