My first AMD system in a while (was: I'm hovering over the buy button...)

[mackerel]

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor (£346.00 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler (£36.29 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Asus ROG STRIX B650E-F GAMING WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard (£229.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory (£219.99 @ Corsair UK)
Storage: Western Digital Black SN850X 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive (£149.99 @ AWD-IT)
Video Card: NVIDIA Founders Edition GeForce RTX 4070 12 GB Video Card (Purchased For £0.00)
Case: Fractal Design North ATX Mid Tower Case (£107.41 @ NeoComputers)
Power Supply: MSI MPG A850G PCIE5 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (£109.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £1199.65
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-04-26 13:25 BST+0100

I know I've talked on and off about a new build for a while, and my plan was to wait until AM5/Arrow Lake before making that move. I'm now expecting to come into some cash soon so decided to bring that forwards with a gaming-centric build. If Zen 5 is great enough I can drop it in later anyway, and takes pressure off waiting for X3D version.

I've already taken some feedback from elsewhere to arrive at the above. Some choices were limited by availability in the UK. In theory if I order now I could get everything above tomorrow, although I'm not in that much of a rush and if I take a little longer I could reduce some costs slightly.

Basically looking for feedback. Would you change some things and why? Note I already have the 4070. I'm not looking for ultimate performance so no need to min/max that hard.

Some comments: I'm told 6000C30 is the sweet spot for AM5. I do want a higher end SSD to start with. If I need more capacity later I'll look to lower tiers. That cooler was recommended as a great performing low cost option, claimed beating the big Noctua's I'm used to buying. Case is more for looks while not being horrible for airflow.

 

[Flamethrower1972]

Thats a good build and should play most games on med or high settings.

 

[JLK03F150]

Looks like a solid build to me. I wouldn't change anything. 10 year warranty on the MSI PSU, which is nice to have.

 

[freeagent]

I’d hit it

 

[EarthDog]

Yeah, like! I wouldn't change much...

...maybe to a PCIe 5.0 M.2 as you mentioned faster storage.

 

[mackerel]

Order is in. The only minor change I did was swap the SN850X with a 990 Pro. I'd have to wait 2 more days for the WD, and I found the 990 Pro for a lower price than indicated so it was almost the same as the SN850X.

I also tacked on a tube of MX-6 on the order. No idea if it is any good but I had MX-2 and MX-4, so might as well keep the pattern up!

Note I didn't say "faster" I said "higher end" for the SSD. To expand on that, I wanted one with DRAM cache and not HMB or DRAM-less. I can get cheaper lower performance drives for storage later but the first one will have the OS so I'll make it a good one. For now, I don't feel any 5.0 SSD is worth the premium. It's still too early.

 

[Flamethrower1972]

Yeah, like! I wouldn't change much...

...maybe to a PCIe 5.0 M.2 as you mentioned faster storage.

Are they very expanse? I know my MB the m2 slots are 4.0.

 

[mackerel]

5.0 is pretty expensive. I'm looking at 1.5x price for the 10GB/s ball park models, and more like 2x for the 14GB/s models. "only" 7GB/s of a good 4.0 is sufficient for me.

The 990 Evo is cheap for a 5.0, but its sequential speeds are lower than that of a 4.0 so it is more of a paper spec than a practical one.

 

[Janus67]

Looks good to me. I don't see anything that I would change other than a second large nvme drive depending on storage needs (I'd love a 4TB one in my machine next to my 1 and 2tb ones!)

 

[Flamethrower1972]

Looks good to me. I don't see anything that I would change other than a second large nvme drive depending on storage needs (I'd love a 4TB one in my machine next to my 1 and 2tb ones!)

I wanted to get a 4TB m2 gen 4 4tb but they cost a lot.

 

[Janus67]

I wanted to get a 4TB m2 gen 4 4tb but they cost a lot.

Only worth getting on big sales, thus the slickdeals.net website with alerts and the buildapcsales subreddit as well

 

[Flamethrower1972]

Only worth getting on big sales, thus the slickdeals.net website with alerts and the buildapcsales subreddit as well

I looked at the site and they have some good prices I saved it in my browser thank you.

 

[freeagent]

That system is going to rip. I am still sportin Zen 3.. waiting to see what Intel comes up with before I dedicate more time with AMD.

But, since 2020 it has been absolute smooth sailing for me. Runs absolutely mint. Fecking awesome.. my new X58 heheh.

Enjoy!

 

[mackerel]

Should I start a new thread or continue this one with updates on the build and configuration? Maybe I'll change the thread title if I'm able to later.

Anyway, build completed without any problems and booted first time. Updated bios to latest and got Win11 installed eventually which took a few goes to bypass MS account requirement. SSD firmware was up to date.

One thing I dislike about Asus' BIOS wording is some performance setting. The description is words to effect "overclock CPU and ram" defaults to Auto. I don't want any overclocking so I set it to Disabled. Turns out, that disables turbo mode on the CPU so it was limited to 4.2 GHz. Put it back to Auto and I get 5 GHz+. It was not in the overclocking section, so I don't think it really is overclocking as such but just badly worded.

Ram booted with EXPO on. Nearly completed 3 passes of memtest so far and it is clear.

Boot times, even with EXPO off, even on repeat boots with no BIOS changes, seem to take much longer than my Intel systems. The delay is between power on and POST, so way before OS. This also impacts restarts so not limited to cold boots.

Under load the system noise is worse than I like. I've got various suggestions of fan curve adjustment to go through later. If I have spare, I could use the Noctua resistor cables instead.

Haven't properly stressed it yet, or the GPU. I hope I got the power connector in tight as I'm using the cable direct from PSU, not the GPU included adapter.

Once the memtest is done I'll have to start some games downloading, and maybe some benching software too.

 

[Nebulous]

Nice build! Congrats! I was going to say to avoid MX6 as it's too runny.

 

[mackerel]

I used the paste that came with the cooler, and not the MX-6 on this build. Even if runny, I guess it'll be ok on bigger areas like CPU-heatsink interface.

 

[freeagent]

TF7 is good stuff.

 

[mackerel]

I just had a weird crash. I left the system at desktop. Had some browser windows open but basically idle. Went away for a bit. When I got back, I saw it in bios. I warm booted it. Back to bios. Poking around the bios, the SSD seemed to have disappeared. I cold booted it. SSD detected, everything seems fine. Has anyone encountered anything at all like that?

SSD is 990 Pro 2TB. Samsung Magician reports no firmware updates for it nor any other problems. I just gave it a full surface scan. Again, no problems.

I did put the SSD in the 2nd CPU connected M.2 on the mobo. My reasoning for this was in part cosmetic, in part it is a 4.0 drive and the 2nd M.2 connector is 4.0. I'd leave the 5.0 connector available for future upgrade.

System hasn't had any other problems since I assembled it.

 

[TechStuff]

Very nice choice of components, I especially like the cpu cooler you chose. I have the Thermalright on my extreme overclocked i7-4790k, temps stay under 90C even at 4.9 GHz all core.
Good on 4.0 nvme m.2, I think the 5.0 run a little hot requiring larger heat sinks. And that could compromise clearances for other pcie devices?
Anyways, congrats on the new build; and you’ll soon have it all sorted.

 

[mackerel]

The cooler was pointed out to me elsewhere. I was about to do my usual thing of get the biggest Noctua. For the price, I thought it worth a shot especially given how low power the 7800X3D was reported to be.

Done some initial searching. There seems to be a number of reports of the 990 Pro disappearing which isn't giving me confidence. I've tried turning off power saving on it and if it happens again, I'll move it to the other SSD slot. The system had been running on and off for the last two days and this only happened once, so it isn't exactly frequent.