New Build Advice

[Mint_Sauce]

I'm looking for advice on a new build, I'm coming from an AM4 build: a 5950X, 3080 and 96GB DDR4. I do indie game dev (Unreal 4.27 / C++) and like to play some games on the side (rumours of HL3 makes me want a build ready to go ).

I've been out the scene a bit so I'm not sure exactly what to go for but I'm thinking...

9950X3D
5080
64GB RAM (the 96GB in my current build is probably a little unnecessary)

I have a Corsair RM850x PSU, is 850 going to be enough?

I'm wondering if there's any stand out mobos, ram and 5080s to aim for over others? Or brands to avoid?

Thanks for any help on this!

 

[Mint_Sauce]

Unreal development can eat a lot of RAM (though think that's mainly 5, not 4?), so might be worth buying one of the cheap 96GB kits, since if you aren't bothered about speed (and the X3D CPUs are not) they're decent value. DDR5 PCs don't much like running 4 sticks either, so it could save you a future headache.


9950X3D?

Yep, 9950X3D, I think I was having a stroke.

ok, that's interesting - I'll opt for the 96GB then thanks.

 

[Mint_Sauce]

Budget fades out when we start getting to £3k+, £4k is more than I want to be spending.

 

[Mint_Sauce]

More CPU, Unreal seems a bit mystical when compiling but I think basically throwing more CPU at it the faster it crunches through. I can do a full compile in around 45 seconds on my 5950X, I'm really hoping to bring that down some with the 9950X3D

 

[Mint_Sauce]

How's about something like?

MOBO: MSI MPG X870E CARBON WIFI (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (Has the 5Ghz LAN port which would be handy for connecting to my NAS)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Sixteen Core 5.70GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail
RAM: Crucial Pro 96GB (2x48GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C46 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit
GPU: Gainward GeForce RTX 5080 Phantom GS 16GB GDDR7 PCI-Express Graphics Card

 

[Mint_Sauce]

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Sixteen Core 5.70GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-AMD-04501) = £699.95
• 1 x MSI MAG B850 TOMAHAWK MAX WIFI (AMD AM5) B850 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-MSI-03993) = £218.99
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance 96GB (2X48GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C40 5600MHz Dual Channel (SKU: MEM-CRS-02844) = £239.98
• 1 x NVIDIA - DOOM: The Dark Ages Premium Edition Game Bundle (SKU: DIG-NVI-05178) = £0.00
• 1 x Zotac GeForce RTX 5080 Solid Core OC 16GB GDDR7 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-ZTC-04821) = £999.95
• 1 x Super Flower LEADEX III GOLD UP 1000W 80 PLUS Gold Power Supply PCIe 5.1 ATX 3.1 (SKU: POW-SFL-04172) = £149.99
• 1 x UK Mains Plug with 13A Fuse to IEC C13 Socket Lead, 10A, 2m (SKU: ACC-OCS-01709) = £0.00

Total: £2,308.86 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

you've not said if you needed any other parts so i've not specced them

i would opt for a 1kw psu tbh
the 9950x3d tdp is 170w which means it can pull up to 230w with PBO
the peak power spikes of the 4080 is 420w
that's 650w peak 100% draw, not accounting for all other components (~100w or so)
so, if you fully blast the computer at 100% for hours on end, i would want a bit more headroom than 100w that may have degraded over the years

b850 chipset is fine unless there's something specific you need from x870
the b850 tomahawk's vrm is up there with the best of them and will handle a 9950x3d running for hours on end no issues

i would also get a 360mm aio to cool the beast

Thank you, that all looks great. I don't really need anything else as I'll be swapping things out from my current system. I'm assuming my old AM4 AIO water cooling will be ok. It's a Corsair AIO, I'll need to check that though and see if I need to change the mounting plate or whatever.

I'll go with your option of the B850 board as that still has the faster LAN port and saves a fair amount.

I will probably get a larger SSD drive, I have two 1TB SSDs which are fine but a bit limiting as I like to keep them half full for optimal performance. Maybe I'll go for 1 x 4TB drive or maybe 2 x 2TB drives to spit the load of OS and game installs.

 

[Mint_Sauce]

Also, I'll get some fresh Thermal Grizzly Duronaut - 2g for the install.

 

[Mint_Sauce]

I don't really do lots of large file transfers, I do some photo editing on 60mp photos in Lightroom so going from one photo to the next and then Lightroom rendering the full res image can be a bit laggy, not sure if a pcie 5 drive would help with that or not?

 

[Mint_Sauce]

You can get 128 GB kits - 2x 64 GB - these days.

I'll see how much extra it is to jump from 96GB to 128GB, if it's not much then why not.

EDIT: Just checked and it's quite a jump in price plus ends up being 4 sticks rather than 2 for the Corsair, so possibly worth sticking with the 96GB

 

[Mint_Sauce]

My AIO is the Corsair 360mm H150i ELITE CAPELLIX RGB Intel/AMD CPU Liquid
Case: CORSAIR 4000D AIRFLOW Tempered Glass Mid-Tower ATX Case

 

[Mint_Sauce]

Ok, so the current final build *horns playing* is:

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x NVIDIA - DOOM: The Dark Ages Premium Edition Game Bundle (SKU: DIG-NVI-05178) = £0.00
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Sixteen Core 5.70GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-AMD-04501) = £699.95
• 1 x Thermal Grizzly Duronaut - 2g (SKU: COO-TGZ-03948) = £8.99
• 1 x MSI MAG B850 TOMAHAWK MAX WIFI (AMD AM5) B850 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-MSI-03993) = £218.98
• 1 x Corsair Vengeance 96GB (2X48GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C40 5600MHz Dual Channel (SKU: MEM-CRS-02844) = £239.99
• 1 x Zotac GeForce RTX 5080 Solid Core OC 16GB GDDR7 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-ZTC-04821) = £999.95
• 1 x Super Flower LEADEX III GOLD UP 1000W 80 PLUS Gold Power Supply PCIe 5.1 ATX 3.1 (SKU: POW-SFL-04172) = £149.99
• 1 x UK Mains Plug with 13A Fuse to IEC C13 Socket Lead, 10A, 2m (SKU: ACC-OCS-01709) = £0.00

Total: £2,317.85 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

​

Slightly annoying three things are out of stock (mobo, RAM, GPU) but I guess this is just the whole silicon thing and lack of supply.​

 

[Mint_Sauce]

what about this?

Spoiler

Your Order​

close
1 X AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Sixteen Core 5.70GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail - £699.95
SKU: PRO-AMD-04501

---

1 X MSI MAG B850 TOMAHAWK MAX WIFI (AMD AM5) B850 ATX Motherboard - £218.99
SKU: MOT-MSI-03993

---

1 X Corsair Vengeance 96GB (2X48GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C40 5600MHz Dual Channel - £239.98
SKU: MEM-CRS-02844

---

1 X MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Ventus 3X OC 32GB GDDR7 PCI-Express Graphics Card - £2,099.99
SKU: GRA-MSI-04859

---

1 X NVIDIA - DOOM: The Dark Ages Premium Edition Game Bundle - £0.00
SKU: DIG-NVI-05178

---

1 X Phanteks AMP GH 1200W 80 Plus Platinum ATX 3.1 PCIe 5.1 Fully Modular - Black - £159.95
SKU: POW-PHK-04741

---

Grand Total: £3,418.86

haha, I mean it's tempting. I did flirt with getting a 5090 but I feel that I can't really justify it as I'm mostly working on my PC rather than gaming on it so it'd be a waste on me for most of the time. A 5080 packs a lot of punch and saves me a bunch of cash (especially coming from a 3080). If HL3 was going to be VR then I might have persuaded myself but it sounds like it's likely to not be VR.

 

[Mint_Sauce]

Are any of the in stock 5080s (that might be slightly more expensive) worth going for rather than having to wait for new stock of the Zotac 5080? I can't see them for sale anywhere.

How about the Gainward GeForce RTX 5080 Phoenix V1 16GB GDDR7 PCI-Express Graphics Card?

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/gainward-geforce-rtx-5080-phoenix-v1-16gb-gddr7-pci-express-graphics-card-gra-gnw-05170.html

 

[Mint_Sauce]

exactly why i specced the zotac
a certain other etailer will have the zotac solid core (non-oc) in stock in 3 days, and £50 cheaper because, non-oc

I saw that and wondered if the OC card had an overclock that I could just apply myself (and save the £50), or if it had something physically different with the card (like larger heatsinks) or something, it's hard to know.

 

[Mint_Sauce]

Also, I have two 1TB Samsung SSD890 Pro drives. Reads are around 7000 MB/s and Writes are 5000 MB/s in Samsung Magician. I'm wondering if it's worth upgrading those while I'm at it all?

I'm considering:

2 x Crucial T705 2TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 5.0 SSD/Solid State Drive

 

[Mint_Sauce]

980 pros are basically near the top of the food chain for gen 4 drives


not worth it to get two
maybe 1 for just the main drive as you deal with large pictures which i assume are basically extremely large files (i assume in RAW format?)

That's correct, RAW files. It's quite a lot of money and I'm wondering if I just stick with the drives I have. It's hard to know what kind of impact the (what looks to be 3X the performance) will have in the real world. I could just get one for my OS and go from there. If I find a massive increase in performance I can always get another and swap the second one out.

 

[Mint_Sauce]

correct, synthetic performance does not always translate to RL performance, which is why i do not usually recommend gen 5 drives
however for your use case, you would probably see a performance uplift because you deal with large single-file transfers, which is what gen 5 drives do better than any other ssd.
basically, you would want the T705 to store your RAW files and be your scratch disk and main drive
outside of that, your 980 pros will suffice

you don't really need a second T705

OK, great. I've gone with one drive for OS and RAWs.

Everything is ordered so I'm waiting on it to arrive now. Most stuff should be here tomorrow or Wednesday.

My current rig isn't a slouch, it actually still feels pretty fast honestly so I'm ready to be amazed by the 9950X3D (I really hope I'm amazed as all this wasn't cheap).

Thanks so much for all your help, it's massively appreciated - I would have probably put off upgrading for another few months if everyone here hadn't been so helpful. It's made my upgrade a breeze, I owe you all one.

 

[Mint_Sauce]

if you did get the zotac, don't forget to register the warranty within 28 days of receipt, else the warranty is only 2 years

Thanks for the heads up, I would definitely not have registered it if you hadn't said.

Final build *more playing horns* is:

MSI MAG B850 TOMAHAWK MAX WIFI Motherboard - £214.99
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Retail - £699.98
2 x 48GB COR VENG DDR5 5600 C40 - £229.99
ZOTAC NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 SOLID CORE 16GB Blackwell Graphics Card - £949.99
Crucial T705 2TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 5.0 SSD/Solid State Drive - £239.99
Phanteks AMP GH 1200W 80 Plus Platinum ATX 3.1 PCIe 5.1 Fully Modular - White - £169.90

£2504.84

I guess I can sell my AM4 bits for around £800, so a £1704.84 upgrade. Probs keep me going for another 4 years. £426.21 a year isn't bad if you look at it like that.

 

[Mint_Sauce]

very nice


Tax writeoff! woop woop

Now that I have this new rig coming, what kind of overclock could I get from it do-yah-reckon? Not that I'm massively fussed but old habits die hard. My current system I did a small overclock then just ended up going to standard (just XMP etc). But tinkering can be fun.... If there's some quick easy wins then I'm all for it.

 

[Mint_Sauce]

ok cool, sounds very straight-forward. Cheers, I'll give all that a go and push it a bit but keep it well within stable, as it'll already be fast enough really.