Author Topic: Threadripper & Ryzen only builds (3rd Gen starts on page 50)  (Read 520434 times)

2018-08-23, 16:30:18
Reply #15

agentdark45

  • Active Users
  • **
  • Posts: 579
    • View Profile
Our 2990WX is home :- ) This will be Veronika's new workstation.

Parts: 2990WX + MSI MEG X399 Creation / Seasonic Prime 1300W / 64 GB @ 3000 MHZ / 1 TB 960 PRO as main drive / 2TB + 2TB 960 EVO as secondary drives for photography / Shit ton of Noctua Cromax finally in black :- ) / U14S TR4 cooler, until second revision of Enermax Liqtech 360 ( II version, with stupid RGB ) is out and was widely tested for longevity ) / Define R6 / nVidia RTX, not sure which one yet

Nice setup Juraj! This is almost exactly what I'm looking at getting, except with a 2TB 970 EVO as the main drive. Can't seem to find the MSI MEG in stock anywhere in the UK though :'(

I have to say I'm SUPER skeptical about that Enermax cooler after all of the horror stories with the V1. I'm either going full custom waterloop or sticking the biggest aircooler I can find on it with as many fans as possible - this looks good: http://thermalright.com/product/silver-arrow-tr4/

What 64GB RAM kit did you get btw? I'm getting some mixed messages about what the best kit is to run at 3000mhz min speeds. People are concerned that the 2990wx memory controller won't be able to handle 64gb+ at those speeds/with decent timings.
Vray who?

2018-08-23, 17:02:53
Reply #16

Juraj

  • Moderator
  • Active Users
  • ***
  • Posts: 4743
    • View Profile
    • studio website
Hey Agent :- )

- I found single available (right now) source of MSI MEG on CyberPort. Apparently it was in stock...but after I paid, it still says ready to ship in 24 hour...for the whole week. No idea when I will get it, but it's not in stock anywhere else in Europe.

- I went through the QVL list for days. Holy crap is that a shitty QVL list. 500 Euro workstation board...and they keep testing 8GB modules in 8/16/32 configurations ??? There are very few 16GB modules in 64GB/128GB configurations and most of them are not even brands you can buy in Europe. And of course, I am not gonna pay 1000 Euro for some idiotic Trident-Z G-Skill which isn't on the QVL in 16GB modules anyway despite being Threadripper exclusive. In the end I found Corsair Vengeance at 3000 Mhz (so 2933 manually running) that is not any sort of magical Samsung B-Die or whatever is hyped to work best, but it was 680 Euro on Amazon.de, and that is price I can sadly live with.
I seriously hope it will run well at 2933 and correct timings.

The QVL is nightmare. Even if I find something you can actually buy in Europe on it (Corsair, Crucial, Adata & G.Skill), find in on some e-shop or amazon/ebay, it will be some newer revision with single letter changed in name and of course completely different maker. The same Corsair kit can be made by Samsung in February, tested on QVL, but then discountinued in April because newer version made by Hynix entered market. AMD needs to sort this. Nobody has time for this.

- I am extremely skeptical of Enermax unit as well. This is 4000+ Euro workstation, I am not gonna let rusty pump leak all over it and destroy it during project and then haggle with warranty (which is never guaranteed). It is the only powerful cooler on the market though and apparently second revision is on market, but of course you can't buy it anywhere. So maybe in six months ?

- I don't know if I have patience and will to pay for custom loop. EK didn't even design their TR4 CPU block properly, it was pure failure last year and had worse performance than cheapest Air. They had revision afterwards but I still believe it sucks. I didn't check what sort of loop Deba8er was running on that fancy schmancy Epyc dual-loop at Gamescom but obviously there are better CPU block pieces now. Still, that would be another 400 Euro investment and the whole idea of Threadripper is that it is affordable. Paying for overpriced MSI board just because every other board is pure failed design from phases point is enough, but over-paying on everything (Board + memory + custom loop) is bringing the whole idea of this workstation into uncomfortable territory for me. I am not a guy who likes wasting money on frills and custom loop is very much a frill.

- Same about the Thermalight Silver Arrow TR4. Apparently this cooler is on market since June...then where is it ?? You can't buy this crap anywhere. I've seen people pre-ordering it on ebay Japan. This cooler looks like total nonexisting vaporware.
  If it enters the European market, I would buy it since it looks on par with Noctua NH-D15, which Noctu has NO intention of bringing to TR4 because apparently there isn't any market for it and they are too lazy to redesign it allow enough clearance over PCI-E and memory modules on such large socket.

I would not be such an early adopter with all this pain but Veronika really needs workstation right now so I just decided to go with it anyway.
« Last Edit: 2018-08-23, 17:12:10 by Juraj Talcik »
Please follow my new Instagram for latest projects, tips&tricks, short video tutorials and free models
Behance  Probably best updated portfolio of my work
lysfaere.com Please check the new stuff!

2018-08-23, 17:41:11
Reply #17

danio1011

  • Active Users
  • **
  • Posts: 361
    • View Profile
Great looking system!

It sounds like you've heard all the stories but for what it's worth I had an Enermax Liqtech 360 fail on me for my first gen threadripper.  Not fun, I'd keep a watchful eye on that thing.  I switched to Noctua and have been a lot happier while still running very cool (push\pull with an aggressive fan curve.)

2018-08-23, 17:49:46
Reply #18

Juraj

  • Moderator
  • Active Users
  • ***
  • Posts: 4743
    • View Profile
    • studio website
Well, that sucks : /. Hope it didn't destroy anything in process.

I plan on placing additional A15PWM fan on the U14, not that it will do more than 2-3C difference but still. It's not like I have choice of going with anything else :- ).
Please follow my new Instagram for latest projects, tips&tricks, short video tutorials and free models
Behance  Probably best updated portfolio of my work
lysfaere.com Please check the new stuff!

2018-08-25, 19:04:57
Reply #19

balatschaka

  • Active Users
  • **
  • Posts: 63
    • View Profile
Hey Agent :- )

- I found single available (right now) source of MSI MEG on CyberPort. Apparently it was in stock...but after I paid, it still says ready to ship in 24 hour...for the whole week. No idea when I will get it, but it's not in stock anywhere else in Europe.

- I went through the QVL list for days. Holy crap is that a shitty QVL list. 500 Euro workstation board...and they keep testing 8GB modules in 8/16/32 configurations ??? There are very few 16GB modules in 64GB/128GB configurations and most of them are not even brands you can buy in Europe. And of course, I am not gonna pay 1000 Euro for some idiotic Trident-Z G-Skill which isn't on the QVL in 16GB modules anyway despite being Threadripper exclusive. In the end I found Corsair Vengeance at 3000 Mhz (so 2933 manually running) that is not any sort of magical Samsung B-Die or whatever is hyped to work best, but it was 680 Euro on Amazon.de, and that is price I can sadly live with.
I seriously hope it will run well at 2933 and correct timings.

The QVL is nightmare. Even if I find something you can actually buy in Europe on it (Corsair, Crucial, Adata & G.Skill), find in on some e-shop or amazon/ebay, it will be some newer revision with single letter changed in name and of course completely different maker. The same Corsair kit can be made by Samsung in February, tested on QVL, but then discountinued in April because newer version made by Hynix entered market. AMD needs to sort this. Nobody has time for this.

- I am extremely skeptical of Enermax unit as well. This is 4000+ Euro workstation, I am not gonna let rusty pump leak all over it and destroy it during project and then haggle with warranty (which is never guaranteed). It is the only powerful cooler on the market though and apparently second revision is on market, but of course you can't buy it anywhere. So maybe in six months ?

- I don't know if I have patience and will to pay for custom loop. EK didn't even design their TR4 CPU block properly, it was pure failure last year and had worse performance than cheapest Air. They had revision afterwards but I still believe it sucks. I didn't check what sort of loop Deba8er was running on that fancy schmancy Epyc dual-loop at Gamescom but obviously there are better CPU block pieces now. Still, that would be another 400 Euro investment and the whole idea of Threadripper is that it is affordable. Paying for overpriced MSI board just because every other board is pure failed design from phases point is enough, but over-paying on everything (Board + memory + custom loop) is bringing the whole idea of this workstation into uncomfortable territory for me. I am not a guy who likes wasting money on frills and custom loop is very much a frill.

- Same about the Thermalight Silver Arrow TR4. Apparently this cooler is on market since June...then where is it ?? You can't buy this crap anywhere. I've seen people pre-ordering it on ebay Japan. This cooler looks like total nonexisting vaporware.
  If it enters the European market, I would buy it since it looks on par with Noctua NH-D15, which Noctu has NO intention of bringing to TR4 because apparently there isn't any market for it and they are too lazy to redesign it allow enough clearance over PCI-E and memory modules on such large socket.

I would not be such an early adopter with all this pain but Veronika really needs workstation right now so I just decided to go with it anyway.

Thanks for the insight. I've send my boss a list for new components (2990wx, msi-399 AND Enermax cooler) literally 5minutes ago. Changed it to Thermalight Silver Arrow TR4.
« Last Edit: 2018-08-25, 19:12:37 by balatschaka »

2018-08-28, 12:57:56
Reply #20

Jann

  • Active Users
  • **
  • Posts: 142
    • View Profile
A bit of a thread hijacking, but I'm finding conflicting info if Threadrippers (both 1&2 gen) support ECC Registered ram?
I know ram speed is beneficial for Ryzen, but with current ram prices, wonder if my old 128Gb 2133MHz ECC Reg set is worth keeping for a TR system.

2018-08-28, 13:05:06
Reply #21

Juraj

  • Moderator
  • Active Users
  • ***
  • Posts: 4743
    • View Profile
    • studio website
Lot of the boards do support it straight out of bat, like Taichi for example:

https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X399%20Taichi/index.asp

I've seen lot of people saying they have no issues at all, even saying the ECC functionality itself works under Server OS, not that it would matter to us ;- ).

But I don't see it under MSI MEG website, and since no one was able to test it yet (since no one outside of like 5 reviewers had the board), no answer can be found. You might try emailing them, but only some intern who will at best look up at the same public website will give you answer "Doesn't look like we support it".
Please follow my new Instagram for latest projects, tips&tricks, short video tutorials and free models
Behance  Probably best updated portfolio of my work
lysfaere.com Please check the new stuff!

2018-08-28, 13:26:29
Reply #22

agentdark45

  • Active Users
  • **
  • Posts: 579
    • View Profile
Hey Agent :- )

- I found single available (right now) source of MSI MEG on CyberPort. Apparently it was in stock...but after I paid, it still says ready to ship in 24 hour...for the whole week. No idea when I will get it, but it's not in stock anywhere else in Europe.

- I went through the QVL list for days. Holy crap is that a shitty QVL list. 500 Euro workstation board...and they keep testing 8GB modules in 8/16/32 configurations ??? There are very few 16GB modules in 64GB/128GB configurations and most of them are not even brands you can buy in Europe. And of course, I am not gonna pay 1000 Euro for some idiotic Trident-Z G-Skill which isn't on the QVL in 16GB modules anyway despite being Threadripper exclusive. In the end I found Corsair Vengeance at 3000 Mhz (so 2933 manually running) that is not any sort of magical Samsung B-Die or whatever is hyped to work best, but it was 680 Euro on Amazon.de, and that is price I can sadly live with.
I seriously hope it will run well at 2933 and correct timings.

The QVL is nightmare. Even if I find something you can actually buy in Europe on it (Corsair, Crucial, Adata & G.Skill), find in on some e-shop or amazon/ebay, it will be some newer revision with single letter changed in name and of course completely different maker. The same Corsair kit can be made by Samsung in February, tested on QVL, but then discountinued in April because newer version made by Hynix entered market. AMD needs to sort this. Nobody has time for this.

- I am extremely skeptical of Enermax unit as well. This is 4000+ Euro workstation, I am not gonna let rusty pump leak all over it and destroy it during project and then haggle with warranty (which is never guaranteed). It is the only powerful cooler on the market though and apparently second revision is on market, but of course you can't buy it anywhere. So maybe in six months ?

- I don't know if I have patience and will to pay for custom loop. EK didn't even design their TR4 CPU block properly, it was pure failure last year and had worse performance than cheapest Air. They had revision afterwards but I still believe it sucks. I didn't check what sort of loop Deba8er was running on that fancy schmancy Epyc dual-loop at Gamescom but obviously there are better CPU block pieces now. Still, that would be another 400 Euro investment and the whole idea of Threadripper is that it is affordable. Paying for overpriced MSI board just because every other board is pure failed design from phases point is enough, but over-paying on everything (Board + memory + custom loop) is bringing the whole idea of this workstation into uncomfortable territory for me. I am not a guy who likes wasting money on frills and custom loop is very much a frill.

- Same about the Thermalight Silver Arrow TR4. Apparently this cooler is on market since June...then where is it ?? You can't buy this crap anywhere. I've seen people pre-ordering it on ebay Japan. This cooler looks like total nonexisting vaporware.
  If it enters the European market, I would buy it since it looks on par with Noctua NH-D15, which Noctu has NO intention of bringing to TR4 because apparently there isn't any market for it and they are too lazy to redesign it allow enough clearance over PCI-E and memory modules on such large socket.

I would not be such an early adopter with all this pain but Veronika really needs workstation right now so I just decided to go with it anyway.

Ah man tell me about it re RAM choice. I've been researching for weeks and still and undecided after checking various QVL lists. Am really quite annoyed that such a high end system doesn't have better RAM support. The other option was the Gigabyte Aorus extreme motherboard...which has marginally better support for 16GB dimms, but I hear their bios's are horrendous...so there's that.

I'm also undecided on going custom water as you're right, it's quite an expense. But I can't really see a viable alternative in the short term (lots of high end coolers still not on the market!).

Either way I'm kind of in the same boat - I need an upgrade asap for my dying Xeon system. Let me know how you get on with the build? I'm planning on putting everything together in the next 2 or so weeks.
Vray who?

2018-08-28, 13:49:41
Reply #23

Jann

  • Active Users
  • **
  • Posts: 142
    • View Profile
Lot of the boards do support it straight out of bat, like Taichi for example:

https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X399%20Taichi/index.asp

I've seen lot of people saying they have no issues at all, even saying the ECC functionality itself works under Server OS, not that it would matter to us ;- ).

But I don't see it under MSI MEG website, and since no one was able to test it yet (since no one outside of like 5 reviewers had the board), no answer can be found. You might try emailing them, but only some intern who will at best look up at the same public website will give you answer "Doesn't look like we support it".
Yeah... ebay it is then :|
Better to get less, but supported memory.

2018-08-28, 13:53:06
Reply #24

Juraj

  • Moderator
  • Active Users
  • ***
  • Posts: 4743
    • View Profile
    • studio website
Hey Agent,

I got DHL notice my MSI MEG is on way, so I hope it's here by Friday and I will build it immediately. More of my notes that might give you more insight :- )

- The memory controller is on the chip, so if one memory is on QVL of one MB maker, it should also "in theory" work on all other of same chipset. For most part. In practice, there seemed to be much issues with Asus boards, mainly their top Zenith. Ironical.
- With all the bios updates now done, I believe the worst that can happen is running at worse timing, but of course that's not ideal..

- I've double checked various loops in past two days because I second guessed myself. In the end the EKWB would start at 480 Euros, they have redesigned full-cover full-nickel CPU plate. Mind you, the performance difference compared to something like the Enermax AIO would be minimal, just because it has higher quality parts, doesn't mean it has any more dissipation power. Physics are physics, so the basic 480 Euro single 360/420mm radiator loop would simply run more silent due to high quality pump and bring more peace of mind but not better thermals.
- I believe dual-rad (2xthin 360mm rad) would offer performance advantage, but we're looking at 700-800 euro of investment.
- So yeah... not very economical thing for that additional 10perc. of performance. Depends how big is your render farm. If big, don't bother building ultra-station. If small, then maybe worth the investment.

- I've been told by Thermalight rep the Silver Arrow should be widely available in October. For some reason, all the cooler makers, including Coolermaster's Wraithripper are scheduled to enter market with the lower Threadrippers.
- I still don't know when the Enermax II will be available, but I would probably go for that instead of custom loop if you really want water. My guess is...again October.
Please follow my new Instagram for latest projects, tips&tricks, short video tutorials and free models
Behance  Probably best updated portfolio of my work
lysfaere.com Please check the new stuff!

2018-08-29, 13:38:13
Reply #25

Juraj

  • Moderator
  • Active Users
  • ***
  • Posts: 4743
    • View Profile
    • studio website
Any Chinese willing to help out :- ) ?

You can buy Thermalight Silver Arrow TR4 from Tmall, it's even in black ! Looks glorious.

https://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?spm=a220m.1000858.1000725.1.49f6137bfMYtPi&id=571526554977&skuId=3906628315202&user_id=3619201243&cat_id=2&is_b=1&rn=80a3137a510d2707a9e946da2136abff

I can't find it on any english-portal chinese sites though, just tmall.
Please follow my new Instagram for latest projects, tips&tricks, short video tutorials and free models
Behance  Probably best updated portfolio of my work
lysfaere.com Please check the new stuff!

2018-08-29, 22:34:10
Reply #26

Juraj

  • Moderator
  • Active Users
  • ***
  • Posts: 4743
    • View Profile
    • studio website
Well fuck it, I don't have time for that. Can't afford to wait another month, need this PC right now, might as well go all the way.

Ordered full EKWB water loop with their revised cpu block. I pondered Heat Killer IV but apparently the revised block is on same level so I'll keep it as single order.

This will be fun guys ;- ) Dual radiator setup...
Please follow my new Instagram for latest projects, tips&tricks, short video tutorials and free models
Behance  Probably best updated portfolio of my work
lysfaere.com Please check the new stuff!

2018-08-30, 00:33:31
Reply #27

Gewiz90

  • Active Users
  • **
  • Posts: 36
    • View Profile
What ram did you go for?

2018-08-30, 00:47:28
Reply #28

danio1011

  • Active Users
  • **
  • Posts: 361
    • View Profile
Well fuck it, I don't have time for that. Can't afford to wait another month, need this PC right now, might as well go all the way.

Ordered full EKWB water loop with their revised cpu block. I pondered Heat Killer IV but apparently the revised block is on same level so I'll keep it as single order.

This will be fun guys ;- ) Dual radiator setup...

Wowwww...what a machine that will be.  You said you are building it for Veronika in your office?  How long before you steal it...or build a duplicate for yourself ;-)

Edit:  Random musing, but this whole discussion is kind of interesting when you think about GPU vs CPU.  If these RT cores actually do make for a faster experience, upgrading and expanding your GPUs is so much easier than a CPU.  Cooling, ram, etc all kind of go away in a sense.  I’m on the cusp of expanding a little bit and am pondering hardware, so it makes one think!
« Last Edit: 2018-08-30, 00:59:34 by danio1011 »

2018-08-30, 01:00:23
Reply #29

Juraj

  • Moderator
  • Active Users
  • ***
  • Posts: 4743
    • View Profile
    • studio website
Well fuck it, I don't have time for that. Can't afford to wait another month, need this PC right now, might as well go all the way.

Ordered full EKWB water loop with their revised cpu block. I pondered Heat Killer IV but apparently the revised block is on same level so I'll keep it as single order.

This will be fun guys ;- ) Dual radiator setup...

Wowwww...what a machine that will be.  You said you are building it for Veronika in your office?  How long before you steal it...or build a duplicate for yourself ;-)

Yeah this one is hers :- ) I already built the i9 7980XE few months ago, although with bit disappointing thermals despite delid.

Btw, regarding the CPU vs GPU and ease of adding GPUs, you currently can't have both easily. All the hardcore boards like MSI-MEG coming up are 3-way SLI, like the makers didn't know SLI is dead and NVLink comes in pairs ?
To get the best out of NVLink with RTX cards, you can only use two or four cards to memory pool because three of them will have the third card lower the whole memory pool back to single card.

So if someone is thinking of going GPU in the future, think about this and buy motherboard that can actually take 4 dual-slot GPUs. MSI-MEG can't. So much for 500 Euro boards :- ).

I myself am pondering if it's finally the time for GPU rendering to make full on break-through. Pascal + RT Cores for performance, NVLink on consumer cards for double memory (2x2080ti=22GB Vram, a lot !!).
I can't wait for Vlado's publishing once NDA for RTX falls in September and see how the battle between VrayGPU and others will go.

But you're absolutely right about the ease. You could now build 4x2080ti Workstation (although for the same price you could build 8x1080ti...) which with pooled Vram would be like ultimate render-farm in one single case. It would be 8k euro machine but for what you would get in performance, everything in CPU world would pale in comparison. I can't even imagine those 1 minute renders in Redshift :- )

What ram did you go for?

Corsair Vengeance 3000 CL15 64(4x16). It's not Ryzen or TR specific, but it was like the only 4x16x3000+ tested on the QVL list :- ). Also, got it for 680 Euro of Amazon, which is lot better than the TR specific sets currently going for 1000 +/- Euros (funny enough, MSI didn't even test them for QVL... )
« Last Edit: 2018-08-30, 01:40:55 by Juraj Talcik »
Please follow my new Instagram for latest projects, tips&tricks, short video tutorials and free models
Behance  Probably best updated portfolio of my work
lysfaere.com Please check the new stuff!