Threadripper 7000 series for mixed workloads including gaming

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Hey all, I am a new user but long time lurker looking for some advice on my new build.

I am an experienced PC builder and have no worries about selecting components that fit and work together, but want to make sure I am not specifying something that will be a lemon for my two, seemingly opposing intended usage scenarios.

For my work I create enormous composite photographs and videos which requires a performant multi-threaded processor. The work scales linearly with threads, so the more I have, the quicker the jobs are complete. For a number of years I have used my first-generation Threadripper rig, which is decent for work, but absolutely sucks for gaming. I intend to use this system during out of work hours for gaming, and may even game while I wait for the gigapictures to stitch. Yes, I spend most of my time in a darkened room :D. I am not worried about having "the fastest possible gaming system", but likewise I do not want it to suck and be a limit for the 4080 Super (or potentially 4090) I intend to couple it with. My questions are:

1. Is the 7995WX a reasonable gaming processor, given its strength for my work use, or is it going to have a load of performance issues like my current rig? I want to play triple A titles at full detail. No esports, ultra-high-fps required.

2. Is a 4090 a waste with this CPU (if it is CPU bound), and therefore should I get a 4080 Super instead? I game on a Samsung Odyssey 49" 5120x1440 monitor, and work on an 8K Dell UltraSharp UP3218K.

3. Can anyone recommend some RDIMMs that don't look like server RAM? I want this machine to look good as it is the centrepiece of my "man cave".

4. I am torn between TRX50 and TRX90 as a platform. RAM wise, 64GB x 4 will be enough, or 32GB x 8. For work, each core "likes" around 2GB of RAM, with any more than this not going to good use. I imagine 256GB of RAM will be enough for any game for the lifetime of this PC. Are there any pros or cons for going with 8 x 32GB vs 4 x 64GB? I've heard with all ranks populated the peak achievable clock speed and timings on the DRAM tanks for Ryzen due to memory controller load, which may counteract any benefit the extra channels yield. I imagine the same to be true for Threadripper but there is very little info on the subject that I can find. Budget is not really a consideration, but the TRX90s look a lot more "servery" than the TRX50s and I imagine will have similarly annoying server-like behaviour as the WRX80 they replace like long boot times, fan curves that require you to log into the BMC to edit, and so on.

Many thanks for any advice

PB
 
Hi and welcome.

The only gaming benchmark I could find is a 5995wx v a 7950x3d @ 1080p and was quite surprised how well the 5995wx kept up with the gaming chip .

Your going to be gaming at 4k so your more GPU bound and personally would get the 4090 to limit any FPS loss due to the workstation CPU.

 
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1. Is the 7995WX a reasonable gaming processor, given its strength for my work use, or is it going to have a load of performance issues like my current rig? I want to play triple A titles at full detail. No esports, ultra-high-fps required.
The usual problem with workstation CPUs is that their average clocks are too low when they have lots of cores and the RAM is also slower clocked, with higher latency, but I don't know if AMD have a game mode with these CPUs, since threadripper is more of a high-end enthusiast system than just a workstation.

In the review here, they seem to do reasonably well, but there's quite a large difference in performance between the games tested.

They do absolutely smash multithreaded workloads, but as Puget says in their article, if much of your workload is lightly threaded (or in this case, gaming), the 7950X/14900K are much cheaper and can theoretically support 256GB, though I haven't seen any testing and even just 128GB seems to massively derate their memory controllers maximum clock.

The 4080 Super/4090 wouldn't be a waste, I don't think, since you have a very high resolution, but it is going to depend on the game how often you're CPU bound.
 
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