New build, circa £1800-£2000

IpswichJules

IpswichJules

IpswichJules

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Joined
22 Dec 2016
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4
Good afternoon, I decided last year that with the 30 series nVidia cards on the horizon that it was time upgrade my PC pretty much entirely rather than component-by-component, whilst I waited for my pre-ordered 3080 to arrive (Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3080 Eagle OC) I looked at and researched the other components for my future build to try and get the best bang-for-buck from my outlay.
Well, this week the wheels were put into motion when I received my pre-ordered RTX3080 (THANKYOU Overclockers!) so now it's time to review my other parts before pulling the trigger and building them into the huge upgrade that it should be.

So, I'm after your collective knowledge and inputs on the following pieces of my build please, I use my PC for mostly gaming, watching movies or streams on a second monitor whilst doing so.
I have 2x27" 1440p monitors, I use mostly Corsair RGB keyboard and mice so would like the RGB to sync through iCUE, I did consider a Corsair case but the Lian-Li seems to good to ignore, especially for the price point.

Case: Lian-Li Lancool II Mesh
MoBo: Asus Rox Strix x570-F Gaming
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800x
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3080 Eagle OC
RAM: Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO Black 16GB 3600MHz AMD Ryzen tuned DDR4 (Is being "Ryzen tuned" a notable thing?)
HDD: 1TB Samsung 980 M.2 NVMe 3500MB/s Read, 3000MB/s Write x2
PSU: Corsair 850w RMx, full modular 80Plus Gold rated

Any thoughts or opinions are gratefully received.

Many thanks

Jules
 
Hi

The Corsair 4000D/5000D are solid choices if you wanted a Corsair case. The Lian-Li Mesh II is also fine though. They all have good airflow.

I would look at B550 boards as there is no real reason to go X570 unless you want the 2nd pcie 4.0 M.2 slot. So something like an MSI B550 Gaming Edge, Asus B550-F or Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite V2 etc.

The WD SN850 1TB is cheaper if you want a Gen 4 SSD. Even something like the WD Blue SN550 would be fine though for a budget option.

As for the Ram, Ryzen tuned is just marketing jibberish. Any kit will work just the same.

The psu is solid so no issues there. There is a new version of the RMx which has a different fan grille and I think they changed the fan as well. It is also cheaper than the older version at the minute.


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £140.45 (includes shipping: £10.50)
​
 
£220 MSI X570 Tomahawk is the most expensive sensible X570 board.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-...-am4-ddr4-x570-atx-motherboard-mb-351-ms.html
Besides chipset cooler is far superior to design straight from rear hole of marketroids X570 coolers of Asus boards.
If not needing Wifi could also cut £20 with Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite with also superior chipset cooler to Asus boards.

But if not intending to add lots of storage etc, then B550 board would save further money/give money for something more usefull for gaming.
Prices go to below £150 level in competent boards.

Use saved money for good CPU cooler.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/alpenfohn-brocken-3-cpu-cooler-140mm-hs-05a-al.html

That Corsair memory is seriously brand and Ridiculously Grossly Bloated priced.
Non-RGB memory costs £80 less:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/patr...dual-channel-kit-pvs432g360c8k-my-107-pa.html
Or then Kingston with "only" £30 extra for RGB.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/king...00c18-3600mhz-dual-channel-kit-my-29b-ks.html


980 is Samsung overpriced for DRAMless drive needing to use host memory as buffer.
DRAM equipped drives of other brands cost less.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/teamgroup-mp34-1tb-nvme-pcie-m.2-solid-state-drive-hd-00b-tg.html
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cors...-state-drive-cssd-f960gbmp510b-hd-065-cs.html
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/wd-b...-solid-state-drive-wds100t3x0c-hd-55v-wd.html
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/seag...olid-state-drive-zp1000gm3a011-hd-3dq-se.html
Besides PCIe v4 WD SN850 isn't much more.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/wd-b...-solid-state-drive-wds100t1x0e-hd-57h-wd.html

And never waste very limited M.2 slots for two smaller drives.
Very competent for gaming use 2TB drives even start from £180.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/wd-b...-solid-state-drive-wds200t2b0c-hd-57n-wd.html
In higher models price jumps to £300.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/seag...olid-state-drive-zp2000gm30021-hd-3bc-se.html
Which is again close to PCIe v4 drive:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...cie-gen4-m.2-solid-state-drive-hd-008-tg.html



lee32uk said:
The WD SN850 1TB is cheaper if you want a Gen 4 SSD.
Click to expand...
Samsung is scamming in naming and 980 is PCIe v3 drive.
(besides it's even DRAMless)
980 Pro is only Samsung whose price is at level of competition.
 
Thanks for the input

I forgot to mention that I have a Corsair H100i AIO for CPU cooling.

I went for that MoBo for several reasons, firstly I assumed that the X570 chipset would be newer / faster / better than the B550, is that not the case? Secondly it has 2 x M.2 slots which I would like to use and finally it has a decent amount of USB ports.
On the subject of MoBo's, is the AMD 5000 series still requiring some MoBo BIOS to be flashed before the CPU will work with them?

Are the Samsung M.2's not all that great? I looked at the read/write speeds and thought that the 980 offered the highest speeds at a reasonable price - is speed not that important for gaming and such?


I hope to order these parts over the weekend so I can get on with building it over the next week or so - it'll take me that long to try and sort out some decent cable management so it's not a rats-nest that I usually end up with!

Thanks again

Jules
 
IpswichJules said:
Thanks for the input

I forgot to mention that I have a Corsair H100i AIO for CPU cooling.

I went for that MoBo for several reasons, firstly I assumed that the X570 chipset would be newer / faster / better than the B550, is that not the case? Secondly it has 2 x M.2 slots which I would like to use and finally it has a decent amount of USB ports.
On the subject of MoBo's, is the AMD 5000 series still requiring some MoBo BIOS to be flashed before the CPU will work with them?

Are the Samsung M.2's not all that great? I looked at the read/write speeds and thought that the 980 offered the highest speeds at a reasonable price - is speed not that important for gaming and such?


I hope to order these parts over the weekend so I can get on with building it over the next week or so - it'll take me that long to try and sort out some decent cable management so it's not a rats-nest that I usually end up with!

Thanks again

Jules
Click to expand...

The only real benefit with X570 is the 2nd Gen 4 M.2 slot without it affecting the gpu. Some B550 boards can run more than one Gen 4 SSD but it steals pcie lanes from the gpu (cpu) (Gigabyte B550 Aorus Master for example). Apart from that there isn't a whole lot of difference. Also B550 is the newer chipset as it was released well after X570. There are a lot of bad X570 boards (MSI X570-A and X570 Gaming Edge are two that spring to mind) so don't be fooled by the chipset.

You might need to flash the bios, but a lot of boards have bios flashback, so it should be fairly simple. You don't even need the cpu installed.

Some Samsung SSD's are good, but as mentioned above they are usually overpriced. I misread your post as the Samsung 980 PRO. That is a Gen 4 SSD hence me mentioning the WD Black SN850. The 980 non pro is Gen 3 and nowhere near as good. If you are not doing any video editing/rendering then the WD Blue SN550 is a good entry level SSD.
 
IpswichJules said:
I assumed that the X570 chipset would be newer / faster / better than the B550, is that not the case? Secondly it has 2 x M.2 slots which I would like to use and finally it has a decent amount of USB ports.

Are the Samsung M.2's not all that great? I looked at the read/write speeds and thought that the 980 offered the highest speeds at a reasonable price - is speed not that important for gaming and such?
Click to expand...
Actually X570 is year older than B550.
But it's the only PCIe v4 chipset around with B550 chipset using decade old PCIe v3 for its lanes and only CPU connected sockets having PCIe v4.
Downside is active fan including chipset coolers...
Wwith especially Asus doing bad job in design lead by brand overhype marketroids:
Actual heatsink under marketing excrements is tiny.
And to actually cool well it relies on also tiny fan... Constricted by more marketing BS to need more RPM for same airflow.
With whole crud in the worst place directly under graphics card to be bathed in its heat.​
So in gaming sessions chipset fan will be running lot.
And should be easy to guess what happens if/when chipset fan wears down.

About every motherboard has two M.2 slots with CPU connected upper slot being PCIe v4 also on B550 boards.
Something of which you're not going to do anything with that Samsung 980.

During early SSD era Samsung was definitely ahead of others in most areas.
But competion caught up years ago and Samsung has been basically running brand/marketing hype overpricing scam...
Even selling garbage tech drivers at prices of far superior tech prices on faster connections:
860/870 QVO use garbage QLC Flash and sequential write speed after running out of cache is worser than in 10 years old HDDs.

While that plain 980 is fraudulently named close to 980 Pro to fool people into thinking they're buying latest tech PCIe v4 drive.
It even lacks DRAM cache.
While it's perfectly possible for SSD to work well in home use without own DRAM, all those drives are entry/budget drives...
Instead of being priced above higher end PCIe v3 drives.

Which loose to currently out of stock Phison E16 controller based drives.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...cie-gen4-m.2-solid-state-drive-hd-007-tg.html
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cors...-state-drive-cssd-f1000gbmp600-hd-068-cs.html

Though in rare games capable to actually using those sequential transfer rates PCIe v4 drives don't make much difference meaningfull in human time scale:
https://www.realhardwarereviews.com/silicon-power-us70-1tb-review/11/
(Crucial P1 and Silicon Power UD70 entry level drives)
 
Thanks again people.
I've never really paid much attention to MoBo chipsets, in the past I've usually just gone for socket fitment (obviously) and things such as how many USB ports it has, on board facilities (for fault finding if it doesn't boot etc) and such.
So looking at the B550 v X570, if I understand it correctly:
  • B550 is a bridge to go between the X570 and B540 chipsets.
  • B550 is newer so can run the Zen3 CPU's from the box where X570's will need a BIOS flash.
  • X570 uses PCIe v4 on all lanes, B550 uses it for some of them.
  • The X570 chipset needs cooling (the B550 doesn't?) and this cooling can vary greatly between manufacturers.
So in terms of what's a dealbreaker and what isn't: I'd say the BIOS flash isn't a dealbreaker? I'd say the ability to use PCIe v4 on all lanes is? And the cooling of the X570 can be a dealbreaker if it's not very good? Is that about right?

HDDs / SSDs is also something I usually only look at capacity and read/write speeds - all the Gen 4 etc is something that I don't know much about but I'm willing to learn and understand, again, whats the dealbreakers and non dealbreakers here?
Should a half decent SSD these days have DRAM? Is v4 a significant improvement over v3?

Thanks in advance

Jules
 
lee32uk said:
Some B550 boards can run more than one Gen 4 SSD but it steals pcie lanes from the gpu (cpu) (Gigabyte B550 Aorus Master for example).
Click to expand...

You never lose lanes from the first pcie16 slot, the second nvme slot is from the chipset and it shares lanes with either sata or some pcie slots 8x (physical 16) and 1x, it's hardly a problem the vast majority of people never use them anyway
 
Dg834man said:
You never lose lanes from the first pcie16 slot, the second nvme slot is from the chipset and it shares lanes with either sata or some pcie slots 8x (physical 16) and 1x, it's hardly a problem the vast majority of people never use them anyway
Click to expand...

You are wrong. You only get x20 pcie 4.0 lanes on B550, so x16 for the gpu and x4 for a Gen 4 SSD. With the Gigabyte board if you run an SSD in the 2nd/3rd M.2 slot the gpu will run at x8.
 
lee32uk said:
You are wrong. You only get x20 pcie 4.0 lanes on B550, so x16 for the gpu and x4 for a Gen 4 SSD. With the Gigabyte board if you run an SSD in the 2nd/3rd M.2 slot the gpu will run at x8.
Click to expand...

And your exception to the rule is relevant because? For 99% of b550 boards what I stated is correct, your making out your exception is the rule.
 
Dg834man said:
And your exception to the rule is relevant because? For 99% of b550 boards what I stated is correct, your making out your exception is the rule.
Click to expand...

Not really sure what point you are trying to make. You only get 20 Gen 4 lanes on B550 so how are you going to run more than one Gen 4 SSD without affecting the gpu ? Maybe you should list the 99% of B550 boards that are not affected ?
 
lee32uk said:
Not really sure what point you are trying to make. You only get 20 Gen 4 lanes on B550 so how are you going to run more than one Gen 4 SSD without affecting the gpu ?
Click to expand...

The majority of b550 use the 20 pcie 4.0 for the pcie 4.0 16x and m.2 pcie 4.0 4x they do nothing else, there are an additional 10 pcie 3.0 lanes that connect to the chipset and are split between usb sata m.2 and pcie slots, a gen 4 nvme in the second slot runs at pcie 3.0 x4 and it disables some sata ports or disables some pcie 3.0 slots, the pcie 4.0 lanes are unaffected.

The aorus b550 master is an exception and shares the 20 pcie 4.0 lanes between the x16 and 3 m.2 slots
 
Dg834man said:
The majority of b550 use the 20 pcie 4.0 for the pcie 4.0 16x and m.2 pcie 4.0 4x they do nothing else, there are an additional 10 pcie 3.0 lanes that connect to the chipset and are split between usb sata m.2 and pcie slots, a gen 4 nvme in the second slot runs at pcie 3.0 x4 and it disables some sata ports or disables some pcie 3.0 slots, the pcie 4.0 lanes are unaffected.

The aorus b550 master is an exception and shares the 20 pcie 4.0 lanes between the x16 and 3 m.2 slots
Click to expand...

When did I ever mention Gen 3 ? I was talking about Gen 4 in my reply to the op and you stated that I was wrong.
 
Thanks for all the input - everybody - I've swapped the PSU out for the newer version and I've swapped the 2x 1TB Samsung PCIe v3's M.2's in favour of 1x 2TB Corsair M600 PCIe v4 - a bit more expensive but hopefully more future-proofed.
As I'm doing the swap from 2x M.2 to 1x M.2 I'm thinking of buying a second smaller v4 M.2 to install Windows 10 on, would a 500gb be a good middle ground for space and price point for the install along with room for programs and windows updates? All the games will be installed on the larger 2TB M.2. Media such as video and music files will be stored on SATA drives.

I'll keep the RAM as it is - apart from doubling up to 32GB - as I want the ability to easily change the colour theme of my system with them all being the same shades etc

I'm still unsure what to do with the MoBo though, i'm still leaning towards X570 as to a layman like me it just seems that they are overall higher spec and more future-proofed where as the B550 seems more of a compromise between the B450 and the X570 in terms of overall specification and also budget (although the B550's and X570's aren't far apart in costs at the moment).
Comparing the spec of the B550 and X570 versions of the one I've selected (Asus Rog Strix F-Gaming) - the main difference for me is that the X570 has PCIe v4 on two M.2 slots whereas the B550 has PCIe v4 on one M.2 and v3 on the other with a price point of around £60 difference between them, it's worth the extra for having that - surely?

Any thoughts on this basket (apart from the 2TB SSD being out of stock!):

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,504.54 (includes shipping: £14.70)
​

I have a Corsair AIO CPU cooler and of course the RTX 3080 purchased already:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cors...id-cpu-cooler-240mm-cw-9060046-hs-040-cs.html

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/giga...dr6x-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-1bv-gi.html


Cheers

Jules
 
No sense to waste limited M.2 slots for small drive.
Partitioning is for keeping OS separate from other stuff.
And unless you keep booting PC lot, cutting that last second from loading time of Windows doesn't really matter much:
https://www.realhardwarereviews.com/silicon-power-us70-1tb-review/9/


Asus has badly designed chipset cooler as breakdown timer.
Cheaper MSI has far superior chipset cooler.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/msi-...-am4-ddr4-x570-atx-motherboard-mb-351-ms.html


That memory is Ridiculously Grossly Bloated overpriced, for literally worser latencies than £25 cheaper memory.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cruc...00c16-3600mhz-dual-channel-kit-my-20q-cr.html
Also Crucial's and Kington's faster latency RGB kits are cheaper.

And 2x16GB kits are cheaper.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/patr...dual-channel-kit-pvs432g360c8k-my-107-pa.html
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/king...00c18-3600mhz-dual-channel-kit-my-29b-ks.html
Though two DIMMs/ranks per channel gives command interleaving.
 
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