Rate My Build (Plan)

[FinneousPJ]

Hello,

I made a plan for an upcoming build. Please offer any suggestions or critiques you have.

Mobo: MSI MPG B550I GAMING EDGE WIFI; they're offering a rebate currently -> 145 €
CPU: Ryzen 5900X or 5700X, depending on the reviews & pricing 300-500 €
RAM: 32 GB 3600 MT/s; Corsair Vengeance looks like good value 160 €
GPU: Probably the cheapest 6000 series with 12 GB RAM, depending on reviews 400 €?
NVMe: 2x 1 TB in RAID-0 125 € (already have one drive) (note mobo must have 2x NVMe slot)
[Storage: 6 TB HDD 150 € (probably will buy this later)]

Case: NZXT H210 99 €; just the right size IMO; I don't need the smart device from the i model
Watercooling:
Eisblock XPX CPU block
Probably Alphacool for the GPU as well
Alphacool Laing DDC 310 pump
Eisbecher 150 mm reservoir
NexXxoS XT45 Full Copper 240 mm "front" rad
NexXxoS ST30 Full Copper 120 mm "bottom" rad

Alphacool or Noctua fans

500 € for cooling

Budget target: 1500 €, max. 2000 €, in Finland
Use case: Work and gaming. Matlab, FEM modelling, VMs & newest games at 1440p 144 Hz
Already have: 1x 1 TB NVMe, 850 W PSU (requires 210 mm space)

Other boundary conditions: Case must be sub 30 litres. Case must support at least 3x 120 mm radiators in any configuration, e.g. the H210 supports 240 mm front + 120 mm rear. One other case I found was Jonsbo C3 Plus, however it looks very airflow constrained in the front. I'm a bit worried it would starve the rad for air. On the plus side, it would support a µATX board while being sub 30 l.

Thanks!

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

I don't like the two Nvme setup on that board one is from the chipset the other is from the cpu it self.

you might be better off with an add in Nvme card for raid being directly connected to cpu.

you would end up running the video card 8x on pcie 4.0 should be fine.

 

[INSTG8R]

I don't like the two Nvme setup on that board one is from the chipset the other is from the cpu it self.

you might be better off with an add in Nvme card for raid being directly connected to cpu.

you would end up running the video card 8x on pcie 4.0 should be fine.

I agree with the RAID setup as well.

 

[Calmmo]

Pretty sure every am4 mobo has only 1 nvme CPU slot.
The problem is b550 doesnt do chipset 4.0 so you're limiting your self to 3.0 which is very much on its way out with most manufacturers having 4.0 solutions out right now or about to.
I would switch to an x570 tomahawk @ 200euros instead.
Corsair kits tend to not play well with a lot of zen2 am4 boards also, at the very least if youre expecting to just toggle XMP and forget. I would go for Patriot with budget in mind or Gskill if you're willing to spend a bit little more.

 

[FinneousPJ]

I don't like the two Nvme setup on that board one is from the chipset the other is from the cpu it self.

you might be better off with an add in Nvme card for raid being directly connected to cpu.

you would end up running the video card 8x on pcie 4.0 should be fine.

I agree with the RAID setup as well.

Pretty sure every am4 mobo has only 1 nvme CPU slot.
The problem is b550 doesnt do chipset 4.0 so you're limiting your self to 3.0 which is very much on its way out with most manufacturers having 4.0 solutions out right now or about to.
I would switch to an x570 tomahawk @ 200euros instead.
Corsair kits tend to not play well with a lot of zen2 am4 boards also, at the very least if youre expecting to just toggle XMP and forget. I would go for Patriot with budget in mind or Gskill if you're willing to spend a bit little more.

Why does it matter if one slot is on the chipset and another on the CPU?

I'm not worried about PCIE speeds for the NVMe or GPU, it will not bottleneck the system.

What is the advantage of the X570 Tomahawk? Actually that seems to be full ATX and won't fit in the case.

Thanks for the memory suggestion, I will look at Patriot. I think the Vengeance kit was on the MSI QVL though.

 

[Calmmo]

Oh didn't notice you were talking about SFF, still i would stick to x570 tho im not sure what the options are as i never even entrtained the thought so im not familiar with what's out there.
The difference is b550 only does 4.0 via CPU lanes (1st nvme, and x16 gpu slot only) and x570 does 4.0 on every slot on the board.

 

[FinneousPJ]

Oh didn't notice you were talking about SFF, still i would stick to x570 tho im not sure what the options are as i never even entrtained the thought so im not familiar with what's out there.
The difference is b550 only does 4.0 via CPU lanes (1st nvme, and x16 gpu slot only) and x570 does 4.0 on every slot on the board.

I think it's been proven that PCIE3.0 x16 and even x8 does not bottleneck current systems. Therefore I'm not keen on paying extra for PCIE 4.0.

 

[bug]

I think RAID0 for SSD is pointless, just like 16GB VRAM.

You may also want to look at AsRock mobos (no idea how they are priced where you buy).

 

[FinneousPJ]

I think RAID0 for SSD is pointless, just like 16GB VRAM.

You may also want to look at AsRock mobos (no idea how they are priced where you buy).

Why pointless? 2x 1 TB is cheaper than 1x 2 TB, especially when I already own one 1 TB drive.

 

[bug]

Why pointless? 2x 1 TB is cheaper than 1x 2 TB, especially when I already own one 1 TB drive.

Because it improves performance in a limited number of scenarios, while ensuring if a drive craps out, you lose the data on both of them.

And if you really need the slightly faster sequential speeds, you can get those by letting one drive run at PCIe 4 speeds.

 

[FinneousPJ]

Because it improves performance in a limited number of scenarios, while ensuring if a drive craps out, you lose the data on both of them.

And if you really need the slightly faster sequential speeds, you can get those by letting one drive run at PCIe 4 speeds.

I'm not doing it for speed, but for capacity. If I get any speed benefits that's a bonus.

Looking at the RAM options, we have e.g.
G.Skill 32GB (2 x 16GB) Ripjaws V 151 €
G.Skill 32GB (2 x 16GB) Sniper X 158 €
G.Skill 32GB (2 x 16GB) Trident Z Neo 180 €

No Patriot at my favourite store.

 

[bug]

I'm not doing it for speed, but for capacity. If I get any speed benefits that's a bonus.

What's the problem with running independent drives? Your sig says you're mostly running Linux, you can mount independent drives however you like. I always mount at least /home separately so I can reinstall without losing data.

 

[FinneousPJ]

What's the problem with running independent drives? Your sig says you're mostly running Linux, you can mount independent drives however you like. I always mount at least /home separately so I can reinstall without losing data.

Well yeah but mounting root on a 1 TB drive is a waste lol

 

[Vayra86]

Bit of a fantasy build, half the parts ain't even out yet.

And this matters because it won't be the first Ryzen gen coming up that warrants the use of specific boards for optimal performance, or specific RAM.

 

[FinneousPJ]

Bit of a fantasy build, half the parts ain't even out yet.

And this matters because it won't be the first Ryzen gen coming up that warrants the use of specific boards for optimal performance, or specific RAM.

Great point but as an engineer I do like to make plans

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

Oh didn't notice you were talking about SFF, still i would stick to x570 tho im not sure what the options are as i never even entrtained the thought so im not familiar with what's out there.
The difference is b550 only does 4.0 via CPU lanes (1st nvme, and x16 gpu slot only) and x570 does 4.0 on every slot on the board.

There is only one Mirco ATX The Asrock X570M pro 4 mirco-atx board. Seems pretty nice if he's willing to compromise a little bit.
I would buy a separate NVMe add in card, which will add to the cost. Might be able to still close to that case size maybe in a cube like one.

 

[bug]

Well yeah but mounting root on a 1 TB drive is a waste lol

Why? You don't have to mount the whole TB, you can split that up over two or more partitions.

 

[Hellfire]

Why? You don't have to mount the whole TB, you can split that up over two or more partitions.

TBH I raid0 both of my NVME drives for the same reason.

I created a 4TB Raid, partitioned off 250GB for OS only, then the other 3750GB for program installs as one lump of storage. makes life so much easier and fun,

However, I run a X570 board so the 4x PCI lanes between the chipset and CPU provide enough bandwidth to cover the NVME on the chipset and other devices.

@FinneousPJ you may (and could) in certain circumstances bottleneck with PCIe 3.0

The Chipset to the CPU has 4x PCIe lanes at 3.0 this is 3940MB of bandwidth. That's enough for one NVME drive but you also have everything else running through it, your NIC, USB, SATA. SO yes... with all the devices, under some situations could cause a bottleneck. ie moving from NIC to NVME or from NVME to SATA drives. any situation causing both drives to spin up could cause it to slow down.

Whereas if you had PCI 4.0 the link speed between the chipset and the CPU would be double the 3940MB of speed, giving you overhead for other chipset based devices.

 

[bug]

TBH I raid0 both of my NVME drives for the same reason.

I created a 4TB Raid, partitioned off 250GB for OS only, then the other 3750GB for program installs as one lump of storage. makes life so much easier and fun,

Only if you don't know how to manage drives. Linux is very flexible about this and even Windows has learned junction points for some time already.
I mean, sure, i understand it's nice to lump the drives together. But only until one of them craps out you you lose the data on both. You can mitigate that with backups, but not everybody does that and backups mean additional costs/drives anyway.

 

[Hellfire]

Only if you don't know how to manage drives. Linux is very flexible about this and even Windows has learned junction points for some time already.
I mean, sure, i understand it's nice to lump the drives together. But only until one of them craps out you you lose the data on both. You can mitigate that with backups, but not everybody does that and backups mean additional costs/drives anyway.

Well for me, it was the fact 4TB of NVME/SSD storage were not easily available. I know perfectly well how to manage drives and have used JP's in the past but honestly, Raid is a perfectly legitimate way for setting up storage, Hell we're still using it often enough in our corporate environments lol.

Raid provides a nice clean and easy to manage storage. Also, no offence, if people aren't backing up data from RAID (like you mentioned) what makes you think they'd know how to use NTFS Junction Points

If people don't have backups of data... well that's their problem. I use Raid0 because I don't need redundancy on the drives. I have no sympathy for someone who uses RAID and then moans if it fails or needs rebuilding.

 

[bug]

Well for me, it was the fact 4TB of NVME/SSD storage were not easily available. I know perfectly well how to manage drives and have used JP's in the past but honestly, Raid is a perfectly legitimate way for setting up storage, Hell we're still using it often enough in our corporate environments lol.

Raid provides a nice clean and easy to manage storage. Also, no offence, if people aren't backing up data from RAID (like you mentioned) what makes you think they'd know how to use NTFS Junction Points

If people don't have backups of data... well that's their problem. I use Raid0 because I don't need redundancy on the drives. I have no sympathy for someone who uses RAID and then moans if it fails or needs rebuilding.

Well, the thing is many people use RAID0 simply because they on the internet that read it's faster. And they don't know anything else.
Like you said, RAID0 is only a convenience when it comes to SSDs. So I'd never go for that setup. I'm just trying to make sure those who, understand the risks and that there's no speed to be gained.

 

[Hellfire]

Well, the thing is many people use RAID0 simply because they on the internet that read it's faster. And they don't know anything else.
Like you said, RAID0 is only a convenience when it comes to SSDs. So I'd never go for that setup. I'm just trying to make sure those who, understand the risks and that there's no speed to be gained.

Aye NVME there are next to none real world performance increases of RAID. Sure benchmarks give bigger numbers but nothing uses those speeds, except maybe moving files.

 

[bug]

Aye NVME there are next to none real world performance increases of RAID. Sure benchmarks give bigger numbers but nothing uses those speeds, except maybe moving files.

Even then, you'd have to be moving them from/to something equally fast.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Why a B550 board? Why not X570 or whatever X tier chipset comes with the new CPUs? Since you are already looking at things that arent available yet.

 

[bug]

Why a B550 board? Why not X570 or whatever X tier chipset comes with the new CPUs? Since you are already looking at things that arent available yet.

I don't think there are new chipsets incoming. What would you add to X570 anyway? I think he picked B550 because he wants miniITX.