New Rig Build $2500 Maybe Little Bit More

[DevTech]

2 hours ago, GamerZon360 said:

DevTech, thanks for all the info (very useful) and it sounds to me you are pushing for Intel processor? Lol all my builds that I have put together in the past have been Intel and part of me wants to stick with Intel, that's why I was looking at the i7-7820x. But if you put feelings/fanboy aside it would make more since at the moment that AMD Processors are better for the picking. Heck I am evening running an Intel Processor at the moment (Sandy-Bridge i7-3820).

 

Can you recommend me an Intel Processor that will fit my needs and will not cost me an arm/leg? Also are x299 boards that bad? I did read somewhere that Sky-Lake Intel processor are better, true?

My man concern also is that I don't want to buy a processor/board and half of the features are turned off, then I am getting screwed for my money. 

 

Thanks again for your time and input.

 

Josh 

Aside from the "friendly competition" aspect of AMD vs Intel where some people seem to cheer on one or the other like a football game, each CPU architecture has advantages and disadvantages which most of time simply don't matter.

 

The chipset can have a larger overall impact sometimes and in this case both top end products are well designed.

 

If your aim was a Gaming PC, then the choice is just whatever costs less for the FPS you want.

 

It just so happens that even though Gaming requires a good computer, Video Editing is even more challenging and then trying to edit at 4K hits a new difficulty level.

 

It depends on the source material, the Filters you want to apply, the overall length of the video and the specific version and model of Adobe Premiere or Avid you are using. You will probably assume that by spending a lot of money on a new computer with advanced components, that your 4K Video Editing workflow is just going to work. While that is always a possibility, it is unlikely to be true without careful consideration of each stage of the pipeline in your workflow. For example, there are usually manual settings to tweak to enable GPU acceleration and each 3rd Party Filter add-on can have it's own settings. You need to be aware of the location of TEMP files that each component uses and carefully balance Disk I/O from one drive to the other and know which operations need dual drives and which can work "in-place" on a SSD. For example, most people get by just fine with a Samsung 960 EVO which is a great drive, but for "in place" processing, the Samsung 960 Pro is advantageous.

 

I have a friend that works in Video Editing for a company that does Movies and TV post processing and they use major Workstation computers that can't get upgraded every year. So even first class hardware based on Xeon hardware is challenged at 4K. So they don't edit at 4K. They create two parallel workflows where the interactive editing is done at normal resolution and then the 4K stuff is generated in the background.

 

It is possible that your Video Editing plans are in the "light" category and you won't run into issues or you may have extensive plans to process 4K.   Nothing really has been said about your actual Video Editing or even the software you actually use or intend to use. Since Final Cut Pro is Mac only, that leaves Adobe Premiere and Avid. Adobe Premier is most of the professional market so I've been assuming that. Their preferred support for NVIDIA and Intel hardware is well known in the industry and even though that sort of preference is unfair in the consumer world, it's a reality to be faced. Most likely using AMD hardware will not be a problem but I don't personally know any professional that has time to experiment and take a chance on headaches. So I called it out as an issue for you to consider. For a Gaming machine, Ryzen is exciting, for important Video Editing projects on a deadline, it is just a potential headache that may not be worth the savings.

 

If I was going to use my own money to assemble a Video Editing computer today, I would start by trying to find a "off-lease" Xeon Workstation with 16 real cores. Dell or HP machines of that nature have given careful consideration to I/O throughput and RAM expansion. If I couldn't find a suitable Workstation, then I would start by focusing on M.2 throughput and various GPU acceleration options before considering the CPU.

 

For CPU, your main editing hit is going to be Filter processing so it might make sense to make a careful list of your 3rd party filters along with ones you are likely yo acquire over the next few years and research their individual CPU loading and multi-core usage and availability of GPU acceleration.

 

If you look at this list, the Ryzen does well against older Xeons and is obviously tempting.

 

http://ppbm8.com/CPU/CPU.html

 

And here the M.2 Samsung 960 Pro is darned fast even for "in place" processing:

 

http://ppbm8.com/Storage/Storage.html

 

And here the GPU acceleration of the 1060 is so impressive, I would want to see a 1070 tested and at the same time research why a 1080 is so disappointing (only in comparison of course):

 

http://ppbm8.com/GPU/GPU.html

 

 

 

 

 

[GamerZon360]

17 minutes ago, DevTech said:

Aside from the "friendly competition" aspect of AMD vs Intel where some people seem to cheer on one or the other like a football game, each CPU architecture has advantages and disadvantages which most of time simply don't matter.

 

The chipset can have a larger overall impact sometimes and in this case both top end products are well designed.

 

If your aim was a Gaming PC, then the choice is just whatever costs less for the FPS you want.

 

It just so happens that even though Gaming requires a good computer, Video Editing is even more challenging and then trying to edit at 4K hits a new difficulty level.

 

It depends on the source material, the Filters you want to apply, the overall length of the video and the specific version and model of Adobe Premiere or Avid you are using. You will probably assume that by spending a lot of money on a new computer with advanced components, that your 4K Video Editing workflow is just going to work. While that is always a possibility, it is unlikely to be true without careful consideration of each stage of the pipeline in your workflow. For example, there are usually manual settings to tweak to enable GPU acceleration and each 3rd Party Filter add-on can have it's own settings. You need to be aware of the location of TEMP files that each component uses and carefully balance Disk I/O from one drive to the other and know which operations need dual drives and which can work "in-place" on a SSD. For example, most people get by just fine with a Samsung 960 EVO which is a great drive, but for "in place" processing, the Samsung 960 Pro is advantageous.

 

I have a friend that works in Video Editing for a company that does Movies and TV post processing and they use major Workstation computers that can't get upgraded every year. So even first class hardware based on Xeon hardware is challenged at 4K. So they don't edit at 4K. They create two parallel workflows where the interactive editing is done at normal resolution and then the 4K stuff is generated in the background.

 

It is possible that your Video Editing plans are in the "light" category and you won't run into issues or you may have extensive plans to process 4K.   Nothing really has been said about your actual Video Editing or even the software you actually use or intend to use. Since Final Cut Pro is Mac only, that leaves Adobe Premiere and Avid. Adobe Premier is most of the professional market so I've been assuming that. Their preferred support for NVIDIA and Intel hardware is well known in the industry and even though that sort of preference is unfair in the consumer world, it's a reality to be faced. Most likely using AMD hardware will not be a problem but I don't personally know any professional that has time to experiment and take a chance on headaches. So I called it out as an issue for you to consider. For a Gaming machine, Ryzen is exciting, for important Video Editing projects on a deadline, it is just a potential headache that may not be worth the savings.

 

If I was going to use my own money to assemble a Video Editing computer today, I would start by trying to find a "off-lease" Xeon Workstation with 16 real cores. Dell or HP machines of that nature have given careful consideration to I/O throughput and RAM expansion. If I couldn't find a suitable Workstation, then I would start by focusing on M.2 throughput and various GPU acceleration options before considering the CPU.

 

For CPU, your main editing hit is going to be Filter processing so it might make sense to make a careful list of your 3rd party filters along with ones you are likely yo acquire over the next few years and research their individual CPU loading and multi-core usage and availability of GPU acceleration.

 

If you look at this list, the Ryzen does well against older Xeons and is obviously tempting.

 

http://ppbm8.com/CPU/CPU.html

 

And here the M.2 Samsung 960 Pro is darned fast even for "in place" processing:

 

http://ppbm8.com/Storage/Storage.html

 

And here the GPU acceleration of the 1060 is so impressive, I would want to see a 1070 tested and at the same time research why a 1080 is so disappointing (only in comparison of course):

 

http://ppbm8.com/GPU/GPU.html

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the reply. Let me just say that I am no professional in this video creation. It sounds like you are pro in the business for video editing. My creations come from my own recording, family trips, vacations and maybe in the future youtube channel. So I don't need crazy cores . I did get any thoughts from you on 7820x and I am sure there will be alot of talk to wait for Coffee-Lake Processors as well.

 

Josh 

[DevTech]

26 minutes ago, GamerZon360 said:

Thanks for the reply. Let me just say that I am no professional in this video creation. It sounds like you are pro in the business for video editing. My creations come from my own recording, family trips, vacations and maybe in the future youtube channel. So I don't need crazy cores . I did get any thoughts from you on 7820x and I am sure there will be alot of talk to wait for Coffee-Lake Processors as well.

 

Josh 

I'm not a pro in video editing. I just have friends that are.

 

If you want to edit 4K video, you have to configure things very carefully with today's technology to have a hope of it working smoothly.

 

In your case it looks like you could just re-encode all you original material to 1920 x 1080 and edit with that if 4K is too frustratingly slow to work with. Or set up a dual workflow like I mentioned previously.

 

Nothing helps decisions better than real data. Given you new information, I would stay with Sandy Bridge and make as many transferable-to-the-new-computer upgrades as possible and then test your workflow.

 

That would also get you a chance to evaluate Coffee Lake perhaps.

 

Nailing down your exact objectives makes selecting the hardware more concrete. 

 

 

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Topic Cleaned

 

Please remember this is a support topic to offer someone buying advice. It should not descend or result in personal comments.

[Mockingbird]

9 hours ago, DevTech said:

Most likely using AMD hardware will not be a problem but I don't personally know any professional that has time to experiment and take a chance on headaches. So I called it out as an issue for you to consider. For a Gaming machine, Ryzen is exciting, for important Video Editing projects on a deadline, it is just a potential headache that may not be worth the savings.

 

Saying that he shouldn't buy AMD processors because there could be hypothetical problems is not a valid argument.

[DevTech]

40 minutes ago, Mockingbird said:

Saying that he shouldn't buy AMD processors because there could be hypothetical problems is not a valid argument.

It is not an argument. It is advice on configuring a computer that was stated to be a 4K Video editing machine as it's primary purpose.

 

It is however, a valid consideration and is the reason why Multi-CPU Xeon Workstations are common in the Professional Video editing field.

 

It is a field where Adobe Premiere, Avid, and Apple's Mac-Only FinalCut Pro are the 3 Kings and you adapt your hardware choices to keep that software running smoothly.

 

This is not a debate. It is various people offering ideas for the OP to consider. I don't care what equipment the OP eventually decides to purchase as long as he has all the information available to him that he needs.

 

Now, as it turns out we find out late in the thread here that the OP may have very fuzzy, even nebulous thoughts about his Video Editing needs and perhaps even needs to revisit his 4K requirement. That's OK, there is no contract that says he can't change his mind, or you can't change your mind, or I can't change my mind.

 

Since it turns out that 4K Video Editing is more of a possible future serious hobby for the OP and it is not part of his income flow, he can afford to be more adventurous in his hardware experimentation and there is no doubt that Ryzen has very attractive value potential. But before it makes any sense at all to consider the type of CPU the OP needs, he needs to decide what exactly he wants to achieve. Optimizing the best CPU value for the buck is a waste of time if the configuration is simply not suitable for the tasks that he wants his computer to accomplish.

 

 

 

[DevTech]

For whatever reason, this thread has become a bit muddled. Thanks to the wonderful Mods at Neowin, it has thankfully been edited for clarity and I would like it to remain that way.

 

I am going to sum up my thoughts with a hypothetical walkthrough on what I would do and then reduce my participation in this thread to only answering direct questions from the OP.

 

Thankfully, I do not have a current desire to edit 4K video. But here is what I would do if I decided tomorrow that 4K Video Editing was going to be my next big hobby project. (If I wanted to make a career change into that field then I would do things differently and most likely arrange funding at at 20K level)

 

Given the challenging nature, I would be inclined to set 5K as a reasonable upper limit for a serious hobby effort. But 4K is particularly challenging and hardware choices need to be derived from actual testing! That might alter the budget requirements.

 

1. Software comes first. This is an absolute #1 consideration in any hardware configuration. There is only one software product that makes sense for "serious hobby" and that is Adobe Premiere combined with Adobe After Effects combined with Adobe Audition and then various 3rd party filter add-ons. The Adobe CS monthly subscription makes this top end software affordable for a serious hobby.

 

Also up for consideration in terms of hardware impact is 3D content editing with software such as Cinema 4D and Autodesk Maya etc.

 

2. GPU Acceleration appears to be a way to get Xeon Workstation performance affordable for a serious hobbyist and so exhaustive research into that area is the first hardware issue to consider. Given the interesting performance of the 1060 in that area, I would want to arrange a benchmark with 3 or 4 1060's, 3 or 4 1070's vs two 1080's

 

3. RAM requirements are obvious. 128 gig is probably a sweet spot, but I would want to have expansion as a possible option.

 

4. Disk I/O - Based on benchmarks, a 960 EVO 1 TB boot drive, plus two 960 Pros for working temp.

 

5. Asset, Archive and project long term storage would probably be a WD Black 4 TB plus external Thunderbolt or USB 3 connected IronWolf drives.

 

6. CPU would be as many cores as the remaining budget permits up to a 16 real core practical limit such as 2 Xeon 8 core CPU, Kaby Lake or Threadripper. Since it is a hobby, I can be very flexible here. Choices possibly limited by the results of GPU acceleration testing if a 4 GPU config is best.

 

[The Evil Overlord]

38 minutes ago, DevTech said:

For whatever reason, this thread has become a bit muddled. Thanks to the wonderful Mods at Neowin, it has thankfully been edited for clarity and I would like it to remain that way.

 

I am going to sum up my thoughts with a hypothetical walkthrough on what I would do and then reduce my participation in this thread to only answering direct questions from the OP.

 

Thankfully, I do not have a current desire to edit 4K video. But here is what I would do if I decided tomorrow that 4K Video Editing was going to be my next big hobby project. (If I wanted to make a career change into that field then I would do things differently and most likely arrange funding at at 20K level)

 

Given the challenging nature, I would be inclined to set 5K as a reasonable upper limit for a serious hobby effort. But 4K is particularly challenging and hardware choices need to be derived from actual testing! That might alter the budget requirements.

 

1. Software comes first. This is an absolute #1 consideration in any hardware configuration. There is only one software product that makes sense for "serious hobby" and that is Adobe Premiere combined with Adobe After Effects combined with Adobe Audition and then various 3rd party filter add-ons. The Adobe CS monthly subscription makes this top end software affordable for a serious hobby.

 

Also up for consideration in terms of hardware impact is 3D content editing with software such as Cinema 4D and Autodesk Maya etc.

 

2. GPU Acceleration appears to be a way to get Xeon Workstation performance affordable for a serious hobbyist and so exhaustive research into that area is the first hardware issue to consider. Given the interesting performance of the 1060 in that area, I would want to arrange a benchmark with 3 or 4 1060's, 3 or 4 1070's vs two 1080's

 

3. RAM requirements are obvious. 128 gig is probably a sweet spot, but I would want to have expansion as a possible option.

 

4. Disk I/O - Based on benchmarks, a 960 EVO 1 TB boot drive, plus two 960 Pros for working temp.

 

5. Asset, Archive and project long term storage would probably be a WD Black 4 TB plus external Thunderbolt or USB 3 connected IronWolf drives.

 

6. CPU would be as many cores as the remaining budget permits up to a 16 real core practical limit such as 2 Xeon 8 core CPU, Kaby Lake or Threadripper. Since it is a hobby, I can be very flexible here. Choices possibly limited by the results of GPU acceleration testing if a 4 GPU config is best.

 

Yes, but would I be able to check my email on that?

[GamerZon360]

Software = For sure I will be using Adobe Product, along with trying out other products as well to testing purposes.

GPU = I will be looking at Nvidia 1080 Line up and I would like to save money on CPU side and put money into GPU and make sure it will be able to handle VR as well.

Ram = Open

Disk I/O = For sure Samsung M.2 and other SSDs

Storage HD: WD either internal or External

CPU= Either Intel or AMD at least 8 Cores and more if within budget

 

+DevTech, what are your thoughts on i7-7820x or anyone else?

 

I will be keeping the doors open for the upcoming Coffee-Lake and see if we can get better System Boards because I have heard a lot of crazy reviews on the current X299 boards.

Lol in the mean time order the other hardware.

 

Josh  

[Mockingbird]

52 minutes ago, GamerZon360 said:

Software = For sure I will be using Adobe Product, along with trying out other products as well to testing purposes.

GPU = I will be looking at Nvidia 1080 Line up and I would like to save money on CPU side and put money into GPU and make sure it will be able to handle VR as well.

Ram = Open

Disk I/O = For sure Samsung M.2 and other SSDs

Storage HD: WD either internal or External

CPU= Either Intel or AMD at least 8 Cores and more if within budget

 

I will be keeping the doors open for the upcoming Coffee-Lake and see if we can get better System Boards because I have heard a lot of crazy reviews on the current X299 boards.

Lol in the mean time order the other hardware.

 

Josh  

One of the suggestion is to use a SATA SSD for your boot drive and an NVMe SSD for your project drive.

 

I don't see much benefit in having an NVMe SSD for a boot drive.

 

Core i7-7820x is definitely overpriced and isn't worth its cost which is twice as much as Ryzen 7 1700X

 

Intel has also used very poor thermal solution (instead of soldering) between the die and the heatspreader.

 

Furthermore, Intel X399 motherboards has been very problematic: insufficient power and improper VRM cooling.

 

This is because Intel rushed Skylake-X out the door and OEMs weren't able to do sufficient testings.

 

Coffee Lake is a new platform and like most platforms, there are going to be issues (after release).

 

I am not sure that you want to wait half a year after it it released for the issues to be worked out.

 

Memory is really expensive right now, which is most unfortunate. While 16 GB might be okay, I would suggest 32 GB DDR4-3000/DDR4-3200, since you are working in 4K and more memory would be helpful.

 

For video card, I would suggest either a Geforce GTX 1080 or a Geforce GTX 1080 Ti.

[GamerZon360]

35 minutes ago, Mockingbird said:

One of the suggestion is to use a SATA SSD for your boot drive and an NVMe SSD for your project drive.

 

I don't see much benefit in having an NVMe SSD for a boot drive.

 

Core i7-7820x is definitely overpriced and isn't worth its cost which is twice as much as Ryzen 7 1700X

 

Intel has also used very poor thermal solution (instead of soldering) between the die and the heatspreader.

 

Furthermore, Intel X399 motherboards has been very problematic: insufficient power and improper VRM cooling.

 

This is because Intel rushed Skylake-X out the door and OEMs weren't able to do sufficient testings.

 

Coffee Lake is a new platform and like most platforms, there are going to be issues (after release).

 

I am not sure that you want to wait half a year after it it released for the issues to be worked out.

 

Memory is really expensive right now, which is most unfortunate. While 16 GB might be okay, I would suggest 32 GB DDR4-3000/DDR4-3200, since you are working in 4K and more memory would be helpful.

 

For video card, I would suggest either a Geforce GTX 1080 or a Geforce GTX 1080 Ti.

Thanks Mockingbird for the input. I agree that 7820x is over priced vs Ryzen 1700x, but to be fare the 7820x is going to compete with AMD 1900x. You are correct that Skylake-X was rushed and it crap shoe for us. 

 

As for waiting, I will be getting the System board, ram and cpu in the end and this will give me some time to see how Coffee-Lake panes out. I still have other hardware to order and yes I will be looking at GeFore GTX 1080!

 

Josh 

[DevTech]

1 hour ago, GamerZon360 said:

Software = For sure I will be using Adobe Product, along with trying out other products as well to testing purposes.

GPU = I will be looking at Nvidia 1080 Line up and I would like to save money on CPU side and put money into GPU and make sure it will be able to handle VR as well.

Ram = Open

Disk I/O = For sure Samsung M.2 and other SSDs

Storage HD: WD either internal or External

CPU= Either Intel or AMD at least 8 Cores and more if within budget

 

+DevTech, what are your thoughts on i7-7820x or anyone else?

 

I will be keeping the doors open for the upcoming Coffee-Lake and see if we can get better System Boards because I have heard a lot of crazy reviews on the current X299 boards.

Lol in the mean time order the other hardware.

 

Josh  

Well so far I don't know enough about your intentions and even your own personal idea of whether you will end up sticking to your intentions and that has the largest effect on the "value" of the hardware to you.

 

So I just outlined what I would configure for a "Serious Hobby 4K Video Editing Computer"

 

For a "Casual Hobby Video Editing Computer" you would need to drop the 4K and any of the configs you have been looking at will probably work fine.

 

For a "Professional 4K Video Editing Workstation" we are not even ion the ball park.

 

By clever configuration and testing various scenarios we can perhaps extend the reach of our hobby machine. For example if you use 4 GPU's does the performance extend in a linear manner or is there a law of diminishing returns? Is a 1070 better than a 1060? Is a 1080 good value for editing acceleration? These things are worth testing. Which of course is not easy since you need a flexible arrangement with a vendor or else get a review site to listen to your request... These sorts of experiments can all be part of the entertainment of the "hobby" since there are no production deadlines to be met.

 

So at the time that all the GPU experiments are done, the CPU landscape might have changed. And I'm a bit reluctant to discuss CPU architectures due to the sillyness it creates in this particular thread. But since you ask, I will give it some thought.

 

 

[The Evil Overlord]

Dev, would a workstation level GPU have more benefit over a top end consumer level GPU?

[DevTech]

11 minutes ago, The Evil Overlord said:

Dev, would a workstation level GPU have more benefit over a top end consumer level GPU?

For some workloads, Workstation GPU's can have a 2X to 3X performance boost but at a large extra cost and the boost is usually in very specific areas and most often a slight decrease in gaming performance. So it is always a mixed bag particularly if you are in "serious hobby" category.

 

Now that experience is for traditional job of the GPU in rendering graphics on the screen.

 

For using the Floating Point massive multi-core computational resources of the GPU to accelerate tasks I'm completely unsure. 

 

That is where 2 1060's out performing a 1080 caught my eye. If two can do that, why not three? or four? What if they were 4 1070's?

 

Of course you also want your GPU to actually display stuff, so may a single 1080 for that plus 3 1060 for calculations? Does Adobe support that config?

 

Lots of fantastically interesting options for the OP to research, test and report back to us!

 

[Mockingbird]

38 minutes ago, GamerZon360 said:

Thanks Mockingbird for the input. I agree that 7820x is over priced vs Ryzen 1700x, but to be fare the 7820x is going to compete with AMD 1900x. You are correct that Skylake-X was rushed and it crap shoe for us. 

 

As for waiting, I will be getting the System board, ram and cpu in the end and this will give me some time to see how Coffee-Lake panes out. I still have other hardware to order and yes I will be looking at GeFore GTX 1080!

 

Josh 

Not even.

 

Intel crippled anything below the $999 Core i9-7900X by disabling some of its PCIe lanes.

 

You basically lost one of the main reason of buying Skylake-X in the first place.

 

By contrast, the $549 Ryzen Threadripper 1900X has all of its PCIe lanes enabled.

 

As for Coffee Lake, you would have to wait half a year after it is released for the bugs to be fixed.

Edited September 9, 2017 by Mockingbird

[The Evil Overlord]

2 minutes ago, DevTech said:

~snip~

(One of the main reasons I asked was because when I was thinking of building my current rig 2 years ago <possibly longer now> I was thinking of going with a workstation GPU. Cost was an issue, as the GPU I had in mind, though fully future proof for my need also would have made the cost of my rig over 6 times more than it eventually did cost. Not to mention overkill. In my personal case, a high end <not even top tier> gaming rig using a GT730 secondary and a GTX760 as a primary, was up to the task I had planned.

And seeing as I had to borrow the money to build it, easier to pay my lender back)

[Circaflex]

13 minutes ago, Mockingbird said:

Intel crippled anything below the $999 Core i9-7900X by disabling some of its PCIe lanes.

 

By contrast, the $549 Ryzen Threadripper 1900X has all of its PCIe lanes enabled.

I guess we are allowed to continue the discussion, to an extent, but I have seen you mention this a few times. I am curious, do you have any numbers to backup the claim that Intel is crippled, performance, compared to AMD? From my understand, that not all lanes are equal. Chipset lanes are inferior to lanes directly from the CPU in terms of bandwidth, so comparing X299's 68 total lanes to X399s 64 is irrelevant, isn't it?  Basically "lanes" mean different things on these two platforms. From what I understand, most people are fine running dual GPU setups and you wont have any issues regarding lanes, quad setups (do those still exist?) maybe. I personally will wait for Coffee Lake before I plan a rebuild.

 

Quote

All Threadripper CPUs have 64 PCIe 3.0 lanes.

4 of these lanes are reserved for the chipset, which provides 4 lanes of PCIe 3.0 for Ethernet, USB, SATA, and other minor functionality. These lanes are limited to x4 total throughput.

4 of these lanes are reserved for an M.2 device.

The remaining 56 lanes are allocated by the motherboard, and are what support graphics cards, peripherals, additional M.2, etc.

X399 has 64 lanes coming from the CPU. From there, 4 are going to the chipset, which then can bifurcate those lanes to create more usable, slower PCIe lanes just like Intel's Chipset PCIe lanes.

 

Quote

All SL-X i7 CPUs have 28 PCIe 3.0 lanes.

All SL-X i9 CPUs have 44 PCIe 3.0 lanes.

4 additional lanes are reserved for the chipset, which provides 24 lanes of PCIe 3.0 for Ethernet, USB, SATA, and other minor functionality. These lanes are limited to x4 total throughput.

The remaining 28/44 lanes are allocated by the motherboard, and are what support graphics cards, peripherals, additional M.2 support, etc.

Regarding X299: Intel is connecting the CPU via something called DMI to the chipset. This has PCH lanes, which are equivalent to a PCIe3 x4. This means all 24 PCIe lanes from the chipset have to share the PCH (PCIe3 x4) link to the CPU. This is essentially the same as AMD routing 4 PCIe3 lanes to the chipset.

 

[Mockingbird]

14 minutes ago, Circaflex said:

I guess we are allowed to continue the discussion, to an extent, but I have seen you mention this a few times. I am curious, do you have any numbers to backup the claim that Intel is crippled, performance, compared to AMD? From my understand, that not all lanes are equal. Chipset lanes are inferior to lanes directly from the CPU in terms of bandwidth, so comparing X299's 68 total lanes to X399s 64 is irrelevant, isn't it?  Basically "lanes" mean different things on these two platforms. From what I understand, most people are fine running dual GPU setups and you wont have any issues regarding lanes, quad setups (do those still exist?) maybe. I personally will wait for Coffee Lake before I plan a rebuild.

 

 

 

Ryzen Threadripper 1900X has 64 PCIe lanes from the processor itself.

 

Core i7-7820X has 28 PCIe lanes from the processor itself.

 

There are PCIe lanes from the processors, not the chipsets.

[DevTech]

1 hour ago, GamerZon360 said:

+DevTech, what are your thoughts on i7-7820x or anyone else?

 

 

I have already covered the idea that in my case at least, I would consider CPU after sorting out Computational GPU usage since the GPU really out performs any CPU by a large margin in many tasks.

 

For CPU, more (real) cores the better provided the cores are sufficiently equal to be in same ball park.

 

1. So the first thing that comes to mind is the common Workstation config of two to four Xeon CPU's with 8 cores each to yield 16 to 32 cores. That has a minor cost saving in that you can add the more CPUs later on.

 

Xeons in a 2 CPU or preferably a 4 CPU motherboard:

 

Xeon E5-2687W Sandy Bridge $500

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA24G5BT6229

 

That config benches very high at http://ppbm8.com/CPU/CPU.html and that or something similar in a 4 CPU config would provide some headroom.

 

2. My second idea would be Intel i9-7900X at 10 core for $970 or a Threadripper 1920X which can provide 12 cores for $800, both about the same price compared to total system cost.

 

3. if all of that was too expensive, I would question my commitment to my "serious hobby" status!

 

But maybe I might consider an Intel i7-7820X at 8 core for $600 or a Ryzen 7 1800x with 8 cores for $450 which is about the same price compared to total system cost.

 

 

 

 

[Circaflex]

1 minute ago, Mockingbird said:

Ryzen Threadripper 1900X has 64 PCIe lanes from the processor itself.

 

Core i7-7820X has 28 PCIe lanes from the processor itself.

 

There are PCIe lanes from the processors, not the chipsets.

I'll ask again, are there are numbers to show that makes a large difference for the consumer? More doesn't always mean better, remember when AMD just kept adding cores in an attempt to dethrone Intel? I am genuinely asking to see how this affects performance.

[xendrome]

4 hours ago, DevTech said:

5. Asset, Archive and project long term storage would probably be a WD Black 4 TB plus external Thunderbolt or USB 3 connected IronWolf drives.

 

Synology with at least a 2 drive mirror. MINIMUM.

[Mockingbird]

9 minutes ago, Circaflex said:

I'll ask again, are there are numbers to show that makes a large difference for the consumer? More doesn't always mean better, remember when AMD just kept adding cores in an attempt to dethrone Intel? I am genuinely asking to see how this affects performance.

Well, most consumers won't be paying $549+ for processors anyway, so we are talking about very specific groups with special needs.

 

The PCIe lanes are great for those who have a lot of video cards or who have a lot of NVMe drives in their systems.

[Circaflex]

Just now, Mockingbird said:

Well, most consumers won't be paying $549+ for processors anyway, so we are talking about very specific groups with special needs.

 

The PCIe lanes are great for those who have a lot of video cards or who have a lot of NVMe drives in their systems.

Ill ask again, are there numbers showing what you describe as a problem? If not, why is this something you have been continuously saying? 

[Mockingbird]

1 minute ago, Circaflex said:

Ill ask again, are there numbers showing what you describe as a problem? If not, why is this something you have been continuously saying? 

Well, yes.

 

The OP said that he is considering having multiple NVMe SSDs in his system.

[Circaflex]

1 hour ago, The Evil Overlord said:

 

I am genuinely curious and looking to gain more knowledge on the subject. I haven't kept up to date with much of Intel or AMDs new releases, I was hoping he wasn't blowing hot air and had some valid concerns.

1 hour ago, Mockingbird said:

Well, yes.

 

The OP said that he is considering having multiple NVMe SSDs in his system.

Again, I ask, do you have numbers, reviews or any sort of benchmarks to show it is an issue at ANY level? Consumer, professional, anything? The only reason I am quoting you, not as an attack, but because it was one of the points you brought up multiple times.

Edited September 10, 2017 by zhangm