TR2990WX for work and play, what can I change?

[SneakySquid]

Hey guys, 

 

I am planning on building a new rig that will be able to handle basically everything, I play games, AAA titles and MOBAs, but the primary reason for this entire build is for my side business that I am hoping to grow significantly this year.

 

I work with drones, taking pictures, videos and collecting data from construction sites, farms quarries and so on. Basically a pretty varied load. There will be some rendering of 4K videos, photo editing and over night the rig will be crunching the numbers for Pix4D datasets. 

 

I am looking for feedback on this build. Any changes you would make, and why?

 

I am not looking for the most budget friendly build, hence the RGB, because I thought damn it if I am spending this much on the CPU alone, might as well go all out. This will be my first time doing a custom loop on my own, but have helped some buddies before so it's not entirely new to me.

 

I am trying to have it optimized for some overclocking, not too much, and for it being quiet as it will be living at my desk in the living room...

 

CPU	AMD Threadripper 2990WX
GPU	ASUS GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER DUAL OC EVO
Motherboard	ASRock X399 TAICHI
RAM	Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO DDR4-2933 64GB
Case	Corsair Obsidian 500D Mid Tower
PSU	EVGA SuperNOVA 1200 P2
SSD	Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB
HDD 4x	Seagate Barracuda 2TB
Radiator top	EK-CoolStream SE 280 (Slim Dual)
Radiator front	EK-CoolStream SE 360 (Slim Triple)
CPU Waterblock	EK-Velocity sTR4 D-RGB - Nickel + Plexi
GPU Waterblock	EK Vector RTX RE RGB - Nickel + Plexi
Fittings 10x	EK-ACF Fitting 10/16mm - Black
Tupe	EK-DuraClear 9,5/15,9mm 3M RETAIL
Pump/Reservoirs	EK-XRES 140 Revo D5 RGB PWM (incl. sl. pump)
Fans 140 3x	Corsair ML140 PRO RGB
Fans 120 3x	Corsair ML120 PRO RGB
Fluid	EK-CryoFuel Navy Blue (Premix 1000mL)

 

The only problem I am having currently is I can't seem to find an EK waterblock for a 2070 super, so I've thrown on a 2080 for now and will keep looking and contacting EK, their website is confusing..

[mariushm]

I would suggest NOT going with Threadripper.

You do have 32 cores and 64 threads, but they'll run at relatively low frequency, and they'll be split across dies in a way that adds latency and it's just too many cores for most encoders to actually use them, even at 4K.

 

In September you'll have Ryzen 9 3950X , 16 cores / 32 threads with 3.5 ghz default / 4.7 ghz boost and you have better AVX2 support for encoding videos, and you have the same 72 MB of cache which really helps with encoding and images and you also get 3600 Mhz DDR4 (or higher, but pointless if higher).

 

You could start with a decent x570 motherboard now and maybe a Ryzen 3600 if you're in a rush, then in Sep/Oct depending on availability, upgrade to 3950x and sell the 3600 for something like a 10-20% discount

 

With a good watercooling kit (cheaper, as it's only socket AM4, not the wide TR4 socket ones) you'll be able to have all those 16 cores at 4.3-4.5 ghz and you'll actually use 16-20 threads to render 4K videos.

 

A 270$  GIGABYTE X570 AORUS PRO WIFI AMD Ryzen 3000 PCIe 4.0 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.2 AMD X570 ATX Motherboard would be more than enough, can handle any cpu you throw at it, including overclocking said cpu : https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813145157

You can go even cheaper, say with a

* 240$ ASRock X570 EXTREME4  : https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813157888

* 200$  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 : https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813119197

 

You'll also have pci-e 4.0 , so you may as well buy a 1-2 TB nvme SSD to dump the 4K footage from cameras , the 1 TB Gigabyte SSD is only 50$ more than the 970 Plus (it is TLC though but ... won't really matter)

[Jurrunio]

1. 2990WX is really expensive, and soon to be surpassed by 3rd gen TR that doesn't struggle with uneven memory performance on different cores the 2nd gen WX suffers (which then makes its performance vary a lot between workloads). 3rd gen TR is supposedly due October tho... maybe just stick to the 16 core for now? There's little gain from 1st gen to 2nd gen in the first place so maybe just settle with the 1950X for now.

 

2. Overclocking the 2990WX pretty much overloads the power delivery (VRM) of all boards that came before 2nd gen TR. The 16 core 2950X draws about 300w max in rendering, equating to about 230A of current draw which is fine for most boards since they carry 480A capable powerstages (which you should load at best 60%, more like 50% since they get their current ratings alone instead of being crammed into a small area). The 24 core 2970WX and 32 core 2990WX's current draw pretty much scale linearly to the 16 core, so yeah the only board holding up to that kind of current draw is the MSI Creation board. If you're fine with lesser OC and a dedicated VRM fan then the SLI Plus, Gaming Pro Carbon and Asus Zenith Extreme Alpha with built in active VRM cooling (not so Extreme huh?, tho Gigabyte's worse) can hold up.

 

3. 3rd gen TR should see 50% better efficiency than 2nd gen (since 12 core 3900x draws power like the 8 core 2700x when both are maxed out) and 15% performance gain for the same frequency and core count so if you will get less cores for now and wait for the 3rd gen 32 core instead, all but the Asrock X399 Phantom 6 will hold up, at worst needing a VRM fan that you can add if VRM temperatures look bad during work (I'd be really pissed if these boards don't have such sensor)

 

4. TR are all memory sensitive, more so on 3rd gen when CPU cores run near their max capability at stock. If you have the money a high rated memory kit (say 3600MHz CL16) always beats RGB in usefulness imo.

 

5. Of course there's the 16 core 3950X due September on AM4 platform, so you can argue that you will overpay for the 16 core TR4 CPU for now, used market can give you more reasonable deals but only by chance. Waiting for 3950X launch before buying 16 core TR4 is also a bad idea when 3rd gen TR is due right next month (launch anyways, maybe not being available for purchase).

[TheGlenlivet]

Agree with the posts above.  If you don't need a bunch of PCI lanes (you have 1 GPU) you don't need TR4.

 

[SneakySquid]

Hi, thank you all for your replies. 

 

My main reason for going with the TR is because pugget systems and their pix4d benchmarks. Showing that the 2990wx is what I need for maximum performance. Though the Intel i9 XE is right up there with it. 

 

What's your take on jumping over to that instead? Ditching the amd platform entirely! 

[mariushm]

They don't seem to have Ryzen 7 / 9 in those benchmarks.  Contact them and ask them about Ryzen 9 3900x and 3950x, where do they think they'll land in those benchmarks and what do they think you should do.

No, I wouldn't go Intel. 

 

The AM4 platform right now really is the better choice imho. The 250$+ motherboards have ridiculous (-ly great) VRMs with 10+ phases and big power stages... practically they have better VRMs than some Threadripper boards, and better heatsinks. Plus, you get pci-e 4.0 and more usb 3 10gbps and you get wifi 6 with higher end boards - the only stuff you lose is more than 2 pci-e x16/x8 slots.... which you won't use anyway.

 

I have doubts that x399 Taichi can even handle overclocking on that 2990WX and it's really not worth paying that much for that cpu.

The Ryzen 9 3950x will probably be close to 1000$ though, but for encoding videos and rendering it would be worth it.

 

[SneakySquid]

27 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

1. 2990WX is really expensive, and soon to be surpassed by 3rd gen TR that doesn't struggle with uneven memory performance on different cores the 2nd gen WX suffers (which then makes its performance vary a lot between workloads). 3rd gen TR is supposedly due October tho... maybe just stick to the 16 core for now? There's little gain from 1st gen to 2nd gen in the first place so maybe just settle with the 1950X for now.

 

2. Overclocking the 2990WX pretty much overloads the power delivery (VRM) of all boards that came before 2nd gen TR. The 16 core 2950X draws about 300w max in rendering, equating to about 230A of current draw which is fine for most boards since they carry 480A capable powerstages (which you should load at best 60%, more like 50% since they get their current ratings alone instead of being crammed into a small area). The 24 core 2970WX and 32 core 2990WX's current draw pretty much scale linearly to the 16 core, so yeah the only board holding up to that kind of current draw is the MSI Creation board. If you're fine with lesser OC and a dedicated VRM fan then the SLI Plus, Gaming Pro Carbon and Asus Zenith Extreme Alpha with built in active VRM cooling (not so Extreme huh?, tho Gigabyte's worse) can hold up.

 

3. 3rd gen TR should see 50% better efficiency than 2nd gen (since 12 core 3900x draws power like the 8 core 2700x when both are maxed out) and 15% performance gain for the same frequency and core count so if you will get less cores for now and wait for the 3rd gen 32 core instead, all but the Asrock X399 Phantom 6 will hold up, at worst needing a VRM fan that you can add if VRM temperatures look bad during work (I'd be really pissed if these boards don't have such sensor)

 

4. TR are all memory sensitive, more so on 3rd gen when CPU cores run near their max capability at stock. If you have the money a high rated memory kit (say 3600MHz CL16) always beats RGB in usefulness imo.

 

5. Of course there's the 16 core 3950X due September on AM4 platform, so you can argue that you will overpay for the 16 core TR4 CPU for now, used market can give you more reasonable deals but only by chance. Waiting for 3950X launch before buying 16 core TR4 is also a bad idea when 3rd gen TR is due right next month (launch anyways, maybe not being available for purchase).

Thanks for your reply. I am in no way in a rush with this setup, my current setup is OK but processing times on pix4d are quite brutal. 

 

With the new TR series, would the 16 core be a better choice then? Compared to gen2 32 core? 

 

Thanks for your reply and I will be researching some more I can see. 

[Jurrunio]

4 hours ago, SneakySquid said:

Though the Intel i9 XE is right up there with it. 

 

What's your take on jumping over to that instead? Ditching the amd platform entirely! 

I think that costs even more?

 

4 hours ago, SneakySquid said:

With the new TR series, would the 16 core be a better choice then? Compared to gen2 32 core? 

It will be workload dependent. Those that load the memory will favour the 3rd gen TR 16 core, those that don't will favour the 2nd gen 32 core. That said 3rd gen TR 16 core should also be cheaper... if it even comes since when AM4 gets 16 core, why would TR4 bother with a 16 core anyways?

[SneakySquid]

Okay guys, thank you all very much for your feedback, I was going to wait anyway to see what the new processors would be like, but now it seems like I am forced to wait no matter since the TR2990WX doesn't appear to be what I thought it was.

 

I think the new Ryzen 9 3950 is what I need, but we'll have to see what happens when it comes out.

 

Thanks!