PCIE Lanes, Trying to pick a new CPU.

Naveronasis · February 3, 2020

I have a 3x NVME M.2 Setup with a single GPU, was thinking of going to SLI if they get this new tile based system going well. I tend to run triple 4k, play mostly sightseeing games at 60fps 4k. So that being the case, Can I still get by on a Ryzen 3, or do I need to go to Thread Ripper or X299? Currently I have a x99 setup. Is quad channel memory and more lanes required for my setup? Or will chipset lanes be enough. (I understand the memory and pice lanes are different things. Just going for brevity.) I also edit 4k video but not very long clips and not very often, so I'm not too worried about rendering speed these days. But I figured I would include that. Money isn't really an object but I don't like to spend money I don't have to. So I would like to get setup with a new board and CPU for around 1000, but am willing to go upto 3k if it removes a bottleneck somewhere. Even if it wont improve games, if im going to lose a bunch of bandwidth to the drives because of limited lanes or something I would rather just spend the money. I also have a ton of USB 3 devices. External storage and stuff. We also play 4 player local multiplayer on games that support it and emulators etc. From what I understand you use like 4 lanes for ports. 16 lanes for the GPU 4 lanes for each NVME drive. So it sounds like I need 32 lanes in order to avoid limitations. vOv But then again if I was sure about that, I wouldn't be asking.

dizmo · February 3, 2020

Nvidia, for the exact reason you said. Drivers are kind of important.

Naveronasis · February 3, 2020

I never asked about GPU but by mentioning SLI It was implied I am going Nvidia. Although it dawned on me as soon as I posted this before the edit you may have been referring to the tile based rendering performance, which yes, is part driver bound. Anyway not entirely sure how that relates to my CPU choice, it's not like they make Nvidia chipsets anymore XD.

Edited February 3, 2020 by Naveronasis
Second thought

ZzLy · February 3, 2020

9 hours ago, Naveronasis said:

I have a 3x NVME M.2 Setup with a single GPU, was thinking of going to SLI if they get this new tile based system going well. I tend to run triple 4k, play mostly sightseeing games at 60fps 4k. So that being the case, Can I still get by on a Ryzen 3, or do I need to go to Thread Ripper or X299? Currently I have a x99 setup. Is quad channel memory and more lanes required for my setup? Or will chipset lanes be enough. (I understand the memory and pice lanes are different things. Just going for brevity.) I also edit 4k video but not very long clips and not very often, so I'm not too worried about rendering speed these days. But I figured I would include that. Money isn't really an object but I don't like to spend money I don't have to. So I would like to get setup with a new board and CPU for around 1000, but am willing to go upto 3k if it removes a bottleneck somewhere. Even if it wont improve games, if im going to lose a bunch of bandwidth to the drives because of limited lanes or something I would rather just spend the money. I also have a ton of USB 3 devices. External storage and stuff. We also play 4 player local multiplayer on games that support it and emulators etc. From what I understand you use like 4 lanes for ports. 16 lanes for the GPU 4 lanes for each NVME drive. So it sounds like I need 32 lanes in order to avoid limitations. vOv But then again if I was sure about that, I wouldn't be asking.

1. SLI is dead.

2. Ryzen 3's all have iGPU's so getting one would be a waste, and in any case it would be a downgrade from X99. Get a Ryzen 5, 7, or 9.

3. Intel just released their last line of processors for X299 so investing in X299 right now is a terrible idea as it will be a dead platform very shortly.

4. Threadripper is a pretty good choice for any creative work, especially 4k video editing.