New Ryzen 3950X / GTX 2080 Ti PC Build (Need Advice)

Changed my mind about going with a Ryzen build. I don’t need all the billion cores of the Ryzen 9 3900 X. I’ll mostly be using this PC for photography (Photoshop/Lightroom) and 2K/4K gaming. I’ve had good luck with the Sea Hawk GPU line as my last GTX 1080 version lasted several years and is still job going strong since I sold my old rig to my buddy. It also overclocked pretty well. I’m open to suggestions though.


>>> PARTS >>>>>


CPU:
AMD Ryzen 9 3950 X
[ $749 ]

GPU:
ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 2080 Ti ArcticStorm
[ $1599.99 ]

CPU/GPU COOLER:
EK-CoolStream SE 360 (Slim Triple) (x2)
EK-Velocity - AMD Nickel + Plexi
EK-DuraClear 9,5/12,7mm 3M RETAIL
EK-ATX Bridging Plug (24 pin)
EK-Cable Pump testing adapter
EK-Cable Y-Splitter 3-Fan PWM (10cm) (x2)
EK-CryoFuel Blood Red (Premix 1000mL)
Filling Bottle (1000mL)
EK-Vardar EVO 120ER RGB (500-2200 rpm) (x6)
EK-RGB 4-Way Splitter Cable (x2)
EK-XRES 140 SPC PWM Classic RGB - Plexi (incl. pump)
EK-UNI Pump Bracket (120mm FAN) Vertical
EK-Cable PWM Fan Extension (30cm)
EK-Torque STC-10/13 - Black Nickel (x10)
[ $626.61 ]

THERMAL COMPOUND:
Arctic Silver 5
[ $5.98 ]

MOTHERBOARD:
ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero (WI-FI)
[ 364.99 ]

RAM:
G.Skill Trident Z RGB 32 GB (4 x 8 GB)
[ $199.98 ]

STORAGE:
MyDigitalSSD BPX Pro 960 GB M.2 2280 NVME
[ $119.99 ]

CASE:
Lian Li PC-O11 Dynamic ATX Full Tower Case
[ $129.99 ]

POWER SUPPLY
Corsair RMx 1000 W
[ $174.99 ]

CUSTOM POWER SUPPLY CABLING:
CableMod C-Series ModMesh Black and White
[ $69.99 ]

TOTAL: 4041.51

The link is to a private listing

My bad. Updated the OP.

Sorrry for late reply.
I see a couple things I would change
#1 Better M.2 drive same price
Better write speeds Phision controller have one myself and love it plus 5 year warranty.
MyDigitalSSD 960GB BPX Pro 80mm (2280-S3-M) M.2 PCI Express 3.1 x4 (PCIe Gen3 x4) NVMe SSD - MDNVME80-BPXP-1T
#2 The PSU is way overkill even if watercooling+tons of lighting + another GPU down the road. All you need is as follows. Trust me or head for a PSU calculator and figure it out your self. With die sizes and power demands shrinking you'll be good down the road. I had overclocked 4770k and 2- 290x BF4 edition AMD GPUs which were overclock too and watercooled with a 850w PSU which never made it to 600 watts used according to Killawatt.
Best bang for buck plus 10 year warranty
CORSAIR RMX Series, RM750x, 750 Watt, 80+ Gold Certified, Fully Modular Power Supply
(My Pick) Best Upgrade pick I love the monitoring software for this one if you like keeping track of your PSU it has tons of built in sensors plus 10 year warranty
Corsair RMi Series, RM750i, 750 Watt, 80+ Gold Certified, Fully Modular - Digital Power Supply
Beyond that I think you've made some wise decisions. I might still go with AMD for my new build but like you I'm on the fence.
GL

owcraftsman said:

Sorrry for late reply.
I see a couple things I would change
#1 Better M.2 drive same price
Better write speeds Phision controller have one myself and love it plus 5 year warranty.
MyDigitalSSD 960GB BPX Pro 80mm (2280-S3-M) M.2 PCI Express 3.1 x4 (PCIe Gen3 x4) NVMe SSD - MDNVME80-BPXP-1T
#2 The PSU is way overkill even if watercooling+tons of lighting + another GPU down the road. All you need is as follows. Trust me or head for a PSU calculator and figure it out your self. With die sizes and power demands shrinking you'll be good down the road. I had overclocked 4770k and 2- 290x BF4 edition AMD GPUs which were overclock too and watercooled with a 850w PSU which never made it to 600 watts used according to Killawatt.
Best bang for buck plus 10 year warranty
CORSAIR RMX Series, RM750x, 750 Watt, 80+ Gold Certified, Fully Modular Power Supply
(My Pick) Best Upgrade pick I love the monitoring software for this one if you like keeping track of your PSU it has tons of built in sensors plus 10 year warranty
Corsair RMi Series, RM750i, 750 Watt, 80+ Gold Certified, Fully Modular - Digital Power Supply
Beyond that I think you've made some wise decisions. I might still go with AMD for my new build but like you I'm on the fence.
GL

Click to expand...

Thanks dude. Appreciate the recommendations. I’ll definitely snag that SSD when it’s stock again. I think I may actually be going with AMD for the CPU. Gonna be doing a lot of 4K video editing, and it looks like from reviews online that it excels in Photoshop over Intel as well when many layers and filters are involved, which I use a lot of. And the gaming performance is almost negligible between the two. And the AMD seems to take a steamy coil all over Intel for multi-threaded processes ... sometimes nearly double performance. I think I’m gonna wait for the Ryzen 9 9350 X in November, plus I’ll get all my parts during Black Friday sales as well. If for some reason AMD delays it again, I’ll probably just go with the 3900 X.

I think I’m gonna go with a custom loop this time around. I haven’t done one before, but I don’t see a point in this build if I can’t overclock to its full potential, especially with the 3950X, which really shines when overclocked. I have two months of researching to do before I put this all together, so I think I’ll be alright.

In consideration of the 3950X I would consider moving up to the Kraken X72. It will fit in the Air740, be quiter at idle, and perform better under stressful overclocked loads. If you go AMD I would focus more on the memory overclocking as head room on the 3950X will be small, and you'll see you greatest boost from memory. IMHO

Do you think the Kraken X72 will be sufficient for overclocking the 3950X? I suppose I can use the X72 as a placeholder for now and do a custom loop later down the road if it’s not enough.

I read the sweet spot for the Ryzen in regards to RAM is 3600 for Infinity Fabric, so that’s what I’m using in this build.

I’m still torn between going with a custom loop now instead of waiting though.

Shoganai said:

Do you think the Kraken X72 will be sufficient for overclocking the 3950X? I suppose I can use the X72 as a placeholder for now and do a custom loop later down the road if it’s not enough.

I read the sweet spot for the Ryzen in regards to RAM is 3600 for Infinity Fabric, so that’s what I’m using in this build.

I’m still torn between going with a custom loop now instead of waiting though.

Click to expand...

Don't people generally leave the Ryzen CPUs in auto and let it do it's thing? I think most get worse results when they manually OC since you lose the single threaded boosts.

Overall the X72 should get you 90% of the way there.

Nothing beats custom loops though. And you don't have to go nuts on a custom loop either. I use 1/4" ID tubing and D5 pump for rigs that use 1000 watts, two GPUs + a cpu in series with eachother. The second GPU only hits 60C with everything under load. Water is a great heat transfer medium. If you do go custom I love http://www.performance-pcs.com. I don't find their webpage my favorite to navigate, but they are super helpful and quick shipping.

Dayaks said:

Don't people generally leave the Ryzen CPUs in auto and let it do it's thing? I think most get worse results when they manually OC since you lose the single threaded boosts.

Overall the X72 should get you 90% of the way there.

Nothing beats custom loops though. And you don't have to go nuts on a custom loop either. I use 1/4" ID tubing and D5 pump for rigs that use 1000 watts, two GPUs + a cpu in series with eachother. The second GPU only hits 60C with everything under load. Water is a great heat transfer medium. If you do go custom I love http://www.performance-pcs.com. I don't find their webpage my favorite to navigate, but they are super helpful and quick shipping.

Click to expand...

Yeah the 3000 series has auto OC, but it’s based on the amount of heat dissipation and power delivery of the motherboard, so I’m assuming a custom loop would allow it to shine the most. I still have two months to think about which way to go. I’ll definitely check out that site. Thanks.

Well I've updated my build. I've decided I'm gonna go with a full custom loop this time. I went with EKWB because I really like the look of their set ups. I went with the Zotac ArcticStorm because it just makes me giddy. It's a bit pricey, though, but so are all the other water-blocked GPUs. I don't think I have the courage to do my own water-block unless there's some really helpful guides out there. I went with the Lian Li Dynamic because it's designed specifically for liquid cooling and I really like the front and side glass and the dual chamber for cable management. This may not be the final build, but I really like what I have so far. I really appreciate the advice.

There are very helpful guides out there for installing GPU waterblocks and it may seem daunting but maufacturers have made it very straight forward and easy especially the big boys like EK. The Zotac looks nice but I don't see where it chanels flow over the PWM areas 1&2 which gives me cause for concern.
Note the differenmces between the Zotac water channels and the EK below. I think it boils down to a refined implementation vs a basic.



I'm not say it is a cheap imitation but it does givew me cause for concern.
Link to EK's Installation pdf. https://www.ekwb.com/shop/EK-IM/EK-IM-3831109810477.pdf
A Good video for Installing the EK Vector 2080 Ti Block


and another video>

The next two blocks are the best performance wise but you'll find less in terms of videos which is a shame because they both out perform the more popular EK

If you want the absolute best and cost is no object for GPU Cooling go to my personal favorite
kryographics NEXT RTX 2080 Ti / Titan RTX with Back plate for kryographics NEXT RTX 2080 Ti / Titan RTX, active XCS
There is no comparison when you add the superior PWM cooling. I've used their blocks many times and have proven the Active XCS is very effective. Most notable difference was on an R9 290X

Honorable Mention (best performing) (and my favorite watercooling retailer)
Watercool Heatkiller IV RTX 2080 Ti Waterblock
No videos but their blocks come with good instruction and they pride themselves on ease of installation

Your advice has been golden, thank you. What GPU would you recommend for the water block? I’ve heard EVGA doesn’t void your warranty if you water block their GPUs, which is a big plus.

EVGA is my go to for GPUs because I've shared your concern, but I've RMA'ed Asus and Sapphire GPUs that were watercooled. Honestly, they all do the trick is put the factory air cooler back on before returning. There are many folks who don't water cool that remove factory air coolers and replace the TIM first thing before they install the GPU into the system, which is another casue for concern with the Zotac. So, if tampering with the device was forbidden there would be many folks up in arms.

Which EVGA card do you recommend? Does it matter? The EVGA 2080 Ti Black is pretty cheap.

If you can't wait for what's next from Nvidia and you game at 2560x1440 The 2080 Ti is over kill Ray Tracing is useless with a 2080Ti at 2560x1440 let alone 4k.
If you must buy now I would consider the 2080 super great for 2560x1440 without Raytracing and a good enough to hold you over to what's next.
I expect the 2nd gen tensor cores will be beefed up substantially and worth the wait.
Considering all you've said to date I would look at THIS which will save you a few bucks and make you giddy again
I have the 2080Ti w/HC and I have to admit it does it's job pretty well but again I wasted money on it and could have done better in terms of bang for buck with the above.

owcraftsman said:

If you can't wait for what's next from Nvidia and you game at 2560x1440 The 2080 Ti is over kill Ray Tracing is useless with a 2080Ti at 2560x1440 let alone 4k.
If you must buy now I would consider the 2080 super great for 2560x1440 without Raytracing and a good enough to hold you over to what's next.
I expect the 2nd gen tensor cores will be beefed up substantially and worth the wait.
Considering all you've said to date I would look at THIS which will save you a few bucks and make you giddy again
I have the 2080Ti w/HC and I have to admit it does it's job pretty well but again I wasted money on it and could have done better in terms of bang for buck with the above.

Click to expand...

I actually need the 2080 Ti as I use a lot of Adobe software and they hunger for CUDA cores. You’ve already saved me hundreds from your suggestions already so I’m quite giddy as it is. Ray tracing is ridiculous at the moment so I don’t intend to use it anyway. I may end up going with a 2K 144 Hz display for the overkill factor for gaming. I sometimes game on my 4K HDR TV as well. But I do actually do need all the juice I can get. That is a pretty smoking deal on that 2080 Hydro though. Sheesh.

When the new NVIDIA stuff comes out I’ll upgrade.

Edit: I didn’t realize NVIDIA might release new cards next year. Gah! Lol. <_<

Hmm... that 2080 may be a possibility. We’ll see.

Editititit: Good grief. I may just wait for Ampere. Three “confirmed” rumors of an early 2020 release. I’ll just build the rest of the PC for now sans GPU.

I really really appreciate the help you’ve given me.