PCIe 4.0, Ram, GPU, and MOBO slots.

[jjnb1234]

Budget (including currency): $1500-$2500

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Blender, PrusaSlicer, etc. Games and Music Storage/Production.

Other details: I’m interested in building a computer with full use and support of PCIe 4.0 and over clocking. One question I have is whether or not I need a PCIe 4.0 GPU when it seems having your ram and SSD on the PCIe 4.0 lanes is where the benefit is?

 

[jjnb1234]

I’m actually not sure if you even can have your ram on those slots or whether they have their own port on the motherboard or “sideboard?”

[Chris Pratt]

RAM is not over PCIe. You also don't generally need to choose between the graphics card and SSDs in terms of PCIe 4.0. Assuming the board supports PCIe 4.0 at all (you didn't specify AMD or Intel), it's either going to be all PCIe 4.0, or at least PCIe 4.0 on the CPU lanes, which gives you at least one x16 slot and an M.2. If the chipset lanes are also PCIe 4.0, then there's no limitations.

 

That said, even PCIe 4.0 graphics cards don't really saturate over PCIe 3.0, and right now at least, there's very little point to PCIe 4.0 SSDs, unless you're doing workloads that are very I/O heavy, like editing 4K+ raw video.

[RONOTHAN##]

1 minute ago, jjnb1234 said:

Budget (including currency): $1500-$2500

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Blender, PrusaSlicer, etc. Games and Music Storage/Production.

Other details: I’m interested in building a computer with full use and support of PCIe 4.0 and over clocking. One question I have is whether or not I need a PCIe 4.0 GPU when it seems having your ram and SSD on the PCIe 4.0 lanes is where the benefit is?

 

1.) PCIe is forwards and backwards compatible across all generations, so a PCIe Gen 1 device will work and a PCIe Gen 4 board, or vice versa, it's just that the maximum speed will be limited by the slowest device in the chain (a Gen 3 SSD will be limited to Gen3 speeds, even in a Gen 4 capable slot). 

 

2.) RAM has it's own dedicated slots and does not use PCIe lanes (without a lot of weird workarounds that are very obscure).

 

3,) The SSD and GPU in compute applications are the only thing that can take advantage of Gen4 at the moment. The vast majority of consumers will not notice the difference in drives unless full you are doing very large data transfers, as last I remember most Gen4 drives aren't tuned for IOPS that most applications use. The GPU in games will not use gen 4, so unless you are doing very compute heavy applications, you probably won't need it. 

 

TL;DR: Unless you have a very specific use case, PCIe Gen 3 vs Gen 4 doesn't matter too much. If they are the same or similar prices, get gen 4 over gen 3 just for the future upgradeability, but for anything over say $20-30 you'd probably be better off just saving the cash now and upgrading in a couple years when Gen 4 (or maybe even Gen 5 at that point) becomes mainstream

[Herman Mcpootis]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i9-10850K 3.6 GHz 10-Core Processor  ($393.99 @ B&H) use the iGPU for now.
CPU Cooler: EVGA CLC 280 113.5 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($79.98 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: MSI Z490-A PRO ATX LGA1200 Motherboard  ($179.99 @ Best Buy) pci-e 3.0 is still fine unless you need very fast read/write speeds on your SSD.
Memory: Team T-FORCE DARK Za 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory  ($149.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Silicon Power A80 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  ($59.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Toshiba 3 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($90.00 @ MemoryC) 
Case: Corsair SPEC-DELTA RGB ATX Mid Tower Case  ($84.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 PE 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($106.90 @ Amazon) 
Total: $1145.83
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-05-22 21:55 EDT-0400

[brob]

PCPartPicker Part List

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-11700K 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor ($389.99 @ Amazon) 

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U12A 60.09 CFM CPU Cooler ($109.95 @ Amazon) 

Motherboard: MSI Z590-A PRO ATX LGA1200 Motherboard ($189.99 @ Adorama) 

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($164.99 @ Newegg) 

Storage: Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($199.99 @ B&H) 

Video Card: EVGA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB XC GAMING Video Card ($1199.99 @ Monoprice) 

Case: Fractal Design Meshify 2 Compact TG Light Tint ATX Mid Tower Case ($119.98 @ Newegg) 

Power Supply: SeaSonic FOCUS 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($129.00 @ B&H) 

Total: $2503.88

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-05-22 23:03 EDT-0400

[jjnb1234]

On 5/22/2021 at 4:56 PM, Chris Pratt said:

RAM is not over PCIe. You also don't generally need to choose between the graphics card and SSDs in terms of PCIe 4.0. Assuming the board supports PCIe 4.0 at all (you didn't specify AMD or Intel), it's either going to be all PCIe 4.0, or at least PCIe 4.0 on the CPU lanes, which gives you at least one x16 slot and an M.2. If the chipset lanes are also PCIe 4.0, then there's no limitations.

 

That said, even PCIe 4.0 graphics cards don't really saturate over PCIe 3.0, and right now at least, there's very little point to PCIe 4.0 SSDs, unless you're doing workloads that are very I/O heavy, like editing 4K+ raw video.

Thank you for the knowledge, at the end of the day I don’t think I will need PCIe4.0 speeds, but my main use of the computer will be working on 3d modeling for 3d printing. I’ve been limited so far by either my laptop or by the program I’m using. My laptop was cheep as I remember, so really anything is an upgrade. That being said I don’t want to be limited in anyway going forward. Building 3d models with multiple objects (steming from each other) with all the complex angles is what crashes the program or triggers errors in the program I’m using for 3d modeling. I have an open source printer now and I’m going to try Blender or something similar in the free category for now once I get a better pc. So that’s really what it’s about for me is being able to do what the tools should be able to do and not be limited by my hardware. I agree though that I probably don’t need PCIe 4.0 for my use of the pc so thank you for clarifying some things for me.

[jjnb1234]

On 5/22/2021 at 5:01 PM, RONOTHAN## said:

1.) PCIe is forwards and backwards compatible across all generations, so a PCIe Gen 1 device will work and a PCIe Gen 4 board, or vice versa, it's just that the maximum speed will be limited by the slowest device in the chain (a Gen 3 SSD will be limited to Gen3 speeds, even in a Gen 4 capable slot). 

 

2.) RAM has it's own dedicated slots and does not use PCIe lanes (without a lot of weird workarounds that are very obscure).

 

3,) The SSD and GPU in compute applications are the only thing that can take advantage of Gen4 at the moment. The vast majority of consumers will not notice the difference in drives unless full you are doing very large data transfers, as last I remember most Gen4 drives aren't tuned for IOPS that most applications use. The GPU in games will not use gen 4, so unless you are doing very compute heavy applications, you probably won't need it. 

 

TL;DR: Unless you have a very specific use case, PCIe Gen 3 vs Gen 4 doesn't matter too much. If they are the same or similar prices, get gen 4 over gen 3 just for the future upgradeability, but for anything over say $20-30 you'd probably be better off just saving the cash now and upgrading in a couple years when Gen 4 (or maybe even Gen 5 at that point) becomes mainstream

Thanks!