What AMD chipset do I need?

B

bob4432

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 16, 2005
Messages
186
Wanting to build a HTPC/Home Server that will be on 24/7/365 on a UPS. Looking at either a Athlon or Ryzen w/ the IGPU that is capable of 4K/7.1 channel audio. Been out of the game for quite a bit and would like a bit of advice for a chipset that will support the newest version of USB 3, Raid 0 or 5 and is most importantly reliable. Will need connections for 2-4HDD, 1xOptical & NVMe drve. M/B will be ATX size.

Thanks,
Bob
 
I don't think any AMD boards in the B450, X470 realm support RAID 5. Most are 0/1/10
 
I would be OK with Raid1, then backup to external HDD, and I only need 4TB, so 2.5" would still workout and I will not need additional power for an external HDD.
 
I second that B450 would be your best bet. Boards with B450 usually have everything you want, and the extra features you get from X470 would be irrelevant to you.
 
I got a ASUS Prime PRO X470 and a ryzen 7 2700 for that (linux based PVR / file server that is on 24/7/365) with 16GB of Unbuffered DDR4 2666 ECC from Crucial.

If I was thinking of this now I would wait till the 7nm stuff comes out and get an X570 board.
 
This assuming the Ryzen "G" series will cone out not too far behind the $$$/gaming chips. If i am wrong with this assumption please let me know.
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When is the 7nm stuff coming out? I was looking at the Ryzen 22/2400G (I think those are the #s currently) w/ st leadt 8GB ram, probably 16GB when it all comes out, a NVMe for the main drive - probably 500GB-1TB and then a RAID1 of at least 4TB, but the size of the array will more than likely change since the waiting timg for the 7nm chips to come out, storage prices will come down (or TB per $).

Thanks,
Bob

Also, anybody have an idea when 10GbE speed Ethernet (CAT5E / CAT6, etc (I say cat CAT5E because the runs are short, like at max 75')) is going to be showing up on m/b and when are the switches coming down in price?
Thanks
 
I believe the 7nm parts should be out in July and the G series 7nm parts in early 2020.
 
drescherjm Could you link me to info regarding this info and how accurate the timeframe is? Since I haven't been active in the scene for quite some time, how are Intel & AMD keeping close to their targeted output time from paper to stores? Might possibly do a 2200G(think that is the lower end Ryzen+Vega) earlier then wait for the the 7nm parts.

Also in my reading thus far, seems like RAM speed is rather important w/ AMD, so I was thinking at leadt DDR4-3000 but was wondering how important the timings is compared to the stuff that is a bit slower - again this will be for a HTPC, not a gaming rig. The 2nd one might see some gaming, so if the timing makes a decent deal, please let me know.

Also, how would DDR4-3000 fair for gaming - will be at least 1080p, but probably much higher - thinking 2160p if not higher.

Thanks in advance for getting me on backk on the road to current tech.

How is the AM4/b450/x470/x570 going to be for longevity wise how about compatibility?

Last but not least, since the one that will possibly see gaming and a dedicated GPU, how does AMD vs Intel fair?
 
bob4432 said:
anybody have an idea when 10GbE speed Ethernet (CAT5E / CAT6, etc (I say cat CAT5E because the runs are short, like at max 75')) is going to be showing up on m/b and when are the switches coming down in price?
Thanks
Click to expand...
You will need at least Cat 6 for any run of 10GBASE-T. I do not see switches getting cheap for it anytime soon
 
Joseph F said:
You will need at least Cat 6 for any run of 10GBASE-T. I do not see switches getting cheap for it anytime soon
Click to expand...

Even on the short runs like mentioned? I could gave sworn somewhere the a tech forum was able to max out the ssd easily, and the run was about mu link. Oh well, when I do the nuxt run i may mas well run 4 cables for redundancy.

D@mn, I was hoping I had just not found cheap 10GbE dumb switches? What about 5GbE? 2GbE. This ~120MB/s is slow, and I have been on GbE for a LONG time, probably like many of you.

Any cheat by using optical + copper? Or any other 'poor' mans cheat for even getting 5GbE?

Anybody know why the cost to drop for 10GbE seems to be taking longer than it did for 100mb/s, it just seems like it is dragging its a$$ when most other things computet items are moving faster at a pretty good clip, I guess the smart phones are going slow to drop their prices, but you are getting A LOT of tech in a tiny package which costs money, I just don't know why this stagnation moving even to 5GbE, but I a not a network guy so I guess I will wait....: (
 
Also in my reading thus far, seems like RAM speed is rather important w/ AMD, so I was thinking at leadt DDR4-3000 but was wondering how important the timings is compared to the stuff that is a bit slower - again this will be for a HTPC, not a gaming rig.
Click to expand...

I am using DDR4 2666 with my Ryzen 7 2700 because I wanted ECC (for the server part / 24/7/365 operation). The system still works very well with this ram speed.
 
bob4432 said:
drescherjm Could you link me to info regarding this info and how accurate the timeframe is? Since I haven't been active in the scene for quite some time, how are Intel & AMD keeping close to their targeted output time from paper to stores? Might possibly do a 2200G(think that is the lower end Ryzen+Vega) earlier then wait for the the 7nm parts.

Also in my reading thus far, seems like RAM speed is rather important w/ AMD, so I was thinking at leadt DDR4-3000 but was wondering how important the timings is compared to the stuff that is a bit slower - again this will be for a HTPC, not a gaming rig. The 2nd one might see some gaming, so if the timing makes a decent deal, please let me know.

Also, how would DDR4-3000 fair for gaming - will be at least 1080p, but probably much higher - thinking 2160p if not higher.

Thanks in advance for getting me on backk on the road to current tech.

How is the AM4/b450/x470/x570 going to be for longevity wise how about compatibility?

Last but not least, since the one that will possibly see gaming and a dedicated GPU, how does AMD vs Intel fair?
Click to expand...
Computex May 27th Ryzen 3000 and Navi announcements. Parts might not hit shelves til July tho because Asmedia can't get the chipsets done before then.

Also, get the 2400 instead of the 2200, they're only 30-35 bucks apart in pricing now and you get hyper threading and a more robust GPU. B450 is the way to go for them as it has drop in support for the APU/GPUs. Do some research, get the right RAM, there are reports of the 2400 and 2200 supporting faster ram on some boards. Iirc it was initially limited to 2400-2666. Most B450 boards will allow a max OC with good cooling. Hell my Tomahawk B350 gave me a max stable OC on my Ryzen 1700.

All boards will support new 7nm ryzens if they have bios support. Howevet 500+ series boards might have (some) PCIE 4
 
bob4432 said:
Wanting to build a HTPC/Home Server that will be on 24/7/365 on a UPS. Looking at either a Athlon or Ryzen w/ the IGPU that is capable of 4K/7.1 channel audio. Been out of the game for quite a bit and would like a bit of advice for a chipset that will support the newest version of USB 3, Raid 0 or 5 and is most importantly reliable. Will need connections for 2-4HDD, 1xOptical & NVMe drve. M/B will be ATX size.

Thanks,
Bob
Click to expand...

Any AMD chipset can do what you are asking for except for supporting RAID 5. Even if it did, you wouldn't want to use it. Even on the Intel chipsets, RAID 5 performs rather poorly. You need a RAID controller with a dedicated XOR processor and cache memory if you want to do RAID 5 right.

THUMPer said:
I don't think any AMD boards in the B450, X470 realm support RAID 5. Most are 0/1/10
Click to expand...

No AMD chipset based motherboard supports RAID 5. It's a limitation of the chipset. AMD's SATA RAID solution is far less flexible than Intel's is. They only support two stripe sizes while Intel supports a huge range of them.

Joseph F said:
I second that B450 would be your best bet. Boards with B450 usually have everything you want, and the extra features you get from X470 would be irrelevant to you.
Click to expand...

Indeed. The difference between them is generally not something most people are going to notice.

bob4432 said:
drescherjm Could you link me to info regarding this info and how accurate the timeframe is? Since I haven't been active in the scene for quite some time, how are Intel & AMD keeping close to their targeted output time from paper to stores? Might possibly do a 2200G(think that is the lower end Ryzen+Vega) earlier then wait for the the 7nm parts.

Also in my reading thus far, seems like RAM speed is rather important w/ AMD, so I was thinking at leadt DDR4-3000 but was wondering how important the timings is compared to the stuff that is a bit slower - again this will be for a HTPC, not a gaming rig. The 2nd one might see some gaming, so if the timing makes a decent deal, please let me know.

Also, how would DDR4-3000 fair for gaming - will be at least 1080p, but probably much higher - thinking 2160p if not higher.

Thanks in advance for getting me on backk on the road to current tech.

How is the AM4/b450/x470/x570 going to be for longevity wise how about compatibility?

Last but not least, since the one that will possibly see gaming and a dedicated GPU, how does AMD vs Intel fair?
Click to expand...

You want to go with at least DDR4 3000. Preferably, something in the 3200MHz+ range.
 
Vader1975 said:
Id look at ASUS TUFF series for 24/7/366 running all day.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't. The TUFF series isn't what it used to be. The last time I saw one it was some bargain basement stuff with an ultra-thin PCB, poorly mounted MOSFET coolers and a stripped down feature set. It used to sit next to ROG with a focus on stability and less of a focus on overclocking. Now, its a budget offering that's not worth looking at unless you just want to spend as little as possible.
 
Dan_D said:
I wouldn't. The TUFF series isn't what it used to be. The last time I saw one it was some bargain basement stuff with an ultra-thin PCB, poorly mounted MOSFET coolers and a stripped down feature set. It used to sit next to ROG with a focus on stability and less of a focus on overclocking. Now, its a budget offering that's not worth looking at unless you just want to spend as little as possible.
Click to expand...

I noticed this too the last time I was shopping for a board. Since when was TUF "lower" than the PRIME range?
 
mda said:
I noticed this too the last time I was shopping for a board. Since when was TUF "lower" than the PRIME range?
Click to expand...

Since the Z270 chipsets came out. ASUS repositioned the branding without telling us. That's why you never saw any TUFF series boards reviewed after the Z170's.
 
:eek:Thanks for the info. It has been A LONG since I built from the ground up using new parts as I try to buy used since I am not an early adopter. To put a timeframe on this I have 2 i5 2500K rigs, one with on a Z68 based board and the other w/ Z77 based board. Looks like my last upgrade was to the Z77 / i5 2500K / 8GB of ram. Surprisingly that system with a SSD still runspretty good for my needs has not been much. Scratch that, since I stopped gaming modeling around that time, I moved back to Lenovo Thinkpads, so currently the wife and I are both running T440s units w/ 8GB ram, a 256GB SSD in one, & a 500GB SSD in the other - haven't needed more power than those looks like 4-5yrs :eek: so the I am sure these new machine will be a decent step up and back to GREEN, I know they are red now but the last AMD setup I had was a Opteron 165 :).

Appreciate the info on the RAID, I started looking at cards - that he in the works but time tells me a RAID1 Array will suffice, now just to chance out to all these new cables:).
Bob

Edit: Just re-read this and I responded on my phone and it looks like it auto corrected some words which make some the sentences seem a little off....
 
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Umm just a though here but the 2400g's are not really a huge leap forward from a 2500k/2600k here is a Cinebench Single thread comparison between modern processors : https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu_benchmark-cinebench_r15_single_core-7 4c8t is still below Haswell 4790k. However you do get a pretty decent igpu in there with Vega. I do hope Zen2 has a good amount of additional horsepower in there.
 
My main concern is currently the z68/i5 2500K machine is my HTPC but I am only running on a 1080p screen, I just don't know if it would do 4k x 265 decoding w/ its iGPU w/out issues when I make the move to a 4K screen. I have looked at benches and was surprised by how close the cpus were, but the 2400g surely has the superior iGPU. And a move to a 4790k would mean a m/b switch anyway so I figured may as well go to a iGPU capable of 4k x265 decoding w/out an issue. I do appreciate the suggestion and feedback - thank you rhansen5_99
 
Another nugget mentioned above is the am4 socket is supposed to carry forward for the next couple of years. So the infuriating intel socket change junk is kind of nullified, meaning you could most likely drop a 2400g in there now and upgrade just cpu later. I have no idea on the zen2 APUs, but rumors are maybe NAVI gpu with a release near 2020.
 
Just a data point to provide some perspective on how much CPU power is actually needed for a Media Center PC...

I was running my Media Center server on Windows 10 running an AMD FX-8350 with 16G of RAM and a Radeon R7 260x GPU connected to a 4K 60Hz TV (via Display Port adapter) for years until last month. That machine did h.264 decoding for local video (all of my video is h.264), was a Plex server (at it's usage peak it supported 5 simultaneous clients with plenty of CPU cycles to spare for more, plus a simultaneous local Kodi instance), a file server for the local LAN (Highpoint RocketRAID 644L card using an eSATA 5-port drive box in RAID 5 with 5 4TB HGST drives), and a lightly-used MySQL server.

This set up ran great, and the only reason it was replaced was because I was gifted a Dell PowerEdge r515, which after a few inexpensive upgrades, assumed all of the 8350's server duties. There was no need for an FX-8350 (with its power draw) sitting there all day long just for Kodi and Netflix, so that board and RAM (along with some other parts) went to a friend needing a reasonably powerful PC for the cost of shipping. My kids were trickle-down upgraded to my Ryzen R7 1700, and their Skylake 6600K became the new living room PC due to being the least powerful and most power efficient machine in the house (at stock speeds, which it is running at, anyway). Still using that R7 260x card, too.

The point is, that with a modern GPU supporting h.265 hardware decode, pretty much anything even remotely modern in the CPU department should have ZERO problems as your Media Center PC.
 
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Appreciate the additional suggestions. I seem to be coming to the conclusion that while I may want to build a rig, because, well I have not in a long time, and I like building, I may just pick up a used (mined on) RX570 or RX580 and be done with it. I have seen these cards go for pretty cheap, I know they have been on 24/7/365 x year(s) usually undervalued. Seems their ROI is not is good anymore or newer cards came out that had a better ROI for (inster coin here)? I am coming to the conclusion that a new build w/ the specs I am looking at would be a waste of $$ on my part being I would need new mb/ 2400g / DDR4 ram. Thank you all for your responses, I appreciate the time you have take greatly.
 
If it makes any difference to your use case, Plex in particular benefits from more cores... They just don't have to be the fastest ones to be useful.
 
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