First since '98 (AMD 486)

[MrBurns]

Budget (including currency): AU$5000

Country: Australia

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Lightroom, Forza, GTA, Half Life, RDR, Solidworks, Sketchup

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

Looking to buy soon, upgrading from a maxed out MacPro1,1 (no longer widely supported).

All good for peripherals.

Built a PC 22 years ago and figure it can't be that difficult now.

Not interested in RGB or water cooling.

 

Look forward to some complete parts lists

Cheers

MrBurns

 

[MrBurns]

Here's a list I'm considering:

 

• WARRANTY PACKAGES : 2 Years Parts Warranty (Pickup and return from your location)
• CASE OPTIONS : SHADOW : BEQUIET PURE BASE 500 TG (NOISE INSULATED CHASSIS) (BLACK)
• MOTHERBOARD (PREMIUM RANGE) : For Intel - GIGABYTE B460 AORUS PRO AC
• CPU (HIGH PERFORMANCE DESKTOPS) : Intel® Core™ i9-10900F | 5.2 GHZ | 10 Cores 20 Threads
• GRAPHICS CARD : PREMIUM RANGE : GIGABYTE AORUS XTREME RTX 2080ti 11GB
• THERMAL COMPOUND : Stock Thermal Compound
• RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY (RAM) : DESKTOP : 32GB DDR4 3600MHz G.Skill Trident Z Neo (2X16GB | Dual Channel | RGB, 18-22-22-42)
• CPU COOLING SYSTEM (DESKTOP) : AIR COOLING - Bequiet Dark Rock 4
• PRIMARY M.2 SSD : DESKTOPS : 1TB M.2 NVME SSD (R: 3500 | W: 3000)
• SECONDARY SOLID STATE DRIVE BAY : None
• FIRST HARD DRIVE : DESKTOP : None
• SECOND HARD DRIVE : DESKTOP : None
• CASE LIGHTING : None
• CHASSIS FANS : BEQUIET SILENT WINGS 3 120mm (Stealth Fans, Ultra Silent) x 5 Fans
• CUSTOM CABLE SLEEVES : Standard Cable Setup
• POWER SUPPLY UNIT : FSP / EVGA 850W 80+ Gold Premium
• WIRELESS LAN : DESKTOP : INTEL W-iFi 6 AX200 (AX WIFI + BLUETOOTH 5.0)

Thoughts, swaps, unnecessaries?

[mariushm]

All kinds of wrong.

The cpu is locked, not overclockable.

The motherboard is using "budget" chipset

You're paying more for rgb on ram, though you're saying you don't care about that

You're killing your budget with that 2080ti video card, almost half of your budget goes to that card (i assume it's around 1800 australian dollars) for what, maybe 20% extra performance over a 2070 super or a regular 2080? Would you even use such card to the max, or are you gonna play on 1440p monitor or 1080p monitors? Half-life runs on potatoes, and programs like solidworks probably will work perfectly fine on a cheaper video card

 

If you want to burn through the 5k budget, here's a great build for workstation, cad, but which can also do well on games :

 

You have a 24 core cpu, you have 64 GB of memory with room to add 64 GB more (another 4 sticks) if you'll go into serious cad and rendering, mobo has pci-e slots and wifi 6 and a bunch of m.2 connectors, you have a 512 GB nvme ssd for the OS and main programs, a 2 TB SATA m.2 ssd for storage that's less critical, and you get a 2070 super that's half the 2080ti price but still super fast. 

 

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Threadripper 3960X 3.8 GHz 24-Core Processor	$2197.80 @ Newegg Australia
CPU Cooler	Corsair H105 73 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	$152.00 @ Umart
Motherboard	Gigabyte TRX40 AORUS PRO WIFI ATX sTRX4 Motherboard	$659.00 @ Computer Alliance
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws V 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory	$391.60 @ Newegg Australia
Storage	Western Digital Blue SN550 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$106.70 @ Amazon Australia
Storage	Western Digital Blue 2 TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	$307.27 @ Amazon Australia
Video Card	Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB WINDFORCE OC 3X Video Card	$790.83 @ Amazon Australia
Case	Lian Li PC-O11 Air ATX Full Tower Case	$219.00 @ PCCaseGear
Power Supply	SeaSonic PRIME Ultra Gold 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$325.00 @ Skycomp Technology
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$5149.20
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-08-16 19:13 AEST+1000

 

If you absolutely must have 2080ti 11 GB, here's another build, that will still make more sense than your choices :

 

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 3.5 GHz 16-Core Processor	$1121.43 @ Amazon Australia
CPU Cooler	Corsair H105 73 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	$152.00 @ Umart
Motherboard	Gigabyte X570 AORUS PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard	$427.23 @ Amazon Australia
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory	$188.10 @ Newegg Australia
Storage	ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 2 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$394.79 @ Amazon Australia
Video Card	Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11 GB WINDFORCE Video Card	$1899.00 @ Centre Com
Case	Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case	$144.10 @ Newegg Australia
Power Supply	Fractal Design Ion+ 860 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$293.50 @ Device Deal
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$4620.15
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-08-16 19:27 AEST+1000

 

 

[Avocheeseado]

Wait for new hardware if you can (1 or 2 months). If you cant then this would be a good option for 5k. I used @mariushm one to start but made a few changes.

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Threadripper 3960X 3.8 GHz 24-Core Processor	$2197.80 @ Newegg Australia
CPU Cooler	Corsair H105 73 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	$152.00 @ Umart
Motherboard	Gigabyte TRX40 AORUS PRO WIFI ATX sTRX4 Motherboard	$659.00 @ Computer Alliance
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws V 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory	$391.60 @ Newegg Australia
Storage	Western Digital SN750 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$289.00 @ JW Computers
Storage	Western Digital Blue SN550 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$155.27 @ Amazon Australia
Video Card	Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB WINDFORCE OC 3X Video Card	$790.83 @ Amazon Australia
Case	Lian Li PC-O11 Air ATX Full Tower Case	$219.00 @ PCCaseGear
Power Supply	Corsair HX Platinum 850 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$289.00 @ PC Byte
Case Fan	be quiet! SilentWings 3 PWM 50.5 CFM 120 mm Fan	$32.00 @ PCCaseGear
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$5175.50
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-08-16 19:47 AEST+1000

850w should be plenty unless you plan to use SLI.

Faster SSDs, you can always add more down the line.

The case only comes with 2 fans so a couple more would be ideal though that is something you can add in later if you think the temps could be improved. I do recommend adding one extra though at least, for exhaust.

[MrBurns]

Great thanks for these, more than happy to step down from 2080ti if it doesn't afford me much future-proofing. I prefer not to update hardware too often.

 

I'm in no particular rush so waiting is an option - is there something big on the horizon I haven't heard about?

 

Is there a particular reason each of the proposed builds are with AMD rather than Intel?

Does the price jump from Ryzen to Threadripper make more sense than the similar jump from 2070 to 2080ti? 

 

I'll have a play with pcpartpicker, seems a better option than starting with a 'customised build' from www.aftershockpc.com.au

 

Thanks again for your replies.

[mariushm]

nVidia's gonna launch 3xxx series of RTX cards in a month or two, which may result in the prices of 2xxx cards dropping by a small amount. 

 

AMD  may launch some AMD Ryzen 4xxx processors, but if anything it's gonna be november or december... more likely to be next year around february-april.

 

Threadripper is not as good as 3950x at games, but close enough... for games like Forza and Half-Life they're both overkill. 

 

It has a bit performance in applications that can use a lot of the cores (video encoding, rendering, cad stuff, lots of things) but then again 3950x also has lots of cores so they're more or less equal...

 

The benefit of threadripper platform is the fact that there's 60 pci-e lanes going to pci-e slots and m.2 connectors, while socket AM4 is limited to 20 pci-e lanes + 8 lanes from chipset. 

So, on socket AM4 you get 16 pci-e lanes from cpu going to video card slot (which may be split into 2 x8 , in two pci-e x16 slots, if the motherboard chooses to) and you will get a third pci-e x16 slot that's electrically only x4, coming from chipset. You may get a couple m.2 connectors, one with 4 pci-e lanes from cpu, and the 2nd m.2 connector using 4 pci-e lanes from chipset.

In contrast, on threadripper you get 60 pci-e lanes, typically you have 2 or 3 pci-e x16 slots, maybe 1-2 pci-e x8 slots, and you get at least 2 m.2 connectors with 4 pci-e lanes from cpu and 1-2 m.2 with pci-e lanes from chipset.

Threadripper also supports bifurcation, which makes it possible to easily split a pci-e slot into multiple segments of pci-e lanes.

 

For example, you can basically get an adapter card which takes a pci-e x16 slot and splits it into 4  x4 connections, so you can place 4 m.2 nvme ssds on the adapter card and all those m.2 ssds have super high performance.

Another bonus of threadripper is the quad channel, being able to install 8 memory sticks, so you can install up to 256 GB of memory (8 x 32 GB) ... on socket AM4 up to a few months ago the highest you could go was 64 GB but now that 32 GB sticks are more common, you can go up to 128GB on AM4.

 

Some socket AM4 boards support bifurcation as well, but pretty much limited to something like splitting a pci-e x8 from the cpu into 2 x4. 

 

If you don't think you're gonna need more than 2-3 nvme m.2 SSDs (you can still use 4-6 SATA SSDs, for lots of things 550MB/s is fast enough) and you'll be fine with at most 2 other pci-e x16 cards (for example a hdmi capture card and a 10g ethernet card), then you'd be better off with a 3950x - it's cheaper, easier to cool, and a bit faster in games.

[MrBurns]

Ok, I've had a bit more time to research based on the info you both provided, thanks it was very useful.

 

Based on what I've read I'm thinking this will give me the future-proofing i'm aiming for.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Threadripper 3960X 3.8 GHz 24-Core Processor  ($2260.00 @ Amazon Australia) 
CPU Cooler: Fractal Design Celsius S36 Blackout 87.6 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler 
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5 g Thermal Paste  ($13.02 @ Amazon Australia) 
Motherboard: ASRock TRX40 Creator ATX sTRX4 Motherboard 
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($469.03 @ Amazon Australia) 
Storage: Crucial P1 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($158.00 @ Amazon Australia) 
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB WINDFORCE OC 3X Video Card  ($788.69 @ Amazon Australia) 
Case: Fractal Design Define 7 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($280.37 @ Amazon Australia) 
Power Supply: Corsair HX Platinum 850 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($468.20 @ Amazon Australia) 
Case Fan: Fractal Design GP14-BK 68.4 CFM 140 mm Fan  ($28.47 @ Amazon Australia) 
Monitor: Asus TUF Gaming VG27AQ 27.0" 2560x1440 165 Hz Monitor  ($1314.99 @ Amazon Australia) 
Total: $5780.77
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-08-22 17:02 AEST+1000

 

Since i'll be building from scratch and it's been a while, it would be great if you could let me know if I've missed any components?