Technical Advice Needed

[CH_Phoenix]

Budget (including currency): 2000 - 3000 CHF | no luxury spending - Cheaper always welcome

Country: Switzerland

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Architecture software -ArchiCAD, Rhino 3D, Grasshopper, Blender, Cinema 4D | Lightroom, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign | Gaming if I find the time.

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): 

 

It has been some time since my last build and I'm kind of up to date on current parts but I can't finde the time to spend hours reading and watching videos any more. So I put together a list of parts I think is matching and reasonable but am aiming to improve anything lacking. With your knowledge. Which I am very thankful for.

 

Existing parts are all 10+ years old I will only be reusing the power supply which is a shamefully over dimensioned 1500W CoolerMaster M2 Silent Pro unit. It should still hold up. Originaly the plan was to upgrad alonge the way but with studying I never had the money. So It sat in a Case with a Phenom x4 965 and a AMD HD7950 for years.

 

I'm using a DELL S2721DGF 1440p 165Hz Monitor which I plan to keep for quite some time. Maybe a second one will be added for work but not gaming.

 

So the new parts will be something like this:

 

CASE:

Fractal Define 7 (I want to keep my blue-ray drive even if I don't use it much, it still works)

CPU:

AMD Ryzen 9 7900x - Cooling NH-D15 (don't want to go clc)

MOBO:

ASUS TUF Gaming X670E 

RAM

Some 6000MHz Ram  64GB (would I benefit from more with my architecture programms?)

DRIVES:

Samsung 990 Pro 2TB as boot drive

Samsung 980 EVO or QVO 2.5' 4TB as data storage (I have a NAS for backup and archival purposes)

GRAPHICS:

ASUS TUF RTX4080 Super

 

I'm not particularily bound to any brands, I try to go by reputation, but my info could be out of date. 

 

Your help is very much apreciated.

 

PS: I keep my old config for 12 years and it was solid, although getting slower and slower with demands rising. I think it will be quite some time before my next upgrade so recommendations maybe should be slightly over speced to account for that time period.

 

PSS: I know future proofing is not really a thing...

[venomtail]

It's pretty solid, 99% good. Just some nitpicks to make you aware of alternatives.

 

19 minutes ago, CH_Phoenix said:

NH-D15

Often overpriced with competitors doing just as good of a job if not better. Same cooler for the last 10 years and Noctua's still milking it.

 

19 minutes ago, CH_Phoenix said:

Some 6000MHz Ram

What latency is this. For Ryzen the lower the better.

 

19 minutes ago, CH_Phoenix said:

Samsung 990 Pro 2TB as boot drive

Samsung 980 EVO or QVO 2.5' 4TB as data storage

Samsung right now costs around x2 the equivalent competition. Marketing's done a great job so prices are charging a premium. Consider alternatives and it'll save you a bit of money. 

 

19 minutes ago, CH_Phoenix said:

ASUS TUF Gaming X670E

Are you sure you need an X670E? For 90% of people a B650 is sufficient and for the rest a normal B650E/X670 is enough. Again, even more savings.

[jaslion]

Id not get a define 7 as the airflow is pretty mediocre.

 

What case do you have now? Nice thing about cases is they dont expire and if you have more than 1 5.25 inch bay you can have the most modern of front io that a bunch of new cases dont even have.

 

Id not get a 670e a gigabye b650 ds3h runs a 7900x like a champ just as well as that really price asus but costs quite little. A more expensive board DOES NOT increase performance in any way

 

Ram try to get 6000mhz with as close to cl30 timing as possible. If its a big price jump 32 and 34 is fine too.

 

A thermalright peerless assasin 120 is like 99% as good as a nhd15 but you can buy 3 of em for the price of one noctua.

 

Ssd id just get a sn850x. Really fast but cheaper drive.

 

As for storage DO NOT get a pos qvo garbage thing. It is legit slower than a hdd when you transfer a file bigger than 5gb its trash stuff.

 

Id either get a mx500 or 860/870 evo sata drive OR opt for a cheaper nvme one for storage no need for a top spec 980

[CH_Phoenix]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

Id not get a define 7 as the airflow is pretty mediocre.

 

What case do you have now? Nice thing about cases is they dont expire and if you have more than 1 5.25 inch bay you can have the most modern of front io that a bunch of new cases dont even have.

Thank you for that advice. 

 

I have a horrible Enermax Phoenix Neo II, a stupid decision. No cable management. And the side fan only produces turbulent air and a lot of dust in the case. Power Supply still top mounted draws hot air from the case and and and... 

 

I know about the midiocore airflow but heard that it is pretty good at sound dampening and when you need the air you can open the door. 

 

An alternative would be the fractal pop air or silent but neither has me entirely convinced. There are nto many cases woth 5.25 external accesible slots left... 

 

Any nice alternatives welcome... I won't be staying with the enermax. It's also not age apropriate... ;-) 

[brob]

5 hours ago, CH_Phoenix said:

Existing parts are all 10+ years old I will only be reusing the power supply

 

I would not reuse a 10+ year old PSU with a modern GPU & CPU. Consider a new ATX 3.0 compliant PSU with native support for the 12VHPWR connector used by the GPU.

 

5 hours ago, CH_Phoenix said:

AMD Ryzen 9 7900x - Cooling NH-D15 (don't want to go clc)

 

Given the usage an i7-14700K is probably a better choice of CPU. It has similar performance in lightly threaded work and offers more threads for highly threaded work like CPU renders.

 

An NH-D15 or AK620 is sufficient for cooling an i7-14700K.

 

5 hours ago, CH_Phoenix said:

Some 6000MHz Ram  64GB (would I benefit from more with my architecture programms?)

 

Both current gen AMD and Intel CPU support 48GB memory modules and will likely support the new 64GB modules in a few months.

 

In my experience more memory is generally better. Of course budget usually sets a reasonable limit.

 

[CH_Phoenix]

I have adjusted the build according to some of your feedback and wanted to check back for a further review:

 

Case:
Fractal Define 7 - any thoughts on alternatives with 5.25'' bay still appreciated - any opinion on the Pop (silent) cases, they are basically half the price ...

case is maybe more a sound than an airflow choice

 

CPU: (longterm support seems better on AMD, even if I don't think I'll upgrade anytime soon)

AMD Ryzen 9 7900x  (non gaming workloads don't seem to profit from the 7900x3d and the price jump for both also the 7950x is too steep in my opinion)

 

Cooling:

Still think of going Noctua - but I'll think it over again with the thermalright peerless assasin 120 

 

Mobo:

Here I'm very confused. Pricing seems all over the place. Some B650 boards are more expensive than 670 boards. 

I know I want solid VRM, 4 DIMM Slots, 2 PCI-E Slots, WiFi (not a killer criterium)

 

Should I go for PCI-E 5.0 support for the long term, I remember even PCI-E 4.0 doesn't get fully loaded by normal use cases... 

 

I checked the Gigabyte GBT AMD AM5 B650M DS3H it doesn't convince me.  

 

I'm tempted to stay with the ASUS Board I first mentioned.

 

RAM: (Brand recommendations welcome, most likely Corsair or G.Skill, don't need RGB )

2 x 32GB, 6000 MHz, CL 30,  DDR5-RAM

 

DRIVES: 

boot: Samsung 990 Pro 2TB as boot drive
          (currently same price as the sn850x, I'll check when I make the purchase)

storage: 2.5'' SATA SSD which ever is cheaper at the moment
               Crucial MX500 4TB, Samsung 870 EVO 4TB  any others? Is Western Digital OK? 

 

GRAPHICS:

ASUS TUF RTX4080 Super

 

 

Can somebody expand / educate me on why I should not use my old power supply? - We barely have any power fluctuations and outages in Switzerland so I don't think it will have been damaged or overly degraded. Is degradation a concern?

 

Thanks again for all the help. I would especially value more opinions on and first and foremost on the motherboard, what to do about the power supply and why and case choice ...

 

 

[TatamiMatt]

37 minutes ago, CH_Phoenix said:

Can somebody expand / educate me on why I should not use my old power supply? - We barely have any power fluctuations and outages in Switzerland so I don't think it will have been damaged or overly degraded. Is degradation a concern?

 

Thanks again for all the help. I would especially value more opinions on and first and foremost on the motherboard, what to do about the power supply and why and case choice ...

 

 

Power supplies degrade just by having voltage ran through them, thats just the nature of it, if they lasted forever then theyd probably be much more expensive and come with lifetime warranties, theres a reason the most top line PSUs normally come with a 10 year warranty and the lower you go the less warranty, lower tier PSUs having 7 years warranty for example is a common one. If its 10+ years old, id consider an upgrade or a swap out because its what not only powers your parts, but keeps them safe, buying a whole new system and cheaping out on the PSU only to have a power surge and have everything be fried is always going to be a nightmare

 

37 minutes ago, CH_Phoenix said:

RAM: (Brand recommendations welcome, most likely Corsair or G.Skill, don't need RGB )

2 x 32GB, 6000 MHz, CL 30,  DDR5-RAM

Seems perfect to me!

 

37 minutes ago, CH_Phoenix said:

Cooling:

Still think of going Noctua - but I'll think it over again with the thermalright peerless assasin 120 

I cant recommend Thermalright enough, the same or better performance, similar noise levels and 1/3 the price

 

37 minutes ago, CH_Phoenix said:

Mobo:

Here I'm very confused. Pricing seems all over the place. Some B650 boards are more expensive than 670 boards. 

I know I want solid VRM, 4 DIMM Slots, 2 PCI-E Slots, WiFi (not a killer criterium)

So the difference in pricing comes down to levels and versions, much like graphics cards

 

A super high end AIB 3060 card might be more expensive than a 3060Ti reference card due to extra features etc, X670 boards arent just better b650 boards, theyre an upgrade in some aspects yes, but theres more to it than just that

 

An Aorus PRO AX, one of the highest end B650 boards has half a dozen features that say the MSI PRO X670 doesnt have, the X670 will have features the Aorus board doesnt also, but theres more to the Aorus than just the X670 features

 

I hope that clears most things up!

[brob]

28 minutes ago, CH_Phoenix said:

Should I go for PCI-E 5.0 support for the long term, I remember even PCI-E 4.0 doesn't get fully loaded by normal use cases... 

 

I don't think PCIe 5.0 is worth paying any sort of premium.

 

30 minutes ago, CH_Phoenix said:

 

I'm tempted to stay with the ASUS Board I first mentioned.

 

It's a decent motherboard. You might consider the Asus TUF B650-Plus, Asus ProArt B650-Creator, or MSI MAG B650 Tomahawk. Put the savings towards a new 850W ATX 3.0 80+ Gold PSU.

 

46 minutes ago, CH_Phoenix said:

RAM: (Brand recommendations welcome, most likely Corsair or G.Skill, don't need RGB )

2 x 32GB, 6000 MHz, CL 30,  DDR5-RAM

 

There are only a couple of memory chip manufacturers so there is not a great deal of difference between brands.

 

Since you have decided on an AMD CPU you should get a memory kit that includes EXPO profiles. Some, but not all kits include both XMP and EXPO.

 

G.Skill has elected to use different models to distinguish platform.  Flare X5 and Trident X5 Neo have EXPO profiles. Trident X5 and Ripjaws S5 have XMP profiles.

 

With Corsair if the last letter in the part number is C it's an XMP kit. Last letter Z is used for EXPO kits. (The two digits that follow the letter is the CL.)

 

1 hour ago, CH_Phoenix said:

storage: 2.5'' SATA SSD which ever is cheaper at the moment
               Crucial MX500 4TB, Samsung 870 EVO 4TB  any others? Is Western Digital OK? 

 

Check pricing on 4TB NVMe drives. SSD are like memory, in fact they are a type of memory. Don't buy because of brand name, you'll just pay more.

 

1 hour ago, CH_Phoenix said:

Can somebody expand / educate me on why I should not use my old power supply? - We barely have any power fluctuations and outages in Switzerland so I don't think it will have been damaged or overly degraded. Is degradation a concern?

 

New ATX 3.0 compliant PSU are designed to handle transients of current high-end GPU. They also offer native support for the 12VHPWR connector used by the GPU.

 

Your PSU had a 5 year warranty and 80+ Silver efficiency. You should be able to get an excellent quality 80+ Gold PSU with a 10 year warranty for well less than 10% of the budget.

[CH_Phoenix]

Would it be a good decision to go with a Corsair RM1000e to get some headroom, if in future I want to move on to a 4090 or what ever will be available and possibly more power hungry?

 

It is only 26.- CHF more expensive than the 850W, and on PSU Tier List rev. 17.0g - Cultists Network it's top tier.

 

I'm a bit bummed out never using the old PSU to it's full potential (I always dreamed of a dual GPU set up) but I trust your opinions to go for a new one.

[brob]

1 hour ago, CH_Phoenix said:

Would it be a good decision to go with a Corsair RM1000e to get some headroom, if in future I want to move on to a 4090 or what ever will be available and possibly more power hungry?

 

If you are more comfortable with 1000W go for it.  Just know that your system with an RTX 4090 would likely be within spec using an 850W.