Quick 9800x3d build check
- Thread starter montymint
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All good although at that pricefor the motherboard your in x870 territory so it mite be a look.
The arctic freezer 3 has a thicker radiator 38mm than most other aio which are usually 27mm so make sure you have clearance especially fitting it in the top of your case
The arctic freezer 3 has a thicker radiator 38mm than most other aio which are usually 27mm so make sure you have clearance especially fitting it in the top of your case
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Gaming + a bit of work (I'm a software developer). For the sake of 40 quid I'm happy for the overhead.
I think I should be ok - my case is a https://www.overclockers.co.uk/lian-li-o11d-evo-mid-tower-case-black-ca-7a4-ll.html
The 64GB may be handy then for the software development side of things.
This is the ram I got but 32GB for my 9800X3D and its 89.99 so £110 cheaper!
My basket at OcUK:
- 1 x Corsair Vengeance 32GB EXPO (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-48000C30 6000MHz Dual Channel (SKU: MEM-CRS-02786) = £89.99
Total: £89.99 (includes delivery: £0.00)
I'm sure all the corsair CL30 stuff I saw was over 110 last night - memory is terribly confusing to shop for!
I guess it's the EXPO bit that's making it cheaper?
£90 off is definitely more significant, will mull that over this morning.
Maybe, I didn't see the other ram for £119!I'm sure all the corsair CL30 stuff I saw was over 110 last night - memory is terribly confusing to shop for!
I guess it's the EXPO bit that's making it cheaper?
£90 off is definitely more significant, will mull that over this morning.
They look exactly the same apart from the EXPO part and this was what I was looking for when I built my system and its on my motherboards QVL list
Yeah, it's weirdly confusing, it seems identical when you open each version - so I was comparing 119 to 179, which seemed good for the higher amount of ram, but 89 is a real steal!
@mickyflinn any x870 options worth looking at over the tomahawk that are in stock?
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Having a quick look at the details the £119 ram is for Intel systems and is XMP which would explain why I never saw it as I was looking purely for EXPO ram
from the page
| Performance Profile | XMP 3.0 |
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if have had the the same cooler in that same case, if you have a long GPU in can touch the fan frames if the cooler on mounted on the side but it dose fit
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From what I've read B850 and X870 boards seem to be pretty similar, so wouldn't necessarily be too caught up on getting an X870.
The most significant differences for regular uses seem to be that usb4 and pcie 5.0 x16 slots and pcie 5.0 m.2 slots are standard on X870 boards but optional on B850 boards.
The MSI Tomahwak B850 board has pcie 5.0 x16 slot, so the only thing it's really missing is usb4, which probably isn't that big a deal for most people, unless you know that you're going to use it.
There can be some differences in how many lanes the m.2 slots get as well, but that board has two pcie 5.0 x4 m.2 slots, and two pcie 4.0 m.2 slots, one of which is x2 and will bring down the bottom pcie slot to 4.0 x2 (rather than x4) if used, so probably perfectly sufficient for most use cases.
Might be some other features or design choices etc which might make an X870 boards more attractive in which case fair enough (e.g. more, and faster USB ports), but I think for most people a B850 is sufficient, and that Tomahawk board looks like a solid choice.
Arguably a lower end B850 board closer to the £150 mark would be sufficient for most people too, but then you start to lose out a bit on number of m.2 slots and bandwidth, usb ports etc. Subjectively the boards don't look as good either
. VRMs also might be lower quality although realistically basically all B850 boards will have good enough VRMs unless you're planning on extreme overclocking.
The most significant differences for regular uses seem to be that usb4 and pcie 5.0 x16 slots and pcie 5.0 m.2 slots are standard on X870 boards but optional on B850 boards.
The MSI Tomahwak B850 board has pcie 5.0 x16 slot, so the only thing it's really missing is usb4, which probably isn't that big a deal for most people, unless you know that you're going to use it.
There can be some differences in how many lanes the m.2 slots get as well, but that board has two pcie 5.0 x4 m.2 slots, and two pcie 4.0 m.2 slots, one of which is x2 and will bring down the bottom pcie slot to 4.0 x2 (rather than x4) if used, so probably perfectly sufficient for most use cases.
Might be some other features or design choices etc which might make an X870 boards more attractive in which case fair enough (e.g. more, and faster USB ports), but I think for most people a B850 is sufficient, and that Tomahawk board looks like a solid choice.
Arguably a lower end B850 board closer to the £150 mark would be sufficient for most people too, but then you start to lose out a bit on number of m.2 slots and bandwidth, usb ports etc. Subjectively the boards don't look as good either
. VRMs also might be lower quality although realistically basically all B850 boards will have good enough VRMs unless you're planning on extreme overclocking.
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Agreed. The only time to go x870 is for the increased connectivity.
For the vast majority b650 is more than sufficient.
9800x3d can run on a potato so not really an issue. 9950x on the other hand...
I was looking at basically the same thing but I think I'm going to go for the as rock nova i came across this for the tomahawk
"https://www.thefpsreview.com/2025/01/20/msi-mag-b850-tomahawk-max-wifi-motherboard-review/
Then we come to M.2_3 and M.2_4 expansion slots. The one that you really need to pay attention to is M.2_3, while it does support PCIe 4.0, it is only at a maximum of x2 lanes, that’s right PCIe 4.0 x2. This is because it shares its lanes with the PCI_E3 slot. In fact, you can only use one or the other at a time. What this means for a Gen4 SSD is that instead of running at 7GB/s of read/write it will downgrade the SSD performance to just 3GB/s read/write, or the speed of PCIe 3.0 x4. Also, if a device is plugged into the M.2_3 expansion slot then the PCI_E3 slot will only run at x2 speed itself, but if you switch this slot to x4 in the BIOS then the M.2_3 expansion slot becomes disabled altogether.
Luckily, the bottom M.2_4 slot does fully support PCIe 4.0 x4 lanes and will run at full Gen4 SSD performance, that is if you disable the WiFi/Bluetooth chip. Yep, this is an issue we will discuss in our SSD performance section, but the gist is this, with the Qualcomm WiFi 7/Bluetooth enabled both the M.2_3 and M.2_4 expansion slots will perform a bit slower, below their potential, until you disable that onboard chip, then performance goes back to normal. This is just an inherent problem of sharing PCIe lanes and both these two M.2 expansion slots and WiFi/Bluetooth existing on the B850 chipset in this implementation."
"https://www.thefpsreview.com/2025/01/20/msi-mag-b850-tomahawk-max-wifi-motherboard-review/
Then we come to M.2_3 and M.2_4 expansion slots. The one that you really need to pay attention to is M.2_3, while it does support PCIe 4.0, it is only at a maximum of x2 lanes, that’s right PCIe 4.0 x2. This is because it shares its lanes with the PCI_E3 slot. In fact, you can only use one or the other at a time. What this means for a Gen4 SSD is that instead of running at 7GB/s of read/write it will downgrade the SSD performance to just 3GB/s read/write, or the speed of PCIe 3.0 x4. Also, if a device is plugged into the M.2_3 expansion slot then the PCI_E3 slot will only run at x2 speed itself, but if you switch this slot to x4 in the BIOS then the M.2_3 expansion slot becomes disabled altogether.
Luckily, the bottom M.2_4 slot does fully support PCIe 4.0 x4 lanes and will run at full Gen4 SSD performance, that is if you disable the WiFi/Bluetooth chip. Yep, this is an issue we will discuss in our SSD performance section, but the gist is this, with the Qualcomm WiFi 7/Bluetooth enabled both the M.2_3 and M.2_4 expansion slots will perform a bit slower, below their potential, until you disable that onboard chip, then performance goes back to normal. This is just an inherent problem of sharing PCIe lanes and both these two M.2 expansion slots and WiFi/Bluetooth existing on the B850 chipset in this implementation."
I actually ended up landing on the X870 tomahawk which will probably have similar issues, but I won;t be loading up the M2 sockets (I only use one drive) so I think I'll be ok
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Good choice The nova is a solid option
ASRock Phantom Gaming X870E NOVA WiFi Review - Inexpensive Taichi alternative with experience report, teardown, material test and benchmarks | Page 5 | igor´sLAB
The ASRock Phantom Gaming X870E NOVA WiFi is a high-quality motherboard for the latest generation of AMD processors and is aimed at users who expect modern technologies and reliable performance.
www.igorslab.de