Advice for Upgrading X99 Workstation for Modern Engineering Workloads

[Frick]

You'd probably be better off with a slightly cheaper motherboard and getting the full fat 9950X. Or really just pickup everything when the 3D version comes out, I hear that will be soon.

100% this. @Eliomiller you want as many cores as you can, basically.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/4jKscf/msi-x670e-gaming-plus-wifi-atx-am5-motherboard-x670e-gaming-plus-wifi

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/X670E-GAMING-PLUS-WIFI

I'm getting that soonish, and honestly even if I didn't get it for really cheap it would probably be the one I'd be looking at. Lack of SATA ports (it sadly only has 4) is solved by PCIe cards, and it has three of them (beyond GPU) and they don't loose lanes or anything like that when you add storage drives.

 

[kapone32]

As some one that had the Sabretooth only Threadripper will satisfy you ultimately. Looking at what is currently available here are the boards I would recommend.

1. Asus X670E E Strix
2. MSI X670E Carbon
3. As Rock X870E Taichi

Those are some of the best price/performance MBs on AM5. If you are looking at the last generation (if you can find them)

1. Asus X570 Strix E
2. MSI X570 Unify
3. MSI X570S Ace Max
4. Asus B550XE

Those are the best boards you can buy for flexibility in terms of Storage support. If you have the money though TRX40 might also be an option on the used market. Amazon still sell the 1900X new for X399 as well.

 

[KLMR]

The answer is clearly TR but its out of your budget.

I would take 9950x with x670e (asus pro-art is the cheapest with pcie deduplication and 10gbe), and 64 or 96GB or ram (no ECC unfortunately).

Problem is, how come you (your company or boss) can afford such expensive bundle of licences but your budged for a workstation is so low?

 

[docnorth]

I Can probably remove 2 of the HDDs that are being used for redundancy right now and bring the amount down to 6 SATA ports, 2 for the ODDs, 2 for the SSDs, and 2 for the dual 8 TB hard disks. But PCIe lanes are already an issue on consumer builds nowadays. My current system has 24 lanes, which is enough for the graphics card, the sound card, the M.2 slot, and the motherboard built-in communication and connectivity features.


I only use the external disk as a backup; I never use it to edit live from it.


I have considered the Threadripper platform, but I am honestly scared by the sheer cost in the thousands just for the CPU. I don't know if it might be a good idea to go for older generation Threadripper ?



Thank you for the suggestion. May I ask what you would consider to be the closest motherboards series or families currently available that share some of the build quality I saw with the Sabertooth ? the TUF series seems to be way worse nowadays, and I wonder if there are currently any similar options from MSI or ASrock. I would rather avoid Gigabyte if possible as my experience with their customer service has been bad, to say the least. For the CPU, I was mostly considering the Ryzen 9900X and the similarily priced Ultra 7 265K from intel, although I am not sure which to pick yet given my needs. pairing that with 64 GB or 128 GB of dual memory DDR5 RAM sticks from corsair or crucial at the default clock setting. I would prefer not to bother with XMP for stability concerns. I am still running my DDR4 sticks at 2400 mhz. Although I am not sure if I should just get a 64 GB of RAM and upgrade later on (as I would probably not need more than 64 GB for the forseeable future, my current needs are maxing out in the high 50s) but I am wondering if that would cause instability issues due to the mismatch if I come to add more ram in the future. I could reuse my current cooler and get an attachment kit from be-quiet although buying a new one is relatively cheap I guess.

Here's the list I've compiled so far, minus the Motherboard. I am not sure if an Ultra 7 would be better suited for my workload but I am not sure if there are any degradation issues with that new series yet. We haven't seen much news regarding that:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X 4.4 GHz 12-Core Processor ($382.55 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Pure Rock 2 Black CPU Cooler ($44.90 @ Amazon)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-5200 CL40 Memory ($154.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $582.44
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-11-14 07:21 EST-0500

I will follow through on most suggestions here and stick to the RTX 2060S for a bit longer and upgrade that once the 5000 comes out although it seems to be showing some occasional problems. I do have some questions.

Do you think my PSU listed in the first post would be able to handle a mid-tier GPU from the RTX 4000 or rumoured RTX 5000 series? I would prefer not to replace that if possible to save some trouble.
Am I expected to notice the downgrade from quad channel RAM to dual-channel? especially when I'm going from DDR4 to DDR5 ?
Do I really need all those PCIe lanes with modern cards ? or would running the upcoming GPU on 8x lanes still provide a significant advantage over what I am currently running ? I wouldn't mind switching the Audio Card for an external one and the smaller SSDs for a bigger M.2 one, although I would rather avoid the additional spending as they still work just fine for my needs. I have never been satisfied with onboard audio.

Thank you again to all of you guys for providing your suggestions and feedback, it is greatly appreciated!

Asus also makes some ProArt creator boards. For their quality usually less overpriced than strix series. Good connectivity by todays standards.
From MSI the Carbon series (or mayyyybe Tomahawk if you are very tight on budget). Just my humble opinion.

P.S. For your needs there is no reason to avoid arrow lake, even before the (cough, cough) fixes. But with 9950x or 9900x you can find some good x670 boards relatively cheap, just remember to check the memory speeds they can run.

 

[MCJAxolotl7]

For GPU how much performance do you need? IIRC 7900xtx is about 70% of the render perf of the 4090 and you could get one new for ~850$

 

[Eliomiller]

Sorry for not replying earlier, but it has been a busy Friday.

I have a question concerning X670E boards. As far as I understand, they would require a BIOS update before being capable of supporting any 9000 series processor. Wouldn't that make it a no-go given that I don't have a 7000 CPU sitting around?

I would prefer to stick with NVIDIA graphics card, as they have the best compatibility with the rendering tools I use. But for the CPU I don't mind Intel or AMD provided that the system is stable and doesn't have durability or instability issues. I will probably stick to an RTX 4060 ti 16 GB or a 4070S, but after reading your thoughts around here, I think I will stick with the 2060S until the 5000 series and then figure it out from there. I am honestly unable to afford anything of the high-end GPUs NVIDIA has been throwing around recently. So I guess I might be able to get away with my older PSU in that case?

I was very compelled by Arrow Lake, but I am worried about:

• Silicon Degradation similar to what we've seen with the 13th and 14th Gen
• Lack of future proofing when it comes to the socket. With AMD, they are very likely to maintain compatibility with that socket until at least 2027.
• Driver issues and problems that we keep hearing about.

Although the concept of P-cores and E-cores is very compelling for me, having tested a 12th Gen 12700k build recently.

I'll look around for a Xeon to keep the build useful after I retire it, but I don't think I will be swapping my 3.3 GHz i7 with a 2.2 GHz CPU for the primary rig I use.

Is the DDR5 problem with more than 2 sticks that is seen on AM5 also a thing with Arrow Lake?

 

[Assimilator]

Wouldn't that make it a no-go given that I don't have a 7000 CPU sitting around?

Nah, all boards nowadays have some sort of "BIOS flashback" option whereby you stick the updated BIOS on a USB stick, plug it into a specific USB port on the board, then power on the board and it automatically reads and flashes the BIOS from the stick. No CPU needed.

So I guess I might be able to get away with my older PSU in that case?

Unless you are going with 4080 or 4090, your old Seasonic should tide you over fine.

Silicon Degradation similar to what we've seen with the 13th and 14th Gen

Unlikely given that ARL is an entirely new architecture and indeed new CPU packaging. But Intel has made good on the 13/14 gen defect anyway.

Lack of future proofing when it comes to the socket. With AMD, they are very likely to maintain compatibility with that socket until at least 2027.

There's a double-edged sword to sticking with the same socket, in that it effectively freezes the features that can be supported unless that socket is designed with forward-compatibility in mind. For example the fact that AMD Zen 4 and Zen 5 boards are limited to 28 PCIe lanes is a function of the CPU and therefore the socket, which means that unless AMD has designed AM5 with extra unneeded pins, if they want to improve IO on Zen 6 they will need a new socket.

Driver issues and problems that we keep hearing about.

CPUs don't have drivers. The scheduling bugs are a bigger concern for me personally, because while Intel say they're gonna fix it via software, what that tells me is that ARL is unfinished and was released as such, and I personally don't feel like paying good money for a beta product, nor being a beta tester for it. If Intel do get around to releasing those patches then I may feel differently, but there's no guarantee that they will.

Is the DDR5 problem with more than 2 sticks that is seen on AM5 also a thing with Arrow Lake?

It's not an AMD problem, but an inherent issue in driving DDR5 memory, which runs at incredibly high speeds compared to DDR4 and earlier. Remember that DDR4 topped out at ~4000MHz on the high end, while DDR5 starts at 4800MHz for the slowest sticks and up to over 10000MHz for the fastest. Memory controllers have to work hard to keep things stable at those speeds, and going from two sticks to four makes things even worse. Intel's memory controllers have always been better at handling higher speeds than AMD's, but the state of DDR5 at the moment is such that running four sticks on either platform really isn't recommended - unless you're happy to buy slower memory, or downclock the memory significantly below its rated speed (in other words, paying money for speeds you can't use).

There is a new type of memory module called a CUDIMM, which is basically a standard UDIMM with an embedded clock generator (C in CUDIMM = Clocked), that will allow higher speeds due to placing less stress on the CPU's memory controller (read more here). Arrow Lake fully supports CUDIMMs while Zen 5 does not, so ARL is a more future-proof upgrade in this regard.

 

[bobbybluz]

The turbo speed of the Xeon E5 2699 V4 is 3.6GHz. With a slight BLCK bump (I use 103.5) it's even faster. It's not a slow CPU from my own experiences with it. It's also far easier to cool than a 5960X or 6950X (I have those in my collection). I don't use that rig as a daily driver, it's for A/V production use only. I have several PC's and use the lowest one on the totem pole for web surfing and things. It's usually on 24/7 and if it blows up I have better platforms ready to go (mobo, CPU, RAM all ready as units) to swap the internals out if need be.

If that PSU is over 10 years old I'd replace it to be on the safe side of things.

 

[Eliomiller]

The turbo speed of the Xeon E5 2699 V4 is 3.6GHz. With a slight BLCK bump (I use 103.5) it's even faster. It's not a slow CPU from my own experiences with it. It's also far easier to cool than a 5960X or 6950X (I have those in my collection).

If that PSU is over 10 years old I'd replace it to be on the safe side of things.

Do you think that Xeon could be pushed to a base clock of 2.7 or 2.8 GHz through some kind of overclocking (I know the multipliers would be locked on a Xeon but by adjusting the BLCK) ? This sounds like a great idea to keep the system viable even later as I found one on amazon for around 200 bucks, but 2.2 GHz as a base clock seems like it's too low for some of the single threaded tasks I do. My PSU haven't been run down much as the system haven't been on for longer than 3 years and has about 6000 power on/off cycles.

CPUs don't have drivers. The scheduling bugs are a bigger concern for me personally, because while Intel say they're gonna fix it via software, what that tells me is that ARL is unfinished and was released as such, and I personally don't feel like paying good money for a beta product, nor being a beta tester for it. If Intel do get around to releasing those patches then I may feel differently, but there's no guarantee that they will.

In that case, and considering that I will probably be purchasing the parts around the end of december, do you think it might be worth it to wait and see if they will figure it out by then ? I doubt that there is much point in waiting for a graphics card until the RTX 5000 launch in january as they will not release the 5060 and 5070 until much later, but I could probably keep running the 2060S initially and replace it a few months down.

As some one that had the Sabretooth only Threadripper will satisfy you ultimately. Looking at what is currently available here are the boards I would recommend.

1. Asus X670E E Strix
2. MSI X670E Carbon
3. As Rock X870E Taichi

I have taken a look at some of the motherboard options and while the Asrock Taichi seems to be great, it's EATX and my case cannot fit anything bigger than ATX. I think the X870E Carbon and the ASUS X670E ProArt seems to be the closest boards to what I need in terms of PCI-E slots and connectivity. the Carbon also seems to have a lot of USB slots which is great for my usage. I am a bit disappointed by the ProArt rear I/O panel.



So far I have compiled two possible lists. Obviously up to suggestions:

Option A(AMD):
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X 4.4 GHz 12-Core Processor ($382.55 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Pure Rock 2 Black CPU Cooler ($44.90 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI MPG X870E CARBON WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard ($499.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 96 GB (2 x 48 GB) DDR5-5200 CL38 Memory ($259.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Asus DUAL EVO OC GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB Video Card ($449.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1637.42
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-11-16 21:36 EST-0500

Option B (Intel):
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 265K 3.9 GHz 20-Core Processor ($384.99 @ B&H)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Pure Rock 2 Black CPU Cooler ($44.90 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI MPG Z890 CARBON WIFI ATX LGA1851 Motherboard ($499.99 @ B&H)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 96 GB (2 x 48 GB) DDR5-5200 CL38 Memory ($259.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Asus DUAL EVO OC GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB Video Card ($449.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1639.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-11-16 21:36 EST-0500

Mostly I am considering the X670E Proart instead of the MSI board in Option A as I am not sure which one would be the better deal. But I am not sure if I should go with AMD or Intel yet. I think the 9900X is as far as I can afford on team Red. both the 7950X and 7800X3D are around 100$ m ore expensive and I don't think the 4 extra cores or the additional 3D cache would make a big difference for me. But on team blue the main question would be if there would be any motherboard that would provide more value without me missing out on the Sabertooth features too much. I do need a 3 PCI-E slot configuration afterall if I am to use a SATA expansion card.

 

[dgianstefani]

9950X or 285K, Mobo with good ethernet, 64/96 GB RAM.

GPU doesn't matter, it's swap in swap out, but NVIDIA and likely wait for RTX 50xx.

As for PSU, ATX 3/3.1 with Plat/Ti rating, HWBusters does better cybernetics ratings these days than ATX.

HW costs are tiny % of software costs for a true workstation, so you really should keep that in mind.

I'm publishing a build guide sometime this month which might help you.

9950X3D will add a lot of cache if you can wait a few months and that benefits your workload.
X3D chips aren't more efficient architecturally, you can get same efficiency with some settings changes, but out of the box their lower clocks put them in a nicer place V/F curve wise.

As for cooling, A14x25 G2 is unmatched.

As others have said, TR or Xeon is really what you want.

 

[MCJAxolotl7]

As others have said, TR or Xeon is really what you want.

Speaking of that, would i9-9980xe work for this

 

[dgianstefani]

Speaking of that, would i9-9980xe work for this

Too old, Skylake cores are jank in 2024.

 

[MCJAxolotl7]

Too old, Skylake cores are jank in 2024.

I mean, the cheapest thread ripper that is any newer is like few Ks

 

[Bobaganoosh]

This is what I would do if I were you based on what you've listed above.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X 4.4 GHz 12-Core Processor ($382.55 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler ($36.90 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock Phantom Gaming X870E Nova WiFi ATX AM5 Motherboard ($350.00)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws S5 96 GB (2 x 48 GB) DDR5-5600 CL40 Memory ($258.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: FSP Group Hydro Ti PRO,Gen 5 1000 W 80+ Titanium Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($219.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1248.43
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-11-20 14:07 EST-0500

Some notes:
1. The power supply you have is old and if you're going to anything RTX3000 series or newer, I'd want a newer supply.
2. I'm assuming you'll need a PCIe to SATA adapter if you're going to use all your SATA drives. This board's bang/buck is the best I've seen at the moment. I'm a fan of the Taichi/Taichi-Lite boards, but the price difference is hard to ignore for what you actually get.
3. 9900X...I was initially going to suggest you get a 7950X as a placeholder, but I was surprised to learn that the 9900X is much cheaper. You could, at a later date, decide that you want more cores or more speed and at that time go with 9950X3D or even the next gen if you wait that long as I think AMD has announced one more generation for AM5.
4. GPU...well, the cheapest Nvidia I'd look at for your applications is the 4080S 16GB at $949 new. The kind of engineering I do sometimes involves Solidworks, which uses CUDA, so I'd be inclined to look at Nvidia and if you like any RT at all in your games, it's kind of a no-brainer anyway. This is another one though, where you could wait and try to find a used 4090 from someone upgrading to a 5090 in a couple months when they come out. I think based on the likely 5090 price and the lack of 4090 availability, you will likely find a lot of $1500+ used 4090's on the market. I'm not sure 5080 is going to be as fast as 4090 (we really don't know yet) and for people who need the VRAM, it's still going to draw good money. You might find 4080 Super on sale at that point, especially used, but these days it's really hard to predict, especially if we get hit with tariffs sometime early next year (assuming you're in US). So basically, this is a crapshoot lately. I'd say buy the best thing you can afford when you need it lol.

 

[Eliomiller]

Thank you very much for your suggestions. I think for the time being I will wait for the newer 3D cache CPUs and see how they fare, as I'm not really in the boat on spending a couple of thousand dollars just on a thread ripper, particularly during these times. Although I'm keeping an eye on the 15th gen Intel CPUs to see how they will compare. That motherboard seems like a good option in terms of connectivity, although I'm not too pleased with the colorful theme. I'll wait for the new generation of RTX GPUs to come and see what I can pick. But I can't really go above the 1.5k or maximum 2k mark on that upgrade. And the lower the better honestly. I wanna improve my bottom line first and once the money is flowing in a better way maybe I can have some nicer upgrades like the GPU.