Architect 2018 build advice

[Raytheon]

Hey folks,
TL;DR Looking for that LTT forum seal of approval™ (and advice) on a new £3k build, much appreciated.

 

CPU: i7-8700K 3.7GHz 6-Core (£320.35) 
CPU Cooler: Corsair - H150i PRO (£137.99) 
Motherboard: Asus - ROG MAXIMUS X HERO ATX LGA1151 Mobo  (£245.10) 
Memory: G.Skill - Trident Z RGB 32gb (4 x 8gb) DDR4-3200 Ram (£377.09) 
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500gb 2.5" SSD (£83.94) 
Storage: Samsung - 970 Pro 512gb M.2-2280 SSD  (£198.97) 
Storage: WD - Black 1TB 2.5" 7200rpm HD  (£58.96) 
Video Card: GeForce RTX 2080 8gb (£819.95ish) 
Power Supply: Corsair - 860w 80+ Platinum Fully-Modular ATX PSU
Case: Corsair Crystal 570X RGB ATX Mid Tower (£154.79)
Fans: Corsair RGB HD120's 
Operating System: x64 Win 10 Home  (£99.99) 

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/RrK3NQ

 

Total: £2497.13
(+ VR Vive £500)

 

I'm an Architect and old boy gamer based in London, GB with £3000 ($3800). This will be my first full build but I'm confident in my skill level. Aim is for a middling prosumer rig - General 3D work (Sketchup/Rhino/AutoCAD) & light rendering, full Adobe suite with amateur video work, maximum VR & gaming. This will be my home rig, Quadro's are at work hence consumer GFX. Probably run two 27" Asus MX279h 1080p monitors (I have one, I like it), these, cablemod cables and other peripherals I'll handle outside the build cost. Will look to upgrade year on year to keep the rig sharp, eg a second gfx card, water cooling, etc.

 

Few other questions - Trident Z ram or Dominator Platinum? The Mobo supports two M.2 SSDs, can they be main drives/boot with the 850(s) as storage?

 

Cheers you awesome people 
Ray

[Jurrunio]

22 minutes ago, Raytheon said:

LTT forum seal of approval™

not from me, wait for 3rd party reviews for the RTX cards

 

-custom macro

 

23 minutes ago, Raytheon said:

Few other questions - Trident Z ram or Dominator Platinum?

get the one that matches your taste. Objective memory performance doesnt care about the model of memory, but memory frequency and timings.

 

24 minutes ago, Raytheon said:

The Mobo supports two M.2 SSDs, can they be main drives/boot with the 850(s) as storage?

In theory yes, but in reality booting from a RAID setup could be slower.

[Taf the Ghost]

@Raytheon

 

If this is a Production-level build, do you know where to find extensive testing for what works best for the main programs? I ask because a i7-7900X or Threadripper 2950X might be better suited for you, if your main programs can actually leverage the extra cores.

 

Being on the Desktop platform, those two M.2 Slots can be used, but they'll be shared bandwidth with the rest of the I/O. NVMe really isn't needed on Desktop.

 

 

The PSU doesn't list in the price list, have it already?

[Raytheon]

@Taf the Ghost

 

Good shout! Spent time today looking up Adobe & Autodesk suite core usages, the general consensus being (for my level of work) multi-core but pointless beyond 6 - 8 with recommendation being to spend money on ram and ssd over cores. (Unless heavy rendering which was more the merrier / 3D models being more ram based over cpu hence 64gb future upgrade). So it'd come down to higher clock speed vs more cores?

 

Thinking single largish M.2 boot + suites with SSD project storage. Nice spot on the PSU (+£160ish), my budget is flexible to a few hundred if needed. Cheers for the reply, really got me thinking, thanks!

 

@Jurrunio

Thanks bud, 3200 seems to be peoples sweet spot for DDR4 and folks saying its harder to push to full clocks? Do love the shiny but I fancy dipping a toe in the RGB, see how it looks. Want to see if I can pull off making lightning controllers work (BS excuse I know but it's Friday) cheers. 

[Jurrunio]

1 hour ago, Raytheon said:

push to full clocks?

what's this?

[Taf the Ghost]

6 hours ago, Raytheon said:

@Taf the Ghost

 

Good shout! Spent time today looking up Adobe & Autodesk suite core usages, the general consensus being (for my level of work) multi-core but pointless beyond 6 - 8 with recommendation being to spend money on ram and ssd over cores. (Unless heavy rendering which was more the merrier / 3D models being more ram based over cpu hence 64gb future upgrade). So it'd come down to higher clock speed vs more cores?

 

Thinking single largish M.2 boot + suites with SSD project storage. Nice spot on the PSU (+£160ish), my budget is flexible to a few hundred if needed. Cheers for the reply, really got me thinking, thanks!

 

@Jurrunio

Thanks bud, 3200 seems to be peoples sweet spot for DDR4 and folks saying its harder to push to full clocks? Do love the shiny but I fancy dipping a toe in the RGB, see how it looks. Want to see if I can pull off making lightning controllers work (BS excuse I know but it's Friday) cheers. 

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/ftzZXP

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-7820X 3.6GHz 8-Core Processor  (£433.98 @ Ebuyer) 
CPU Cooler: Corsair - H150i PRO 47.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  (£137.99 @ AWD-IT) 
Thermal Compound: Innovation Cooling - ICD24 4.8g Thermal Paste 
Motherboard: Asus - STRIX X299-E GAMING ATX LGA2066 Motherboard  (£289.99 @ AWD-IT) 
Memory: G.Skill - Trident Z RGB 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory  (£377.04 @ More Computers) 
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£83.94 @ Aria PC) 
Storage: Samsung - 970 Pro 512GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  (£198.97 @ More Computers) 
Storage: Western Digital - Black 1TB 2.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£58.96 @ PC World Business) 
Video Card: Zotac - GeForce RTX 2080 8GB GAMING AMP Video Card  (£819.95 @ Overclockers.co.uk) 
Case: Corsair - Crystal 570X RGB ATX Mid Tower Case  (£154.79 @ Aria PC) 
Power Supply: Corsair - 860W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply 
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit  (£99.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Total: £2655.60
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-08-25 07:06 BST+0100

 

This is an 8 core Skylake-X build. The clocks are still pretty good, but, if your programs ever start leveraging the extra cores better, this has more room to leverage those cores. In theory, your workflow really should leverage AVX2 a lot better, but, as we've encountered, Adobe products need a lot of help.

 

Main thing is you'd get access to more PCIe lanes for NVMe storage, if it'll help your work. 

 

Getting the Uncore overclocked should eliminate most gaming bottlenecks. It doesn't need that much of an OC to get through some gaming issues, but a few tweaks can unlock a bunch of performance.

[Raytheon]

@Taf the Ghost 

Hey bud,
After a little learning homework looking up your list and having a solid think, you've got it nailed there. Thinking OC the chip on water and liquid metal (delid) on the x299-XE board to keep temps down and then save up for another 32gb kit to add in later on. I suppose its just a waiting game now to see how the 2080 / i9-9900K / x299 refresh pans out in the run up to Christmas. Black Friday is going to be a busy one this year! Cheers for the help, hopefully I'll link you to a build log when it comes!
Ray

[Taf the Ghost]

5 hours ago, Raytheon said:

@Taf the Ghost 

Hey bud,
After a little learning homework looking up your list and having a solid think, you've got it nailed there. Thinking OC the chip on water and liquid metal (delid) on the x299-XE board to keep temps down and then save up for another 32gb kit to add in later on. I suppose its just a waiting game now to see how the 2080 / i9-9900K / x299 refresh pans out in the run up to Christmas. Black Friday is going to be a busy one this year! Cheers for the help, hopefully I'll link you to a build log when it comes!
Ray

Sounds good. There's supposed to be some X299 refresh, but we've seen nor heard nothing about it recently. Hopefully it'll push prices down a bit, as well.