Thoughts on New PC Build
MelissaGT
Posts: 2,611
My current system is only 3 years old (Ryzen 7 1800X, 32GB RAM, 1080TI FTW3), but I've had the RTX itch for a while now and it's been so painful waiting to get my hands on a GPU. I don't know when/how I'll ever be able to get ahold of one unless I just say 'screw it' and pay the redonk price (thinking tax return and next stimulus will soften that blow). Anyways, I was hoping to get some thoughts on the list I've put together -
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/JBtwXb
I'm on a Ryzen system now, but I think I definitely want to go back to Intel next time around. I've had some really annoying compatibility and stability issues lately around Windows updates with some necessary programs (such as NZXT CAM) all tying back to Ryzen. (The current issue is well-documented on Linus Tech Tips and all the people having issues are Ryzen users. I've also had problems with Corsair's iCUE. All these problems started with Windows 20H2. My system still runs fine for the most part, short of a random hard-reset freeze once in a while that is 100% tied to NZXT CAM, but it just seems like support for Ryzen always comes second to support for Intel...yada yada whine whine.) So yeah, definitely going to Intel.
I'd also like to put out there that I am a gamer, so I need to keep that in mind when putting together a build. I don't need more storage because I have drives that I will be bringing in from my current system. I can also add more RAM down the road.
I tried doing a system build through an online shop (CyberPowerPC and Origin PC) and those builds really don't come out to much cheaper than if I were to buy everything myself AND pay the scalping price on the GPU. The benefit to buying myself is that I can get the GPU I really want (the specific one that's on my list...the FTW3 Ultra)...whereas with a build house, I'm stuck with whatever they have. I can also make sure things are configured just the way I want.
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Comments
Being an intel "fan" myself, if I wanted to build a new one now... I would start with a motherboard that has the X299 chipset (drooling over Asus WS X299 SAGE Intel LGA2066 CEB) and choose an i9 that fits the budget (+a good cooler), throw in 64GB:s RAM and the base for a reliable and speedy setup is ready.
The chipsets for "average user" just dont have what I'm looking for and the HEDT (High End DeskTop) platform hasn't failed me since I started using it in around 20 years ago.
What are you going to do? Unless you are expecting to drop to CPU rendering regularly, or are going to be using other CPU-intensive applications, you certainly don't need a top-of-the-range CPU.
I only render on the GPU if I can help it. I know gaming does better with less cores, but I have an 8-core now (the Ryzen 7 1800X) and it struggles like hell with Photoshop...it has since Photoshop 2020. I don't know if it's because of the CPU or having "only" 32GB of RAM, but I legit have to close and restart Photoshop every 15min or so when working with big files (lots of layers)(this is after tweaking scratch drives and all the other stuff in the preferences).
There is no need for a new CPU unless yours is bottlenecking you in games. If you play at 1440P and above, the 1800X shouldn't be much of an issue anyway, as the bottleneck shifts to GPU when going up in resolution. As for Daz Studio, CPU is only needed to run the app itself.
I know you want Intel, but because you have a Ryzen, you have the option to drop in a newer Ryzen into your current rig. You would need to check on compatibility with your specific motherboard, but it would save you quite a bit by not buying RAM or a motherboard. You just do a BIOS update. Most builds with a 1800X can jump to a 3000 series chip easy, and 3000 series chips are relatively cheap.
Still, I wouldn't do either one. The 1800X should be fine for most things. You can save the money and put that into GPU for Iray. However...this is the absolute worst time EVER to buy a GPU. No joke. The prices on ebay are absurd. Even on 1080tis! To get a GPU near MSRP, you need to be lucky. I would like to upgrade myself, but it hasn't happened. I built a new 5800X based system instead, but my old i5 was way older than the 1800X and a true bottleneck in multiple applications.
I'm just so utterly frustrated with apps not towing the line in terms of total compatibility with Ryzen. I have a NZXT cooler and I have to use the CAM software...yet there has been a known issue with it and Ryzen for a while now and it's still not fixed. Having to hard reset my system every few days 100% because of CAM is not cool. If I had known then what I know now, I obviously would have gone with a Corsair cooler so everything would be the same brand. Every other little issue I have (I've had a few random reboots not while gaming listed WHEA-Logger #18, about a month apart, ever since updating to Windows 20H2...and that's yet another one after researching is common only to Ryzen users...and yes, I've updated the BIOS.) I personally don't have the will to mess with the CPU myself...I had someone local assemble my current system and I'd be doing the same this time around.
For the GPU, I can hope to wait, but wait how long? Will the price ever come down? Who can say. That's the problem. When the 3080TI comes out, I'm sure that will be more than double MSRP.
That pcpartpicker site must be auto converting to Australian prices (even though it has a US flag at the top), because the GPU price is about the same as here when it should be much cheaper in US dollars. It shows $3589.99.... is that US dollars?
So I'm guessing you're using water cooling because you're overclocking? And because of that you need the NZXT software to control their water cooler? And the Ryzen doesn't play nice with the NZXT software?
I suppose you could just drop the water cooling and the overclocking and get rid of the NZXT cooler and just put a stock cooler. I've had a Ryzen 7 1700 for years and a stock cooler and no problems whatsoever. Personally, I'd never use a water cooler since (well, I don't need it because I'd never consider overclocking) and it's such a pain to deal with if you have to take stuff apart.
And honestly I can't recall the last time I used my CPU to its full potential. Maybe doing videos, but other than that...
Maybe just ditch the overclocking and water cooler and buy another 32GB of RAM. And POOF !!! your Ryzen problems disappear
Although it sounds like a case where you just want a new GPU, so toss a coin. Buy it now at a big overprice or wait 'til later for a smaller overprice.
Sadly yes, that's US dollars...because of scalpers.
I don't overclock. It's a NZXT Kraken X62 AIO and you need to use the software to control the pump. That also doesn't take into account the other issues I've been having since Windows 20H2...all of which appear to be common to Ryzen (and yes, I've already done a fresh re-install of Windows). I'm not faulting AMD...I'm faulting Microsoft and other companies that don't put the same effort into compatibility with AMD as they do with Intel.
I'm not too keen on just updating the build I have now. As I already said, I don't have any interest in messing with the CPU myself. I've swapped GPU's and I've done PSU's, but it's a whole lot of NOPE for me to want to do anything with a CPU. I also don't want to use air cooling on the CPU. Because LOUD. In addition, the case I have is small in terms of real estate. There are only two slots for 2.5" and I've already used them. The new case I want has 4 slots for 2.5". I mean, I could just stickum another 2.5" somewhere inside my current case, but A) that would be oogly, and B) there is so not enough room for more wiring behind the motherboard. It was toit to begin with let alone adding more SATA cables.
I don't just want a new GPU. I'm wanting to just start over for reasons already stated. Yeah, it's super frustrating that a GPU can't be had for less than double MSRP because of crypto-mining jackholes. But as you said, I could wait...and wait...and wait...and wait...and still not find one, so what happens if my 1080TI goes? I'd be s.o.l. because even those are twice MSRP.
Of course there are other approaches rather than upgrading hardware (scene management, compositing, and so on) but I won't go through that again.
And regarding loud air cooling, of course that's not always the case. Especially if your CPU isnt' real busy, as is the case for most users, most of the time. I barely hear mine, and the case has like 3 fans. And of course a bigger case costs peanuts. And you can get some REAL quiet fans for nothing.
You really might want to re-think the water cooling. You don't need it, and it's just causing problems. And the Ryzen is fine.
And by the way, be careful about listening to a bunch of hardware "enthusiasts" at Linus...
I'm a gamer first, so no amount of scene management will allow me to use ray tracing on a 1080TI...or play CyberPunk 2077 at 4k.
I'm not really going to get into the debate about not wanting to air cool. I just don't. I like having a super quiet system, and I like not having mass quantities of air blowing around. The more the components are insulated from my six feline residents, the better. Even with screens and keeping things clean, it makes life easier for me. Plus aesthetics. My last two builds have been cooled with AIO, and my husband's system has an AIO...we've never had issues with pump failures or leaking. I get it, it's personal preference. You like to air cool. I don't. That's not something I'll give in on, lol.
And regarding the thread I linked from Linus...I've been contributing to and following that thread for a while. And people from NZXT have actually posted in it that the issues with Ryzen and the CAM software are real.
Just curious...the AIO cooler has a couple of fans on it, right? A heat exchanger connected via water pipes to the CPU, and the heat exchanger has some fans that vent to the outside of the case. Why is that different than an air cooling fan on the CPU in terms of loudness, kitty cat insulation, aesthetics, etc.?
Why are you even arguing? LOL. Please just accept that it's my preference to use AIO coolers.
Aesthetics. I don't see the radiator. I see the two RGB fans from the outside. I don't see a block over the CPU. I see the RGB pump head. The inside of my case is sleek and uncluttered. That kinda has to be the case when the...case...is made from tempered glass.
Well that's one for the books because they're available here for the equivalant of $2,400 US dollars ($3,100 Aus). I saw one in-store only last week. Usually we pay way more than in the US. Still too expensive for me.
Nope. the 3090 here is out of stock from all legit sellers that would charge the MSRP and the only ones you can find are from scalpers doubling it.
My advice is dont jump to intel just because a single program has some compatibility issues. I have not seen any widespread (as in, across many different programs) compatibility issues that are specific to ryzen. It happens from time to time across both intel and amd platforms, and the problem is not with intel or amd. The problem is with the software developer. hardware developers are not responsible for the future compatibility of every single piece of software that could ever potentially be run on their hardware. Particularly as new hardware generations come out, stuff like this is common, and is resolved by software updates. If the software developer is incapable of fixing it, move on to different software.
there are alternatives to nzxt cam you can use, that is the first thing i would do rather than spending any money. as for iCue, if there isnt much documented issues with running it on ryzen similar to the issues you are having, then there is probably another factor at play there. I run icue on ryzen without any problems, so my guess is there is something else going on there.
as for support for ryzen vs support for intel, i dont quite agree with that. Particularly now. you mentioned LTT, if you follow them, you will know that it is widely accepted in the industry that AMD have been doing a much better job recently, and as a result, their market share has grown dramatically. Meaning that any potential bias from software developers in terms of their efforts to support intel over AMD in the past, will not hold true now that AMD have a much bigger footprint now than they did a couple of years ago.
so in conclusion, if literally the only reason you are buying new hardware is because one or two programs are having issues, then i think you should save your money. if you still want to upgrade regardless, then dont discount AMD just because of said software issues. AMD have the better hardware at the moment in most corners of the market, and the general advice for hardware buyers at the moment is the only reason to buy intel is if supply issues mean you cant get AMD and you really need something.
Either way, I'll be going with Corsair instead of NZXT for a cooler. That was my mistake. I should have never gotten a different brand, which required me to use it's proprietary software in conjuntion with Corsair's iCUE, which was also needed to control the RGB fans. The more software running, the greater the possibility of things not playing nice. So next time around...I'm just sticking with Corsair.
And that is how it is going to be for a long time. This situation is not changing anytime soon. I would love to be wrong, but nobody is predicting differently right now. Many scalpers use bots and other underhanded tactics to get these cards and then sell them to the highest bidder. You can pay that if you really desire it, but I wouldn't want to satisfy those people with my hard earned money. The crypto boom is the prime driver of this, as they are also buying up all cards in site for their farms. Cards sell out instantly, regardless of model. The 3060 was gone in seconds everywhere. What can you really do? You could maybe employee a bot of your own, but the software isn't free.
Also, you may be interested in the new Hardware Unboxed video that investigates weaker CPU performace with several Ampere cards. The Ampere cards are more bottlenecked by a slow CPU than the AMD cards. They used the 1600X in their tests, not a 1800X, so I don't know how that compares. But it may indeed bottleneck you more in gaming than expected, and thus you might not see a big gaming uplift using it. However this data is almost excusievly 1080p based, going to 1440p was enough to remove most of the bottleneck.
I wouldn't blame MS for your water pump software issues. OS's are going to update, and NZXT needs to stay on top of that more than MS. After what GamersNexus found from the NZXT riser card case (which shall not be discussed here)...I squarely place the blame on NZXT. NZXT handled that situation so poorly that I lost any faith in them. Personally I would replace the cooler before the computer. And this is a legit strike against liquid, as 3rd pary software you might have to rely on might not be reliable all the time. AMD chips might be effected now, but you really don't know if something like this might happen to Intel down the road, and Intel has all sorts of performance hits because of their patches to address security issues. That might be what effected my i5 more in the end.
At any rate, RT is great for Iray, and Ampere is a beast for rendering. There is no question there. But so few games use it (and more importantly, even less use RT in a competent way), that if you want RT for gaming there just isn't a good enough reason for it yet. A lot of people don't even think RT looks good, LOL.
I can understand the thinking. People are used to this fantasy lighting that isn't realistic. RT makes it hard to do this. If you place a pilot light around a person and have ray tracing, it will stand out a lot more. Ray tracing is an artistic choice, not a technical one. It is only technical after first making the choice to use it. The problem is most games so far are only tacking it on instead of building their game with it properly. You will find people complaining about Metro with RTX on, and they have a point. With RTX on the game gets very dark in places. The designers needed to come up with better lighting solutions instead of just turning RT on. The expansion looks much better, and I believe that is due to them designing the DLC from the start with RT in mind. But it is going to be a long time before games really make good use of RT.
Until then, the 1080ti is still a good gaming card. I have two (but only use one for gaming), and do 1440p. Even with an old i5 4690k the 1080ti still hit 90+ in a lot of games at 1440p. I just built a 5800X system, and the gaming performance improvements have been kind of minor so far, because like I said, 1440p is enough to remove a lot of CPU bottlenecks in most games. In some cases it does make a big difference. Split screen Road Rash Redemption is great (beyond 90 often) where before it was just at 60 and kind of shaky. It would sometimes stutter. But remember that is with a split screen, in solo the performance is not much better on the 5800X. The biggest gains I have seen are not gaming, but with other software, unzipping files, saving large PNG images, ect. It has been nice, but the 4690 is older than the 1800X and much more limited by just 4 cores and 4 threads. So I don't know if you would see the same kind of gains I do in these situations.
I decided to build my 5800X build in large part because I gave up trying to score a GPU at non scalper prices. The parts were all reasonably priced, the 5800X was MSRP at Microcenter. Plus my 4690 was growing quite old, so it made sense. It makes other aspects faster for me, so while my Iray rendering is not faster, my projects are still benefitting from the new machine's performance. So I am happy with that.
Yeah, I wouldn't be using NZXT for anything right now anything... it took a major amount of work to get them to do a proper recall regarding that computer case with the card support frame that shorts the card ground to 12V and literally does catch on fire... their idea of a "fix" was to ship nylon screws instead of metal, which isn't actually a real fix from a safety standpoint because some people won't read the warning label and will substitute metal screws anyway "because they're better than the plastic ones" and get a fire six months later. Hearing that they require proprietary software for their cooler is a real issue.
I can certainly understand the "need it absolutely quiet" that pushes one into water cooling because one can run the still required fan at a much lower speed. I didn't do that with my rig, but that's because I knew I would be shoving it under my desk and avoid most of the noise that way; we don't have pets so placing systems on the floor is a completely viable option for us.
For gaming, I'm using 3440 x 1440 and I do screenarchery, so all the pretties need to be turned on, lol. The 1080TI does ok for most games, but I still can't get consistent 60fps on really anything. That's ok, I can game at 30fps, but it would be nice to have that option, though many times I'd imagine it's more a fault of a poorly optimized game than any lack of system resources. Right now I'm mostly playing ESO. And in May I'll be playing Mass Effect Legendary Edition. As far as the current prices of GPU's...that's my fear. At what point do I just say 'screw it'? I know it would totally be rewarding bad behavior to buy into it, but what can we do? Wait...wait...wait...and like you've said, it's not going to get any better.
One issue I do have right now is Photoshop. As I said earlier, I have to close and restart Photoshop when doing postwork. Maybe every 15min or so. It doesn't take long for it to start lagging something fierce. I've made sure the scratch disks are set up to go to good fast drives and I've run through all the optimization settings. I don't get it. When Photoshop went from 2019 to 2020, that's when the problem started, and now I'm using 2021. I don't know if it's a problem with the 1800X or the GPU or "only" having 32GB of RAM...or if it's Photoshop being extra crap-tastic (though I've read of other folks having the same problem). I never used to have that issue on 2019 or older.
And yes, I will never buy another NZXT product again. Ever.
You guys have turned me around to maybe staying with Ryzen. I know they're cheaper than Intel, and faster. Which Ryzen chip would you recommend?
Yeah, there is no way around me needing to use the CAM software at this point. I'm not sure if Corsair's coolers are any different...I believe they need iCUE, but at least I would already have iCUE for my keyboard, case lighting, and fans...so it wouldn't be two programs pinging the sensors and potentially not playing nice. The NZXT rep who was responding in the Linus thread I linked said that that could be one of the issues...which shouldn't be an excuse.
And yes, I do have my system on my desk. It's literally 18" away to my right...so I'm extra sensitive to noise.
I have run two different corsair AIO's in the past without using iCue. Those particular models were iCue compatible from memory, but i was using other hardware monitoring/control software at the time so i just had them plugged in to the standard CPU fan headers and they worked just fine. There might be a couple of models that need iCue to get their full featureset, but i believe most of them the only difference between running them with iCue or not is customisable RGB and other features like a LED temp display mounted on the pump housing etc.
on the topic of multiple programs pinging the same sensors and causing issues, most of the time it shouldnt be a problem. There are some cases where there are conflicts though, which from memory is more to do with two programs trying to use the same service in windows that accesses that data. There is such a case with iCue and another hardware monitor program. I ran into it on my last build. I cant remember which other hardware monitor software it was, but it was one of the really in-depth ones that gives essentially every piece of hardware information anyone could possibly want, on every device inside the machine. I literally only had it installed to see if it would give me the exact model number of one of my hard drives. It was also not specifically a conflict with iCue, it was the Corsair Commander Pro fan/rgb controller that had the conflict with this other hardware monitor software. Every other part of iCue worked fine, it was just the data it was getting from the commander pro coming out wonky. It was an easy solution for me, since i didnt actually need that other program, i uninstalled it.
At the moment i run iCue, and also MSI afterburner, and there are no issues running both
Intel just got a new CEO finally. I would give them at least a year before they start making some big changes for the better. For awhile they got too comfortable until AMD started amping up the competition.