Recommendation on AM5 motherboards

[dgianstefani]

OK let's ask does anyone who has used a 5900X considered slow?

Do you understand the concept of relative? Can you abstract beyond your own personal subjective?

Hence when I went to AM5, I got the 7900X3D. I missed the smoothness of 12 cores (5800X3D) and got the advantage of X3D. Now for Games that don't support X3D, I get 5.6 Ghz on 6 cores that drive my FPS. There is also now AMD advantage on the Desktop and I notice my IGPU being used when playing TWWH3. The only people that hate on these chips are people that don't have them. I have been rocking 12 cores since the 2920X. The 7900X3D is a very powerful chip that rarely goes above 40 Watts when Gaming. It has made Gaming a joy and 4K in all Games is sweet on my 144hz panel when combined with the 7900XT. Give me some of that Re-bar and Hypr-RX goodness. I also have a 5950X and that is a super snappy CPU. The thing is the price difference between the 7900X3D and 7950X3D where I live is a cool $300+ tax and the 7950X is $200 more. It is the same principle I used with the 7900XTX. I got one, sent it back, got a refund and saw the 7900XT was $400+ Tax cheaper. I got one and could not tell the difference between the 2 other than OC GPU clock...by 200 mhz. One of the best deals on AM5 was the regular 7900 CPU for $499. If I was not a Gamer, I probably would have got that chip for the smoothness. The narrative tells us that the 7800X3D is the fastest Gaming chip but the truth is much more nuanced. Of course my RAM runs at a a measly 5200 MHz so there is more performance to achieve. When I get distracted from Gaming. The Old World Map for TWWH3 is about double the size of the Immortal Empires Map, so that gets plenty of play time. So does AMS2 where I am using the AUDI LMP1 2016 vs LMDH, Sauber C9, Mazda 787B and Cadillac DPI from IMSA.

Asus boards on AM5 are rock solid. The RAM issue has been resolved and the Strix boards are the best price/performance that Asus offers. The MSI X670E Pro is the least expensive X670E board and there is an offering from As Rock as well. What you pay for on AM5 are PCIe x16 slots wired at more than x4. That allows for expansion cards connected to the CPU. If you are not thinking about RAID 0 arrays, then B650E is fine as you get enough M2 and SATA ports to satisfy most users.



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In this post you literally state that you couldn't tell the difference between the 7900 XT and the XTX, cards with a ~20% performance gap, somewhat telling as to how seriously people should take your opinion when it comes to relative performance differences between parts. Instead of jumping into every thread justifying your purchases, talking about the "truth", perhaps you can understand that you're not the only one who has bought these 6+6 parts (I have personally built a 3900X rig and replaced it with a 5800X3D ASAP after the client found the dual CCD design contributed to Excel and Bloomberg issues), and that your lack of objectiveness not only isn't helpful, but is not in line with reality (what you call the narrative).

For the 7900X3D/X to make sense, you have to

1. Have a productivity requirement, but not make money from your productivity work (if you do make money, the 7950X3D/7950X pays for itself by working faster, plus the cost of a CPU is marginal compared to software licenses or professional GPUs)

2. Also be a gamer that chooses to game on the same PC you work on (many corporations or individuals avoid this due to security concerns of DRM, virus exposure in some games, physical location of workplace etc.)

3. Not be bothered by having slower gaming performance than cheaper options, or slower productivity performance than cheaper options. Or by doing professional productivity on a platform where ECC memory isn't validated and you only have two RAM channels.

4. Not want to go with the 14700/K instead, which is comparable in gaming performance and faster in productivity while being also being cheaper.

This is a highly specific and I would say, unusual, use case. Hence why, after recent discounts the 50% higher core count chip is only 10% higher in price than the 7800X3D, there's simply not much demand.

Considering the 7950X is only marginally more expensive than the 7900X3D, it really is a chip stuck in the middle, a "compromise" chip formed of defect dies that weren't good enough for 8 core CCDs. If AMD wanted to make a good 12 core CPU, they would release a 8+4 chip, and that would have few downsides compared to the rest of the Zen stack. However, the x900 series wasn't released for the benefit of consumers, but to recoup money from 7950x chips that couldn't make the cut. In gaming a real eight core is faster. In productivity a cheaper Intel option is faster (and more stable). The 12 core chip uses the same amount of power and creates the same amount of heat as the 16 core, while having inter CCD latency issues that are exacerbated by a higher chance of applications having to use both CCDs. The list of issues goes on.

No matter how many times you post the same subjective responses kapone, people will be there to correct you with information based in reality. If you're as happy as you claim with your purchase, that's great, maybe skip the defensive advertising posting, lauding the features of your purchase (which aren't unique, the entire Zen 4 stack offers rebar and Hypr-Rx, and Intel/NVIDIA parts have equivalents), and that offers no objectively useful information.

Why do you always get so defensive over this? I had a 5900X and ditched it too; no one said the 12-cores are slow, 8-core SKU will never catch up to the 12 in pure MT perf no matter the OC. But 7900 will be forever be a 7950X-lite. Unless there's some bangin' deal on the 12-core / need it for SFF thermals yet for some reason refuse to tweak a 7950X to do the same / one just needs MT perf yet can't afford 7950X, there's just very little reason to choose it.

Now. Before this thread gets dragged even further off topic, OP has been presented with some good feedback for their build from multiple people. Let's keep further posts focused on that, not adverts for "buy the same thing I have, there's no downside".

Yeah, I always go to the makers website and read the specs on there M.2 and whether it's from CPU or chipset
Like the MSI X670E Gaming Plus Wi-fi I was looking at
M.2_1 Source (From CPU) supports up to PCIe 5.0 x4 , supports 22110/2280 devices
M.2_2 Source (From CPU) supports up to PCIe 4.0 x4 , supports 2280/2260 devices
M.2_3 Source (From Chipset) supports up to PCIe 4.0 x4 , supports 2280/2260 devices
M.2_4 Source (From Chipset) supports up to PCIe 4.0 x4 , supports 2280/2260 devices
And since I plan only 2 NVMe currently this is fine.

Remember, with NAND flash, endurance, performance and SLC cache scales with capacity. A 2 TB drive will have double the endurance as a 1 TB drive of the same model, likely double the pseudo SLC cache, and something like 10% higher real world performance.

Currently, PCIe gen 5 M.2 drives offer a less than 2% real world performance benefit over good gen 4 drives, while being close to twice the price, and typically having overheating issues. It's a much better option to buy a 2 TB gen 4 drive for the same money. In future, new gen 5 models will eventually release, with new controllers and flash chips that justify the use of gen 5, but currently there's very little reason to pick a gen 5 drive unless money is no object. I would strongly recommend getting a second 990 Pro, but in 2 TB capacity, rather than the 1 TB Z540 you're considering.

This chart is comparing the 2 TB model, the 1 TB Z540 will be slightly slower, so you're talking about a less than 2% difference in performance compared to a similarly priced 990 Pro or similar tier gen 4 drive, that has double the capacity.

 

[AusWolf]

PCI-e 5.0 is overrated. GPUs don't use the bandwidth, and you don't feel anything with SSDs. So B650 is more than enough unless you need the extra connectivity that X670 offers.

As for motherboards, the MSi Pro series are more than enough for everyday use, imo.

 

[kapone32]

Do you understand the concept of relative? Can you abstract beyond your own personal subjective?

In this post you literally state that you couldn't tell the difference between the 7900 XT and the XTX, cards with a ~20% performance gap, somewhat telling as to how seriously people should take your opinion when it comes to relative performance differences between parts. Instead of jumping into every thread justifying your purchases, talking about the "truth", perhaps you can understand that you're not the only one who has bought these 6+6 parts (I have personally built a 3900X rig and replaced it with a 5800X3D ASAP after the client found the dual CCD design contributed to Excel and Bloomberg issues), and that your lack of objectiveness not only isn't helpful, but is not in line with reality (what you call the narrative).

Are you sure it is 20%. I would also ask you if you can tell the difference between 160 vs 130 FPS? You are talking about the 3900X vs the 5800X3D. I never used the 3900X but I used the 5900X. The 5900X is not a slow CPU.



Considering the 7950X is only marginally more expensive than the 7900X3D, it really is a chip stuck in the middle, a "compromise" chip formed of defect dies that weren't good enough for 8 core CCDs. If AMD wanted to make a good 12 core CPU, they would release a 8+4 chip, and that would have few downsides compared to the rest of the Zen stack. However, the x900 series wasn't released for the benefit of consumers, but to recoup money from 7950x chips that couldn't make the cut. In gaming a real eight core is faster. In productivity a cheaper Intel option is faster (and more stable). The 12 core chip uses the same amount of power and creates the same amount of heat as the 16 core, while having inter CCD latency issues that are exacerbated by a higher chance of applications having to use both CCDs. The list of issues goes on.

You say that the 7900XTX is 20% faster than 7900XT so I will ask you if you can tell the difference between 160 and 130 FPS?


Where did you not read that I wanted X3D as I am a Gamer. All of this is your opinion and hence why I responded

"If AMD wanted to make a good 12 core CPU, they would release a 8+4 chip, and that would have few downsides compared to the rest of the Zen stack. However, the x900 series wasn't released for the benefit of consumers, but to recoup money from 7950x chips that couldn't make the cut. In gaming a real eight core is faster. In productivity a cheaper Intel option is faster (and more stable). The 12 core chip uses the same amount of power and creates the same amount of heat as the 16 core, while having inter CCD latency issues that are exacerbated by a higher chance of applications having to use both CCDs. The list of issues goes on."

You still purport that these chips are basically useless. Are you sure that the heat envelope is the same? TPU did not even review the 7900X3D so I don't know where you are getting your heat opinion from. Then you mention Intel is stabler than AM5 Multi CCD chips??? I guess my PC crashes all the time. I guess that was why Helldivers 2 crashed, until they released a patch.

No matter how many times you post the same subjective responses kapone, people will be there to correct you with information based in reality. If you're as happy as you claim with your purchase, that's great, maybe skip the defensive advertising posting, lauding the features of your purchase (which aren't unique, the entire Zen 4 stack offers rebar and Hypr-Rx, and Intel/NVIDIA parts have equivalents), and that offers no objectively useful information.


Now. Before this thread gets dragged even further off topic, OP has been presented with some good feedback for their build from multiple people. Let's keep further posts focused on that, not adverts for "buy the same thing I have, there's no downside".

The only thing I respond to are people like you telling me how bad my chip is and where did I infer that you need a 7900 series chip for re-bar and Hypr-RX? I would also ask that you stop bashing 12 core chips. You do not have a 7900X3D, but I do. Who is purporting and who is objectively talking about performance?

 

[Kipicog]

AsRock is generally very good performance per dollar in my experience. I went MSI time time and I am fairly impressed.

I think the MSI B650 Tomahawk and AsRock Riptide is good value boards.

If you plan to keep the system for 5-7 years then PCIe 5.0 might be a good idea but not really needed unless you plan to upgrade to a beefier GPU and faster storage eventually.