Threadripper & Ryzen builds

[Elias2019]

Hi Vuk,

While I find Juraj's answer very helpful but your answer is also very detailed and closer to my current situation, honestly I was a bit disappointed about Mobo and RAM as I really didn't know what to do, but now I have a more clear view. Your experience with building 2*9950x systems helps a lot.


You know it's easier for my budget to get the 7950x but its issue with 192GB RAM as you mentioned gives me enough excuse to go for the 9950x, I can explain my workflow so it might help more: I make cinematic scenes like movies in Cinema4d/Corona so my scenes are mostly very huge including a lot of 3d scans, this way I easily get the Corona memory error in IPR compilation phase or the scene becomes so laggy, on the other hand I use After Effects with a lot of effects that results in lack of memory in RAM Preview so fast. Because of all that I should really have a lot of RAM, 128GB might sound good for me coming from a 64GB system but 192GB is really ideal to make big scenes.


I was in doubt about the EXPO but since all 4 slots are gonna be naturally occupied then I can avoid it, right? however I guess 2*48GB EXPO don't exist in my living country. Also because of my budget I can only buy 2*48gb for now and I should add another 2*48gb later. Is it ok this way?

So about the MB since I should go for the X870e chipsets then I would liked to know your opinion as well, ASUS ProArt X870e Creator seems to be the most solid one, that's right? or you suggest other ones as well? I should mention that unfortunately the ASRock brand doesn't exist in my country, but I am also afraid of the Gigabyte chipsets. If you can tell me your opinion about this I would be happy as well, because I am really concerned about the MB. This is the list they gave me today in the shop after a lot of consultation:

ASUS Ryzen 9950x
ASUS TUF X670e Plus
Corsair Vengeance 2*48gb 5600
Samsung 990 Pro 1 tb
ASUS RTX 4070 TI Super OC
Corsair H170i elite Capellix xt
Corsair HX1000 80 Plus Platinum
Deepcool Morpheus Case

So since we are gonna change some parts in this list I would liked to ask these questions as well:

Is their suggested case good? they had some other suggestions as well but they finally offered DeepCool Morpheus. Unfortunately as I see all Fractal cases are out of stock here based on what I see. So if you have other suggestions as well I really appreciate it.

Also unfortunately the Arctic brand doesn't exist here anymore otherwise I'd have gotten that one in first place. So what do you think about the Cooler? Considering if 420 has a real sense over 360, I would be happy to know your opinion.

I also wanted to know your opinion about getting a Gen5 SSD, does it make sense for our work considering its price? has it a real effect when loading 3d scenes, compilation and also video editing? or that 990 gen4 is enough?

If you can answer fast I would really appreciate it, I need the PC for working on a serious project and I am just stuck.. Thanks in advance

[Vuk]

Hi Elias,

I will try to answer as much as I can and to be as concise as possible.

Both of the systems I built for myself are with x870e motherboards and I heard from friends around that they couldn't run 192gb of ram with various sticks on x670e motherboards so I would avoid the older gen mobo's if going for 9950x.

I have built one system in the Asus X870e ProArt Creator and it is a solid board overall so yes I can suggest that one. There are still some issues with Win 11 and Lan drivers but you have 2 lan slots so you can always swap the cable in case something goes wrong. I hope they will solve these issues with future updates. For now, the 2.5gbe slot (Intel adapter) seems more problematic than the 10gbe slot (Aquantia).

Check the QVL list on the Corsair website for the kit you mentioned. If the Asus motherboard is compatible but if it is an EXPO made for AMD systems it "should" probably run without issues. At least in the dual channel you won't have problems.
When adding later more ram as you explained you just need to make sure to buy the same kit again so I would go for a kit that is as compatible as possible from the start.

Expo needs to be activated in bios so it is not a thing to be avoided it is a choice and you don't have to run it if your system is not stable when activated. I am 100% sure that in dual channel you won't have issues with it but when you add the remaining 2 dimms (in the future) you probably will start having some issues. Again this might be resolved with future bios updates.

Regarding the cooler, it is a high-performance cooler that works well but it is noisy. Again you can play with the fan curve in bios and set it to your liking.

I don't have experience with that case. But for best CPU thermals the cases to look for are Lian Li Lancool 216, Lancool 207, Antec Flux Pro, Phanteks XT Pro Ultra, Corsair 6500D Airflow....

For the SSD it is better to get an answer from someone else on the forum. I work directly from a server so SSD speed differences for me are irrelevant as I am directly bottlenecked by the 10gbe network.
I also don't know how Cinema4d works so I can't speak about that either.

Good luck!

[Elias2019]

Thanks for the reply, the main problem here is that people have bought all the components from the market when they were cheaper so now there's a mass shortage of critical components like Motherboard, as I see now all x870e motherboards are almost out of stock here, there are some TUF x870 as well as Gigabyte ones but I don't know how they work. There is only one shop having x870e Mobos 1000km far from me so I should decide to really rely on this shop or just forget the 9950x and go for the 7950x..


Same story about EXPO and Corsair memories, since I need 96gb they are either so expensive here or non-EXPO .. thanks for your recommendation, I should check the MB QVL as well.

Regarding the cooler, yeah you are right, I found out that it's very noisy so I don't want it really cuz I hate the noise and I want the most quiet one, unfortunately the Be Quiet brand doesn't exist here so I should search for the most possible silent coolers here. Because of the noise I might totally avoid a 420 one, I am not sure really.

Also thanks for the case and other suggestions, if other people can also help here about the whole build choices I would appreciate it.

[studiopetersteiner]

Hi guys,
I'm planning on putting together a new workstation and was wondering if I could get your view on a couple of topics:

Threadripper 7970x or 7980x
192 or 256 GB RAM (4x48 / 4x64, G.Skill Zeta R5 Neo or Kingston Server Premier)
ASUS Pro WS TRX50-Sage WIFI
RTX 5090
Corsair 1500 PSU

.) Is it possible to get 192 or 256GB of Ram running stably on a non-pro Threadripper with only 4 channels? I've read mixed opinions.

.) It's quite hard (if not impossible) to find a 192/256 Ram Kit. Can I buy 4 single 64GB modules, or could that lead to stability issues? According to a couple of people I spoke to, there aren't any big problems to be expected with the ECC RDIMM modules when buying singles instead of a kit

.) I'm on a Ryzen 9 5950x right now. According to benchmarks, the Threadripper 7970x should be considerably faster regarding single core performance. Will that result in a smoother performance while working in C4D and Corona, or is there something else to consider?

.) 7970x vs 7980x: According to benchmarks, the 7980x shouldn't be much slower than the 7970x regarding single core performance - which surprised me a bit, considering it's base clock is 800MHz less. Can anyone say if there's going to be a noticeable performance difference when working on a 7970x vs 7980x (mostly in C4D/Corona and PS).


Thanks!
Peter

[John_Do]

hi Peter,

I've just finished my 7980x build over the weekend and I'm also a C4D Corona user like you.

First : WAIT. TR 9000 is just around the corner ( expected release in July ).

About 1) I can't speak about stability because I went with 128GB, but it seems these configuration are supported by the platform, see next point.
2) Check thesupported memory list for your specific motherboard.
It seems you have few options for 192GB and 256GB:



Quick OT : consider also the Gigabyte TRX50 AI Top motherboard, it has some great upgrade capabilities since it's the only one compatible with both Pro and non-Pro TR.

3) Coming also from a 5950X, I can't say about the 7970X, but the 7980X is as fast in most workload, though it sometimes hangs in C4D because of the unusual number of cores. 7970X should be faster and more responsive in this regard.
4) See above. Note that the 800Mhz difference is only for the base clock, when all cores are at full load. So except for rendering, compilation, compression, the CPU will always run faster than that with fewer cores ( like 4 ). It's not so much the clock frequency as the number of cores which is problematic, but that's more a software side issue. I still have to look for optimizations in this regard.

What do you plan for cooling ?

[studiopetersteiner]

Hi John,
thanks for that interesting insight!

Regarding the TR9000 - do you think there will be a major performance boost? What I heard, it's supposed to be around 10-15% from zen4 to zen5 (similar to the Ryzen CPUs). I will surely wait, since it's only one or two months away. I'm keen to see the pricing on those.

Yeah, I did check the QVL for that board. The G.Skill on that list is the zeta r5 neo, and it's the only one theoretically available in a 192GB Kit (at proshop.de, although it says 2-3 Weeks delivery - so I'm not so sure about actual "availability"). The Kingston Server Premier is also on that QVL although listed only as a single 64GB Module. So I'm thinking about just buying 4 of those and keeping fingers crossed.

Thanks for the tip about the Gigabyte mobo, that's a good point! Will look into that.

That's interesting that your 5950x seems to be as fast if not faster in some cases regarding single core performance. According to benchmarks, the 7980x should be a bit faster in that area. Is it possible that the results of those benchmarks are not 100% transferable to the work in C4D? Or do you think this is purely down to the number of cores?

Do you use your TR workstation for daily work in C4D? Or do you continue using the 5950x for active work and the TR mainly for rendering? Hearing about those (small) issues with TR and C4D/Corona, I'm also considering just upgrading to a 9950x as a daily driver and then maybe investing into at TR render-workstation in the future.

Thanks a lot for your help.
Peter

[John_Do]

There will be performance improvements coming from an increase in IPC and architectural changes, probably around 20% at best. This video seems to indicate up to 26% for the non-pro series but that really seems quite high compared to the improvements made on the consumer Ryzen lineup. We'll see, wait for the first reviews but in any case I can't think any of good reason to skip the new version, except for a major price hike.

The 192GB G-Skill kit seems to be the only one available in 4 sticks, I can't find 256GB in 4 sticks. Note that the Zeta R5 Neo is EOL on G-Skill website, it seems that the current generation is the G5 Neo, and from a quick search I can find 192 and 256GB kit available. It's not on the QVL but I'll give it a shot.

Regarding SC performance, I was talking mostly about responsiveness rather than pure performance numbers. I was happy with the 5950X SC performance, the new one is great too in this regard, but I was not expecting any perceivable performance improvement in this departement. As far as I can tell the bottleneck seems to be much more on the software side, using Blender alongside C4D on the same computer I experience it everyday.

And yes I use this one daily as my main workstation. I've considered upgrading to a 9950X and then as soon as possible to it's Zen 6 successor, but even with more cores (24c), architectural improvements and IPC increase, that will probably still be much slower than a 7980X in MT applications. I already have (now) two 5950X render nodes for dailies, and I was really after that massive IR boost. Another scenario I had in mind would have been to upgrade to a 9950X and build another render node based on a 3990X (TR Zen2). It's a bit old but still powerful for final rendering, and CPU and MB can be found at a very good price now.

[studiopetersteiner]

Sounds good, I will wait and see what the TR 9000 brings. Thanks for the info on the EOL of the Zeta R5...didn't realize that.

I was considering something similar with a build based on an older TR. Will have to give that some more thought.
Anyway I'm very glad to have those insights now, they will help me to make an informed decision.

Thanks a lot for your help!

[clemens_at]

can I ask why the Threadripper?
Unless you are rendering a ton of animations, I would go for the 9950x any day.
Its faster when working in max, pretty much silent when rendering, and MUCH cheaper.

I'm on the older 7950x and could not be happier.

[Nejc Kilar]

I pretty much second everything John_Do said.

Regarding memory I've heard "solid" things about V-Color as well and they have 256GB in 4x sticks if that is something you're after (direct link: https://v-color.net/products/ddr5-oc-r-dimm-amd-ryzen-trx50-workstation-memory-x-v-color?variant=46432830488743). Haven't ever used their stuff though but people on Reddit seem happy with them :)

Regarding single core speeds I'd say people tend to have different experiences and its been years since I've used any of the Ryzen or i9 parts (non high core count Threadripper stuff) but IIRC I wouldn't expect there to be a noticeable difference in single threaded tasks. The way I think about it (but I might be wrong) is that a short single threaded task that takes 4s on a 64 core TR might take 3s on a 9950x but then on the flip side rendering will be twice as fast (including the IR).

That said there are still kinks and optimizations we'd like to resolve on our side that impact responsiveness on high core count machines (both in 3ds Max and C4D - plus it appears to me like its nice mess of the 3ds Max / C4D + Windows working environment) but that is, as John_Do alluded to, not really related to how a Threadripper differs from a Ryzen or an i9. Its software stuff that is way more complicated than one would imagine I suppose. It is being looked at however and there's already been a few improvements (especially on the C4D side of things where SMT gave us headaches not so long ago).

In terms of "yeah it will 100% work snappy" I'd point at a Ryzen for now. But if you need more rendering speed and can deal with a few hiccups here and there then obviously Threadrippers are the go to (or Xeons I guess). Personally, I'm on a Threadripper for years now and do plan on upgrading too.

@clemens_at
I guess it comes down to workflows. I'm on a 5995wx (64 cores) and I'd actually find it beneficial upgrading to say a 9980x or 9995wx. While I'm a sucker for very snappy UIs I'm also a sucker for not having to have to wait for a clean image :) I guess it depends on the type of work you do and where things bottleneck for you.

I know plenty of people that render on things like 5900x and similar and they produce amazing work and they're fine with it.

[studiopetersteiner]

Hi Nejc,
thanks for the input - interesting to hear your opinion on that topic. Sounds like threadripper will be the way to go for me as well, since I'm looking for a big boost in rendering speed.
V-Color is kinda hard to get here in Europe (at least I wasn't able to find any distributor after a quick google search), but I guess there are some alternatives as mentioned by john_do.

@clemens_at
I'm looking at the 9950x as well. But like Nejc already mentioned, if you're after pure rendering speed, there are not many alternatives to a TR.

[Nejc Kilar]

Hi Nejc,
thanks for the input - interesting to hear your opinion on that topic. Sounds like threadripper will be the way to go for me as well, since I'm looking for a big boost in rendering speed.
V-Color is kinda hard to get here in Europe (at least I wasn't able to find any distributor after a quick google search), but I guess there are some alternatives as mentioned by john_do.

@clemens_at
I'm looking at the 9950x as well. But like Nejc already mentioned, if you're after pure rendering speed, there are not many alternatives to a TR.

Hmm, I think I remember running into a similar issue some time ago yeah but I think if you order it directly from V-Color's website they'll ship it to you directly. They ship to Slovenia so I assume the rest of Europe should be covered as well lol :)

And yep, if that IR / rendering speed is very important (and a 9950x ain't cutting it) then Threadrippers are imho probably the way to go.