New Ryzen workstation build

Zardoz · 26-07-2019 4:53pm #1

I'm building a new PC at the moment and trying to decide on the CPU.

The current PC I use is an Fx8300 Cpu ,with an ASRock 960GM-GS3 FX and 16GB of 1866 Mhz DDR3 Ram.
The problem is that the motherboard wont recognise more than 8GB due to a design issue .
This machine has been using 85-95% Ram at times lately under load whilst the CPU load rarely gets high .

So I'd like to upgrade to the Ryzen platform.

I have an MSI X370 Gaming Plus motherboard that I bought last year but never got around to using and 32GB of Ballistix 3000Mhz Ram already bought .
I have a few spare SSD's as well ,a DVD-RW drive and hard drives so I'm looking at a CPU ,a graphics card ,a case and a PSU.

I'm trying to decide between the 2700x and the 3700x .

Screen wise I currently have 2 24 inch 1080p LG IPS screens and I got a 32 inch AOC IPS QHD screen recently that I use on my second PC which is a Ryzen 1700x.

I was considering a 4k monitor as I've been suffering eyestrain and I sit close to the screen so the extra dpi could be of use.

I will not be gaming on this machine ,it will mostly be used for work .

Budget is unlimited but there is no point spending money on resources I wont use .
I also want the machine to be relatively quiet.

So I was thinking

CPU:Ryzen 2700X or 3700X but unsure if X370 will handle the newer Ryzen and I need a stable platform from day one,I dont have time to be messing around .
Case:Corsair Carbide Series 100R Silent Mid-Tower ATX Computer Case
PSU: BE QUIET 500 W System Power 9 Power Supply
GPU: Radeon RX 570 4G

Ive noticed that there seems to be a huge difference in the Cpu Benchmark score for the 3700X and the 2700X.
3700x = 23896 ,the 2700x gets 16969 so the 3000 series seems like a huge jump in processing power.
Even the 3600X has a score of 20575 which is more than the 2700X despite it only having 6 cores.

Any advice is appreciated.
Cheers

BloodBath · 26-07-2019 4:58pm

What work are you doing?

Eye strain can often be from a strobing back-light on the monitor and/or high blue levels rather than dpi. A good monitor will fix both of those problems.

4k has nice screen real estate but some software doesn't scale nicely with it and could end up causing even more eye strain because of tiny icons.

satguy · 26-07-2019 5:04pm

If you have an MSI X370 Gaming Plus motherboard, it is PCIe 3, so you won't really benefit if you buy the 3700X

The 1700 and the 2700 are great value at the moment, pick one of them,, and just add a nice GPU and case,
Maybe look at the Radeon RX 590 ,, It's a nice mid range card,

Zardoz · 26-07-2019 5:52pm

BloodBath wrote: »

What work are you doing?

Eye strain can often be from a strobing back-light on the monitor and/or high blue levels rather than dpi. A good monitor will fix both of those problems.

4k has nice screen real estate but some software doesn't scale nicely with it and could end up causing even more eye strain because of tiny icons.

Engineering and programming is my field of work .

Nothing too processor intensive but I could have alot of stuff open at once.
A compiler,emulator,Paintshop Pro,PDF editor,multiple browsers ,lots and lots of tabs ,multiple excel files ,multiple word files,flash content .
I favour a scattergun approach so I could have loads of stuff open simultaneously .
I might be using Virtual machines down the line .

I like a warm picture setting on the monitors with high gamma settings so I don't think the blue levels are an issue.
It could just be working too long hours without a break perhaps as I work from home most of the time.

I have the 32 inch QHD scaled to 100% but switch to 125% for some applications.
The scaling can be a factor on certain programs like Paintshop when I try to select an area with the mouse .
I'd like the extra real estate as I like working with two 24 inch screens currently .
An ultrawide might work better than a 4k but the ultrawides seem to have a similar ppi to QHD .

I dont think I need a high end GPU to drive a 4k for non gaming purposes.

If you have an MSI X370 Gaming Plus motherboard, it is PCIe 3, so you won't really benefit if you buy the 3700X

The 1700 and the 2700 are great value at the moment, pick one of them,, and just add a nice GPU and case,
Maybe look at the Radeon RX 590 ,, It's a nice mid range card,

I see ,I wasnt aware of the PCIe 4 .
I could sell the X370 I guess ,its still brand new in the box .

The 2700 is currently £169 on Amazon ,the 3700X is £299.

satguy · 26-07-2019 6:07pm

Zardoz wrote: »

I see ,I wasnt aware of the PCIe 4 .
I could sell the X370 I guess ,its still brand new in the box .

The 2700 is currently £169 on Amazon ,the 3700X is £299.

If you not gaming PCIe 3 is fine. Even with the 1700 or 2700 for work would still be a great system.

Only the very latest GPU's from AMD are PCIe Gen 4

K.O.Kiki · 27-07-2019 12:08pm

The motherboard is good.

I'd say, go 2700/2700x with a big Noctua or Scythe cooler (NH-U12S, NH-U14S, Mugen 5)
Then when 3000 series is more stable, consider upgrading.

Pair with 32Gb fast RAM and a good (MLC/TLC) 2Tb SSD.
Put into a be quiet or Fractal R5/R6 case.

TerrorFirmer · 27-07-2019 1:30pm

satguy wrote: »

If you not gaming PCIe 3 is fine. Even with the 1700 or 2700 for work would still be a great system.

Only the very latest GPU's from AMD are PCIe Gen 4

Doesn't matter much of a damn if you're gaming either. The increased bandwidth only matters for storage purposes. The 5700XT doesn't benefit from it.

The X370 is perfectly fine also. Not sure where the statement there's no benefit to using a 3700X is coming from?

Just make sure there's a bios update available from MSI for that model. The real problem here is that unless the board has flashback, you'll need a Ryzen 1x or 2x CPU to update the bios.

I'd probably spring for a 2700 given your uses and the fact that a) it'll work straight out of the box and b) is great value now.

Zardoz · 27-07-2019 5:56pm

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

The motherboard is good.

I'd say, go 2700/2700x with a big Noctua or Scythe cooler (NH-U12S, NH-U14S, Mugen 5)
Then when 3000 series is more stable, consider upgrading.

Pair with 32Gb fast RAM and a good (MLC/TLC) 2Tb SSD.
Put into a be quiet or Fractal R5/R6 case.

Thanks K.O.Kiki ,that sounds good.

I was looking at the Be Quiet Silent Base or Pure Base ,reviews would indicate its a bit plasticky though ?

I have 32GB of Ballistix Sport LT 3000Mhz I bought recently ,2x 16GB sticks.

Would a 2TB SSD be a bit over the top ?
I usually run a 240GB SSD to load the OS and programs ,and store files,and lesser used files on the HDD.
I have a few of these Kingston SSD A400 Solid State Drive (2.5 Inch SATA 3), 480 GB.

The X370 is perfectly fine also. Not sure where the statement there's no benefit to using a 3700X is coming from?

Just make sure there's a bios update available from MSI for that model. The real problem here is that unless the board has flashback, you'll need a Ryzen 1x or 2x CPU to update the bios.

I'd probably spring for a 2700 given your uses and the fact that a) it'll work straight out of the box and b) is great value now.

Thats good to hear that the X370 is fine.

There is a beta bios available for the Ryzen 3000 series ,it has a cut down Bios though.
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/X370-GAMING-PLUS

I would need to put my Ryzen 1700X in the X370 to update the bios to support the 3700X ?
What about the 2700 ?
The X370 Gaming Plus doesnt have FlashBack .

TerrorFirmer · 27-07-2019 6:04pm

Sorry, missed the part that you already have a 1700X. Yes, you could use that to flash the bios.

The 2700 should work on the X370 out of the box, unless you bought it before Ryzen 2x CPU's were a thing. In that case, you'd still need to flash a newer bios with the 1700X.

So if you bought 2 motherboards when you got the 1700X for example, it may need an update yes.

Zardoz · 27-07-2019 6:42pm

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Sorry, missed the part that you already have a 1700X. Yes, you could use that to flash the bios.

The 2700 should work on the X370 out of the box, unless you bought it before Ryzen 2x CPU's were a thing. In that case, you'd still need to flash a newer bios with the 1700X.

So if you bought 2 motherboards when you got the 1700X for example, it may need an update yes.

Thanks TerrorFirmer.

I bought the X370 at the end of October last year from Amazon so it should be up to date for the 2700.

Any recommendations on a decent graphics card if I want to run a 4k monitor ,I wont be gaming .
RX590 like satguy says ?

K.O.Kiki · 27-07-2019 11:51pm

Zardoz wrote: »

Thanks TerrorFirmer.

I bought the X370 at the end of October last year from Amazon so it should be up to date for the 2700.

Any recommendations on a decent graphics card if I want to run a 4k monitor ,I wont be gaming .
RX590 like satguy says ?

Literally anything over €40 can run 2D Windows desktop

Cuddlesworth · 28-07-2019 11:46am

So you have a FX8300 system and your main issue is the limited 8 gigs of ram, which is understandable.
You don't game.
You already have a AM4 board and 32 gigs of ram.

Why not pick up a 2400G/3400G and do a board swap in the current case?

You already state that your not cpu limited in any way, a modern 4 core 8 thread CPU is a significant upgrade to the bulldozer chips.
No need to waste money on a graphics card, the IGPU will happily run two screens of any size if gaming is not on the table.
It comes with a decent stock cooler.
If your current PSU powered a FX chip, it will power the new board without issue.

It just kind seems like buying a 6 or 8 core chip with a graphics card is a waste of money and I only say this because you will need to pick up a GFX card and the low end ones are very overpriced for what they are.

Also, I work from home and have dealt with eye strain. There are things you can do, some form of screen back-lighting can help in the evenings can help, I would assume on the gaming system. But the main thing is getting away from the computer for small breaks, to allow your eyes and eye muscles to not have to focus at a specific point, at a specific distance for hours on end.

Zardoz · 28-07-2019 7:39pm

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

So you have a FX8300 system and your main issue is the limited 8 gigs of ram, which is understandable.
You don't game.
You already have a AM4 board and 32 gigs of ram.

Why not pick up a 2400G/3400G and do a board swap in the current case?

You already state that your not cpu limited in any way, a modern 4 core 8 thread CPU is a significant upgrade to the bulldozer chips.
No need to waste money on a graphics card, the IGPU will happily run two screens of any size if gaming is not on the table.
It comes with a decent stock cooler.
If your current PSU powered a FX chip, it will power the new board without issue.

It just kind seems like buying a 6 or 8 core chip with a graphics card is a waste of money and I only say this because you will need to pick up a GFX card and the low end ones are very overpriced for what they are.

Thanks ,thats definitely food for thought and great information.

The 2400 or 3400G that doesnt seem much of an improvement over the Fx8300 ?
I'd like to future proof myself .

The case I have is kind of old ,the PSU is an AOpen FSP550-60pln ,its 550W but it doesnt have alot of the newer connections on it ,I could get adapters though .
Its a bit noisy though ,that could be down to the FX8300 too I suppose.
But it powers the current system perfectly ,its very stable .
I was a bit worried about using the FX8300 on the Asrock motherboard as the VRMs on it are supposed to be poor but I've have no issues.
I'd like something silent though.

Also, I work from home and have dealt with eye strain. There are things you can do, some form of screen back-lighting can help in the evenings can help, I would assume on the gaming system. But the main thing is getting away from the computer for small breaks, to allow your eyes and eye muscles to not have to focus at a specific point, at a specific distance for hours on end.

Thanks ,I definitely need to take more breaks .
Think I need to get better lighting in my home office too ,the current bulbs arent great.

Cuddlesworth · 28-07-2019 8:35pm

Zardoz wrote: »

Thanks ,thats definitely food for thought and great information.

The 2400 or 3400G that doesnt seem much of an improvement over the Fx8300 ?
I'd like to future proof myself .

The case I have is kind of old ,the PSU is an AOpen FSP550-60pln ,its 550W but it doesnt have alot of the newer connections on it ,I could get adapters though .
Its a bit noisy though ,that could be down to the FX8300 too I suppose.
But it powers the current system perfectly ,its very stable .
I was a bit worried about using the FX8300 on the Asrock motherboard as the VRMs on it are supposed to be poor but I've have no issues.
I'd like something silent though.

Two things.

The whole internet thing about VRM's is a real load of crap. If your not into some serious overclocking(like sub ambient) or you bought some dodgy Chinese no name brand board, VRM's are not a "consideration". Boards from main brands are built to meet a spec based on the socket. VRM consideration was a factor when considering extreme overclocking and bled into the mainstream because they couldn't find any other way to continue to differentiate boards into some sort of tiered scoring system. Basically, its the only thing left to compare(they all pretty much have the same ports and features within a chipset) but its not really important.

Second thing, future proofing is weird now. I'm going to reference the below in terms of day to day machines, web browsing, general work apps. Basically when you take out things like gaming, rendering, huge compiles of massive projects, running a crap ton of local VM's(always ram limited, always) etc.

Your current cpu was released in later 2012, lets say roughly 6 years ago and it was high end. It's kinda 4 core 8 thread cpu And its going fine for a general work machine that doesn't have a real "use case" for tons of cpu horse power. Outside of gaming right now, its still pretty decent.

Roughly 6 years before that cpu, your in the core2duo phase of the Internets where quad cores came in. Those baby's only really started to show their age in recent years where they struggle a little with the expectations of stuff like video decoding(1080p youtube videos for example). By the time your cpu came out, these procs were still pretty decent. Machines with those procs and a good bit of ram are still usable now.

6 years before that, your in the late Pentium 3/early Pentium 4 era. When the core2duo procs were released, it was like night and day. Those things were ancient and struggling to keep up.

You could keep making jumps like that, the 6 years cycles where leaps and bounds ahead of the others in terms of day to day horse power.

The current Ryzen and Intel procs are beasts. And yet my other half rocks away every day doing graphic design and web coding with a dual core Intel in a 2013 macbook pro with 16 gigs of ram because processor lifespan has become significantly extended outside of specific use cases. A 4 core 8 thread Ryzen will be a decent proc in 6 years time unless you have a good use for it.

Rant over, basically if you have the money and you want to the grunt pick up a 6 or 8 core and enjoy. But from what you have said, they are not going to "rock your world" and with the needed graphics card, it can be a fair chunk of change extra for cores you are probably never going to use.

Zardoz wrote: »

Thanks ,I definitely need to take more breaks .
Think I need to get better lighting in my home office too ,the current bulbs arent great.

Not exactly what was talking about, so I went and googled it. Its called Bias lighting and its essentially putting a source of light behind your monitor in the evenings.

TerrorFirmer · 28-07-2019 10:35pm

I agree with the above (especially about the VRM part, I'm constantly baffled to see people recommending that people avoid certain chipsets as if they're diseased and will lead to inevitable meltdown - H310M, A320M, cheap B450M, etc, for example).

To answer your question about the 2400/3400G....the FX-8300 came out at a time when AMD was hedging bets that core count would trump per-core power. It didn't work out. FX processors are still OK in productivity tasks, but horrible in cases which demand high load from one or two cores.

That is where Ryzen is a massive improvement - the performance per core is light years ahead of the FX line of CPUs. They come in different configurations of cores/threads, but even the slowest Ryzen is broadly better than any FX processor.

However, if your FX wasn't limiting you to 8GB ram, it would likely still be perfectly good for what you're doing. It's not a bad CPU for general use at all, gets a terrible rap for the horrible gaming performance.

I'd still say you might as well get something like a Ryzen 2700 given how cheap they are now. You can pick up a 2nd hand display card for next to nothing online if needs be, though you can get something new for £30 that'd drive two displays fine.

K.O.Kiki · 28-07-2019 11:28pm

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 2700 3.2 GHz 8-Core Processor (£169.97 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Scythe Kotetsu Mark II 51.17 CFM CPU Cooler (£41.69 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Motherboard: MSI X370 GAMING PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard (Purchased For £0.00)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (Purchased For £0.00)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon RX 550 - 512 2 GB Red Dragon Video Card (£79.55)
Case: be quiet! Silent Base 600 ATX Mid Tower Case (£81.15 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: be quiet! Pure Power 11 CM 400 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply (£54.32 @ CCL Computers)
Optical Drive: Sony 5280S-CB-PLUS DVD/CD Writer (Purchased For £0.00)
Total: £426.68
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-07-28 23:28 BST+0100

Should be practically inaudible.

Zardoz · 28-07-2019 11:40pm

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Two things.

The whole internet thing about VRM's is a real load of crap. If your not into some serious overclocking(like sub ambient) or you bought some dodgy Chinese no name brand board, VRM's are not a "consideration". Boards from main brands are built to meet a spec based on the socket. VRM consideration was a factor when considering extreme overclocking and bled into the mainstream because they couldn't find any other way to continue to differentiate boards into some sort of tiered scoring system. Basically, its the only thing left to compare(they all pretty much have the same ports and features within a chipset) but its not really important.

Second thing, future proofing is weird now. I'm going to reference the below in terms of day to day machines, web browsing, general work apps. Basically when you take out things like gaming, rendering, huge compiles of massive projects, running a crap ton of local VM's(always ram limited, always) etc.

Your current cpu was released in later 2012, lets say roughly 6 years ago and it was high end. It's kinda 4 core 8 thread cpu And its going fine for a general work machine that doesn't have a real "use case" for tons of cpu horse power. Outside of gaming right now, its still pretty decent.

Roughly 6 years before that cpu, your in the core2duo phase of the Internets where quad cores came in. Those baby's only really started to show their age in recent years where they struggle a little with the expectations of stuff like video decoding(1080p youtube videos for example). By the time your cpu came out, these procs were still pretty decent. Machines with those procs and a good bit of ram are still usable now.

6 years before that, your in the late Pentium 3/early Pentium 4 era. When the core2duo procs were released, it was like night and day. Those things were ancient and struggling to keep up.

You could keep making jumps like that, the 6 years cycles where leaps and bounds ahead of the others in terms of day to day horse power.

The current Ryzen and Intel procs are beasts. And yet my other half rocks away every day doing graphic design and web coding with a dual core Intel in a 2013 macbook pro with 16 gigs of ram because processor lifespan has become significantly extended outside of specific use cases. A 4 core 8 thread Ryzen will be a decent proc in 6 years time unless you have a good use for it.

Rant over, basically if you have the money and you want to the grunt pick up a 6 or 8 core and enjoy. But from what you have said, they are not going to "rock your world" and with the needed graphics card, it can be a fair chunk of change extra for cores you are probably never going to use.

Not exactly what was talking about, so I went and googled it. Its called Bias lighting and its essentially putting a source of light behind your monitor in the evenings.

Thanks Cuddlesworth ,I appreciate your honesty and I can see where you are coming from.

The current PC I use for work ,is over 6 and a half years old ,it started out with an AMD Athlon II X2 270 ,4GB of ram and a Radeon 4650 .
Over the years a SSD was added ,extra hard drives ,the Ram was doubled and finally the CPU was upgraded to the Fx8300.
I still run Win 7 and the PC has served me well in that time ,I cant remember the last time I had a blue screen or freezeup.

But for the motherboard not addressing 16GB of Ram I'd keep it .
I guess I could get a replacement motherboard but that would probably mean a fresh install .

I used to do a bit of gaming years ago but I don't have the time or patience for gaming anymore .My attention span is pretty short I'm afraid.:(

I've loads of laptops ,one is a Core2Duo thats almost 10 years old ,a Chromebook , a Lenovo Yoga 300-11iby I picked up for £100 new , and a few others so I'm not a person who goes with cutting edge technology or feels the need to upgrade every year .
Im a big believer in bang per buck.
I've rarely spent big money on hardware because I haven't needed to .
I use SSD's in all my machines ,thats a huge performance boost in itself and sufficient Ram.
I bought a HUAWEI MateBook D 15.6 a few weeks ago to replace the Core2Duo as it is getting a bit unreliable.

A new Ryzen machine was kind of a treat for me ,it wouldn't have cost me much .

X370 Motherboard : Got on Amazon for £70
32 GB of Ram : Bought on Amazon.DE for 120 euro recently
Ryzen 2700:£170 on Amazon at the moment
Case:£75 on Amazon - Be Quiet SILENT BASE 600
PSU:£50

In the larger scheme of things its very little outlay for a good machine.

Its reassuring to read that the FX8300 is still a good processor though.
It gets a fairly bad rap but its served me well .

Not exactly what was talking about, so I went and googled it. Its called Bias lighting and its essentially putting a source of light behind your monitor in the evenings.
Cuddlesworth is online now Report Post

I must read up on this,thanks

Cuddlesworth · 29-07-2019 9:09am

One last thing, if you have a Amd 4650 int he PC already, what about picking up a 3600? Upgrade the bios in the gaming system then put in the 3600 for a decent gaming uplift. Drop the 1700 into the workstation.

Zardoz · 29-07-2019 2:41pm

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

One last thing, if you have a Amd 4650 int he PC already, what about picking up a 3600? Upgrade the bios in the gaming system then put in the 3600 for a decent gaming uplift. Drop the 1700 into the workstation.

Thats not a bad idea.
The 1700x machine isnt a gaming machine though,its primarily used for running heavy simulations .
But I could take the 1700x out of that and put it in the workstation and put something more powerful in that machine .

Star Lord · 29-07-2019 3:02pm

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Why not pick up a 2400G/3400G and do a board swap in the current case?

Worth pointing out again that it's worth getting one of the G chips if you aren't getting a dedicated video card. Most of the Ryzen chips don't have graphic capabilities, so onboard graphics on the motherboard simply will not work!

Otherwise, grab any cheap-ish graphics card (€50-80) and it should be able to do everything you need from it.

K.O.Kiki · 29-07-2019 3:05pm

None of the Ryzen APUs go above 4core/8threads though.

Zardoz · 19-09-2019 5:59pm

Just to update on this I've bought most of the components.

Be Quiet SILENT BASE 600 Computer Case
BE QUIET 500 W System Power 11 Power Supply Unit
Ryzen 2700x with Wraith Prism Cooler

Will pair these with the MSI X370 Gaming Plus motherboard and 32Gb of Ballistix Sport 3000Mhz ram.
I will use the Radeon 4650 as GPU until I decide on something better .

Had contemplated getting the Ryzen 3700x but was fearful of stability issues with the motherboard and bios and dont want to be spending time debugging issues.

Zardoz · 16-02-2020 1:26am

I finally got around to putting all of the stuff together last weekend ,progress was at a snail pace.
I added a Radeon Rx580 8GB graphics card and a Sabrent 512GB Rocket NVMe SSD to round things off.

I had issues getting the machine to boot ,it was powering on but didn't seem to be booting up.
After a bit of time it booted and I could access the Bios.
The CPU fan isnt coming on at all though.
The LED lights on the Wraith Prism cooler are on but the fan wont kick in.

I connected a case fan to the CPU_Fan connector and it powers the fan so the connector is good.

I tried connecting the CPU fan to the System_Fan connector ,the fan wont spin.

I updated the Bios to a newer version and tried messing with the PWM and DC setting but the fan wont spin.

The PC will boot into Windows but I obviously cant run it for long as the temperature of the CPU will rise .

It looks like the fan is faulty .
Its under warranty obviously but its probably just easier to buy a new cooler I'm thinking ?

K.O.Kiki · 16-02-2020 9:29pm

Pictures.
Please.

Zardoz · 07-05-2020 10:13pm

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Pictures.
Please.

Sorry ,I didn't get around to uploading them .
I ordered a new heatsink ,the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO and it worked perfectly.
The fan on the Wraith Prism was obviously faulty.

The PC is working away well now ,its definitely a big step up from the FX8300 and the 8GB of Ram.
Its flying along ,smooth as butter and very quiet .

New Ryzen workstation build

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