i7 930 owner rejoining the Red Team, buy now or wait?

gpitpitan

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 15, 2004
Messages
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I've been out of the game for awhile (checkout my signature for my current rig) and holy s**t a lot has changed. HardOCP only lives on in forum form and the last AMD CPU I owned was a Clawhammer FX-53 that I cooled with a Koolance Exos (remember those?). So I find myself back in HardForum to get some advice/feedback on moving forward with a new build. I can potentially push my budget up to $3000 should there be a very convincing reason to (one of the other things that has changed since I built this rig was getting married, so I can't go ham on parts like I used to lol).

I'm considering upgrading because of Coronavirus having (most of) us stay at home and finding that my ancient setup simply cannot keep up with most recently released games (the best I can do is Civ 6 and the recent HALO remasters) and also needing (wanting) a better optimized setup to run the programs I need to finish my degree (ArcGIS Pro and others). So I decided to reuse some of the components in my current rig in order to maximize the dollars spent on the fun stuff. Which means I plan on reusing my existing 800D chassis, the EK 360 rad and D5 pump/reservoir setup, and my AX1200i PSU, all of which have performed absolutely flawlessly over the last decade and only now is my case showing its age a bit. My current monitor is a 24" 144hz 1080p which I would love to replace with a widescreen 1440 or perhaps 4k in the future.


Here is what I have put together so far:
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 3.5 GHz 16-Core Processor ($719.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero (WI-FI) ATX AM4 Motherboard ($379.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($197.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Corsair MP600 Force Series Gen4 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($194.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Asus GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB STRIX GAMING Advanced Video Card ($584.99 @ Best Buy)
Total: $2077.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-05-15 02:54 EDT-0400


In the past when I've built new rigs I've gone all out so it's been a challenge not choosing every top of the line part out there and sticking to a budget. I'm a little brand loyal but when their components have lasted 10+ years it's hard to argue against.

You probably noticed I don't have any type of cooler in there. That's where the EK-Quantum Momentum ROG Crosshair VIII Hero D-RGB comes in along with an additional EK 120mm radiator to the cooling loop. So factor in about $250-300 for those items along with the required fittings, tubing etc. I go back and forth a lot on 3950x vs 3900x as well as spending the extra $$$ and getting a 2080 super instead of the 2070. Also, I considered going with CL 14 memory but its double the cost of the ones I have on the list, from what I understand Zen 2 likes ram speed and CL isn't as important/worth the extra cost? (I could be wrong)

My biggest concern is the fact that Zen 3 is coming towards the end of 2020 in addition to Big Navi. Waiting feels like the best choice in the long term since I've already gone 10 years so whats another 6-7 months?

But the age of my current rig has REALLY started to show and it's hard not to pull the trigger on something right now (especially since Asus X570 finally restocked today on newegg) and since I will be finding myself spending almost all of my time at home for potentially the rest of 2020, I'd like to maximize my enjoyment while I'm here.

I'm also not planning to upgrade the new rig since my other hobby (offroading/overlanding) usually takes up most of my time and money and I'll soon have kids and a mortgage to worry about along with the cost of living in California. For now I just want something that can play the latest games and perhaps a few titles of the future and be my ArcGIS/productivity workstation. Ideally I'd like the rig to hopefully last 5+ years knowing that over time I will have to lower settings on games to keep acceptable FPS.

Would you wait for the next hardware release? Do you think reusing parts of my now 10 year old rig isn't a good idea? What other parts would you choose? Should I watercool the GPU as well? Are you tired of getting asked the same upgrade questions 1892372 different ways?

Thanks in advance!
 
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If you're spending that much, you should just go full Threadripper and get a 3960x. I've been trying to convince myself that I need to upgrade my workstation with an i7-3930k and that's way I plan on going.
 
I go back and forth a lot on 3950x vs 3900x as well as spending the extra $$$

I had the same dilemma around two months ago however the deciding factor ended up being the amount of money I had at that point lost on the stock market (which at its peak was over 8 years of my salary). With that said I am happy of my choice it works out well in my use case as a software developer. I am not sure I would have gotten full value of the extra 4 cores based on the percentage of all 24 threads being utilized building millions of lines of c++ code in Visual Studio 2019.
 
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My biggest concern is the fact that Zen 3 is coming towards the end of 2020 in addition to Big Navi. Waiting feels like the best choice in the long term since I've already gone 10 years so whats another 6-7 months?

I agree with this sentiment. I personally would wait for zen 3 and next gen gpus. You can't really make a bad choice in your situation tho, anything is going to be a major upgrade.
 
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Like you've already said: Do you REALLY need it right away? If not, then Ryzen 4xxx is coming down the pike and 2 things will happen for you that are on the plus side. 1) Newest and latest will be available and 2) Previous gen will go on sale, even the top 39xx.

I'm running a 3900x on my main rig right now and I've thought about upgrading to the 3950x but paying close to retail when we're this close to the new next gen announcements, made me decide to wait.

Either way x570 will be good for at least another generation, so you'll be good there.

Personally, I'm debating whether I actually need 12 cores for games ... much less 16. I may have to reconsider for my next gen build myself. Not sure if you have any other needs besides gaming / dicking around. Something to consider also.
 
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I would go with the Ryzen 9 3900X, it is a much better value imho.

Why do you want to spend $379 for the Asus motherboard? Honestly, it isn't needed. You could save some money there and for the CPU if you take the 3900X instead of the 3950X and rather upgrade the GPU to a 2080 Super or 2080ti.
I would've recommended this Mobo https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MAG-X570-TOMAHAWK-WIFI but it is not yet available.
I just checked newegg.com, geez, all X570 mobos are out of stock. I personally run the Gigabyte Aorus X570 Ultra and it is very good so far. BIOS support is top notch and price was OK, but also this one is not available right now. Even my local Microcenter has only 1 X570 motherboard in stock.

Edit:

Just saw you want to watercool your CPU and motherboard. So disregard my board suggestion.
 
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I would suggest going with the 3900X instead of the 3950X. I had to make that decision back in november when I built the rig in my sig. It comes down to no game is going to use all those cores, and the money you save can be put into either video card or memory instead...or just saved to reduce the cost.
 
That Threadripper is an expensive platform. You can get up to 16c/32t with Ryzen so even for heavy multi-core productivity stuff I'd probably go with that one as far as a home office goes. Though if money is no object, there's nothing out there like Threadripper. I mean it's pretty amazing, 32c/64t and 64c/128t can be had with a desktop system.
 
welcome i just joined the red team about a week ago been using intels for last 20 years and im really happy with my 3900x.
 
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Personally, I'm debating whether I actually need 12 cores for games ... much less 16. I may have to reconsider for my next gen build myself. Not sure if you have any other needs besides gaming / dicking around. Something to consider also.

I will answer this, although you didn't ask for my opinion. You don't need 12 cores... And even with the new consoles that comes with 8 core Ryzens, i don't think the 8 cores will be fully exploited, exactly because there is also the PC market that devs have to consider and companies are still selling new quads and they can't cut all these potential customers off. They will have to include them at least in the minimum requirements. The 3300X, in Battlefield, which i think can load 8 cores just fine, beats the 2600 which is 6 core. By the time games really start to benefit from 12 cores, you will have upgraded your CPU 4 times.
 
I will answer this, although you didn't ask for my opinion. You don't need 12 cores... And even with the new consoles that comes with 8 core Ryzens, i don't think the 8 cores will be fully exploited, exactly because there is also the PC market that devs have to consider and companies are still selling new quads and they can't cut all these potential customers off. They will have to include them at least in the minimum requirements. The 3300X, in Battlefield, which i think can load 8 cores just fine, beats the 2600 which is 6 core. By the time games really start to benefit from 12 cores, you will have upgraded your CPU 4 times.

I switched gears and started a 3300x build after seeing their performance per dollar and taking my current monitor setup into account. I'm beginning to realize I'm not the hardcore gamer I used to be with the bankroll and desire to back up a high end build anymore and that the hardware scene and what you can do with lower budgets is pretty incredible compared to 10 years ago.

Once the B550 motherboards (particularly the ASUS ROG Strix B550-E Gaming) come out it looks like I can have a nice 1080p 144hz rig together for just over $1000 which will have me reuse my existing chassis and PSU and throw in a EK waterblock down the line to replace the Wraith cooler. Then maybe upgrade the CPU in a few years with a Zen 3 CPU if the gains/prices are good.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 3300X 3.8 GHz Quad-Core Processor
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory ($144.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Sabrent Rocket 4.0 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($199.98 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Asus Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB STRIX Gaming OC Video Card ($424.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $769.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-05-15 16:41 EDT-0400
 
Welcome back! I had an i7 920 back in the day. That series was great.

I was a Geology major in college and as such played around with ArcGIS a little bit. I only have basic familiarity with it but you might want to look into how many cores/threads it can utilize to see if the 3950X would save you time over the 3900X.

I wouldn't hold out if you want a new computer now. I think if your current rig were a little more modern, it might make sense to wait and see what Ryzen 4000 and RTX 3000 bring to the table, but we don't even have model numbers yet, much less a firm release date. Based on Ryzen 3000 and RTX 2000 releases, availability will be spotty and prices will be high the first few months. Factor in uncertainly with supply chains due to COVID, and it could very likely be 2021 before those parts are widely available. If you do decide to build now, build on the X570 chipset so you have the option to upgrade to Ryzen 4000 if you want to.
 
I switched gears and started a 3300x build after seeing their performance per dollar and taking my current monitor setup into account. I'm beginning to realize I'm not the hardcore gamer I used to be with the bankroll and desire to back up a high end build anymore and that the hardware scene and what you can do with lower budgets is pretty incredible compared to 10 years ago.

Once the B550 motherboards (particularly the ASUS ROG Strix B550-E Gaming) come out it looks like I can have a nice 1080p 144hz rig together for just over $1000 which will have me reuse my existing chassis and PSU and throw in a EK waterblock down the line to replace the Wraith cooler. Then maybe upgrade the CPU in a few years with a Zen 3 CPU if the gains/prices are good.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 3300X 3.8 GHz Quad-Core Processor
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 Memory ($144.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Sabrent Rocket 4.0 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($199.98 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Asus Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB STRIX Gaming OC Video Card ($424.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $769.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-05-15 16:41 EDT-0400


I know where you 're coming from. That build you made is super fine and very good bang for buck.

I used to do a lot of video encoding and i was always after many cores, but i stopped and now i use the PC for browsing, films and games that are mostly 6-10+ years old. Plus, i want to stay with Win7 for as long as possible... So, i am going for a bang for buck solution too. For now i have: 1 B450 board (the most expensive mobo i 've ever bought), 3 A320 boards (i ordered the 3rd today...MSI A320 VH Pro Plus for EUR70-covid19 effect. I already had one such and also have 1 MSI A320M-A Pro Max. I don't overclock and will be using 65W so who cares about VRM. Besides, the 2 MSI VH have the same VRM as most MSI B350... 2 of them don't have M2, but i don't care about it either.), 2x8GB Corsair 3000C15, 2x8GB Crucial Ballistix 3200C16, 1xRyzen 2600, 1xRyzen 1600AF.

Bottom line: I will be able to have 2 PCs, each with 1 spare motherboard, that will be enough for me for many, many years.
Bonus: I have also an itch for an extra RAM kit (for spares in case a DIMM fries), 1 Ryzen 1200AF (and keep the 1600AF as spare in case the 2600 fries). But i will probably wait for this part...

It's amazing how much value you can get out of budget pieces nowdays. You can get a really powerful machine for cheap.
 
It's not a bad idea going 3300x as to give you a taste and most important you have an AM4 socket already when prices fall to you in the used area once AMD shows us the 4000 desktop cpu's .
 
Wait for the inevitable buildzoid video where he runs down b550 build specs. I've always had good luck pushing zen1 & Zen+ to max all core using freebie with cpu purchase tier ASRock b450 boards.

Read up on any early adopter x570 tomahawk issues. That board has been hyped for a month now. I've never been that into MSI boards, bios seems to get late additions or late fixes.

Gigabyte is ok unless you get a boot looper.

You could always default to a safe bet x570-p or x570 tuf if nothing is lemming worthy. BZ was the reason so many people fell off a cliff a few days ago when their b450 Tomahawk Max wouldn't support 4xxx. Doesn't make it a bad board if you could score a lightly used one for someone that goes b550 the day they launch.

Dear Bauer made a good point, 3950x is a solid upgrade for abandoned owners. There's no guarantee 4xxx will have much going for it before AM5 makes everything ewaste.
 
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If you are spending this kind of money, get a 3700x and enjoy the new architecture on the rest of your nice hardware until 4000 series drops, then put the 4950x in there, since your X570 board will accept it.
 
Read up on any early adopter x570 tomahawk issues. That board has been hyped for a month now. I've never been that into MSI boards, bios seems to get late additions or late fixes.
I bought the X570 Unify and love it. Rock solid stable, fantastic VRM cooling, multiple NVME slots, and looks beautiful to boot.
 
I've been out of the game for awhile (checkout my signature for my current rig) and holy s**t a lot has changed. HardOCP only lives on in forum form and the last AMD CPU I owned was a Clawhammer FX-53 that I cooled with a Koolance Exos (remember those?). So I find myself back in HardForum to get some advice/feedback on moving forward with a new build. I can potentially push my budget up to $3000 should there be a very convincing reason to (one of the other things that has changed since I built this rig was getting married, so I can't go ham on parts like I used to lol).

I'm considering upgrading because of Coronavirus having (most of) us stay at home and finding that my ancient setup simply cannot keep up with most recently released games (the best I can do is Civ 6 and the recent HALO remasters) and also needing (wanting) a better optimized setup to run the programs I need to finish my degree (ArcGIS Pro and others). So I decided to reuse some of the components in my current rig in order to maximize the dollars spent on the fun stuff. Which means I plan on reusing my existing 800D chassis, the EK 360 rad and D5 pump/reservoir setup, and my AX1200i PSU, all of which have performed absolutely flawlessly over the last decade and only now is my case showing its age a bit. My current monitor is a 24" 144hz 1080p which I would love to replace with a widescreen 1440 or perhaps 4k in the future.


Here is what I have put together so far:
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 3.5 GHz 16-Core Processor ($719.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero (WI-FI) ATX AM4 Motherboard ($379.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($197.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Corsair MP600 Force Series Gen4 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($194.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Asus GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB STRIX GAMING Advanced Video Card ($584.99 @ Best Buy)
Total: $2077.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-05-15 02:54 EDT-0400


In the past when I've built new rigs I've gone all out so it's been a challenge not choosing every top of the line part out there and sticking to a budget. I'm a little brand loyal but when their components have lasted 10+ years it's hard to argue against.

You probably noticed I don't have any type of cooler in there. That's where the EK-Quantum Momentum ROG Crosshair VIII Hero D-RGB comes in along with an additional EK 120mm radiator to the cooling loop. So factor in about $250-300 for those items along with the required fittings, tubing etc. I go back and forth a lot on 3950x vs 3900x as well as spending the extra $$$ and getting a 2080 super instead of the 2070. Also, I considered going with CL 14 memory but its double the cost of the ones I have on the list, from what I understand Zen 2 likes ram speed and CL isn't as important/worth the extra cost? (I could be wrong)

My biggest concern is the fact that Zen 3 is coming towards the end of 2020 in addition to Big Navi. Waiting feels like the best choice in the long term since I've already gone 10 years so whats another 6-7 months?

But the age of my current rig has REALLY started to show and it's hard not to pull the trigger on something right now (especially since Asus X570 finally restocked today on newegg) and since I will be finding myself spending almost all of my time at home for potentially the rest of 2020, I'd like to maximize my enjoyment while I'm here.

I'm also not planning to upgrade the new rig since my other hobby (offroading/overlanding) usually takes up most of my time and money and I'll soon have kids and a mortgage to worry about along with the cost of living in California. For now I just want something that can play the latest games and perhaps a few titles of the future and be my ArcGIS/productivity workstation. Ideally I'd like the rig to hopefully last 5+ years knowing that over time I will have to lower settings on games to keep acceptable FPS.

Would you wait for the next hardware release? Do you think reusing parts of my now 10 year old rig isn't a good idea? What other parts would you choose? Should I watercool the GPU as well? Are you tired of getting asked the same upgrade questions 1892372 different ways?

Thanks in advance!

Looks looks super solid dude.

Keep an eye on the buildapcsales subreddit. I always see 2070 supers going for ~ 475 and have seen 2080 supers for ~625.

New parts coming out will not make your parts obsolete if you buy today, you can always use it for a bit and sell and drop in upgrade to ryzen 4000 if you really want to. You'll likely be able to recoup a good chunk of your cpu investment (50-75%, so you'll lose $200?) and you get to enjoy a new rig during corona time (~6-10 months?)

Edit: Just saw you're going with a cheaper setup. Still super solid and likely will see no discernable difference. Keep an eye out on above subreddit as you will often find 5700xt's dipping into the 350-375 range. Keep in mind if you get an x570 or B550 board today you will be able to drop in a ryzen 4000 series in the future.
 
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If you're spending that much, you should just go full Threadripper and get a 3960x. I've been trying to convince myself that I need to upgrade my workstation with an i7-3930k and that's way I plan on going.
Good thing the OP switched gears towards a different direction after he thought about his current usage situation. However, had he gone with your suggestion, then he would have substantially blown even that high of a budget because a TR4-socket motherboard by itself costs $600 while the 3960X by itself costs $1,300. That's already $1,900 just for the CPU and motherboard - and that does not include any RAM or GPU at all whatsoever, nor does it come with any SSD storage whatsoever. That leaves only $200 left, total, for all three components combined. That's just plain pound-foolish, since he will NEVER get anything decent in terms of a GPU, RAM and storage all for $200 combined. In fact, he would have needed to budget another $2,000 just for those components to prevent a major bottleneck in that Threadripper system. Why spend $1,900 on a 3960X with motherboard alone, only to completely choke the entire build with only a GeForce GT 710 DDR3 and only 8 GB total of RAM and only a 128 GB SSD? Makes no sense at all right there.
 
Good thing the OP switched gears towards a different direction after he thought about his current usage situation. However, had he gone with your suggestion, then he would have substantially blown even that high of a budget because a TR4-socket motherboard by itself costs $600 while the 3960X by itself costs $1,300. That's already $1,900 just for the CPU and motherboard - and that does not include any RAM or GPU at all whatsoever, nor does it come with any SSD storage whatsoever. That leaves only $200 left, total, for all three components combined. That's just plain pound-foolish, since he will NEVER get anything decent in terms of a GPU, RAM and storage all for $200 combined. In fact, he would have needed to budget another $2,000 just for those components to prevent a major bottleneck in that Threadripper system. Why spend $1,900 on a 3960X with motherboard alone, only to completely choke the entire build with only a GeForce GT 710 DDR3 and only 8 GB total of RAM and only a 128 GB SSD? Makes no sense at all right there.

He said he could push it to $3000, which is what I was referring to when saying if he's spending that much. Like him, I'll be reusing my case (PC-V2120) and AX1200i, and can easily get the rest of a 3960X setup for $3000, actually just bought a 2070 Super to replace the two GTX 670s this weekend.
 
I bought the X570 Unify and love it. Rock solid stable, fantastic VRM cooling, multiple NVME slots, and looks beautiful to boot.

The Unify is fine, the early owners of other low $ MSI boards weren't so happy.

I'm kinda seeing the x570 Tomahawk as the board that would have raked in the $200 general use segment for them if it was 1 of their launch boards.

I have a b450 tomahawk here I've got for an older kid 1st gaming PC build. You can see the quality, but also looking at the spec sheets of this board vs the Max version there's that iterative MSI release ladder clearly visible.
 
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Really appreciate the feedback everyone, it felt like a dumb series of oft repeated questions/hypotheticals but I'm glad I put it out there to see what others thought. Makes me glad to see these forums alive and well still after being away so long.

But after even MORE debating (some parts being out of stock or just not even out yet helps prevent impulse buys lol), I decided to stretch the legs on my X58 just a little bit longer until the release of Zen 3 / X670 mobos along with RDNA/Big Navi/Ampere releases.

It's actually been kinda fun dusting off my overclocking notes and giving the old rig some long overdue maintenance. I noticed the temps were above normal on the CPU/GPU so I replaced their very old TIM which made an appreciable difference. The downside is that my i7 930 is tired and showing obvious signs of degradation (temps are up 10c from their old baseline and it does NOT like the voltages I used to run her at), I had to drop my OC to 3.8 and find the lowest vcore I could for stability.

Then did some research on how else I could maximize what I have for as little money as possible. So I went with a Xeon X5675 I got off ebay for about 30 bucks. Hoping I get a good one and am able to hit 4.4 - 4.6ghz. Got another 6 gigs of ram for about 40 bucks to fill out the slots and I'll be running 12gb (lol) total soon enough.

Will this run future AAA titles at max settings and 100+ fps? No. Will it run the games of the last 5+ years at 1080p high/max settings at around 60fps give or take? It will and I'm ok with that. That said, I am very excited to see what Zen 3 and the upcoming GPU launches will bring to the table. Going further, I briefly thought about waiting for AM5/Ryzen 5000 but that seems like an eternity from now and my life can and probably will change drastically between now and then.

Im hoping my next WOW! moment in gaming/PC hardware will be jumping into 4k resolution max settings at a solid 60+ fps or perhaps even better high refresh 4k gaming? (my last one was playing an FPS across a triple monitor setup on a 480GTX SLI) Maybe then I'll be in a position to put something really special (custom hard tube watercooling, monster 4k screen) together that can hopefully carry me another 10 years lol.
 
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Problem with high graphics quality settings is that you're always chasing top tier gpu, and bolstering framerate on cou bound games with dumb $ cpu.

Let's assume you've spent the coin on an edge case monitor like 1440p 240hz, or 4k 144hz. Very quickly you'll find there will be a multi gen ramp up of gpu and cpu to feed that monitor.

I like restraining my builds to the here and now.
I've burned enough $ on builds centered around a monitor that's 3 years away from flat frametime and no tune gaming.

Recording and streaming as an exercise taught me that resolution and framerate tuning is no diff than when I used to bracket race cars.

You cannot just throw parts at your pile of junk constantly over time without focus on tuning to output.

Everyone wants to do 200mph on salt flats, but the commitment to build usually isn't there.

Spend less, constrain your build, enjoy more.
 
Really appreciate the feedback everyone, it felt like a dumb series of oft repeated questions/hypotheticals but I'm glad I put it out there to see what others thought. Makes me glad to see these forums alive and well still after being away so long.

But after even MORE debating (some parts being out of stock or just not even out yet helps prevent impulse buys lol), I decided to stretch the legs on my X58 just a little bit longer until the release of Zen 3 / X670 mobos along with RDNA/Big Navi/Ampere releases.

It's actually been kinda fun dusting off my overclocking notes and giving the old rig some long overdue maintenance. I noticed the temps were above normal on the CPU/GPU so I replaced their very old TIM which made an appreciable difference. The downside is that my i7 930 is tired and showing obvious signs of degradation (temps are up 10c from their old baseline and it does NOT like the voltages I used to run her at), I had to drop my OC to 3.8 and find the lowest vcore I could for stability.

Then did some research on how else I could maximize what I have for as little money as possible. So I went with a Xeon X5670 I got off ebay for about 30 bucks. Hoping I get a good one and am able to hit 4.4 - 4.6ghz. Got another 6 gigs of ram for about 40 bucks to fill out the slots and I'll be running 12gb (lol) total soon enough.

Will this run future AAA titles at max settings and 100+ fps? No. Will it run the games of the last 5+ years at 1080p high/max settings at around 60fps give or take? It will and I'm ok with that. That said, I am very excited to see what Zen 3 and the upcoming GPU launches will bring to the table. Going further, I briefly thought about waiting for AM5/Ryzen 5000 but that seems like an eternity from now and my life can and probably will change drastically between now and then.

Im hoping my next WOW! moment in gaming/PC hardware will be jumping into 4k resolution max settings at a solid 60+ fps or perhaps even better high refresh 4k gaming? (my last one was playing an FPS across a triple monitor setup on a 480GTX SLI) Maybe then I'll be in a position to put something really special (custom hard tube watercooling, monster 4k screen) together that can hopefully carry me another 10 years lol.

Honestly not a bad route. I always see everyone reccomending some high end hardware for the most basic tasks anymore.

I think it all comes down to each users specific use case. I'm currently sitting on my "budget" Ryzen.

R5 1600 - $50 (couldn't pass it up)
Asrock X370 - $65 (I think it was)
16GBs of 2666 CL13 (good price when I bought it)
RX480 (bought at launch) (so.. what? 4 years strong now?)

Does EVERYTHING I need and plays pretty much any of my games anything at 75fps solid (freesync monitor).

Only thing i'm really looking at is an SSD upgrade (to a 1TB nvme) and maybe a 3700x and some 3000+ MHz RAM. Really good chance I'll run this hardware for a good long while. Especially given the "speed wall" hardware has hit in the last 5-7 years.

Hopin the Zen 3 release drops the prices of current Ryzen 3000 series when it launches.
 
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The Unify is fine, the early owners of other low $ MSI boards weren't so happy.

I'm kinda seeing the x570 Tomahawk as the board that would have raked in the $200 general use segment for them if it was 1 of their launch boards.

I have a b450 tomahawk here I've got for an older kid 1st gaming PC build. You can see the quality, but also looking at the spec sheets of this board vs the Max version there's that iterative MSI release ladder clearly visible.
I bought the B450 Tomahawk Max + 1600AF for my wife. Fantastic board for the money as well.
 
I bought the B450 Tomahawk Max + 1600AF for my wife. Fantastic board for the money as well.

I got some used parts off a guy a few days ago to slap together a graduation thing for my buddy's kid.

2600 and a b450 Tomahawk.
There's not much to be concerned about Ryzen 4xxx as fast as I'm concerned.
Told the kid that if he needs a future upgrade he should go get a job. I told him not to waste $ on 10-20 more fps, maybe upcore *hint* if he's making $ creating something.

I'm surprised no one ever talks about the limited storage options with b450 tomahawks. 1xnvme and 2xsata or 4xsata. Granted I see the gaming focus in the board, and I really like picking it up bc it feels like a quality pcb compared to the b450 junk I usually put together.

If more b450 boards had been storage downpspeced like the tomahawks, x570 would have been a clearer upgrade with respect to storage options.
 
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run the programs I need to finish my degree (ArcGIS Pro and others)
IANAG (Geologist) but after a quick search on ArcGIS Pro's accelleration capabilities it seems like it's restricted to Nvidia cards only and no OpenCL support (it's so great when companies give open standards the finger - I'm looking at you too, Matlab! /s)
https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/tool-reference/spatial-analyst/gpu-processing-with-spatial-analyst.htm
and it can use at a maximum 32 threads per CPU
https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/help/analysis/geostatistical-analyst/parallel-processing-with-multiple-cpus.htm

However, because you say that it's for your studies, I'm assuming that you're not throwing 150+TB of information through it? If you want to speed up this program specifically, you might want to evaluate the potential return on investment for your future for grabbing a 16- or 32-core CPU (dunno if hyperthreading will be a help or a hinderance) or an Nvidia GPU vs AMD GPU. I think the X5670 should serve you well for your studies at the very least. What are you currently studying, masters?

Also, consider 64GB of RAM if you're going to be doing more than gaming. I doubled my RAM to 32GB a year or so ago thinking that it's complete overkill and that I'm wasting my money. Nope! It's turned out SUPER useful. :) If you REALLY want it to carry you 10+ years, be sure to leave some open RAM slots so that upgrading to 128GB will be cheaper down the line. This bit me with my E6750's mobo with only two DIMM slots. My current i7-6700 mobo has 4x RAM slots, I have 2x 16GB modules for this exact reason.

I suppose you already know this, but try and get a really good top GPU card if you want it to last 10+years.

Lastly, are you SURE that your PSU is good? You really don't want your PSU popping your shiny new bags of awesome. Even if you take a 3950X at 250W peak (it's really max 150W) plus, say, a rather exaggerated 500W peak for your next-gen GFX card (a factory OC'd 2080 Ti draws around 335W max,) a good Platinum 750W PSU costs about USD150.

I'm beginning to realize I'm not the hardcore gamer I used to be
You and me both, mate...


Edit:
Does ArcGIS Pro support AVX512 (currently Intel only) accelleration and does it perform significantly better with AVX512 as opposed to AVX2? If so and if it is important enough to you, navigating the mess that is AVX512 support might warrant consideration.
 
IANAG (Geologist) but after a quick search on ArcGIS Pro's accelleration capabilities it seems like it's restricted to Nvidia cards only and no OpenCL support (it's so great when companies give open standards the finger - I'm looking at you too, Matlab! /s)
https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/tool-reference/spatial-analyst/gpu-processing-with-spatial-analyst.htm
and it can use at a maximum 32 threads per CPU
https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/help/analysis/geostatistical-analyst/parallel-processing-with-multiple-cpus.htm

However, because you say that it's for your studies, I'm assuming that you're not throwing 150+TB of information through it? If you want to speed up this program specifically, you might want to evaluate the potential return on investment for your future for grabbing a 16- or 32-core CPU (dunno if hyperthreading will be a help or a hinderance) or an Nvidia GPU vs AMD GPU. I think the X5670 should serve you well for your studies at the very least. What are you currently studying, masters?

Also, consider 64GB of RAM if you're going to be doing more than gaming. I doubled my RAM to 32GB a year or so ago thinking that it's complete overkill and that I'm wasting my money. Nope! It's turned out SUPER useful. :) If you REALLY want it to carry you 10+ years, be sure to leave some open RAM slots so that upgrading to 128GB will be cheaper down the line. This bit me with my E6750's mobo with only two DIMM slots. My current i7-6700 mobo has 4x RAM slots, I have 2x 16GB modules for this exact reason.

I suppose you already know this, but try and get a really good top GPU card if you want it to last 10+years.

Lastly, are you SURE that your PSU is good? You really don't want your PSU popping your shiny new bags of awesome. Even if you take a 3950X at 250W peak (it's really max 150W) plus, say, a rather exaggerated 500W peak for your next-gen GFX card (a factory OC'd 2080 Ti draws around 335W max,) a good Platinum 750W PSU costs about USD150.


You and me both, mate...


Edit:
Does ArcGIS Pro support AVX512 (currently Intel only) accelleration and does it perform significantly better with AVX512 as opposed to AVX2? If so and if it is important enough to you, navigating the mess that is AVX512 support might warrant consideration.


Great information! Thanks for pulling up the ArcGIS Pro hardware info regarding cores and GPU processing (now I wonder if the software can take advantage of an Nvidia SLI setup on a desktop for Spatial Analysis duties).

Concerning the upgrade, I wanted to factor in the gains that software (gaming, productivity etc) has been making over the last few years that finally take advantage of more cores/threads. Which is why I had a 3950x at the top of my list but it's difficult for me to justify the additional cost of a Threadripper system for home use (unless I decide to go secondhand) considering I don't even have a job in the GIS field yet and won't for some time (finishing my Bachelors in Geography focusing on Geographic Information Systems). Sadly, COVID has made things dramatically worse in terms of schooling and job outlook which was THE deciding factor in deciding to hold off on an upgrade today and just hold the line another year.

Good point about the RAM. Using my current setup as a clear example, 6GB was perfectly adequate in 2010 when this was built, however after diving back into the state of computer hardware in 2020, I found myself at or below minimum spec even for software that dates back several years! :facepalm: Thankfully it was a relatively easy (and cheap) fix thanks to so many people holding onto their X58 platforms to this day. For the next build I think I'll start with a 64GB base to leave headroom for 128 several years down the line.

My current PSU has driven dual 480 GTX's to the power hungry R9 series it still has today, all without ever skipping a beat and still runs like a champ today. So I don't doubt that its up to the task of upgrades in the near future but at this point considering how old it is I'd rather pickup a newer, more powerful and more efficient PSU design to carry me the next 10 years.

So now it seems like my next build will be entirely new from the ground up which will likely consist of the last generation of AMD CPU's utilizing the AM4 socket (perhaps an updated more cores/threads version of the 3950x), a top end GPU (or two) from the Big Navi/Ampere releases, 64GB of ram and the fastest/largest NVME drives I can get my hands on along with a nice 1600 watt platinum PSU and 1000D case from Corsair. 2021 cant come soon enough.
 
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Thanks in advance!

dude we're so close to Ryzen 4000 i'd wait and see what they'll have to offer. Plus at that point if you want to still go 3000 you'll be able to get a used one off ebay for half price. Plus if you're just gaming you really don't need 16 core/32 thread you'll get better performance disabling some of the cores. so... if you want a little boost now just grab the gpu you can always use that in your new rig. but nvidia coming out w/ new stuff too. basically if you can wait i would even if you grab the same partlist it'll be cheaper when the new stuff comes out. (oh and RTX 2xxx doesn't perform to well w/ rtx on RT suppose to be getting MASSIVE boost in 3xxx)

oh yeah and i'm with @bl4d3runn3r i'd look at MSI for this round I personally like the MSI X570 Unify wish i would have got that instead of ASUS TUF. Just don't buy MSI's low end X570. Check "Hardware Unboxed" youtube channel for more info on all the X570 VRM''s
 
If you are pumping so much money in your system. Buy an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 2.9 GHz 64-Core TRX4 Processor.
Or you can wait for the Threadripper to be in the 4000 mode.
It is almost near us in June-July.
So wait and watch or go with Threadripper 3990X.
 
I don't know if we're actually that close to a 4000 series release. Every time I hear a rumor, the launch is further out.

I certainly wouldn't expect it before Q4'20. Maybe even Q1'21 (although, if it gets delayed to Q1'21, I'd expect it to be on the 5nm process instead of 7nm+ or whatever TSMC called their upgraded 7nm parts).
 
Just buy a Ryzen 3600 for now... seems like the newer fab ones based on the XT silicon are clocking 4.5-4.7Ghz at 1.3v. Throw in Zen 3 when it comes out.
 
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