Desktop Computers

I probably should have posted this here instead of in the 30X0 thread:

Need some feedback on two orders I placed. I'm trying to decide which to keep. The first build is arriving this weekend and the second one will ship sometime in April. I currently have 2x 60Hz 1080p monitors but will probably upgrade to 1440, maybe 120/144Hz. Don't currently care about 4k.

Build 1 - $1,464:

1. 10th Gen Intel Core i7 10700F (8-Core, 16MB Cache, 2.9GHz to 4.8GHz w/Turbo Boost Max 3.0)
2. 16GB Dual Channel DDR4 XMP at 3200MHz
3. Dark Side of the Moon chassis with High-Performance CPU Liquid Cooling and 550W Power Supply
4. 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
5. NVIDIA(R) GeForce RTX(TM) 3060 Ti 8GB GDDR6

Build 2 - $1968:

1. 11th Gen Intel Core i7 11700F (8-Core, 16MB Cache, 2.5GHz to 4.9GHz w/Intel Turbo Boost Max)
2. 16GB Dual Channel DDR4 XMP at 3200MHz
3. Dark Side of the Moon chassis with High-Performance CPU Liquid Cooling and 1000W Power Supply
4. 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
5. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 10GB GDDR6X

Basically, is it worth $500 to go from 3060 ti --> 3080, 550W --> 1000W, 10700F --> 11700F for 1440p gaming? I would have preferred an AMD processor but they didn't have any available that seemed like a "deal" the way these did (I'm using that term loosely since prices are absurb for anything these days...)

I suppose I would set it up to mine eth during the day while I'm working.

One reason I'm asking is because I've read that Dell uses custom cards with worse cooling, and the 3080 in particular can have throttling issues due to the airflow of the case.

Pescador said:

I probably should have posted this here instead of in the 30X0 thread:

Need some feedback on two orders I placed. I'm trying to decide which to keep. The first build is arriving this weekend and the second one will ship sometime in April. I currently have 2x 60Hz 1080p monitors but will probably upgrade to 1440, maybe 120/144Hz. Don't currently care about 4k.

Build 1 - $1,464:

1. 10th Gen Intel Core i7 10700F (8-Core, 16MB Cache, 2.9GHz to 4.8GHz w/Turbo Boost Max 3.0)
2. 16GB Dual Channel DDR4 XMP at 3200MHz
3. Dark Side of the Moon chassis with High-Performance CPU Liquid Cooling and 550W Power Supply
4. 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
5. NVIDIA(R) GeForce RTX(TM) 3060 Ti 8GB GDDR6

Build 2 - $1968:

1. 11th Gen Intel Core i7 11700F (8-Core, 16MB Cache, 2.5GHz to 4.9GHz w/Intel Turbo Boost Max)
2. 16GB Dual Channel DDR4 XMP at 3200MHz
3. Dark Side of the Moon chassis with High-Performance CPU Liquid Cooling and 1000W Power Supply
4. 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
5. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 10GB GDDR6X

Basically, is it worth $500 to go from 3060 ti --> 3080, 550W --> 1000W, 10700F --> 11700F for 1440p gaming? I would have preferred an AMD processor but they didn't have any available that seemed like a "deal" the way these did (I'm using that term loosely since prices are absurb for anything these days...)

I suppose I would set it up to mine eth during the day while I'm working.

One reason I'm asking is because I've read that Dell uses custom cards with worse cooling, and the 3080 in particular can have throttling issues due to the airflow of the case.

Click to expand...

Dell does often - they use blower cards and depending on the DELL case yes it would suck - However all you really want is the card - You could have also gone the cyberpower pc or ibuypower route which has custom builds with better cards. a 3080 will obliterate a 3060ti so the $500 is well warranted.

Kirun said:

I'm kind of up in the air on which board to go with. I really like the features of the MSI, especially the post readouts, but I'm not sure $200 is a justified increase.

MSI MEG X570 UNIFY AM4 ATX AMD Motherboard - Newegg.com

Buy MSI MEG X570 UNIFY AM4 AMD X570 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

ASUS AM4 TUF Gaming X570-Plus Wi-Fi ATX Motherboard - Newegg.com

Buy ASUS AM4 TUF Gaming X570-Plus (Wi-Fi) ATX Motherboard with PCIe 4.0, Dual M.2, 12+2 with Dr. MOS Power Stage, HDMI, DP, SATA 6Gb/s, USB 3.2 Gen 2 and Aura Sync RGB Lighting with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

Click to expand...

Key differences of the TUF board are no internal Type C header, no 2.5Gbs LAN, no debug codes, more sata ports, and slightly worse on board audio? If you don't need x570 than you can get most of the features of the $400 Meg in a B550.

Lanx said:

you got a x570? i believe the way m2's are

the top slot is cpu connected

the next one down will steal pcie lanes from the bottom pcie slot

the last m2 slot will steal the sata lanes

or something

and you have to force the stolen pcie slot in pcie3 mode or something, idk, i just browsed it once.

Click to expand...

It's really up to the mobo on how they want to divide the PCIe lanes. The biggest different between B550 and X570 is that the second NVMe drive is 3.0 vs 4.0. The other difference is that most B550 boards will not do X8/X8 on two PCIe x16 slots - this doesn't matter for most single GPU, single/dual NVMe drive computers, but it might matter if you want to do GPU pass-through, or run a controller card for a large storage array, or use a NVMe PCIe adapter card for extra drives, etc. X570 does give more PCIe lanes (mainly for sata and USB IO), but not enough for PCIe x16/x16, x4/x4/x4/x4, etc - you needs to step up to Threadripper for that.

Kirun said:

I think I'm settled on ASUS ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING WI-FI AM4 Motherboard - Newegg.com

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Just FYI, the ASUS ROG STRIX B550-E GAMING AM4 ATX Motherboard - Newegg.com gives you debug codes (useful when you need it), an internal Type C header (if your case has one), and can split the PCIe x16 slots into x8/x8 (see previous). I think extra ARGB headers too.

Kirun said:

Bought. Thanks, Chang!

Will G.SKILL Trident Z Neo (For AMD Ryzen) Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 288-Pin RGB DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3600 (PC4 28800) Desktop Memory Model F4-3600C18Q-32GTZN - Newegg.com work for RAM? I'm trying to read up about this timing bullshit with the 5000x series and it's honestly making my dick softer by the minute. It must be white and it must contain maximum RGB gayness.

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It will make a small performance bump to get 3600 CL16 (instead of the CL18 you linked). Two sticks gives you room to upgrade in the future, and 16GB sticks will be dual rank for better performance (same as 4x8 single rank sticks). Look at these as an option: GeIL ORION AMD Edition 16GB DDR4 3600 RAM Memory - Newegg.com <-- Links to GSkill, dunno what's up with GeIL

Ryzen memory timings are fairly simple - you want to run the memory speed at 1:1 with the Infinity Fabric clock (Fclk). Ram is DDR (double date rate), so 3600MHz ram runs at 1800MHz, meaning you want to run 1800MHz Ram with a 1800MHz Fclk. Most (if not all Ryzen 5000s) should be able to run a 1800MHz Flck so you are good to go. If you wanted faster RAM, like 4000MHz, than you need to run the Fclk at 2000Mhz (hard to do) or run some thing like a 3:2 divider which means slower RAM performance.

The TLDR is that for up to 3600MHz RAM you should just have to enable XMP (or DOCP in AMD-speak) in the Bios and be good to go. Above that you need to either get lucky with your CPU's Flck speeds or run sub-optimal settings. Beyond CAS Latency (CL) timings, the other RAM sub-timings provide minimal benefit and aren't worth hand tuning (again, just enable XMP/DOCP).

Update on CyberPowerPC 3 months in. No complaints.

- Radeon RX6800 (not xt)
- Ryzen 5 5600x

Runs really cool, super quiet, low watts. Every game runs flawless capped monitor FPS on ultra at 2560*1080. Good stuff.

Kirun said:

I thought there were some pretty large performance boosts by running all 4 slots of RAM instead of 2 that was specific to Ryzen 5xxx series?


Maybe I'm drawing the wrong conclusions?

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It's has to to do with dual rank vs single rank, so for speed 4x8 = 2x16 > 2x8. It's not quite this simple as it has to do with the specifics of RAM sticks (how many memory chips per stick they have which is typically a function of when they were built), but it's true enough. Most current 16GB sticks have memory on both sides of the DIMM, but in the future as densities increase they will be single sided. Most 8GB sitcks are single sided, hence the 4x8= 2x16.

Lanx said:

yea the min spec for inifity fabric is cl16, so at least cl16, ballers are running cl14

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It's a function of the CL timings and the speed. CL14 3200 is roughly the same performance as CL16 3600, but CL 14 3600 and CL 16 3800 is better. Capacity can also play a part, as in sufficient capacity > all speeds/timings but 16 or 32 GB is enough for most gaming/office uses.

Hateyou said:

I don’t think so. From conversations here in the past just do two sticks of 16gb and run them in slot 2&4 or 1&3 so they run in dual channel. And don’t mix and match later down the road if you get more ram and fill all four slots, which would still run in dual channel. Just don’t run 3 sticks and don’t mix and match your speeds.

Click to expand...

This has to do with dual channel - running in slots 2&4 or 1&3 and is not the same as dual rank or single rank ram. Single channel vs dual channel is about how the CPU addresses each ram stick (dual channel is noticeably faster) while single rank vs dual rank is about how an individual ram stick addresses the various memory chips attached to it (dual rank is a tiny bit faster).

The key points are (for Ryzen):

1) Buy as much RAM as you need with some room to grow (get 32GB if you can afford it and plan to keep the system for a while)
2) Run in dual channel mode. 4 sticks will do this automatically, with 2 sticks use the correct RAM slots on the mobo (see manual, generally slots 1/3 or 2/4 with 2/4 preferred)
3) Buy 3200 - 3600MHz ram. Faster RAM may work but really fast RAM (4000MH or greater) may be subject to the quality of the memory controller (chip lottery) and/or require funky settings.
4) Buy the lowest CAS latency (CL) you can afford for a given RAM speed.
5) Enable the high speed RAM settings in the bios by enabling XMP or DOCP
6) Set the Infinity Fabric clock to match your RAM speed. 1600 Fclock for 3200 RAM, 1800 Fclk for 3600 RAM, etc. Mobo will probably do this automatically but confirm with CPU-z or Ryzen Master.

Doing the above gets you like 98-99% of the performance of single rank/dual rank, manually tune 20 diiferent ram sub-timings, Samsung b-die vs SK Hynix, etc. guide/post your might see. Keep some perspecitve, as the benefits of really fast RAM with low CL timings may be situational and is almost certainly not cost effective. 3600 CL16 is probably the current sweet spot for cost/performance on Ryzen. I would never buy this - buying more CPU, more GPU (I know...) or even better CPU cooling (for higher clock boosting) is a better way to spend money.