New Gaming PC

Budget:
$3000 to $4000

Expectations:
Replacing a digital storm system from 2011 with single gpu. I am out of date on current tech and would appreciate advice. I normally keep a computer for 10 years as I am retired with limited budget. I like a lot of hard drives for internal backup etc. I do not need the best but keeping in mind that I keep the system for a long time I want something that can be mid range for a while. Currently have a full tower system with single gtx 960 card and have been happy with this. No interest in SLI. I like Nvidia over AMD but newer drivers over last year have been bad. Hopefully will not end up with a new gpu with bad driver support. I see people complaining on Nvidia forum about all the money they spent just to get poor results. I had a AMD graphics card in past and was not happy so hoping to stick with Nvidia.

Usage:
1080p gaming ( paradox strategy games like stellaris and eu4) and normal desktop use.

Special Needs:
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Saved Ticket #: [3850459]

Specifications:
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I agree you have started quite well.

There is no need for a 1000W power supply. Your utilization will start well under 500W and likely not go much beyond 500 in the future. 850W will give you more than ample overhead for unstressed running.

I urge you not to waste your money on an RTX 3070. Not only is it carrying an extreme premium right now, it is a card best suited for 1440p performance at 100fps and above. That is total overkill and will not be of any benefit to you at 1080p EVER. The RTX 3060Ti is even a bit pricy and overpowered, but it will never disappoint you at 1080p. I recommend you splurge on that one, and get the card that has plenty of future in it without wasting power you won't use. It's rated nearly 300% more powerful than the card you have!

https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-RTX-3060-Ti-vs-Nvidia-GTX-960/4090vs3165


Everything else is fine. The AMD 5800X is the best selection right now for high performance for a very long time. I'm sorry to see the excellent and decently priced MSI Gaming Pro Carbon no longer offered, I would recommend that. You could consider a better motherboard for greater longevity, but it disappoints there is a wait for the Asus 570-PRO, and the next one up is over $100 more for not much gain. The standard motherboards are fine, but an upgrade gets you better thermal management for the long haul.

The internal lighting promotion is free, and can be turned completely off if you wish.

The changes I highly recommend bring the cost down to $3306 without a mobo upgrade. There is no guarantee that spending more there will pay off in the long run, so choose wisely.

I personally would go with the 5900X and the Crosshair VIII hero. Been very happy with my 3950X and Crosshair VIII hero. It is a solid board and will give you a lot in terms of future flexibility.

I never said to get a more powerful CPU. The 5950 will keep you waiting indefinitely and will improve gaming performance not one bit. Some are still waiting for a 5950 after 3 months. If that that's your bag, have at it, but let's look at the gaming performance benchmarks:


https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Ryzen-9-5950X-vs-AMD-Ryzen-7-5800X/4086vs4085

$561 extra will bring nothing for gaming. You have not mentioned any other use for which all those extra cores may ever be needed, and you may rest assured you will be very unlikely to ever NEED more that 8 cores just for gaming. Lets not forget that is 16 THREADS. These processors today are much faster than ever before which is a great help, but gaming is still almost entirely a single-core task with some games coded to perform a few minor tasks in parallel. The vast majority of gaming processes must occur in a specific sequence which cannot be off-loaded to other threads. Thus the meager 1% "advantage" when you double the core count as above. Gaming GPUs do most of the heavy computing now, with the CPU specifically coded on as few cores as possible simply to "feed the beast".

You might read this if you wish for more detail:

"{What is the point of limiting game to 1/4th or even 1/8th of maximimum possible performance?"

"It's not, and that statement sounds like you don't understand parallelism and determinism in the context of programming.

If some set of calculations needs to be done in a specific order, or each one depends on the results of the previous one, trying to split it over multiple cores will actually make it slower. A good example would be following a list of driving or walking directions - trying to do that in parallel would just have everyone wandering around effectively at random and no one would reach the destination.

Multithreading only helps when the calculations don't depend on each other's results and thus can be done in parallel rather than in a specific sequence. A good example would be searching for a lost child - as long as everyone does a different thing, every additional person makes the search take less time.

Most games - especially multiplayer simulation games - require calculations to happen in an extremely specific order and thus multithreading is simply not suitable.

Tasks which don't affect the simulation state can be assigned to other threads, like drawing graphics, playing sounds, saving, handling input etc but in many cases there's no measurable benefit to doing so compared to the effort of developing a robust framework for that.

When it does make sense, game devs will and do use multiple threads

PS: this is why chips with tons of cores are wonderful for science and servers but mostly useless for games. Games typically want epic single core performance and only use maybe 2 cores at most"



IMHO it is unlikely that games will shift drastically away from the necessity to process sequentially, as that is the nature of the beast. It will remain what the vast majority of gamers will be able to process on their rigs for years to come. GPUs now generally have more processors than CPUs because that's where the action is.

If you are concerned about the best gaming processor you can get, wait awhile for the Rocket lake procs from Intel. they are supposed to be out now, but have been delayed. (Big surprise!) To go Intel ATM, is to buy the obsolete PCIe 3 bus. The new procs will be the fastest gamers, but they will be limited to 8 CORES/16 threads, because... we covered that.

If you want to waste $88 on an extra 150W you'll never use, that's fine.

OK I am listening.   Not sure what to do on the cpu. In the past I went mid range CPU and then wished I had gone more.

Another question is H20 cooling. I never over clock and I am worried that if I keep the system a long time it will need replacement and I don't really like the idea of me dealing with water in the system. I understand they are fairly safe but long term I don't know. Normally I would go air cool and pay extra for a more powerful fan but digital storm only offers amd factory fan. Will this be ok? The configuration strongly suggests I go with liquid cool?????

Also the fan upgrade for the case - is this just for color? Not sure what remote control would be for.

Maybe the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X (16-Core) 4.7 GHz Turbo with air cool????   


Edited by 17blue17 - 05 Apr 2021 at 4:52pm

I would stick with the 5900X (or go with the 10850K) and an AIO water cooler. These chips will run hot and are designed to get maximum performance at cooler temperatures (i.e., thermal velocity boost). The DS cases are not great, in my opinion, for air coolers. Gamers Nexus has an entire video library showing the kinds of cases that do work (e.g., meshify). The worst cases are the ones that are sealed pretty tight such as the NZXT H710. The Lumos case as well as the Aventum have not been well designed for air cooling (even when fans are set to exhaust or intake in support of the radiator). Jayz2cents looked at an Aventum X and concluded that temps would have been better had the solid glass panels not been used (he took them off).

Originally posted by 17blue17 OK I am listening.   Not sure what to do on the cpu. In the past I went mid range CPU and then wished I had gone more. Another question is H20 cooling. I never over clock and I am worried that if I keep the system a long time it will need replacement and I don't really like the idea of me dealing with water in the system. I understand they are fairly safe but long term I don't know. Normally I would go air cool and pay extra for a more powerful fan but digital storm only offers amd factory fan. Will this be ok? The configuration strongly suggests I go with liquid cool????? Maybe the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X (16-Core) 4.7 GHz Turbo with air cool????

I'm also in the no advocate for liquid cooling club, including because I don't manually OC.

Fortunately, there is a good option, a low-end err low TDP CPU. Adding to Cretae's earlier comments, you should be able to go with the Ryzen 5 5600X without complaint. Having a 65 watt TDP, the sock AMD Wraith Stealth cooler is sufficient. It can get a little loud when the CPU has longer, heavier loads but shouldn't notably hinder performance if the case has fair cooling. Later on, you could upgrade to one of the lower-end, premium third-party air coolers.

Speaking of notable -- again, adding onto the CPU discussion -- here are more benchmarks. Sure, you can consider the overall score, but really focus on the single and dual-core values -- as Cretae already said, gaming isn't strongly multi-thread.

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X vs. AMD Ryzen 9 5950X

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X vs. Intel Core i9 10900K

The 11th generation i9 does begin pulling away from the Ryzen 5 because the max Turbo frequency reaches above 5GHz (5.2/5.3) -- which is limited to single core operation.

Intel Core i9 11900 vs. AMD Ryzen 5 5600X

Intel Core i9 11900K vs. AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
You should also consider the 11900K has a 125 watt TDP, nearly double.

A CPU With More Cores is Always Faster When it comes to your computer’s CPU — or the CPU in any device, like a smartphone — the number of cores isn’t the only important thing. Dual-core CPUs were a revelation when they became mainstream in home PCs, and companies have followed up with quad-core, octa-core, and CPUs with even more cores. Each core is a separate execution unit, and more cores allows your computer to run multiple different programs at the same time. But it’s not just about the number of cores. If you have a single-threaded application, it can only run on one core at a time, so a faster four-core CPU will run it faster than a slower eight-core CPU. Many applications are still single-threaded and can’t take advantage of all those additional cores to speed up their execution. Sure, given a quad-core CPU with identical speeds to an octa-core CPU, the octa-core CPU will be better. But sometimes you’ll see an eight-core CPU with slower speeds than a quad-core CPU, or even a quad-core CPU with slower speeds than a dual-core CPU. Cores aren’t the only thing that matters — the CPU’s speed is also very important, and there’s a good chance you’ll be better off with a faster CPU with less cores.

7 of the Biggest PC Hardware Myths That Just Won’t Die

Wrapping this post up... You don't need a "high-end" CPU for gaming -- TDP and "Turbo" frequency are the key values to consider. Quite frankly, putting those couple hundred dollars towards a better GPU, sufficient RAM, or even a motherboard model upgrade will be a much better value.

Keep in mind what you said here:

"I normally keep a computer for 10 years as I am retired with limited budget."

5600X with 3060Ti may be good for now. You most certainly won't get 10 years from that build. You may be better off with a laptop. I've recently been testing a laptop (4800H CPU/1660Ti) I bought from Amazon for $1k. I use that most of the time now while teleworking so that I'm not unnecessarily using my desktop. I'm actually playing several demanding games on my 1440P monitor (Horizon Zero Dawn; Amnesia Rebirth). My goal is throw this laptop out when it breaks after about a year and replace it with a more modern model with the same price point.

If budget is really important, customizing a "budget desktop" requires serious consideration.

Originally posted by 17blue17 If I understand correctly the motherboard allows me to upgrade to the 5800 and 5900 cpus in the future.

Correct -- and that motherboard should hold you out until the AM4 socket is deprecated.

Originally posted by 17blue17 Any final suggestions? Am I thinking correctly? Upgraded build 3854533 Note I really like the extra hard drives and do not mind spending the money on them.

As far as storage capacities, I leave that up to others to know their needs. However, there is one issue I see. "Storage Set 2" you have chosen a FireCuda 520.

1) A limitation of consumer level boards and CPUs, only one M.2 slot (the one connected directly to the Ryzen) supports PCIe gen. 4. The second slot (via the chipset) is PCIe gen. 3. So, the FireCuda 520 or any other gen. 4 SSD will be crippled in the second slot. Basically, only pick up to one gen. 4 SSD.

I would suggest the 970 EVO Plus for the second drive.

2) High quality/high-end PCIe gen. 3 SSDs are no slouch. I have an HP EX950 NVMe in my 2018 HP laptop and loads are in seconds.

More on target:

Seagate FireCuda 520 review that conveniently includes the Samsung 970 EVO Plus in the benchmarks. * The 970 even outperforms the 520 in at least one test.

Seagate FireCuda 520 SSD Review: Big Performance in an Expensive Package

Samsung 980 Pro vs. Seagate FireCuda 520 vs. Samsung 970 Pro

Samsung 980 Pro NVMe SSD review: PCIe 4.0 for the win

3) I've read some reviews in the past that indicate there are at least a few stumbles by manufacturers trying to have current NAND and and controllers at marketable PCI gen. 4 speeds. "Teething troubles" if you will. Granted, this isn't concrete.

4) After a few surprise HDD failures over a decade, I finally stopped being a Seagate fan. So, I'd lean towards the 980 Pro. Although, after reading reviews, it'd be nice if DS offered the WD_Black SN850.

Lastly...

Using OuterVision's Power Supply Calculator (which seems to provide a fair power consumption estimate), your configured system would use ~380 watts. If you were to eventually move up to a GeForce RTX 3090 or Ryzen 7 5800X and GeForce RTX 3080, for examples, that consumption would move to ~535 watts. For optimal efficiency, it's good to stay within 45 to 65% peak load -- up to 80% is okay but do your best not to exceed that. The point is even an 850 watt PSU should be comfortable for your current and future needs. However, I do understand the flip side, the PSU is one of the most tedious components to replace. Therefore, the 1,000 watt may still seem worthwhile. I'm just doubting you'll ever reach that need.

Edited by MrCheetah - 06 Apr 2021 at 6:21pm

Originally posted by 17blue17 Thank you for the information. Greatly appreciated. New revised build for hard drive changes 3855335 If I understand correctly: hard drive 1 1x SSD M.2 (500GB Samsung 980 PRO) (NVM Express) hard drive 2 1x SSD M.2 (1TB Samsung 970 EVO PLUS) (NVM Express)

Looks good to me.

Originally posted by 17blue17 I missed that one was seagate and the others samsung. A long time ago I had problems with seagate. Never had samsung but I will follow your advice.

It was a tidbit based on experience. I haven't owned/used a Samsung drive either. However, Seagate burned me one too many times and would need to earn back my trust at this point.

Originally posted by 17blue17 As far as power supply: I am ok with 850 or 1000 but not less. Important thing is best quality I can get as I had power supplies burn out in the past. 850 says fully modular and 1000 says partial modular. It seems fully modular would be better???? Would have liked another brand to upgrade to. Money wise $88 is nothing but fully modular is maybe better??????   Why the 1000 is not fully modular I don't know. Leave at 1000 for now. If anyone can explain why cable wise one is better than the other I would appreciate it. The extra $88 does not bother me for the 1000

I agree, $88 shouldn't be a bank breaker. As for the modular, semi-modular aspect... I'm not certain either. I guess, it would somewhat depend on what portion is modular. Ha. That is, if the main connectors are permanently attached but the PCIe and SATA are modular. Either way, it probably won't be a big deal/problem. I assume, if there are extra cables, DS would appropriately route them or properly stash them out of sight.

I don't know how specific DS had the component options before, though I can't criticize them harshly for not doing so currently. The present supply and demand situation is frustrating for many/most.

I appreciate the information. I have a couple concerns

1) it appears that there are still bios updates for the board I picked but the hero has not had a bios update for a year. Maybe I read wrong. I do not have any problem spending money on a better board - I just want a stable one.

2) I am having severe doubts about the nvidia video cards. I watch the Nvidia driver forum and people have been complaining for most of 2020 and 2021 about the bad drivers. I have a old gtx 960 with no problems but I have been sticking with an old 456.71 driver. If I upgrade to a 3000 series card it seems like I will have nothing but problems????? My use is simple 1080p no SLI no VR so hopefully I would not have problems???   Can people tell me they have 3000 series cards without problems? I see people buying them here so why so many complaints on the nvidia driver forum????

At the same time I have bad memories about a older AMD gpu so I like Nvidia gpu.

Edited by 17blue17 - 07 Apr 2021 at 6:23pm

It seems the hero is better for overclocking and has better bios options including reset options.

Both boards seem to have the same bios usb issues but asus seems to be making new bios for both.

I guess I will listen to both of you telling me to go with the hero.


New Build with hero board 3856747

Note DS now only shows the dark hero as an option. From what I can find they are almost the same.

I have placed the order .

I decided to to stay with the 5600x and the 3060 ti. Went with the dark hero mb.

With tax and shipping ended up $4,127.68 and my budget was $4000 so close enough.

Maybe not going to last 10 years but I can always upgrade the gpu in 5 years and get by. Maybe add in a 5950x some day using the same system but not today.

Thank you to everyone who responded. I learned a lot and greatly appreciated the feed back and suggestions.
   

Edited by 17blue17 - 08 Apr 2021 at 6:19pm

Originally posted by ealderson I just got my machine about a month ago and it has a 5950X, dark hero and 3080. I haven't had any problems so far and I use my machine about 12-15 hours a day (for both work and gaming).

Can you please tell me which nividia driver you are using? I see people suggesting 456.71 or 457.51 and that the newer ones are bad so I am very interested in learning which one you use.

Thank you

Originally posted by ealderson 465.89 - prob the latest one. I generally upgrade every time I get a notification there is a new one available. That being said, I am not playing stuff at the moment that I would consider especially taxing on the GPU so maybe whatever issue you are reading about only applies to folks playing the latest and greatest GPU taxing games (cyberpunk, etc.).

Wow. Thank you. I read the nvidia driver feedback thread each time a new driver is released and almost the whole thread is people complaining about the bad drivers and that the last ones that worked were back around 456.71 or 457.51 and that the whole 460 series drivers are bad. Month after month the same. I guess that people without problems don't post. Very nice to hear someone say that things are ok.

Thanks again.   

Originally posted by 17blue17 Originally posted by MrCheetah @17blue17 It was. :) The difference is @CantRememberIt has chosen a workstation class CPU and motherboard to satisfy his needs. Much more capable but also much more expensive, and overkill if your primary computer usage is gaming, for example -- which in this case it isn't. Just to give you an idea, the CPU/motherboard combo he chose can communicate/connect with up to three graphics cards at full speed, up to two high speed (gen. 4) SSDs at full speed, supports up to 256GB of RAM, plus other capabilities. However, the CPU is more than 3x the cost of the Ryzen 5 5600X and can consume 4x more energy (280w TDP, as much as many mid-tier graphics cards). Nonetheless, never bad to get clarification/verification and make suggestions -- that's the purpose here after all. Good to know. Can you clarify for me for my final build? I ended up switching to the Dark hero motherboard at the last minute with the 5600x cpu. Board Specs are unclear to me as they mention two m2 pcie 4 and one pcie 3 but then claim 2 in total so am I un clear if I am limited to one 4 and one 3? Internet searches are also unclear. I still have time to change things by phone even though I placed the order.

Foremost, I will admit, I stand (err sit) corrected. I can't find proof as of when the change took place, but Im guessing one of the AMD AM4 AGESA updates. That could be also be why your Web search results are confusing/conflicting. Nevertheless, my bad for not carefully recheckiing recently.

If you look at the board specs....

ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero - Technical Specifications

Storage AMD Ryzen™ 5000 Series/ 3000 Series Desktop Processors : AMD Ryzen™ 4000 G-Series/ 3000 G-Series/ 2000 Series/ 2000 G-Series Desktop Processors : 1 x M.2_1 socket 3, with M Key, Type 2242/2260/2280 (PCIE 4.0 x4 and SATA modes) storage devices support 1 x M.2_1 socket 3, with M key, type 2242/2260/2280 storage devices support (SATA & PCIE 3.0 x 4 mode) AMD X570 chipset : 1 x M.2_2 socket 3, with M Key, Type 2242/2260/2280/22110(PCIE 4.0 x4 and SATA modes) storage devices support 8 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), Support Raid 0, 1, 10

This is a little confusing. It might have been less if ASUS listed them as...

Storage AMD Ryzen™ 5000 Series/ 3000 Series Desktop Processors : 1 x M.2_1 socket 3, with M Key, Type 2242/2260/2280 (PCIE 4.0 x4 and SATA modes) storage devices support AMD Ryzen™ 4000 G-Series/ 3000 G-Series/ 2000 Series/ 2000 G-Series Desktop Processors : 1 x M.2_1 socket 3, with M key, type 2242/2260/2280 storage devices support (SATA & PCIE 3.0 x 4 mode) AMD X570 chipset : 1 x M.2_2 socket 3, with M Key, Type 2242/2260/2280/22110(PCIE 4.0 x4 and SATA modes) storage devices support 8 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), Support Raid 0, 1, 10

Anyway... To break it down.

AMD Ryzen™ 5000 Series/ 3000 Series Desktop Processors : 1 x M.2_1 socket 3, with M Key, Type 2242/2260/2280 (PCIE 4.0 x4 and SATA modes) storage devices support

If you look at photos of the board, M.2_1 is between the CPU and and top PCIe slot, beneath the cover with the Dark Hero name printed, which doubles as a heatsink. This is where DS will/should install the fastest drive (e.g., Samsung 980 Pro).

AMD X570 chipset : 1 x M.2_2 socket 3, with M Key, Type 2242/2260/2280/22110(PCIE 4.0 x4 and SATA modes) storage devices support

M.2_2 (with heatsink cover) is located above the bottom PCIe slot.

Again, I do apologize for the misinformation. As you can, hopefully, deduce based on the details I provide, I'm very anal about my research. Do I make mistakes occasionally? Yes. However, I think, this was AMD/ASUS sneaking one by me.

With all of that said... I still recommend your drive configuration. The 970 EVO is plenty fast.

Edited by MrCheetah - 12 Apr 2021 at 4:48am

@ealderson I am indeed curious if somehow I misread it many times. Granted, specs listings can be confusing, but I recheck a lot. Also, I would say I was perhaps a bit less careful on the Dark Hero (as I had done a lot more research for the X570-E Gaming due to my own interest in builds with that board), however, that spec has changed for the X570-E Gaming as well. Again, possible I'm simply mistaken, though I have doubts.

Ah...details page should help.

Drive 1 - Interface PCIe Gen. 4 x 4

Drive 2 - Interface PCIe Gen. 4 x 4

Drive 3 - Interface SATA 3 (6Gb/s)

As I understand it, the board delivers 24 PCIe lanes. 16 go to the GPU, the next 4 are dedicated to NMVe M.2 slot 1, and the rest go to the chipset. NMVe slot 2 works off the chipset lanes, but there is often not much competition that would create a noticeable difference in performance from slot 1 results. It's curious that slot 2 results here are faster than slot 1. My theory is the differences in data being read/written/transferred. The OS has vastly more choices and subroutines to process than with the slot 2 drive just feeding a game to the CPU. That's my story, I'll stick to it for awhile 'til you guys blow me up.

I was blathering while the diagram was being posted. As I see it, it's explaining that the chipset installed on this particular form factor MUST be X570 in order to enable PCIe 4 on slot 2.

Edited by Cretae - 12 Apr 2021 at 5:48am