So the time has come for me to build a new machine. I want to build something that would mostly cover my daily needs and those are: Poser, 3DSmax, Photoshop, Solidworks and a bit of gaming when I got the time (which happens once or twice a year). I would like to hear your suggestions on hardware choices, given that my initial budget is around £2000.

I happen to be working on a similar budget.

Intel is DOA for the next couple of years, so it is AMD all the way.........

Case -Rosewill Challenger (ATX case - any will do, a case is a box to hold your parts.) Got mine on sale for $60.

PSU: Rosewill Hive 750 watts - I'd recommend any 750 watt PSU that is rated 80 Bronze. Got mine for $40.

Motherboard: ASUS Pro WS X570 Ace - Best Ryzen Motherboard available - accepts ECC memory - added bonus - No RGB.

CPU: Ryzen 2700 - 8 core/12 thread which will hold you over until you (or anyone else) can actually buy a Ryzen 9 3950X.

Memory: Crucial 32 GB DDR 4 3200 ECC Ram sticks (Start with 2 - the 2700 can only accept 64Gb max, then get 2 more when you get your 3950X.)

Video: AMD RX 5500 - Will drive a 4K panel, same performance as an RX 580, but only draws 110 watts, and will be 2/3d's the cost.

SSD: Sabrent Rocket 1Tb - PCIe 4.0 Write speeds of 4,000Mb/s read speeds of 5,000Mb/s OS/Apps

HHD: 4Tb HGST (for data) - cheap, very, very reliable. - I am currently using 4 2Tb versions in a raid 5

Motherboard thoughts: The Asus MB is the best MB available for Ryzen 9. It is specifically designed for workstation solutions (and a number of boutique PC vendors are using it). It supports ECC memory, which I consider to be mandatory if you actually value your work.

Ram thoughts: The correct answer to the question "How much Ram do I need?" is As much as the board/CPU can address.

SSD/HD drive thoughts: NVMe PCIe 4.0 is the way to go - every second counts.

Video card thoughts: Nvidia's cards do not age very well - each generation tends to lose driver optimizations as Nvidia releases new generations of cards. AMD on the other hand, will continue to provide driver optimizations to a wider generation of cards.

As an example, the latest Adrenaline drivers still support RX470 (My boxen will have an RX 480 - picked up an 8Gb version for $75), so even 4 year old cards are getting support. That can not be said of the Nvidia 9 series.

I checked out your stats and I have to say that looks like it will be one kick ass machine. Even the case looks 2020 not 2002. But why do you say Intel is dead on arrival? AMD makes great microprocessors but it's my understanding that Intel while always more expensive, makes the top of the line in processors. Has AMD finally surpassed their only rival?

ssgbryan posted at 9:07PM Thu, 28 November 2019 - #4371302

I happen to be working on a similar budget.

Intel is DOA for the next couple of years, so it is AMD all the way.........

Case -Rosewill Challenger (ATX case - any will do, a case is a box to hold your parts.) Got mine on sale for $60.

PSU: Rosewill Hive 750 watts - I'd recommend any 750 watt PSU that is rated 80 Bronze. Got mine for $40.

Motherboard: ASUS Pro WS X570 Ace - Best Ryzen Motherboard available - accepts ECC memory - added bonus - No RGB.

CPU: Ryzen 2700 - 8 core/12 thread which will hold you over until you (or anyone else) can actually buy a Ryzen 9 3950X.

Memory: Crucial 32 GB DDR 4 3200 ECC Ram sticks (Start with 2 - the 2700 can only accept 64Gb max, then get 2 more when you get your 3950X.)

Video: AMD RX 5500 - Will drive a 4K panel, same performance as an RX 580, but only draws 110 watts, and will be 2/3d's the cost.

SSD: Sabrent Rocket 1Tb - PCIe 4.0 Write speeds of 4,000Mb/s read speeds of 5,000Mb/s OS/Apps

HHD: 4Tb HGST (for data) - cheap, very, very reliable. - I am currently using 4 2Tb versions in a raid 5

Motherboard thoughts: The Asus MB is the best MB available for Ryzen 9. It is specifically designed for workstation solutions (and a number of boutique PC vendors are using it). It supports ECC memory, which I consider to be mandatory if you actually value your work.

Ram thoughts: The correct answer to the question "How much Ram do I need?" is As much as the board/CPU can address.

SSD/HD drive thoughts: NVMe PCIe 4.0 is the way to go - every second counts.

Video card thoughts: Nvidia's cards do not age very well - each generation tends to lose driver optimizations as Nvidia releases new generations of cards. AMD on the other hand, will continue to provide driver optimizations to a wider generation of cards.

As an example, the latest Adrenaline drivers still support RX470 (My boxen will have an RX 480 - picked up an 8Gb version for $75), so even 4 year old cards are getting support. That can not be said of the Nvidia 9 series.

Thank you very much for your detailed description and your time. I have been buying and trusting Intel and Nvidia since forever. AMD was a no-go for me for a long time. I had a radeon card on my old imac (can't remember model now, sorry) which was taking it's time to render, plus overheated a lot! Now I hear good things about the Ryzen CPUs so I am looking into them as well. But yeah I'll be honest, my heart says Intel

Quietrob - that was pre-Zen AMD. The chiplet design + Infinity Fabric means higher performance and much higher chip yields. The consumer series of chips (Ryzen Series), outside of the 3950x, are the worst performing silicon. Each Zen 2 chiplet has 8 cores. Defective cores are turned off and used to make Ryzen 5, 7, 9 and 12 core Threadripper) series of chips.

The best binned chiplets go into Eypc server chips (That is where AMD makes the most money). The 2nd best binned chiplets go into Threadripper HEDT (High End DeskTop), where AMD also make lots of money. The 3rd best binned chiplets go into the Ryzen 9 (3950x aka "baby threadripper") This is AMD's Halo product for consumers. Everything else goes into Ryzen 5, 7 and 12 core Ryzen 9 chips.

Intel does the same - all chips are built to one design, and defective cores are turned off.

Stick a fork in Intel - they are done (for the next few years - they are having their Bulldozer moment). The 1st iteration of their 10nm process simply didn't work. Intel has had to start all over, and design a completely new architecture. In the meantime, they can't even pump out enough 14nm++++++++ (to infinity and beyond) to meet current demand. They will have chip shortages (of old cpus) until 2nd half of 2020.

The Zen architecture out performs anything Intel has. More importantly, AMD has a 15 month development cadence. In January, the last Zen 2 based CPU launches - the X3990x - 64 cores, 128 threads at over 3.0Ghz, all cores.

Zen 3 is a new architecture - and it is already sampling. It will launch at the end of next year, and it will show somewhere between a 10 - 15% IPC (Instructions per clock) increase over Zen 2. And AMD is already working on Zen 4 (which may have SMT 4 - 4 threads per core. So a Zen 4 Ryzen could start with a 4 core/16 thread CPU - wouldn't that make rendering easier)

Intel has ceded the HEDT to AMD. Their latest, i9 processor, the the i10980xe (18 cores/32 threads), was obsolete within 6 hours. Literally - The R9 3950X (consumer desktop AMD CPU, not Threadripper, the AMD HEDT CPU) outperforms it, on literally everything - at 75% of the cost of the aforementioned Intel CPU.

Server companies are retiring 3 & 4 Xeon based servers and replacing them with 1 Eypc (AMD server CPU series). Between the cost savings (AMD CPUs are 1/2 the price of Xeons) and performance it is a no-brainer. In less than 2 years AMD has gone from 0% of the server market to 5%, and they should have at least 20% by the end of next year. And you have to be in the server market to realize just how fast that is.

ssgbryan what are your thoughts on this setup: Ryzen 9 3900X 3.3GHz 12core Mobo: Asus Rog Strix B540-F Ram: Corsair Vengeance 32GB 3200MHz DDR4 Graphics: MSI Geforce RTX 2080 Super Ventus OC 8GB 256-Bit GDDR6 (3072 Cuda Cores)

Look at the system holistically.

What are you doing, and where are your current bottlenecks? How long do you plan on keeping your system? Most folks run about 5 years, with 1 mid-lifecycle upgrade.

If you go with the 2080 - then your midlife upgrade will be the both CPU and Motherboard. You can spend an extra $60 or so now on a X570 MB and then your midlife upgrade would only be the CPU. Ebay the 3900X and that should cover about 1/2 of your CPU upgrade. Otherwise, factor in the cost of either an X570 or X670 (Zen 3) motherboard.

The AM4 socket will be supported through Zen 3, so you will have the ability in 15-18 months to move to a Ryzen 4900X CPU. A mid-grade 450 board can't take advantage of everything that the 3900X brings to the table, (i.e. PCIe 4.0 or the ability to address 128Gb of ram), not to mention the goodness that is coming with Zen 3 (another 15% increase in instructions per clock [IPC].

Also look at the amount of ram (3200 is the sweet spot) - Ryzen uses dual channel memory - If you go with 32 (2x16) configuration, you will be tossing ram sticks when you go over 64Gb (And you will go to at least 64). Remember, you have 12 cores - don't want to starve them.

ssgbryan posted at 7:45PM Thu, 05 December 2019 - #4371745

Look at the system holistically.

What are you doing, and where are your current bottlenecks? How long do you plan on keeping your system? Most folks run about 5 years, with 1 mid-lifecycle upgrade.

If you go with the 2080 - then your midlife upgrade will be the both CPU and Motherboard. You can spend an extra $60 or so now on a X570 MB and then your midlife upgrade would only be the CPU. Ebay the 3900X and that should cover about 1/2 of your CPU upgrade. Otherwise, factor in the cost of either an X570 or X670 (Zen 3) motherboard.

The AM4 socket will be supported through Zen 3, so you will have the ability in 15-18 months to move to a Ryzen 4900X CPU. A mid-grade 450 board can't take advantage of everything that the 3900X brings to the table, (i.e. PCIe 4.0 or the ability to address 128Gb of ram), not to mention the goodness that is coming with Zen 3 (another 15% increase in instructions per clock [IPC].

Also look at the amount of ram (3200 is the sweet spot) - Ryzen uses dual channel memory - If you go with 32 (2x16) configuration, you will be tossing ram sticks when you go over 64Gb (And you will go to at least 64). Remember, you have 12 cores - don't want to starve them.

Thank you once again and I agree with you. I'm also going for the 5-7 year lifecycle with once or twice upgrades. I finally got a much better cpu: a threadripper Ryzen 2920, the mobo is an Asus Prime X399-A and the RTX 2080 Super. Now on memory it will be an upgrade process, I'll start off at 32GB @ 3200 (2x16) and put another 2x16 on the next months. Sabrent 1TB Rocket Nvme PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 for the OS and software. I decided that If the threadripper works well with the rest of the setup, I'll get the Ryzen TR 3970, but then I will may have to up the mobo as well, major upgrade which I cannot see it happening any earlier than a year from now.

What are your thoughts on memory? I'm thinking of Corsair Vengeance LPX series, although I hear good things about GSKILL sticks too

Good choice - the 2nd gen TRs are getting a price cut.

Keep in mind that the 2nd Gen TR uses quad channel memory, so you may need to start with 4 sticks of memory. Right now you can get 32Gb memory kits on Newegg for around 99USD.

My box will be getting Corsair, but that is because I am going with ECC memory. I have been using it since 2006 (My 1,1 & 4,1 Mac Pro) and I am simply more comfortable with it. Biggest issue right now is that the 32Gb sticks are simply unavailable at the moment. I'll be needing to go with them (@ 167.99 a pop) due to the dual channel memory slot for an X570 board. I have 96Gb on my current system & I like the breathing room (and the ability to have multiple poorly coded Adobe & DAZ apps open at the same time).