Can someone sanity-check my thoughtprocess?

[Marco2G]

Hi there

 

I was planning to wait to upgrade my system until the next Ryzen was out. You know for new DDR generation and so forth.

 

But frankly, this was my argument for waiting for several generations... the next one will be a bit better, just wait. Well, now we have this clusterfuck going and nobody knows when the new CPU with new socket is gonna be released, nobody knows how overpriced DDR5 is gonna be and nobody knows how long it's gonna take for them to get all the bugs straightened out in all these new hardware implementations.

 

Add to that, I think I ave never in my life done a CPU upgrade without changing the board.

 

SO.

 

I've kept my finger on the pulse on how to optimize Ryzen from time to time  but I am unsure how valid these things still are for Ryzen 5000.

 

So if I may I'd like to through my plans into the ring and add the thought process. Please feel free to tell me I'm an idiot on any of them.

 

 

In my mind, bumping infinity fabric to 1900MHz is/was desirable. Overclocking the CPU beyond that seems to often be counterproductive.

 

So I would like to go with the ASUS TUF GAMING B550-PLUS. It seems to be solidly built even offers PCIe4 even though I don't think I'll use it and it's a good value. Also all the latest USB I could need, HDMI 2.1 if I ever put in an APU (unlikely) and 2.5Gbit Ethernet, also nice to have but not supported by my switch.

I would put a Ryzen 5800x on it.

And Corsair Vengeance LPX clocked at 4000 MHz with a CAS latency of 18. Not the best but the Trident Z Neo with 3800 MHz, I think, and like CAS 14 cost almost a third more.

 

My idea is to put infinity fabric to 1900 MHz, step the memory down to 3800 MHZ and possibly tighten timings a bit.

 

I will keep using my old GTX 780. I don't game very much and when I do it usually city builders or map painters like EU4. I do DVD and Bluray Ripping too. My display is 1440p 60Hz and unless I finally come across a game that makes me really salivate for graphics and immersion (Cyberpunk was not it and I have given up on Star Citizen), this won't change anytime soon.

 

One important aspect for me is that the USB be rock solidly implemented. My current Asus Z97-a has weird interactions with my dock and KVM solutions. So if anyone knows of USB issues with the TUF, I'd appreciate a heads-up.

 

So...

 

How off the rails is my thought process?

 

Thank you.

[Marco2G]

Huh, just noticed that my vendor actually has RAM with a CAS latency of 16 @ 4000MHz.

 

So I'm guessing I'm going to try for an FCLK of 2000 and if the CPU doesn't like that, go down to 1900 with tighter timings still.

[derpkotacasper]

The point of diminishing returns in on Zen 3 is going to be about 3600 - as a solid rule of thumb, aim for half of the first two digits of your frequency as your CAS latency maximum. So you'll see pretty solid performance out of anything at 3600 MHz with a CAS Latency of 18 or lower. I don't know much about overclocking your infinity fabric, but I do know I have seen pretty amazing results overclocking my Ryzen 3 3100. In all reality, for your use case scenario, you'll never need anything beyond DDR4 3200 @ CL16, which I'm only saying because it's the industry standard. You're not going to saturate it.

Also worth mentioning, if a GTX 780 supports your needs still, you would even be solid with a Ryzen 3000 series CPU.

DDR5 is on sale now and it's overpriced and won't be in it's actual fast iterations for some time to come. Right now, it is still actually pretty comparable to DDR4 and there.... isn't support for it yet.

Couple things of note as well - the next gen of Ryzen will still be DDR4. The gen after that will add DDR5. If you're looking to early adopt DDR5, which would be ill advised in the first place, you'll want to go 12th gen Intel, as Alder Lake will support both DDR5 and PCIe5. DDR5 being unrefined and PCIe5 being a format that you'll likely never saturate - you'll likely never saturate PCIe3 for that matter.

Now to answer your questions more directly... If you're wanting to do overclocking, that board will serve you fantastically. I run an ROG Strix B550 and I've overclocked the buhjeezus out of my CPU on it, it handles it fine and I'm sure the TUF Gaming model would also serve you well - a motherboard is at the end of the day, the sum of the components plugged into it.

However, an X570 chipset board does have better VRMs which opens you to cooler, more stable overclocking. X570 will offer all the features a B550 does, but with better capabilities for overclocking, and while it is irrelevant for you, better backwards capability. There's also the benefit of having more than one PCIe 4.0 slot which can result in a much faster set up for your storage that comes alongside an x570 chipset board. You can read more here: https://www.wepc.com/tips/b550-vs-x570/

https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007625 601334781&cm_sp=Cat_Motherboards_1-_-Visnav-_-AMD-X570_5    That's an x570 board search on Newegg, I recommend anyone interested in overclocking their system to consider one of those over a b550. I wish I had.

X570 tends to also have faster USB support as well. I hope this has answered your questions!

btw: https://www.newegg.com/asus-tuf-gaming-x570-plus/p/13-119-197  The TUF Gaming x570 is competitively priced. That's the WiFi model. It can be had cheaper without WiFi too. The current network controller ASUS is using on their WiFi boards is absolutely sublime though, I'm very pleased with mine.

[Marco2G]

Thank you for your reply.

 

I don't want to go Intel this time. I want to see the balance of power shift somewhat more to AMD still. Hoping for an equilibrium at some point :).

 

Since the game I play most is very single-threaded and I'm a savescummer, I'm hoping (!) for better loading times when the whole interconnect between chiplets and RAM is optimized. Might be a pipedream but we'll see.

 

You're right, my hardware vendor does sell Ballistix RAM @ 3200 MHz at half the price but we're talking 90 bucks difference. Applied to the whole build that's like 12% price hike. I can live with that.

I have been looking at X570 Mobos but frankly, what's the point? I have one GPU max in there and it's doubtful that THAT will profit from PCIe4 at all. Storage? I need a boot gumstick. Right now I'm booting and working off of a SATA SSD. The M2 in the system currently only holds the Steam library because the M2 is also only SATA and not PCIe.

 

As to USB, the TUF has two USB 3.2 Gen2 1 Type A and one type C. 4 USB 3.2 Gen1. Way enough for connectivity. I connect a lot of crap but nothing truly high bandwidth. Again stability is worth more to me.

And from what I read, the VRMs on this board are pretty excellent.

 

I am just not impressed enough with PCIe4 storage right now to find that worthwhile.

 

Frankly I needed to keep price relatively sane in order to finally convince myself to hit the trigger at all! As mentioned, I've delayed building a new rig for several years now. My 4670k is overclocked to 4.5 GHz. It still does most things astoundingly well. I feel the RAM does give me wiggle room to play whereas X570 doesn't provide much over B550 IF the B550 has a well engineered power delivery. From what I gather, my TUF should have exactly that.