Ryzen 2700x workstation build

kzar · 1 Mar 2019 at 15:40

I'm considering building a workstation, I'm a programmer and some things are quite slow on my laptop e.g. compiling Chromium. I'll be running Linux, mostly care about CPU, RAM and disk speed, but I figured I might as well put a mid-range graphics card in too. I'm looking to buy a decent workstation without spending money unnecessarily, I'm also hoping for it to be very quiet / silent. I've not built a PC for some time, please could you guys check this build over?

- AMD Ryzen 7 Eight Core 2700X 4.35GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail (329.99)
- Asus Prime X470-Pro AMD X470 (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard (158.99)
- Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) (6.49)
- Sapphire Radeon RX VEGA 56 Pulse 8GB HBM2 PCI-Express Graphics Card (289.99)
- Antec EarthWatts Gold Pro 650W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply (79.99)
- Fractal Design Define R6 Midi Tower Case - White (124.99)
- Samsung 970 EVO Polaris 1TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive (199.99)
- OcUK Value 3m Male - Male Display Port Monitor Cable (5.99)
- Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C15 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (248.99)

Total: £1,459.51

I chose to go with the 2700X over a ThreadRipper since I couldn't justify the extra cost.
I chose 2x16GB sticks of RAM, since I might add another two sticks in the future.

What do you think?

Cheers, Dave.

orbitalwalsh · 1 Mar 2019 at 15:53

https://www.reddit.com/r/cpp/comments/6kncnu/compile_speed_or_recent_cpusryzen_surprisingly_bad/

shows your on the right track with other links in the thread stating ryzen does will with Linux for compiling but not so much with MS.

Ryzen IMC isn't the best, 4 dimm slots populated puts stress on it, 4 16gb sticks will be quite a lot so keep to 3000hz or samsung b-die and stock clock speeds. Flagship boards tend to do better with more ram population and ram amount due to pathways etc.

ryzen 3000 is out July, should have extra cores/threads along with much needed IPC improvement and Clock speed, all which would be a great help to yourself, but if you can wait that long - least you'll have an upgrade path

kzar · 1 Mar 2019 at 16:10

orbitalwalsh said:
https://www.reddit.com/r/cpp/comments/6kncnu/compile_speed_or_recent_cpusryzen_surprisingly_bad/
ryzen 3000 is out July, should have extra cores/threads along with much needed IPC improvement and Clock speed, all which would be a great help to yourself, but if you can wait that long - least you'll have an upgrade path

Unfortunately I can't wait past April for tax reasons. Would this new Ryzen 3000 chip be compatible with the motherboard I selected?

reflux · 1 Mar 2019 at 16:28

Are you going to game on it? Because if not, the Vega is a bit of a waste of money. And whilst it's not a leaf blower, I have that model and it's not the quietest of cards.

kzar · 1 Mar 2019 at 16:35

reflux said:
Are you going to game on it? Because if not, the Vega is a bit of a waste of money.

No, not really. Which card would you recommend? (I prefer AMD, since Linux support is supposed to be better these days.)

EsaT · 1 Mar 2019 at 16:36

Zen2 Ryzens fit to current mobos with BIOS update.

reflux · 1 Mar 2019 at 16:57

kzar said:
No, not really. Which card would you recommend? (I prefer AMD, since Linux support is supposed to be better these days.)

Depends how many monitors you want to push at which resolutions really.

kzar · 1 Mar 2019 at 17:09

reflux said:
Depends how many monitors you want to push at which resolutions really.

So far I have one HP ZR2740W monitor, it seems to run at 2560x1440px when plugged in to my laptop.

reflux · 1 Mar 2019 at 17:19

I'm not really an expert on budget graphics cards, but this looks like it would fit the bill - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/pali...ci-express-gddr5-graphics-card-gx-03s-pl.html

Or you could go for an AMD 570, but it's rather overkill in terms of GPU power if you aren't gaming.

orbitalwalsh · 1 Mar 2019 at 20:09

Push a slightly better x470 board, MSI carbon or Aorus 7 for WiFi and UK RMA.
Ryzen 3000 should be 12 at least with 16 core listed , takes a lot of VRM to run the .If they are clocking at their max and pushed 100% load .

kzar · 2 Mar 2019 at 11:58

orbitalwalsh said:
Push a slightly better x470 board, MSI carbon or Aorus 7 for WiFi and UK RMA.

I don't mind going for a better motherboard if you guys think the one I picked is bad, but the Aorus 7 seems to be something like £100 more and I don't need WiFi. I'd rather not waste money, what do you think?

orbitalwalsh said:
Ryzen 3000 should be 12 at least with 16 core listed , takes a lot of VRM to run the .If they are clocking at their max and pushed 100% load .

Sorry if I'm being thick, but I don't understand this part! What do you mean?

Anyway, here's what I have so far. Same as before, but downgrading to a AMD 570 for the graphics:

- AMD Ryzen 7 Eight Core 2700X 4.35GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail (329.99)
- Asus Prime X470-Pro AMD X470 (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard (158.99)
- Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) (6.49)
- Radeon RX 570 Pulse 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (158.99)
- Antec EarthWatts Gold Pro 650W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply (79.99)
- Fractal Design Define R6 Midi Tower Case - White (124.99)
- Samsung 970 EVO Polaris 1TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive (199.99)
- OcUK Value 3m Male - Male Display Port Monitor Cable (5.99)
- Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C15 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (248.99)

Total: £1,328.51

Any suggestions for alternative RAM? I've just noticed that those sticks are out of stock.

I've been just playing with a budget ThreadRipper build and it seems it's not too much more expensive. Maybe this is a better idea, since there's a much better upgrade path for RAM and CPU.

- AMD Ryzen Threadripper Twelve Core 1920X 4.00GHz (Socket TR4) Processor - Retail (379.99)
- X399 AORUS PRO AMD X399 (SOCKET TR4) ATX MOTHERBOARD (£289.99)
- Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) (6.49)
- Radeon RX 570 Pulse 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (158.99)
- Antec EarthWatts Gold Pro 650W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply (79.99)
- Fractal Design Define R6 Midi Tower Case - White (124.99)
- Samsung 970 EVO Polaris 1TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive (199.99)
- OcUK Value 3m Male - Male Display Port Monitor Cable (5.99)
- Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Quad Channel Kit (289.99)
- Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 CPU Cooler - 140mm (74.99)

£1,626.70

The main concern there for me is that the 1920X is out of stock, will they be ordering in more of those?

kzar · 2 Mar 2019 at 19:31

I've just edited the ThreadRipper build. I realised the cooler isn't included and that having 4 sticks of RAM, instead of 2 is preferable for that processor. I think I'm going to go for it, unless you guys can see any problems?

kzar · 3 Mar 2019 at 13:33

I've given it loads of thought, seems like the 1920x ThreadRipper option isn't so cheap when you factor everything in:

- I think I needed the EarthWatts Gold Pro 750W instead of 650w for the extra 4+4-Pin connector.
- I needed to buy a cooler separately.
- Quad channel RAM is preferable for the processor, instead of dual channel.
- Compatible motherboards are more expensive.
- The processor uses quite a bit more electricity.

Realistically I don't think I'll ever need to upgrade to 128GB of RAM over 64GB, also as orbitalwash pointed out there's a possible upgrade path for the upcoming Ryzen 3000 processors (which again will be cheaper than upgrading to a 2990WX, even if the price of that drops a lot). I've upped the motherboard to a Taichi x470, but otherwise gone with what I said in post #11.

It was a difficult decision, hopefully I haven't under-specced the machine. Time will tell!

Thanks for all the advice everyone!

Cheers, Dave.

subbytna · 3 Apr 2019 at 12:38

kzar said:
I've given it loads of thought, seems like the 1920x ThreadRipper option isn't so cheap when you factor everything in:

- I think I needed the EarthWatts Gold Pro 750W instead of 650w for the extra 4+4-Pin connector.
- I needed to buy a cooler separately.
- Quad channel RAM is preferable for the processor, instead of dual channel.
- Compatible motherboards are more expensive.
- The processor uses quite a bit more electricity.

Realistically I don't think I'll ever need to upgrade to 128GB of RAM over 64GB, also as orbitalwash pointed out there's a possible upgrade path for the upcoming Ryzen 3000 processors (which again will be cheaper than upgrading to a 2990WX, even if the price of that drops a lot). I've upped the motherboard to a Taichi x470, but otherwise gone with what I said in post #11.

It was a difficult decision, hopefully I haven't under-specced the machine. Time will tell!

Thanks for all the advice everyone!

Cheers, Dave.

I'm looking at an old gen TR4 setup. What exactly did you go for then? Spec wise I mean?

orbitalwalsh · 3 Apr 2019 at 12:56

how you finding the 4 dimms on the taichi without samsung b-die ? know the corsair works in the Aorus 7 but no clue if it works in Taichi overclocked. fingers crossed should be good

going flagship was right choice for future ryzen rather then high b450 or middle tier X470. specially now Meg and Xtreme should be packing 16 Phases on them

kzar · 3 Apr 2019 at 13:18

subbytna said:
I'm looking at an old gen TR4 setup. What exactly did you go for then? Spec wise I mean?

Sorry I can't remember now and I've misplaced my notes!

orbitalwalsh said:
how you finding the 4 dimms on the taichi without samsung b-die ? know the corsair works in the Aorus 7 but no clue if it works in Taichi overclocked. fingers crossed should be good
going flagship was right choice for future ryzen rather then high b450 or middle tier X470. specially now Meg and Xtreme should be packing 16 Phases on them

I had two 16 gigabyte sticks of Corsair Vengeance initially (CMU32GX4M2C3000C15), but I found anything over stock speeds (IIRC 2400) made the system unstable.

After searching I realised that RAM wasn't marked as compatible, but equivalent sticks of Samsung B die was perhaps twice the price. Instead of spending more, I replaced the RAM with two 16 gigabyte sticks of Ballistix RAM (BLS2K16G4D32AEST) which ran at 3200 and was stable.

Later on, I realised I needed more RAM and so I purchased another two sticks of Ballistix RAM (BLS2K16G4D32AEST), taking the system total up to 64 gigabytes. While that worked, I found I was stuck back at stock speeds again. At that point I ran out of time to play further and that's what I'm running with for now.

orbitalwalsh · 3 Apr 2019 at 13:24

if Aours 7 can do it, taichi should be able to as well - but thats 32gb on 4 dimms . Have you overclocked the CPU? might find this throws the IMC out. I'd rather have ram speed at 3000/3200 and stock speeds then overclocked CPU and running 2400hz ram

might be worth using Ryzen Ram calculator and checking to see what branded IC chips are used

kzar · 3 Apr 2019 at 13:54

I haven't overclocked the CPU or done anything fancy, I just tried setting the suggested XMP profile for 3200 which came up in the BIOS. Perhaps I can get a faster speed with more fiddling, but I ran out of time for now.

By the way, I found that 2400 vs 3200 didn't make much difference when compiling Chromium from scratch. With some of the optimisations set, from memory it maybe added a couple of minutes so let's say 32 minutes instead of 30 or something like that. An unfair comparison, but without those optimisations compilation was taking approximately 8 hours on my laptop, so the whole thing was still a success for my use case.

Edit: The extra RAM turned out to be more or less a waste of money, if I was to do this again I would have just stuck with 32 gigabytes. That said, I figure having 64 gigabytes will come in useful for me in the future, so I'm sticking with it now that I have it.

orbitalwalsh · 3 Apr 2019 at 14:29

kzar said:
I haven't overclocked the CPU or done anything fancy, I just tried setting the suggested XMP profile for 3200 which came up in the BIOS. Perhaps I can get a faster speed with more fiddling, but I ran out of time for now.

By the way, I found that 2400 vs 3200 didn't make much difference when compiling Chromium from scratch. With some of the optimisations set, from memory it maybe added a couple of minutes so let's say 32 minutes instead of 30 or something like that. An unfair comparison, but without those optimisations compilation was taking approximately 8 hours on my laptop, so the whole thing was still a success for my use case.

Edit: The extra RAM turned out to be more or less a waste of money, if I was to do this again I would have just stuck with 32 gigabytes. That said, I figure having 64 gigabytes will come in useful for me in the future, so I'm sticking with it now that I have it.

never thought we'd be using over 8gb in gaming and using over 4GB of VRAM a few years ago

kzar · 3 Apr 2019 at 14:35

orbitalwalsh said:
never thought we'd be using over 8gb in gaming and using over 4GB of VRAM a few years ago

Haha yea, madness! :cool: