New Computer Time

[Armorgunner]

2 minutes ago, Erwin said:

Here's the response I got when I ran your comments past my system builder:

1)

 

 

Just 1) ???

[Armorgunner]

If you will keep the base, for 5-10 years. Thats where the quality Components are going. 

I, Went for a Corsair HX 850 80+ platinum PSU, only a few bucks more. And it´s made by Seasonic. Wich are top notch PSU makers. Wich the RM is not.

Good motherboard, becouse it´s hard to change later.

CPU: Get the best, you can. 2023, you can´t change it.

A case you can live with, for 10 years. With USB type-C.

The  primary harddrive. I Think not only that NVMe drives underdeliver in real World performance. But they get really hot, and have shorter warrantys. So go for a SATA SSD.

The rest is easy to change in the future. Or buy a soundcard, or whatever. But if you are going to keep the base for maybe, 8-10 years! Thats where the Money should go!

 

[Erwin]

This discussion is very valuable re helping me get the best bang for the buck. 

My people focus on building high end stuff for CAD and Architects etc so they consider my proposed system low-ish end(!).  Here are their responses to all your comments:

1)  The RAM currently used is Corsair and G. Skill.  (Are those good brands?)

2)  They recommended 16GB RAM just like you guys did.  I asked for 32GB as in the past I have always regretted not getting more RAM.  However, if prices drop, and a new even faster RAM is affordable I can see the point of getting 16GB now and then replacing it in an upgrade.  Are you all certain that 16GB is enough for the foreseeable future (ie: 3-4 years)?  Also, do I need 2 x 8GB re "Dual Channel"?

3)  Stick with an i9 cos it is very hard/not worth to upgrade that component.  (May as well get a new system if one doesn't have the skill to upgrade one's own.)  "The i9 will only provide approximately 4% more computational performance running single threaded applications, but will provide 30 to 40% more running multi-threaded applications. If you believe you will still be running single threaded apps  3 or 4 years from now the i7 is certainly adequate.  If not, for the small price difference the i9 is a good bet."

4)  Re the motherboard:  "The comment about the motherboard not being able to handle the frame rates for whatever the 1440 happens to be is wrong and displays a  lack of understanding of motherboards and their functions."

5)  I chose to increase the power supply from their recommendation of 750 watts to 850 watts as in the past I ran into trouble when upgrading videocards and found that there was insufficient power.  Is it no longer the case that more powerful videocards require a lot more power?  If 750 can easily handle upgrades, then maybe that's ok.  But, the price difference is small.

6) The SSD question is still controversial:  "NVMe SSD provide enormous advantages over SATA SSD depending on the applications and file sizes. CAD and engineering applications can be several GBs in size and are saved every 5 to 10 minutes and a NVMe SSD recovers the small extra cost in a matter of months. High-end action games require a very high rate of input output operations from the drive in addition to high video card frame rates. An NVMe can make a significant difference. On the other hand if the files sizes are small or the applications aren’t I/O intensive one likely won’t notice a great deal of difference."

********************

Looking forward to your comments...  Thank you all...

[Armorgunner]

28 minutes ago, Erwin said:

This discussion is very valuable re helping me get the best bang for the buck. 

My people focus on building high end stuff for CAD and Architects etc so they consider my proposed system low-ish end(!).  Here are their responses to all your comments:

1)  The RAM currently used is Corsair and G. Skill.  (Are those good brands?)

2)  They recommended 16GB RAM just like you guys did.  I asked for 32GB as in the past I have always regretted not getting more RAM.  However, if prices drop, and a new even faster RAM is affordable I can see the point of getting 16GB now and then replacing it in an upgrade.  Are you all certain that 16GB is enough for the foreseeable future (ie: 3-4 years)?  Also, do I need 2 x 8GB re "Dual Channel"?

3)  Stick with an i9 cos it is very hard/not worth to upgrade that component.  (May as well get a new system if one doesn't have the skill to upgrade one's own.)  "The i9 will only provide approximately 4% more computational performance running single threaded applications, but will provide 30 to 40% more running multi-threaded applications. If you believe you will still be running single threaded apps  3 or 4 years from now the i7 is certainly adequate.  If not, for the small price difference the i9 is a good bet."

4)  Re the motherboard:  "The comment about the motherboard not being able to handle the frame rates for whatever the 1440 happens to be is wrong and displays a  lack of understanding of motherboards and their functions."

5)  I chose to increase the power supply from their recommendation of 750 watts to 850 watts as in the past I ran into trouble when upgrading videocards and found that there was insufficient power.  Is it no longer the case that more powerful videocards require a lot more power?  If 750 can easily handle upgrades, then maybe that's ok.  But, the price difference is small.

6) The SSD question is still controversial:  "NVMe SSD provide enormous advantages over SATA SSD depending on the applications and file sizes. CAD and engineering applications can be several GBs in size and are saved every 5 to 10 minutes and a NVMe SSD recovers the small extra cost in a matter of months. High-end action games require a very high rate of input output operations from the drive in addition to high video card frame rates. An NVMe can make a significant difference. On the other hand if the files sizes are small or the applications aren’t I/O intensive one likely won’t notice a great deal of difference."

********************

Looking forward to your comments...  Thank you all...

1: Some of G.Skill´s RAM´s are really good. But they don´t make the memorychips themself. Samsung B-die memory, is the memory of choise. And is in most high end RAM modules. But RAM is easy to change. If you don´t have a huge aircooler on the CPU.

 

There is even a Samsung B-die finder https://benzhaomin.github.io/bdiefinder/

 

2: 16GB is ok for now. But if you buy 2x8Gb now. And ad another 2x8 later. 4x8 will be slower, than 2x16 in a dual channel system. And the RAM´s you buy later, must be of the same specification, as the first ones.

 

3) Agree 100%

 

4) Just get a good MB with USB type-C, and maybe WiFi. Z390. ASUS have good ones, like the HERO. For a good price. Or the ROG STRIX Z390E With WiFi, for 100 buck´s less. 

 

5) Your choise, but I Think 850w is the way to go. And go with a Seasonic one. Like Corsair´s 80+ Platinum

 

6) Just a copy from above: The  primary harddrive. I Think not only that NVMe drives underdeliver in real World performance. But they get really hot, and have shorter warrantys. So go for a Samsung 860 SATA SSD.

Edited March 19, 2020 by Armorgunner

[Erwin]

13 minutes ago, Armorgunner said:

2: 16GB is ok for now. But if you buy 2x8Gb now. And ad another 2x8 later. 4x8 will be slower, than 2x16 in a dual channel system. And the RAM´s you buy later, must be of the same specification, as the first ones.

Are you recommending that for now get 16GB in one chip so I can add another 16GB later re "Dual Channel"?  Or, is it more likely that one will replace all the RAM with faster RAM in a few years, so may as well go with 2 x 8GB now for max performance?

Re the interesting issue of which SSD, the question seems to be what are the largest file sizes that need to be input/output when playing graphics intense games like flight sims etc?  (Am not sure what "Action Games" that may benefit from the faster SSD are being referred to.)

(FWIW: I don't get wifi as I prefer hard wired for security.)

Edited March 19, 2020 by Erwin

[Armorgunner]

41 minutes ago, Erwin said:

Are you recommending that for now get 16GB in one chip so I can add another 16GB later re "Dual Channel"?  Or, is it more likely that one will replace all the RAM with faster RAM in a few years, so may as well go with 2 x 8GB now for max performance?

Re the interesting issue of which SSD, the question seems to be what are the largest file sizes that need to be input/output when playing graphics intense games like flight sims etc?

(FWIW: I don't get wifi as I prefer hard wired for security.)

I Went for 2x16, becouse RAM is so cheap right now. Could change with Corona fast though. And no, it´s better to buy 2x8, then 1x16. Since it´s dual channel. What I meant was. It´s better/faster to only have two, of the four RAM places occupied. So 2x16 is quicker than 4x8.

Regarding SSD´s. Its more like random read, or sequential read. becouse thats where the difference is between NVMe, SATA, and Optane. Optane is fast in both, really fast. NVMe is really fast in sequential read, but not in random. And random read is most of the desktop´s normal work. But if a 1/10 scenario, where the 100 dollar more expensive NVMe drive do it´s jobb. Is important. Buy it! But the normal day, you won´t notice any differance. Thats why you dont see any real differance in windows restart/startup, or in games startup, or level loading.

And take the heat, and warranties into account

Edited March 19, 2020 by Armorgunner

[com-intern]

2 hours ago, Erwin said:

High-end action games require a very high rate of input output operations from the drive in addition to high video card frame rates. An NVMe can make a significant difference. On the other hand if the files sizes are small or the applications aren’t I/O intensive one likely won’t notice a great deal of difference."

I think your guy is biased here by usually building for CAD functionality. I've never seen any solid evidence that an NVMe can make a noticeable difference to in-game performance. Games load in data from the storage device but they usually load that into ram or vram for quick pulling. Which is why you see video cards with increasingly large vram caches. Most High-End action games aren't going to be streaming in a ton of data its all going to be loaded in at start of the match. Something like Skyrim might be but I've again never seen evidence that there is noticeable improvement.

[Erwin]

 

 

2 hours ago, Armorgunner said:

I Went for 2x16, becouse RAM is so cheap right now.

That's my sense as well.

38 minutes ago, com-intern said:

I think your guy is biased here by usually building for CAD functionality.

Yeah, am getting that feeling also.  I am not averse to spending more for the NVMe if it will actually be useful running games.  But, I hate wasting $ on hardware that makes no noticeable difference. 

Does anyone know examples of "High-end action games that require a very high rate of input output operations from the drive in addition to high video card frame rates.

If I don't play or want to play any of them then I can safely disregard NVMe SSD.

This SSD question is probably the only issue stopping me from pressing the button on this system.

 

[Armorgunner]

19 minutes ago, Erwin said:

 

This SSD question is probably the only issue stopping me from pressing the button on this system.

 

Just take it easy. I bulit my system like 100 times. Before I pressed the button. In my case over 3100 US dollar. But that was with all the extra HDD`s, and an 27" IPS monitor

[Armorgunner]

But when the last 25 builds, where the same. I pushed the button 

[SlowLarry]

35 minutes ago, com-intern said:

I think your guy is biased here by usually building for CAD functionality. I've never seen any solid evidence that an NVMe can make a noticeable difference to in-game performance. Games load in data from the storage device but they usually load that into ram or vram for quick pulling. Which is why you see video cards with increasingly large vram caches. Most High-End action games aren't going to be streaming in a ton of data its all going to be loaded in at start of the match. Something like Skyrim might be but I've again never seen evidence that there is noticeable improvement.

Just go to youtube and look at a couple of hundreds of videos that are focusing on just that question. I am seeing an advantage when it comes to loading times( no wonder as we are talking about a harddrive). It might not be much but its there. For your normal desktop work, well you probably wont notice it. Erwin otoh is going for a top notch cpu, which i would never buy because its overprized. Do you really think that the 20-30 bucks, he is going to spare for going for a non nvme will make or break the deal? On the contrary, id say if you wanna go full throttle you should go there with a nvme.I too think that the "enormous advantages over sata ssd" is quite an overstatement, though.

Erwins questions:
The G.Skill and the Corsair are totally ok brands. If you really want to be on the safe side for the years to come, go for 2*16GB, especially if you install Google Chrome   . Just for comparision, im running 16GB and im really hard pressed to max out on ram usage, even when running a game while watching a couple of hd streams and running dozens of tabs in the browser. And as you wanted to buy two hds anyway, why not go with a nvme as prime boot drive with windows and stuff and an additional ssd. 

 

[Erwin]

22 minutes ago, SlowLarry said:

as you wanted to buy two hds anyway, why not go with a nvme as prime boot drive with windows and stuff and an additional ssd. 

Will probably do that... and also get the 2x16MB RAM.  As with cars, I have never never regretted going for the best, but a compromise can irritate one for years.  

Am often at war with myself over being frugal/sensible and not wanting (or needing) the risk of regret.

Discussing all this with you guys has been very helpful... and a fast education.

Edited March 19, 2020 by Erwin

[Armorgunner]

37 minutes ago, Erwin said:

Will probably do that... and also get the 2x16MB RAM.  As with cars, I have never never regretted going for the best, but a compromise can irritate one for years.  

Am often at war with myself over being frugal/sensible and not wanting (or needing) the risk of regret.

Discussing all this with you guys has been very helpful... and a fast education.

Ahh, you Think wee are finished with discussing? We haven´t even started to discuss CPU cooling? Are you going for air, AIO, or full water?

[Armorgunner]

19 minutes ago, Armorgunner said:

 

 

Edited March 20, 2020 by Armorgunner

[Erwin]

ehhh...?  I must have AC and enjoy filtered water personally if that helps...

[com-intern]

3 hours ago, SlowLarry said:

Just go to youtube and look at a couple of hundreds of videos that are focusing on just that question. I am seeing an advantage when it comes to loading times( no wonder as we are talking about a harddrive). It might not be much but its there.

 @Erwin 's guy is saying that the NVMe is explicitly going to improve in-game performance. He isn't talking about loading times. An NVMe drive will iimprove loading times, but it will not improve in-game performance. The loading time advantage is often only a handful of seconds if you view the youtube comparisons.

I still stand-by that the NVMe drive is a waste of money unless you have some unique use case like CAD, video editing, or 3d rendering. Erwin isn't doing any of that and I've yet to see any definitive proof that an NVMe drive can improve in-game performance. If  it could you would see FPS comparisons and not just loading time comparisons. Since you don't see FPS comparisons then it almost certainly isn't a reliable way to increase performance if it has any effect at all.

Edit:

Erwin, out of curiosity what video card are you going with?

Edited March 20, 2020 by com-intern
?

[SlowLarry]

@com-intern: you asked on the first page for evidence, that nvme vs satassd speed differences are noticeable at consumer level. Thats what i replied to, should have made that clearer, somehow i managed to qoute the wrong post. I guess we both agree that this advantage is very small and i stated that the "enormous advantages over sata ssd" is something that i dont agree with. I still think though that if you are building a really fast gaming pc and money is not that much of an issue its totally ok to go with an nvme if only for loading a couple of seconds faster.

@Erwin@Armorgunner is referring to your cpu cooling solution.

using liquid Helium this guy boosted an i9 9900k to over 7GHz.

[Armorgunner]

10 hours ago, Erwin said:

ehhh...?  I must have AC and enjoy filtered water personally if that helps...

Haha good one  But as SlowLarry mentions above. Its the cooling for the cpu I mean. A 9900k produces alot of heat. And you cant put a cheap, 15$ no name air cooler on it. It wont work.

Or more correctly. It will probbably work. But it will be thermal throttling, and the cpu will only be at its 3,6Ghz baseclock, all the time. With a good cooling solution, and unlocked Powerbudget on the mobo. It will be att max boost all the time needed. 5Ghz for < 2 cores, 4,8Ghz <4 cores 4,7Ghz all core boost. And more quiet.

Edited March 20, 2020 by Armorgunner

[com-intern]

@SlowLarry

Well I've been trying to find evidence of in-game FPS Improvements. Every video I've found shows loading time improvements but I haven't found a single one that shows that you get better performance once loaded in. In-game performance and loading times are things and so far it appears that an NVMe will let you load into the game two seconds or so faster, but it will not turn your 60 Frames Per Second into 65 Frames Per Second, for example.

If the NVMe gave you better performance you would see videos showing % increase in FPS but instead there are just videos of better loading times. Which for the high cost makes it essentially a waste of money.

 

[Erwin]

16 hours ago, com-intern said:

Erwin, out of curiosity what video card are you going with?

Almost certainly what you guys have recommended:  NVIDIA® GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER™ 8GB GDDR6-2560 CUDA Cores-HDMI 2.0b/DisplayPort 1.4-VirtualLink-Multi-monitor supp.

Costs a lot.  But, I don't want to have to upgrade for a couple of years at least.

For primary HD am thinking of getting the...

1TB Solid State Drive NVMe Samsung® 970 EVO Plus M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 3500/3300MB/s Seq.R/W Shock Resistant 1500G.

...as loading times are important to me and there seems to be agreement that it would enable faster loading.  But, maybe save a few $ and get the SATA SSD for 2nd HD.

Re the fast loading times being important, I could get the :  1TB Solid State Drive Samsung® 860 PRO 2.5 SATA 6Gb/s 560/530MB/s Seq.R/W up to 100K IOPS-MTBF 2M Hours- Shock Resistant 1500G. 

How come that has faster reading/writing speeds even though it's SATA?  

How much faster loading time would that provide do you think?  (Will these prices come down a lot in the next year?)

Re heat/cooling issues... My builders have been xnt for the 2 decades I have used em and am confident they will make sure everything coordinates appropriately.

[com-intern]

54 minutes ago, Erwin said:

How come that has faster reading/writing speeds even though it's SATA?  

I think you are misreading the numbers (or I am) the NVMe is writing/reading at 3.5/3.3 GBs while the SAATA SSD is in megabytes. The NVMe drive is several times faster than the SSD.
 

54 minutes ago, Erwin said:

How much faster loading time would that provide do you think?  (Will these prices come down a lot in the next year?)

From what I've seen the improvement is very small

For example in this set of tests the NVMe drive loads 1 second faster  in most instances. Often less than that.

The initial boot up took
NVMe: 11.6 seconds
SSD : 11.9 seconds

Load times:
Fallout 4
NVMe: 27.6 seconds
SSD: 28.5 seconds

Watch Dogs 2
NVMe: 16.0 seconds
SSD: 16.9 seconds

Kingdom Come Deliverance:
NVMe: 6.4
SSD: 6.7

I'm going to reiterate again that the NVMe drive does not have sufficient gains over an SSD in consumer application to make the large cost increase make sense. In this test we are looking at an average time savings of less than 1 second.

[Erwin]

Yes, I misread the numbers.  Too much going on.

You guys have been great in ensuring I get the system that I need for my purposes and timescale.  I don't know where I could get such fast feedback from folks who (I hope) know what they are talking about.  (On the other hand, if you have misled me, I will be sending "people" to visit with you.)

Current proposed system for final comments:

Xi® MTower™ PCIe Workstation (Base Configuration)

Intel® Core™ i9-9900KF 3.6/5.0GHz-1C Turbo Boost-Hi-Perf. Liquid Cooled Single Fan-16MB Shared L3 Cache DMI3 Eight-Core 9th Gen.14nm (Req. Z390 Motherboard)

32GB DDR4 SDRAM @ 3000MHz w/High Performance Aluminum Heat Spreader   (I HAVE TO CHECK THIS IS SPLIT INTO 2 x 16GB)

NVIDIA® GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER™ 8GB GDDR6-2560 CUDA Cores-HDMI 2.0b/DisplayPort 1.4-VirtualLink-Multi-monitor supp. Specific upgrades required. No DP/DVI Adapter included

1TB Solid State Drive NVMe Samsung® 970 EVO Plus M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 3500/3300MB/s Seq.R/W Shock Resistant 1500G.

2nd 1TB Solid State Drive NVMe Samsung® 970 EVO Plus M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 3500/3300MB/s Seq.R/W Shock Resistant 1500G.

On-Board SATA controller - accordingly to motherboard specifications

DVD+RW/DL/+R-R/CD-RW Double Media 4.7/8.5GB 18x Drive w/o SW

On-Board Ethernet LAN Port(s) accordingly to Motherboard specifications

Genuine Microsoft® Windows® 10 Professional 64-bit Fully installed, configured and updated, includes original DVD media and COA

Genuine Microsoft® Office Home and Business 2019 Edition PKC License Key Distribution included (Download & Installation is required by End User)

Google® Chrome® for Windows - The fast, free browser, that's built for the modern web.

Mozilla® Firefox® for Windows - A free web browser created by a global non-profit dedicated to putting individuals in control online.

Adobe® Acrobat Reader® for Windows - More powerful than other PDF software, Adobe Acrobat Reader DC is the free, trusted standard for viewing, printing, and annotating PDFs.

Microsoft® Windows Defender Antivirus – A built-in antivirus helps guard your PC against viruses, malware, and other malicious software and downloads (Included with Windows 10 by default)  (I USE AVG AND SPYBOT...  YOU GUYS THINK THE MS ANTIVIRUS IS NOW AS GOOD, OR STICK WITH AVG AND SPYBOT??)

NVIDIA® GeForce® Experience for GeForce GPU and Windows only – Available only if a GeForce video card is present in the selected computer.

MSI® MPG Z390 GAMING PLUS Intel® Z390 Chipset for 9th Gen CPU-2xPCIe 3.0 x16(x16/x4)-4xPCIe 3.0 x1-DDR4 to 64GB RAM-1xGbE LAN-2xM.2 Slots-6xSATA 6Gb/s RAID 0/1/5/10-HD Audio-2xUSB 3.1-6xUSB 3.x/2.0-DVI-HDMI-ATX M/B

850W Gold Certified 80 Plus Corsair® RM850x Fully-Modular 135mm Thermal control Fan ATX12V/EPS12V 90% efficiency Active PFC PSU

Xi® MTower™ CM-MasterBox NR600 with ODD Tempered Glass Side Panel-2x12cm Fans-Front Grid-2xFront USB 3.0-Audio out-1x5.25" 2x2.5" 1x3.5" Drives-ATX M/B(Dual Fan Radiator for O.C)-Dim.(DxWxH):18.60"x8.20"x18.80" (HDD cage will be removed to fit longer PSU)

NEMA 5-15P to C13 Wall Plug, 125 Volt, 5 Feet. Standard Computer AC US Power Cord or other major countries standard Power Cord (AU/CH/DE/FR/IT/NZ/UK)

[com-intern]

16 minutes ago, Erwin said:

Microsoft® Windows Defender Antivirus – A built-in antivirus helps guard your PC against viruses, malware, and other malicious software and downloads (Included with Windows 10 by default)  (I USE AVG AND SPYBOT...  YOU GUYS THINK THE MS ANTIVIRUS IS NOW AS GOOD, OR STICK WITH AVG AND SPYBOT??)

I only use Windows Defender Antivirus and have not had any issues in years.

 

 

16 minutes ago, Erwin said:

1TB Solid State Drive NVMe Samsung® 970 EVO Plus M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 3500/3300MB/s Seq.R/W Shock Resistant 1500G.

2nd 1TB Solid State Drive NVMe Samsung® 970 EVO Plus M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 3500/3300MB/s Seq.R/W Shock Resistant 1500G.

Again I would go with the Samsung 860 EVO. You are spending (at least in my area) an additional $200 for what appears to be at best 1-2 second faster load times and no in-game performance benefits.

 

16 minutes ago, Erwin said:

32GB DDR4 SDRAM @ 3000MHz w/High Performance Aluminum Heat Spreader   (I HAVE TO CHECK THIS IS SPLIT INTO 2 x 16GB)

Yea, having 2 sticks is preferable. One of the weird side benefits to having multiple sticks is if one fails you can remove it and still have an operational computer until you are able to get a replacement. Whereas a single stick gives you a single point of failure.


------

Overall I like your build a lot but again would go with the standard SATA SSDs. I also suspect you will have difficulties at 4k because we don't really have the hardware available to push 4k super well right now. In the next 2-3 years that will likely change. You are absolutely set at for 1440p though.

Edited March 20, 2020 by com-intern
add

[Erwin]

Considering the overall system cost the price difference between NVMe and SATA SSD's is not great.  I thought abut getting NVMe for primary and SATA for the 2nd but again it would be saving little.

I understand your point that load times may only be a second or two faster.  It would be sometimes useful to have fast transfer of data between them (eg backup) and that seems to be the main advantage.  All I know is that I have never regretted going after the fastest speed (without spending many hundreds or thousands more of course).

Also, am thinking maybe this may be useful in a few years.  Although I understand I could upgrade at that time, it's still a PITA for me to upgrade and I generally pay an IT guy to do upgrades anyway, so an additional cost is still there.

But then I watch your video and it does seem convincing that NVMe is a waste of money re loading speeds.  I'll ask around to see if there are mitigating factors that may have made the NVMe look bad.

 

Edited March 20, 2020 by Erwin

[Erwin]

You know what... I checked again with some other good IT folks and I now agree with you.  The NVMe is a waste of money regardless of how little extra it may cost.  Thanks for alerting me to that.

So assuming I get SATA SSD's, any other comments/critiques on the system above?