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Looking for a CPU to pair with a 4090

PaulW

PaulW

PaulW

Associate
Joined
6 Jun 2005
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734
Location
Plymouth / Cambridge
Looking to pair a CPU with a 4090, but which ones should i get? here are some of my concerns at the moment.
Top priority is 3D work Blender , Maya, UE5 followed by gaming. Power consumption , cooling and running cost are also in my mind. the 4090 is already power hungry and expensive.

7950X3D - too expensive and a little fiddly with how is operates.
7950X - Performance king but runs hot ( Bills )
7800X3D - Great for games, cheaper, concerned 8 core / 16 T will be not great for production and may bottleneck the 4090 / could be bad for production tasks (my guess???) Not out yet
7900X3D - Bad reviews, not great for productivity apps

Intel - run cool at idle but runs very hot with tasks, better for gaming though
AMD - Runs hotter at Idle than AMD, but runs cooler and has better performance than the intel's for production ( clarify this please :)

Which one :confused: suspect i will mostly be doing the heavy lifting with the GPU so is a slower CPU a wise option?

Thanks

Paul
 
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If the 7950X runs too hot and uses too much energy then use eco mode, according to the efficiency results of GN (video), the 7950X at 105 watt eco is only slightly less efficient than the 7950X3D in Blender and at 65 watt eco it is more efficient.

PaulW said:
Intel - run cool at idle but runs very hot with tasks, better for gaming though
AMD - Runs hotter at Idle than AMD, but runs cooler and has better performance than the intel's for production ( clarify this please :)
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Intel CPUs are actually very competitive in productivity performance, you can see that in TPU's productivity results for Blender & UE5, but they really need to be power limited to get anywhere near close on efficiency, anandtech did some testing about that here, TechYesCity on YouTube has messed with it a lot too (video).

Personally, if power bills are a big concern, then I'd be considering the 7900 non-X (review) or 13700 non-K, but the 7950X would have the advantage of turning it up again if you need the performance. Realistically though, what would cost you more money, waiting longer for your work to complete, or the power bill?

PaulW said:
Which one :confused: suspect i will mostly be doing the heavy lifting with the GPU so is a slower CPU a wise option?
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Seems pretty important to clarify what tasks you're doing are using what :o
 
Tetras said:
Seems pretty important to clarify what tasks you're doing are using what :o
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Hey thanks for the info.
rendering in Blender would be done with the GPU,
UE5 would be the same
i may doing some video editing in the future. i know premier uses mostly the CPU but for effect relies on the GPU. but would probably use Resolve in future which relies more on the GPU from what i have heard
PS / Affinity apps probably wont be much of a issue either way.
Zbrush and sculpting app in probably CPU and Ram heavy
i think in the long term probably the power bill as i wouldn't be doing production work 24 / 7 . bills are a thing but i am more concerned about getting a CPU and an expensive graphics card and regretting getting a CPU that would limit it when doing production tasks.

i think i am trying to find a balance with a lot of things, probably over thinking it.
 
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PaulW said:
i think in the long term probably the power bill as i wouldn't be doing production work 24 / 7 . bills are a thing but i am more concerned about getting a CPU and an expensive graphics card and regretting getting a CPU that would limit it when doing production tasks.

i think i am trying to find a balance with a lot of things, probably over thinking it.
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Wow, sounds like you don't actually need CPU power that much. I'd definitely buy the 7900 non-X if you just want to run at stock. It is a good combination of price, performance and efficiency. If your workload changes dramatically in a few years and CPU power is more important than the power bill, then you'll be able to replace it with a 9950X or whatever is the thing then.
 
No brainier, buy the 7950x3d and you can slot in a new CPU keeping your motherboard etc further down the line, not that you'll need to anytime soon. The Intel consumes more power and is a EOL platform,
 
i think the 7950x3d is to expensive given my budget. i was orginally going to get a 7950x3d + a 4080 but i think the non X3d version is a better option as its normally on the tope of the production benchmarks and is considerably cheaper than the 7950x3d. the reason i wanted to go with a overpriced 4090 is that the 4080 is even more overpriced than the 4090 for its specs. This way if i get a cheaper CPU and less flashy other components i can afford a 4090 in my build which will be much better for my 3D work and gaming longer term.
Tetras said:
I'd definitely buy the 7900 non-X
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i think this might be a good option as its getting good reviews from GamersNexus and the power and efficiency seems really good and is not that far off the 7900x version. its also much cheaper than the 7950x3d. i'll still wait for the 7800X3D to come out and see the reviws and how it performs to this.
 
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I run my 7950X in ECO 65W, it idles at ~30C and mostly stays < 50C with high all core loads. High single threaded loads hit ~65C at 5.775GHz. It uses a max of 90W and performance is still great. For my work I use a lot of software that’s all connected so having 16 cores helps a lot, but the cores don’t get hammered at 100% for long so the average frequency is still well above 5GHz most of the time. The X chips will beat the 3D versions for most production tasks. Gaming is one of the few areas where the 3D versions shine. For me, I build a PC for work and then add a GPU so I can play games as well.
 
FredFlint said:
I run my 7950X in ECO 65W, it idles at ~30C and mostly stays < 50C with high all core loads. High single threaded loads hit ~65C at 5.775GHz. It uses a max of 90W and performance is still great. For my work I use a lot of software that’s all connected so having 16 cores helps a lot, but the cores don’t get hammered at 100% for long so the average frequency is still well above 5GHz most of the time. The X chips will beat the 3D versions for most production tasks. Gaming is one of the few areas where the 3D versions shine. For me, I build a PC for work and then add a GPU so I can play games as well.
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good advice Fred, thanks. how easy is it to underclock these chips is the only way through the bios? or does AMD have software to easily do this?
 
PaulW said:
good advice Fred, thanks. how easy is it to underclock these chips is the only way through the bios? or does AMD have software to easily do this?
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I do it in the BIOS as I just set one value and don’t have to think about it again but you can use Ryzen Master Software from windows.
 
as you already have a 4090, just go for the best in the 7950x3D - will be pretty power consuming but majority of that is gonna be from the GPU anyway
 
Capitano said:
as you already have a 4090
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i have not bought a 4090 yet. it's one option.it makes sense to get this based on what i fundemteally do. the other option is a 4080 but compared to the 4090 bang for buck its overpriced. if there was a good proce cut on it i'd deffo consider it.
 
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PaulW said:
i read that running it at 105w is the sweet spot can this be done in RM as well?
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On ASUS boards, you can use 65,105 or 170W (full power). Think RM can select 65W,105W or full power. MSI boards seem to have 45,65,85,105,120 and full power. 65W drops ~9K(30K) from CineBench, 105W(35K) drops ~4K but that is 100% load, most normal loads are up and down, unless you are using the CPU for rendering. 105W does seem to be the sweet spot but with an MSI board, 120W would probably give 99% of the performance of full power. Think I would use 85W if I had the option. You can also use temperature limits which would also reduce the power when it hits the temp.
 
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what about the 7800X3D? i know its not out yet but do you think it would be a bottleneck for the type of work i do?
 
faceman123 said:
I think this would be a perfect fit
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i'll wait for the reviews of course, however it depends on the price as well. I am Still concerned it may bottleneck things with having so few cores, although I am not sure why i am worried when i am replacing my 10 year old processor Intel Core i7 920 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) with this. i guess i just want to make a good choice.
 
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Can I jump on this thread if I may? I'm in a similar quandary to the OP but with a usage case of 50/50 games and DaVinci Resolve. The 4090 will handle most of the grunt work in both cases but it's selecting a CPU that won't hold it back that's got me second guessing my choice.

To muddy the AMD waters somewhat I'm itching to build a watercooled ITX system so although heat won't be an issue the choice of a decent AMD ITX motherboard is limited to one unless I go down a tier. It's an expensive Asus one at that. Plus with all the reading I'm doing regarding the 7***X3D series and it's required tweaking and configuration to get it to run as it should and the additional total system cost compared to Intel is deterring me. So I'm pondering the i7-13700k or the i9-13900K for a bit more.
 
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