5600X system to go with 3070 Ti

Mr Badger said:
Just had a thought - do I need to buy any thermal paste or does that come with a retail 5600X as it shoukd already have a cooler in the box?
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Pre applied to the cooler.

Mr Badger said:
Now I need to decide on an NVMe. Considering my other components, is it really worth paying the extra over a WD Blue SN550, or will that get the job done?
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Got one as my primary drive they are great for the money, at a price point your getting twice the capacity in a gen 3 drive vs a gen 4
 
evening,
all exciting now you're getting stuff. Glad you went with a B550 at least rather than the B450, just to give you the pcie4 compatability at least. I've been looking at manual and other forums about the 6 sata ports working if both nvme's are populated, and I still can't quite work it out. Seems like no ones tried it, which is a bit odd as a few people have asked..would have thought someone that asked would have tried and put a definitive answer up....but as you've got the board now, when you try it, please can you give us the answer. Am very curious
Been doing a fair bit of reading on nvme's regarding SLD, MLD, TLD and QLD (Single layer, multi(2), triple and quad...funnily enough means can hold 4 times the data), though as you go up, durability goes down..and still reading...some interesting stuff, but knackered so going to bed and will pick up in morning
 
But if going for a single drive, I'd go for a SN750(seen 1tb for £112) or above, as TLD drives have better endurance than QLD drives, and the sustained write speed for the SN750 is far higher than the SN550, where sn750 can maintain write speed of 1500 for entire fill of the storage
https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/reviews/corsair-force-mp400-ssd-review/2

some intersting graphs if you go through them

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16310/the-corsair-mp400-1tb-qlc-nvme-ssd-review/2

also, graphs you can change the ssd to see difference between them

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16505/the-western-digital-wd-black-sn850-ssd-review

if you want to go whole way , review of SN850, which they put as best you can get, edging the 980 pro. tom's hardware puts it 2nd behind 980 pro, though for price diff, SN850 smashes it

QLD drive like the mp400 has it's place though...has a much larger cache of 260gb, just about largest you can get so for write of 50gb(in one of above), actually outperforms the SN550..from what I read, the QLD, as cheaper so can get higher capacity, but with much lower rewrite endurance, are much better as HHD replacements, as in, use them as a secondary drive for storage etc(and they're beginning to be used for that in servers for just that). As a storage device, you wont be reading and writing to the drives on a constant basis, so the drive would easily outlast the machine before needing to be upgraded(if I'm saying that right)

Anyway, good luck with your choice
 
Interesting. I have seen comments that the difference in going above the 550 Blue isn't really noticeable in normal usage. I'm currently leaning towards a 1TB NVMe (very nearly pulled the trigger on a 550 Blue earlier) and then in time adding a larger SATA SSD as a games drive (to be accompanied by 5 HDD) thus hopefully avoiding any complications by using both of the M2 slots on the B550 Tomahawk. Or would it still be worth thinking of using both M2 slots?
 
You are fine to use all the sata ports plus 2 nvme's on msi b550, they lose some pcie slots instead namely the second 16x(electrically 4x) and a 1x slot, thats from the manual for my msi b550 gaming carbon which is very similar board to the tomahawk, had a quick look at the tomahawk manual on their website and it is just the same.
 
Mr Badger said:
Interesting. I have seen comments that the difference in going above the 550 Blue isn't really noticeable in normal usage. I'm currently leaning towards a 1TB NVMe (very nearly pulled the trigger on a 550 Blue earlier) and then in time adding a larger SATA SSD as a games drive (to be accompanied by 5 HDD) thus hopefully avoiding any complications by using both of the M2 slots on the B550 Tomahawk. Or would it still be worth thinking of using both M2 slots?
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thinking about it, a lot depends on use...if you're contantly doing read/writes then faster sustained speed drive better, but if you using it for gaming etc, does it really matter...if you download a game, you're going to be restricted by download speed, while playing, it's read..for downloading photo albums, photo's don't take huge amount if constantly uploading unless moving a whole 10yrs worth in one go etc , so pretty much any nvme will do. So at the end of the day, cost becomes a factor too. So just think of your useage..if you're not chucking huge data around all the time the SN550 will be fine
 
Craig_d1 said:
Just noticed they've dropped the price...if you go for it remember to link forum a/c as you get free shipping(but then with 9k+ posts, sure you're aware)

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £74.99 (includes shipping: £0.00)
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Thank you. As ever it's trying to understand whether paying extra translates into a better day to day experience or, aside from improving benchmarks, makes negligible difference 99% of the time.

Doing a search for prices/options now it looks as though the best deals for 1TB WD drives are SN550 £70 and SN850 £135. So how much extra performance do you notice for nearly double the price?

If it was possible to get an SN750 for about £83 would that be the best choice?
 
Just get the best value m2 pcie3 drive like the sn 550 the only real diffrence would be transfering data from one fast drive to another fast drive where pcie4 shines.
 
£83 for an sn750 1tb? Thats a great price too... Depends how much writing you'll be doing to drive, but for £8 more, I'd prob go for it, unless you can get the sn550 a lot cheaper
 
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Would it actually be more sensible to stump up for a 2TB Blue SN550 drive to start with? There is a price premium over buying 2 x 1TB, but a 2TB drive would be big enough to cover the OS and act as a games drive whilst of course only using a single M2 slot.

Also I was about to pull the trigger on some RAM that seems to have good specs: BALLISTIX 16GB (2X8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C16 3600MHZ DUAL CHANNEL KIT

Thought it might be a good idea to ask for a second opinion as I'm assuming that 16GB is still the recommended size and that the timings are important e.g. 3600mhz CL16. Or would going for 32GB (i.e. 2 x 16GB rather than 4 x 8GB) be better, and if so with more memory would it matter if it was (say) CL18 instead of CL16?

Case, GPU and CPU are here, cooler, motherboard and PSU are on the way, hoping to get all the rest of parts together for a build later this week.
 
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That's personal choice. I've got 2tb sn850 nvme and corsair vengeance RGB 32gb 3600C18. I wanted the higher storage and the ram was a lot cheaper at the time then the crucial(out of stock at the time and the Group8 Sammy stuff which was closer to £300.. Or another sammy b die.. Remember another forumm member buying somw when i was looking) .
If i had to do it now, doubt id change much.. Maybe gone for the sammy b die 2x16gb 3600c16 while it was on offer at £179.. 32gb more than i need but my laptop was brilliant when i first hot it, now its a stuttering mess. Id rather have too much than too little.
As to 4x8 or 2x16...gamernexus did a test on 2x8 v 4x8...4x8 was faster, but then said 2x16 was better than 4x8...i also wanted the ability to get more ram if i so desired... 4x8 would mean replacing all my ram, 2x16 means i have 2 spare slots to get more.
Which is better, 4x8 or 2x16 also can depend on mobo and the configuration of rm slots.
At end of day, my setup is a monumental uplift to what ive been using... It fast for me, getting high fps in games.. If i left a couplr for going c18 ratger than c16, i wouldn't notice
 
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Craig_d1 said:
That's personal choice. I've got 2tb sn850 nvme and corsair vengeance RGB 32gb 3600C18. I wanted the higher storage and the ram was a lot cheaper at the time then the crucial(out of stock at the time and the Group8 Sammy stuff which was closer to £300.. Or another sammy b die.. Remember another forumm member buying somw when i was looking) .
If i had to do it now, doubt id change much.. Maybe gone for the sammy b die 2x16gb 3600c16 while it was on offer at £179.. 32gb more than i need but my laptop was brilliant when i first hot it, now its a stuttering mess. Id rather have too much than too little.
As to 4x8 or 2x16...gamernexus did a test on 2x8 v 4x8...4x8 was faster, but then said 2x16 was better than 4x8...i also wanted the ability to get more ram if i so desired... 4x8 would mean replacing all my ram, 2x16 means i have 2 spare slots to get more.
Which is better, 4x8 or 2x16 also can depend on mobo and the configuration of rm slots.
At end of day, my setup is a monumental uplift to what ive been using... It fast for me, getting high fps in games.. If i left a couplr for going c18 ratger than c16, i wouldn't notice
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Based on what look to be the best prices for what's available now from legitimate outlets for delivery this week, I'm trying to decide on the best bang for my buck between:

£73 Crucial Ballistix BL2K8G36C16U4W 3600 MHz, DDR4, DRAM, Desktop Gaming Memory Kit, 16GB (8GB x2), CL16

£137 Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 3600MHz C18, High Performance Desktop Memory Kit (AMD Optimised)

£148 Crucial Ballistix BL2K16G36C16U4R 3600 MHz, DDR4, DRAM, Desktop Gaming Memory Kit, 32GB (16GB x2), CL16
 
If you go for the 2x8gb Crucial kit you can always add another 2x8gb kit at a later date to to get to 32gb. Unless doing serious professional work there will be no need for 64gb for the foreseeable future and if you did need 64gb just sell the 32gb you had and upgrade to 64gb, RAM is a commodity so always has value. Zen 3 has an excellent memory controller and is so much more forgiving than Zen 1 which was and is a nightmare, 2x16 or 4x8 is not really an issue.

Unless you are seriosuly into maximising the potential OC you will almost never notice the difference between 2x16gb and 4x8gb. Even then it is not as important as it was in the past where you would OC the front side bus and hence the ram, meaning 2 sticks was inherently more stable than 4, it just doesnt matter as much these days ...unless you are going for world records.

The same can be said for 3600 CL16 vs CL18, would be extremely hard to tell the difference in side by side systems with just the RAM timings being different.

I personally have 4x 8gb of white Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 3200mhz CL (dont give a monkeys). I went for this on aestetic reasons, I wanted the white rgb ram and I wanted all 4 slots populated because I prefer the look that way. Yes I may be giving up an FPS here and there or a game may take a second longer to load but its not really an issue for me.
Corsairs iCUE software is total garbage and at times the rbg modules are unresponsive and the person who designed the software will have a karmic backlash so harsh his testi will shrivel... but my previous experience with Trident Z ram was even worse where after the 1 st week the ram was unresponsive and stuck on rainbow puke for the rest of time. Moral of the story is that RGB does not always work how you want it too.


All 3 are decent choices so you cannot go wrong.

P.s. The AMD optimised is just marketing BS so do not pay any attention to that nonsense. Was important for Zen 1 where 2x8gb of 3000mhz Samung B dies cost me £400 but RAM is cheap as chips these days so count your blessings and almost everything works just fine.
 
Haz123 said:
If you go for the 2x8gb Crucial kit you can always add another 2x8gb kit at a later date to to get to 32gb. Unless doing serious professional work there will be no need for 64gb for the foreseeable future and if you did need 64gb just sell the 32gb you had and upgrade to 64gb, RAM is a commodity so always has value. Zen 3 has an excellent memory controller and is so much more forgiving than Zen 1 which was and is a nightmare, 2x16 or 4x8 is not really an issue.

Unless you are seriosuly into maximising the potential OC you will almost never notice the difference between 2x16gb and 4x8gb. Even then it is not as important as it was in the past where you would OC the front side bus and hence the ram, meaning 2 sticks was inherently more stable than 4, it just doesnt matter as much these days ...unless you are going for world records.

The same can be said for 3600 CL16 vs CL18, would be extremely hard to tell the difference in side by side systems with just the RAM timings being different.

I personally have 4x 8gb of white Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 3200mhz CL (dont give a monkeys). I went for this on aestetic reasons, I wanted the white rgb ram and I wanted all 4 slots populated because I prefer the look that way. Yes I may be giving up an FPS here and there or a game may take a second longer to load but its not really an issue for me.
Corsairs iCUE software is total garbage and at times the rbg modules are unresponsive and the person who designed the software will have a karmic backlash so harsh his testi will shrivel... but my previous experience with Trident Z ram was even worse where after the 1 st week the ram was unresponsive and stuck on rainbow puke for the rest of time. Moral of the story is that RGB does not always work how you want it too.


All 3 are decent choices so you cannot go wrong.

P.s. The AMD optimised is just marketing BS so do not pay any attention to that nonsense. Was important for Zen 1 where 2x8gb of 3000mhz Samung B dies cost me £400 but RAM is cheap as chips these days so count your blessings and almost everything works just fine.
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Sounds as though I may as well stick with the Crucial Ballistix BL2K8G36C16U4W 3600 MHz, DDR4, DRAM, Desktop Gaming Memory Kit, 16GB (8GB x2), CL16. I've been getting by with 8GB of RAM until now anyway :D.

Just need to decide whether it's worth paying the premium to get a 2TB NVMe drive (cheapskate WD Blue SN550) over a 1 TB.
 
If you go for 2x8 gb of ram you can always add another set later so is a no risk option.

I know other people are storage hos but for the past 10 years I have never filled a 1tb SSD. I do not save a lot of vid pics etc and I can atually delete games when I have finished them.

My current storage sitiuation is this. 1TB WD SN850 as boot drive and games storage 667gb free of 931 + 1TB WD SN550 915gb free of 931. It seems I just do not need a lot of storage.

I know the M.2 NVME storage is now nearly as cheap as SATA SSDs but you can always add SATA SSDs at a later date if you saturate your M.2 NVME drives
 
Haz123 said:
If you go for 2x8 gb of ram you can always add another set later so is a no risk option.

I know other people are storage hos but for the past 10 years I have never filled a 1tb SSD. I do not save a lot of vid pics etc and I can atually delete games when I have finished them.

My current storage sitiuation is this. 1TB WD SN850 as boot drive and games storage 667gb free of 931 + 1TB WD SN550 915gb free of 931. It seems I just do not need a lot of storage.

I know the M.2 NVME storage is now nearly as cheap as SATA SSDs but you can always add SATA SSDs at a later date if you saturate your M.2 NVME drives
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I find storage space just magically fills up! But I do mess about with music, video and photography projects as well as some gaming.
 
RAM and NVMe drive ordered, so the system has taken shape as:

AMD Ryzen 5600X CPU
Scythe Mugen 5 Black Edition 120mm cooler
RTX 3070 Ti FE GPU
MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk AMD AM4 ATX Motherboard
WD Blue SN550 1TB M.2 PCIe NVME SSD
Crucial Ballistix BL2K8G36C16U4W 3600 MHz, DDR4, DRAM, Desktop Gaming Memory Kit, 16GB (8GB x2), CL16
Corsair RMx Series RM750x 750 Watt 80 PLUS Gold Modular Power Supply
 
Looking good Mr B. It is a solid mid/high range PC. I am sure it will serve you well for many years and you can always upgrade at later dates if needed
 
Haz123 said:
Looking good Mr B. It is a solid mid/high range PC. I am sure it will serve you well for many years and you can always upgrade at later dates if needed
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I suspect it will be an improvement on my current rig (i5 2500K, 8GB RAM, GTX 1080) although to be fair it has served me very well over the years.
 
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