New $4000 - PCIe lane confusion

[VantheMan101]

Hey there guys,

 

I'm currently planning a new Z270 build, looking at spending around $4000 AUD for it.

 

The issue I'm having, or more struggling to understand, is with the topic of PCIe lanes. I'm looking at building a system mainly for heavy CAD use and the occasional video gaming (3 x 1080p monitors). So my first choice of CPU is the 7700k, along with a Asus Maximus IX Hero motherboard and quite possibly the Nvidia 1080 ti graphics card (when it comes out). My problem is, I want to run my OS off an M.2 ssd mounted on the motherboard (Samsung 960 EVO), and then I was thinking of using another M.2 (the motherboard has 2 slots) for storage of my most used games and programs, just to get the maximum speed possible. I am struggling to understand whether this is even possible, or even worth it, from a perspective of PCIe lanes, and if so, how do you calculate this? I'm really curious as to how this is worked out, along with even if I can cram all this hardware onto this chip set, can I attach for example a PCI wireless card on top of all this? 

 

Basically I'm just looking for advice, can I stick with the build I'm looking at, or will I have to go for an AMD AM4 / Intel X99 chipset to achieve this?

 

Any help is greatly appreciated! 

[Moress]

You'll be fine, even putting a second GPU in that setup wouldn't cause too much bottlenecking

[The Sloth]

fellow cad and Revit user, a Ryzen will be better priced option, long as you don't try to sli 3 gpu. for storage other than video edit a m2 paired with  ssds will be good enough for everything else, make a nas for mass storage. a ryzen 1800x cpu supports 2 gpu 8x, rest of the PCIE lanes will be used for expansion cards. 

[xephoneration]

yeah you are fine. also if you can't wait get a evga 1080, join the step up program, and pay the difference for the 1080ti. I would not go with ryzen due to the poor benchmarks with gaming performance. Also get yourself a long ass ethernet cord, lines are always better. 

[The Sloth]

1 minute ago, xephoneration said:

yeah you are fine. also if you can't wait get a evga 1080, join the step up program, and pay the difference for the 1080ti. I would not go with ryzen due to the poor benchmarks with gaming performance. Also get yourself a long ass ethernet cord, lines are always better. 

 

 

he is not gaming as a primary job, a 8 core cpu that competes with the 6900k will be better for autocad. 

[rwantare]

6 minutes ago, nerdslayer1 said:

fellow cad and Revit user, a Ryzen will be better priced option, long as you don't try to sli 3 gpu. for storage other than video edit a m2 paired with  ssds will be good enough for everything else, make a nas for mass storage. a ryzen 1800x cpu supports 2 gpu 8x, rest of the PCIE lanes will be used for expansion cards. 

1800X and 1700X cost more than the 7700K OP was looking at, Ryzen is a better option for productivity but I wouldn't call it cheaper, maybe 1700, but this is Australia.

[NoRomanBatmansAllowed]

12 minutes ago, VantheMan101 said:

 

Basically I'm just looking for advice, can I stick with the build I'm looking at, or will I have to go for an AMD AM4 / Intel X99 chipset to achieve this?

 

Any help is greatly appreciated! 

You most definitely could stick with intel, but AMD should be your first choice.

 

First, it avoids all this PCIe lane talk because it gives you 24 lanes as opposed to the Z270 chipset. Also, it seems to work amazingly well for rendering/productivity, with its only weakness being single monitor 1080p gaming. This weakness however, you don't really need to worry about because you have your 3 monitors. 

 

tl;dr Get AMD. It good for CAD, and solves PCIE lane problem.

 

[xephoneration]

1 minute ago, nerdslayer1 said:

he is not gaming as a primary job, a 8 core cpu that competes with the 6900k will be better for autocad. 

 

its CAD....  does he really need 4 more core for CAD? and pay the extra $300 (USD)

[The Sloth]

Just now, rwantare said:

1800X and 1700X cost more than the 7700K OP was looking at, Ryzen is a better option for productivity but I wouldn't call it cheaper.

7700k is a pure gaming a light productivity cpu while a 1700x or an 1800x is a powerful productivity cpu, they shouldn't compete for the same market.

 

Just now, xephoneration said:

 

its CAD....  does he really need 4 more core for CAD? and pay the extra $300 (USD)

 

yes, i am assuming someone only don't open cad. not sure about OP use case but i personally have 8 to 10 cad and rivit files open and 50 to 100  chrome tabs background. unless OP is purely gaming i suggest a x99 or ryzen. 

[rwantare]

2 minutes ago, nerdslayer1 said:

7700k is a pure gaming a light productivity cpu

What? 8 threads at 4.5GHz and highest IPC right now before OC is 'light' productivity? Umm okay, I'll show myself out.

[The Sloth]

Just now, rwantare said:

What? 8 threads at 4.5GHz and highest IPC right now before OC is 'light' productivity? Umm okay, I'll show myself out.

ok than show me a 7700k beating a 6900k in a pure CPU showdown in productivity not gaming. 

[rwantare]

2 minutes ago, nerdslayer1 said:

ok than show me a 7700k beating a 6900k in a pure CPU showdown in productivity not gaming. 

Are there CPUs that out perform a 7700K for most productivity tasks?

Yes.

 

Is one of them cheaper?

Yes (1700)

 

Does this make 7700K a "light productivity CPU"?

No, especially considering that there are some tasks that are still single threaded and 8 threads is still plenty of threads.

[The Sloth]

Just now, rwantare said:

Are there CPUs that out perform a 7700K for most productivity tasks?

Yes.

 

Is one of them cheaper?

Yes (1700)

 

Does this make 7700K a "light productivity CPU"?

No, especially considering that there are some tasks that are still single threaded and 8 threads is still plenty of threads.

 

i know, i am assuming OP will be multitasking. 

[VantheMan101]

Hey guys, 

 

I will be doing quite a bit of multitasking, especially with my work. I should have mentioned, I am currently running a 3rd Gen i7, and its getting a bit slow, especially with gaming. I have been tossing up between ryzen and z270, as they're both relatively similar prices in Australia. Is the gaming performance of ryzen that bad that I should be veering away from it? 

[brob]

1 hour ago, VantheMan101 said:

Hey there guys,

 

I'm currently planning a new Z270 build, looking at spending around $4000 AUD for it.

 

The issue I'm having, or more struggling to understand, is with the topic of PCIe lanes. I'm looking at building a system mainly for heavy CAD use and the occasional video gaming (3 x 1080p monitors). So my first choice of CPU is the 7700k, along with a Asus Maximus IX Hero motherboard and quite possibly the Nvidia 1080 ti graphics card (when it comes out). My problem is, I want to run my OS off an M.2 ssd mounted on the motherboard (Samsung 960 EVO), and then I was thinking of using another M.2 (the motherboard has 2 slots) for storage of my most used games and programs, just to get the maximum speed possible. I am struggling to understand whether this is even possible, or even worth it, from a perspective of PCIe lanes, and if so, how do you calculate this? I'm really curious as to how this is worked out, along with even if I can cram all this hardware onto this chip set, can I attach for example a PCI wireless card on top of all this? 

 

Basically I'm just looking for advice, can I stick with the build I'm looking at, or will I have to go for an AMD AM4 / Intel X99 chipset to achieve this?

 

Any help is greatly appreciated! 

 

If a motherboard has two M.2 NVMe slots then it will support two M.2 NVMe ssd. Check the motherboard's user manual for details on SATA ports that may be disabled when an M.2 slot is populated. On the Hero IX, when installing a second M.2 NVMe drive, configuring it for maximum bandwidth will disable one of the SATA ports.

 

Z270 Motherboards have a fair number of PCIe 3.0 lanes. Thirty potentially usable, if I recall correctly - 16 on the cpu and 14 on the Z270.

 

The Hero IX motherboard has two x16 expansion slots that use the cpu PCIe lanes and are intended for gpu. The motherboard also has 3 x1 PCIe expansion slots and one x16 slot providing 2 or 4 lanes (one of the x1 slots will be disabled in the later case). 

 

Most WiFi cards require a x1 PCIe expansion slot. You can have two double width gpu cards and a WiFi card installed on the Hero IX without a problem.

 

[VantheMan101]

3 hours ago, brob said:

 

If a motherboard has two M.2 NVMe slots then it will support two M.2 NVMe ssd. Check the motherboard's user manual for details on SATA ports that may be disabled when an M.2 slot is populated. On the Hero IX, when installing a second M.2 NVMe drive, configuring it for maximum bandwidth will disable one of the SATA ports.

 

Z270 Motherboards have a fair number of PCIe 3.0 lanes. Thirty potentially usable, if I recall correctly - 16 on the cpu and 14 on the Z270.

 

The Hero IX motherboard has two x16 expansion slots that use the cpu PCIe lanes and are intended for gpu. The motherboard also has 3 x1 PCIe expansion slots and one x16 slot providing 2 or 4 lanes (one of the x1 slots will be disabled in the later case). 

 

Most WiFi cards require a x1 PCIe expansion slot. You can have two double width gpu cards and a WiFi card installed on the Hero IX without a problem.

 

Legend, thanks heaps man!