X299 i9X — Is Anyone Looking at Building With This ?

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TLD

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#215306 21-Jun-2017 11:27

I had planned to update my five year old 3930K system at the beginning of this year, but circumstances worked against me. I became read to go ahead in the same week that the X299 chipset, and i9X processors were announced at Computex, and have been hovering up all the information I can find, but I am definitely having some issues.

There are a few reviews of the 7900X about already, like this one from Tom's Hardware, and they are not entirely sold on it. My use will be primarily with Photoshop, which is not particularly hard on system resources, but also as a NLE using Premiere Pro and After Effects, plus little apps like Handbrake that can swamp your system. I'll never use more than the one GPU, but will be heavy on storage (I currently have about 30Tb over 15 drives), so I am looking at i9-7900X and beyond for the lanes (I want to keep open a multi NMVe raid0 option). So with the proviso that we have limited information on the i9 processors beyond 7900X, I am thinking that for another NZ$300 I might as well go to the 7920X.

The Motherboard choice is still up in the air. I don't need the coloured lights, but I'd like to max out USB3 direct to board or header connectors for my external drives. If anyone has any thoughts on X299 motherboards, I'd like to hear them.

I am using a Coolermaster Storm Trooper right now, but the Rosewill Nighthawk 117 case looks interesting. Toms Hardware likes it, and it has a good front panel with six USB sockets and an LED that does I know not what. Unfortunately I have not managed to find a NZ supplier of Rosewill cases though.

The obvious alternative to the above build is AMD Ryzen, or wait for the Threadripper, and the only reason I am not pushing in that direction is a total lack of experience with AMD builds, and it is heard enough getting up to speed with i9 and X299. Note I won't be building this myself. My sight is not flash nowadays, so I'll get PC Media heare in Blenheim put it together for me. They built the 3930K box.

So any thoughts insights etc.?

Any info on Rosehill stockists in NZ?

TIA

Trevor Dennis
Rapaura (near Blenheim)

billgates

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#1804589 21-Jun-2017 12:50

i7-7820X is the only CPU from Intel's latest releases that offers good value for money including with handbraking.

Do whatever you want to do man.

1cloud

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#1804596 21-Jun-2017 12:59

looks like thermaltek case

PANiCnz

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#1804790 21-Jun-2017 18:45

TLD:

Any info on Rosehill stockists in NZ?

I think Rosewill is Newegg's in-house brand, doubt you find it available in NZ, best bet would be to buy from Newegg but shipping wont be cheap (but if you're considering an i9X that might not be a problem?)

toejam316

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#1804872 21-Jun-2017 21:04

Yeah Rosewill isn't in NZ, Newegg house brand. Have you looked towards AMDs upcoming Threadripper CPUs?

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GoranZ

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#1804913 21-Jun-2017 22:20

AMD Ryzen or wait for when Threadripper launches end of july .. but today it would be a Ryzen .. get the 8 core 16 thread Ryzan7 slap it on a $150 B350 board with 16gb or 32GB RAM and your sorted for a lot less than the Intel CPU alone costs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWFzWRoVNnE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w-G85O8n3I

TLD

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#1804923 21-Jun-2017 22:48

I was thinking of bumping the GTX970 from my current system, and putting the original GTX570 in this box for my wife. I also have an unused Corsair 850W Gold PSU, so with 64Gb RAM and two NVMe drives, I am looking at $6K to $7K NZ allowing $500 for the build.

The Rosewill case is looking untenable if it has to come from the States. The Storm Trooper is mostly good. It has the handy front panel, and it is on an anlge making it more accessible, but the drive arrangement is not ideal. Especially the 2.5" bays — you have to put multiple SSDs head to tail to be able to get the cables connected, and the MD side is pretty tight. You also have to remove the GPU to access some of the SATA slots, but that is going to be true of any board I'm thinking. The Storm Trooper has a lot of full size bays though, and I am sure there must be adapters available.

My problem is that I don't keep up to speed with hardware in between builds, but I have a tiny head start with Intel. I'd be completely clueless with AMD, and I'm reluctant to get on that learning curve. It does have several things going for it though. Price and temperature being among them. My 3930K is water cooled, and it is plenty loud enough. With significantly more heat to dissipate, the new box stands to be louder still. Plus my current system will be running in the same room for my wife to use.

Right now I really don't have anything like a clear plan, but I guess it is early days for X299, and I've read reports of things needing to be sorted out with the MB builders. I am not even sure if I can use non Intel M.2 drives in a raid0? Just keep hammering away at it and reading everything I can find I guess.

Thanks for your help. It is appreciated.

Trevor Dennis
Rapaura (near Blenheim)

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PsychoSmiley

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#1805314 22-Jun-2017 16:53

I think you'd be crazy not to look at Ryzen. If you're encoding go for the best bang for buck you can get; 8C/16T will last you quite some time in the long run and at a pretty good price point too. The platform has matured too and gotten past quite a number of teething problems that were present at launch.

You'll hit a limit with Ryzen PCIe lanes but get more than Intel if you wait for Threadripper.

I think you'd be crazy to commit money to anything right now especially with the dollars you are spending. Threadripper could offer outstanding value.

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TLD

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#1805395 22-Jun-2017 19:59

Yes, you are making sense. Plus you are ringing bells with the early stage issues, because from what I have read so far, X299 is in exactly that place. Plus we don't know if Intel are going to hold out with opening up capability a stage at a time with raid enabling dongles. It's like AMD have backed them into a corner and they have been forced to get competitive, which is meant they are undercutting the Xeon server market, so to keep things fair (to themselves?) you can't use the sort raid10 type configurations without paying silly money for a five buck dongle.

In fact it is worse than I thought. I've just rechecked, and I thought I could at least get away with a bootable raid0 using the two M.2 slots with Samsung 960 PRO drives, but even that most basic of setups requires you to use Intel drives. So all I can say right now is that I don't dare commit at this stage. I'll bite the bullet and take the time to get to grips with Ryzen, but I was hoping not to have to wait till August / September.

Trevor Dennis
Rapaura (near Blenheim)

darylblake

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#1805479 23-Jun-2017 08:14

My advice,

If you need multi GPU support. Look at x370 motherboards. If you don't need multi GPU support and want a machine with a grunty CPU, then buy a B350 motherboard, probably an ASUS/Gigabyte or MSI.

Go for the Ryzen 7 1700. With the 65watt TDP. You should be able to clock it up to about 3.8~3.9 Ghz. Make sure you get high bandwidth DDR4. Not 2133 Mhz, go for 3000+. I would buy a kit since all the dimms will match properly.

You don't even need a better CPU cooler. And you will cheaply get a 8 core 16 thread machine running at ~3.85 Ghz. And it will probably be cheaper than just the intel i9 CPU itself.

PsychoSmiley

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#1805487 23-Jun-2017 08:38

TLD:

I'll bite the bullet and take the time to get to grips with Ryzen, but I was hoping not to have to wait till August / September.

You can have your Ryzen cake now and eat it too. It would only be wait it you want Threadripper.

I regret biting the bullet on a 6700k system towards the end of last year but Ryzen wasn't out. It's a good system but I really wanted a Ryzen system but AMD were dragging their heels on releasing it.

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TLD

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#1806281 25-Jun-2017 00:19

darylblake:

My advice,

If you need multi GPU support.

Photoshop doesn't play nicely with multiple GPUs.

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cc-gpu-card-faq.html

And I am not a game player nowadays. Although I might load something up just to see how the new system copes with it. When I do have the occasional peep at what's current with computer games, it always amazes me all over again.

At the moment I do't want to rush, although August September would be pushing it a bit, but I will give it till mid July I'm thinking, and Ryzen is looking more and more interesting.

Thanks again for the help.

Trevor Dennis
Rapaura (near Blenheim)