Threadripper 2950X $4500 Build

[16thompn]

G'day Everyone

 

I am imminently about to build a new workstation/ gaming rig which should be able to handle heavy video processing (4K and 8K), photo editing and can also be used for gaming as well.  I am currently using my Gigabyte P35X V3 Laptop which has run really well until I started editing more videos recently and decided it was time to upgrade. I have decided this for a number of reasons, the first being the laptop's motherboard can only support 16GB of ram (4 years ago this didn't cross my mind as a problem) and recently the render times taken to produce longer 4K videos and short 8K content (primarily timelapses) are just not good for my sanity. 

 

I'm hoping to spend no more than $4500 AUD on the hardware (peripherals not needed).  I have decided to go with the 2950X as it seems to do everything I need it to do with the best price.  I'm also looking at buying a 1080Ti or possibly one of the new cards supposedly about to be announced next week, however if this is overkill for Adobe Premiere Pro and 8K video editing (I'm not as concerned about gaming performance) then I am happy to save a few dollars and go for something a little cheaper.  Here is my current system build idea (or follow the link below)

 

CPU: AMD Threadripper 2950X

CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X62 Rev 2

 

Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix X399-E Gaming (but not too sure on the differences between them all)

 

Memory: G.skill Trident Z RGB 32GB (4x8Gb) (Will likely buy another 4 slots when the money becomes available)

 

Storage: Samsung 970 EVO 250 GB (System)

Storage: Samsung 970 EVO 1TB (Games and software)

 

Video Card: What is the difference between all the 1080 Ti's and does it matter that much???

 

Power Supply: Corsair Professional Gold 850W 80+

 

Case: I'm looking for suggestions!

 

https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/D8WjBb

 

If you would be able to answer any of my questions as this is my first build or could help me choose anything in any way that would be greatly appreciated!

 

Thanks 

Nick

[Crunchy Dragon]

There is usually no difference between different 1080Ti versions.

[Streetguru]

28 minutes ago, 16thompn said:

 

You need to be buying a proper TR4 cooler, would just stick with the Noctua Air coolers for TR4 for now, unless you can find the Thermalright Silver Arrow, or Coolermaster Wraithripper, or the Enermax Liquitech 2 may have fixed the issues on first gen versions.

A 1070ti or 1080 or Vega 56 at half the price should be more than fine for premiere and most gaming

You can just use StoreMI to speed up a large hard drive with an SSD instead of paying a bunch for a 1TB SSD

It's supposed to be free for X399 already as advertised by their web pages

Will post a build in a bit, should go for like a Core X9 or H500 case, both have plenty of air flow.

And make sure whatever PSU you buy has 2 8 pin CPU connections, not that you really need it outside of heavy overclocking.

 

 

[dizmo]

Do the extra 4 cores really benefit you that much? At twice the price, it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense unless you really need that slight speed boost. Might be worth seeing what the additional RAM performance increase would be when compared to a few more cores. As others have said, I would get a TR4 cooler; don't get something with a tiny heat plate. Noctua makes a few, and Deepcool has a really cool one coming out.

 

@Streetguru Might want to point out he'd need the mesh version, the regular version of the H500 is ass I've been tempted to buy a license for that software for a bit now, but I just hate the thought of having an HDD based storage medium in my PC. I can't imagine it's as fast as full SSD, especially if I use more programs than can fit on the fast tier.

[16thompn]

16 hours ago, Streetguru said:

You need to be buying a proper TR4 cooler, would just stick with the Noctua Air coolers for TR4 for now, unless you can find the Thermalright Silver Arrow, or Coolermaster Wraithripper, or the Enermax Liquitech 2 may have fixed the issues on first gen versions.

A 1070ti or 1080 or Vega 56 at half the price should be more than fine for premiere and most gaming

You can just use StoreMI to speed up a large hard drive with an SSD instead of paying a bunch for a 1TB SSD

It's supposed to be free for X399 already as advertised by their web pages

Will post a build in a bit, should go for like a Core X9 or H500 case, both have plenty of air flow.

And make sure whatever PSU you buy has 2 8 pin CPU connections, not that you really need it outside of heavy overclocking.

 

 

Thanks for all your helpful info @Streetguru.  As for your first concern with the air cooler, I’m looking into getting liquid cooling for no reason other than I can (hence the RGB NZXT cooler). At the end of the Gamers Nexus video, he makes note that liquid cooling doesn’t matter as much with regards to whether or not it completely covers the die as it shouldn’t be throttling due to how low that keeps the temps. Do you have any suggestions for RGB coolers that completely cover the die or will the smaller sizes be fine for my needs?

 

As for the graphics card i do think that you are right and I can save myself some money there. Do you know if GPU’s are utilised in adobe premiere and lightroom? That is really the only reason I’m upgrading my computer at the point. (My GTX980m in my laptop is more than sufficient for all the games I play). I’m really only looking to play games like Cities Skylines (I beleive it is CPU bound at the moment due to my city sizes being too large) and games like Civ 6, Off world trading company, LOL, etc. 

 

As for the SSD’s I could use that technology as well however I was primarily looking for that SSD to store projects on while using Premiere. My latest video project was over 400Gb and my spinning discs just didn’t cut it. But that’s not to say I couldn’t use both. 

 

Also thabks for the PSU advice. Will keep that in mind. 

 

If you could put a build together if it wasn’t too much trouble that would be fantastic as well. Will have a look into these casss you have suggested. Look pretty good especially the H500. 

 

@dizmo thanks for your advice as well. As for the extra 4 cores I presume you are talking about the 2920X? I would consider it however I can’t wait for October to get this computer. Will look out for the mesh version of the H500 and also a TR4 RGB cooler. 

 

I do have one last question. Will 850W be sufficient for this build or is it too much of too little. 

 

Thanks for all your help!

[Streetguru]

2 hours ago, 16thompn said:

 

the cold plate coverage for sure matters, normal ones don't even reach the edges of the dies.

The Liqtech 2 should fix the problems of Enermax's first generation and it has RGB. Liqtech 1 cooler users are reporting major issues.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835214089&cm_re=Liqtech_2-_-35-214-089-_-Product

 

Or better yet do a custom water cooling loop for it.

 

Do you need the case small or does size not matter much?
 

 

 

[16thompn]

1 hour ago, Streetguru said:

the cold plate coverage for sure matters, normal ones don't even reach the edges of the dies.

The Liqtech 2 should fix the problems of Enermax's first generation and it has RGB. Liqtech 1 cooler users are reporting major issues.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835214089&cm_re=Liqtech_2-_-35-214-089-_-Product

 

Or better yet do a custom water cooling loop for it.

 

Do you need the case small or does size not matter much?
 

 

 

Ahh the enermax looks good. Need to find somewhere in Aus that sells it however. Hopefully it not too expensive haha. 

 

The case size is defintiely not a consideration so don’t mind whether it is a full or mid tower. Only mid would be preferable as it’s a little cheaper 

[nick name]

I wouldn't recommend StoreMI after my experience with it. I used it to combine an Intel 600P NVMe drive with a Samsung 850 Pro which were both 256GB. I just saw weird performance hiccups when I tried it as a boot drive solution and later as a game drive solution. 

 

It is, however, a serviceable stop-gap measure if you're waiting on other drives for one reason or another.

[brob]

If you can't find Enermax TR4 aio, you might consider the Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 with a second fan.

[Streetguru]

1 hour ago, nick name said:

I wouldn't recommend StoreMI after my experience with it. I used it to combine an Intel 600P NVMe drive with a Samsung 850 Pro which were both 256GB. I just saw weird performance hiccups when I tried it as a boot drive solution and later as a game drive solution. 

 

It is, however, a serviceable stop-gap measure if you're waiting on other drives for one reason or another.

You did what now with StoreMI? an SSD on an SSD? Also takes a few reboots/loads to get the data that needs to be sped up cached.

 

 

1 hour ago, 16thompn said:

Ahh the enermax looks good. Need to find somewhere in Aus that sells it however. Hopefully it not too expensive haha. 

 

The case size is defintiely not a consideration so don’t mind whether it is a full or mid tower. Only mid would be preferable as it’s a little cheaper 

If you can't find that would highly suggest you just get an air cooler for now, The reason no one else has a TR4 coldplate is likely because they almost all use Asetek and they probably haven't made a TR4 cold plate/pump yet.

How important is the 16 core? because the 12 core might be good enough and it's half the price of the 1950X right now

I tend to shoot for the best value parts, or in this case, "value"

Photoshop/Lightroom should be mostly the same on any modern PC, don't think most of their features even use the GPU.

Permiere might prefer an intel CPU with an iGPU like the 8700K or upcoming 8 core, but if you need to do other things like handbrake or 7 zip for long term storage the many core CPUs win there.

Or if you want to render in the background while you do some gaming on the same machine. Or render multiple things at once. For my workload I render out a video overnight, then handbrake on half my 1950X the output to something manageable for youtube and my hard drive. an hour of 4k gameplay comes out to like 100GBs with the codecs I'm using.
 

PCPartPicker part list: https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/Fjh8bX
Price breakdown by merchant: https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/Fjh8bX/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Threadripper 1920X 3.5GHz 12-Core Processor  ($599.00 @ PCCaseGear)
CPU Cooler: Noctua - NH-U14S TR4-SP3 140.2 CFM CPU Cooler  ($105.00 @ PLE Computers)
Motherboard: ASRock - X399 Taichi ATX TR4 Motherboard  ($299.00 @ PLE Computers)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LED 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($490.68 @ Amazon Australia)
Storage: Samsung - 970 Evo 500GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($275.00 @ Centre Com)
Storage: Hitachi - Deskstar NAS 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($189.00 @ Umart)
Video Card: Asus - GeForce GTX 1070 Ti 8GB ROG STRIX Video Card  ($649.00 @ Mwave Australia)
Case: Cooler Master - MasterCase H500P Mesh White ATX Mid Tower Case  ($189.00 @ IJK)
Power Supply: Corsair - RMx 1000W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($238.00 @ Shopping Express)
Total: $3033.68
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-16 14:28 AEST+1000

The Core X9 is more for custom water cooling with the radiator support, but it's also great for workstations due to airflow, more so if you have a lot of GPUs, you'd want to go E-ATX for it though

 

The H500 here isn't on the AUS part picker, but the H500P Mesh is the same for cooling, just has a few more features like the top section, bit more expensive, but it's hard to beat 2 200mm fans

 

[nick name]

1 hour ago, Streetguru said:

You did what now with StoreMI? an SSD on an SSD? Also takes a few reboots/loads to get the data that needs to be sped up cached.

 

This is correct. I combined an NVMe SSD with a SATA SSD because they were only 256GB each and I just wanted a larger "drive". And it got plenty of reboots/loads in each configuration. Serving as a boot drive and as a game drive I experienced the same weird hiccups / hangups. If you wanted to you could combine an Optane drive with an NVMe drive and still see a little improvement in speeds. And I should say it wasn't the speed that was not satisfactory, but those hiccups I couldn't troubleshoot. Also, the removal of StoreMI is a huge pain in the ass. 

[Streetguru]

2 minutes ago, nick name said:

 

I don't think StoreMI is mean to combine the storage of disks, that's like a spanned drive thing

 

but ya it's supposed to be some advanced tiered storage stuff

 

it just became available for X399 so I'll get to try it out sometime this week or next.

[nick name]

You can use it for precisely that, but there are other solutions for combining drives. The best benefit is seen when combining drives of different speeds. So really any configuration of one fast tier and one slow tier. 

[16thompn]

9 hours ago, Streetguru said:

If you can't find that would highly suggest you just get an air cooler for now, The reason no one else has a TR4 coldplate is likely because they almost all use Asetek and they probably haven't made a TR4 cold plate/pump yet.

Alright will consider it.  Definitely something to think about after that awesome video you posted.  the Noctua seems to do a fantastic job for an air cooler.  

 

Quote

How important is the 16 core? because the 12 core might be good enough and it's half the price of the 1950X right now

If I'm being honest I want the 16 cores because I would like to say I have 16 cores.  The extra $500 for the doesn't bother me as much as I am at least getting some performance boosts with the new 2950X.  Please forgive me haha

 

Quote

I tend to shoot for the best value parts, or in this case, "value"

Photoshop/Lightroom should be mostly the same on any modern PC, don't think most of their features even use the GPU.

Permiere might prefer an intel CPU with an iGPU like the 8700K or upcoming 8 core, but if you need to do other things like handbrake or 7 zip for long term storage the many core CPUs win there.

Or if you want to render in the background while you do some gaming on the same machine. Or render multiple things at once. For my workload I render out a video overnight, then handbrake on half my 1950X the output to something manageable for youtube and my hard drive. an hour of 4k gameplay comes out to like 100GBs with the codecs I'm using.

I'm definitely going to be playing games while rendering. My last project (a 4 min 8K video) took over 30 hours to render on a friends much faster machine (than my current computer) and so dont want it too brick up like it currently does when I try to render something.  Being able to multi-task in this capacity will be greatly appreciated.  I know its an expensive build but go big or go home right?

 

As for Store MI, I'll have to look into it as I know nothing about it. Will be something I might consider to speed up my hard drives once I have the computer.  I already have 6 external hardrives at home with photos and videos from various projects on them so I never plan to actually use any storage on the computer as 'long term' if that makes sense.  

 

Also I appreciate the build guide.  Helps me a lot.  Do you think that the 1000W is necessary or is it good to always have a bit of extra wiggle room?

 

Thanks again.

[Streetguru]

3 hours ago, 16thompn said:

 

The 1000W PSU is just a might as well thing

 

They tend to be some of the best built units naturally. *At least the decent ones like any PSU.