Best Build Options - advice needed for a out of date noob

MikoSkye

MikoSkye

MikoSkye

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Hi all and thanks for reading any any replies you can give.

Complete hardware failure on my Alienware m15 laptop means I am not in the market for a new rig a good bit earlier than I had hoped. Going to go desktop this time and have been reading about all the new tech that is out there and admit to being completely baffled.

I normally go for cutting edge GPU and CPU, so I get a nice performance boost. The current rig is an i9 8950 and the 2080MaxQ. It was good enough given the portability. I used it for gaming (simming and fps), and photo editing (big files, so workhorse power needed).

I am leaning to the AMD 5950X and a RTX3080. the price of the 3090 is off teh chart for me. I know there is supply issues so may have to go low end GPU until the supplies improve.

And this is where I hope you can help - is this a good combo to give me a decent performance uplift, and would you recommend any GPU that is available and not gonna drop me below my existing performance as an interim?

And of course, any other advice you can give me would be great. Budget is about £3k if needed.

Thank you so much :)

p.s darn typo in title....sigh
 
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EsaT

EsaT

EsaT

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For gaming there's no need for 16 cores...
Unless you literally want to play two games simultaneously on same CPU.
CPU will become otherwise dated well before games really need anything like that many cores.

Also that marketing BS named lowly six core "i9" 8950 has nowhere near desktop CPU level multicore performance with that very limited TDP (though still awfully lots of heat to cool in laptop) crashing down clocks in actual heavy multithreaded loads.
So 12 core 5900X would way more than double multithreaded performance.

On graphics card side situation is completele SNAFU with super bad availability.
And if you want lasting graphics card Nvidia is also skimping in memory with only console level amount (or less) of it in anything except rape&robbery priced 3090. (then again every new GPU is horribly priced at the moment)
Though amount of VRAM needed also depends on resolution of monitor.
So what monitor you have there?
 

MikoSkye

MikoSkye

MikoSkye

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Thanks for the info.

I have an Asus Predator x34 (3440x1440). Lovely monitor and no plans to change that :)

I do a lot of big file photo editing - would the 5900x be strong enough for that?

If not Nvidia, I assume amd....are there any good card recommendations from them?
 

Tetras

Tetras

Tetras

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Your laptop can't be that old surely? Isn't it still in warranty?

With the photo editing, do you know how many cores the application uses and where the bottleneck is? It could be that it only uses a few cores and has big memory requirements. If it uses lots of cores, the 5950 might be worth the extra to you in time saved. I'd get a decent cooler though, if you're going to put a 5900/5950 under heavy load for hours.

I think a 3060 Ti is roughly equivalent to your laptop's GPU, so a 3080 or 6900 would be an upgrade, if you can find one at a reasonable price.
 

MikoSkye

MikoSkye

MikoSkye

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Laptop is about 2 and a half years old. The big issue is that I have been ripping it for 8hrs a day during lockdown. A lot more than it got in its first year or so. Can't complain at it failing at this point, certainly not been a bad run. It is being repaired and repasted so it is not dead just yet :)

But it does seem like a good time to hit the ole upgrade magpie road. Haha

Thanksa for the advice on the photo editing. The 5900x will more than suffice my use, although the 5950x would make it better at photos, I am sure. It might come down to what is available, I fear.

Think I am settled on the GPU given your advice too. 3080 it is. The 6900 seems to be in as much a supply dilemma so no advantage gained by going amd

Really appreciate the advice so far, it is helping me no end. More if you got it :)
 

Tetras

Tetras

Tetras

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MikoSkye said:
Think I am settled on the GPU given your advice too. 3080 it is. The 6900 seems to be in as much a supply dilemma so no advantage gained by going amd
Click to expand...

Apologies, I think I gave you wrong advice there, the 3060 Ti is similar to a desktop 2080, not to a mobile 2080. According to TPU, the 2080 MaxQ performs like a 1660 Super. From what I can see, it's because the clock speed is significantly lower than the desktop version, but if Alienware have increased that clock closer to the desktop model, then obviously it would be far faster than this.
 

MikoSkye

MikoSkye

MikoSkye

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Tetras said:
Apologies, I think I gave you wrong advice there, the 3060 Ti is similar to a desktop 2080, not to a mobile 2080. According to TPU, the 2080 MaxQ performs like a 1660 Super. From what I can see, it's because the clock speed is significantly lower than the desktop version, but if Alienware have increased that clock closer to the desktop model, then obviously it would be far faster than this.
Click to expand...

Oh thank you for coming back and giving more info. The good news for me is any card I buy will be better than I have - I hadn't apprciate how throttled the 2080 max q was.

I ordered just now, kinda interim system based in available stock. Amd 5800x paired with a 3070. The 3080 will have to wait a bit I think :D and thanks to the advice on the CPU, I didn't over spec for my usage. The 5950 was gonna be too much for my profile. The 5800x was both available and benchmarks seems to show decent performance when compared to the 59xx in the games I play.

Truly grateful for the guidance. Now I wait for an ETA and hope oc stock system was showing accurately.
 
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