Question Zen 4 builders thread

[Markfw]

I know its early, but as someone pointed out, I better get my ram now before the scalpers are all over it.

To go with a 7950x, what do you think of this ram:

https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-32gb-288-pin-ddr5-sdram/p/N82E16820374369?Item=N82E16820374369

(edited for my best recommendation, 12/5/2023)

 

[pakotlar]

I have several x570 boards and NO usb issues. I have it with one x470, but not with 570. You don't need to spend $400 on a good AM4 board, and I doubt that you will have to spend that on an X670 either.

I had USB issues, but they werent so annoying (mostly sluggish mouse in bios), and were resolved by an Agesa driver a few months later. Nbd.

 

[Dave3000]

I have several x570 boards and NO usb issues. I have it with one x470, but not with 570. You don't need to spend $400 on a good AM4 board, and I doubt that you will have to spend that on an X670 either.

I think I will go X670 next build even if it has some features I won't use. At the time I purchased my B550 motherboard, the only X570 motherboard available that did not have a southbridge chipset fan was the Asus Dark Hero X570.

 

[Det0x]

Found my next AM5 motherboard

X670E Version of Asus Apex Motherboard PCB Diagram Leaked



Finally a APEX AMD motherboard

 

[CakeMonster]

Apex is probably way outside what I'm willing to pay, but if 2 DIMM slots make them OC better, its a shame that all mid range cards have 4.

 

[burninatortech4]

Going to wait until Zen 5. I'll be eagerly awaiting all of your impressions of Zen 4!

 

[Joe NYC]

I am going to wait just a bit, for:
- 7800x3d
- Navi31 / Navi32 (depending on prices)

Hopefully, both will be out before Christmas.

 

[Hotrod2go]

Got some DDR5 ready to go & scored them new for same price as DDR4 kit with equivalent capacity, matter of being in right place at right time I guess.
However not upgrading anything until I see a performance problem with a game that I actually desire to play. At the moment I'm maxing out everything on my monitor so no need for anything yet, but I'll be watching the reviews of both Raptor lake & AM5.

 

[Timmah!]

Ok, so i made preliminary excel sheet with all the components i want, pretty much complete rig, including case, psu, aio, etc… price for cpu, mobo and gpus i only guessed based on what comparable products were in previous gen. Bottom line, its 6200 euros without VAT…. Ouch. Kill me now.

 

[igor_kavinski]

6200 euros

Curious to see the specs.

 

[Timmah!]

Curious to see the specs.

7950x(3D), mobo for cca 500, 2x 4090 (assuming 1500 price for each), 2x 32 gb kits of gskill 6000 cl36 ram, 2x 1TB m2 (still pcie 4 though, will be probably even more expensive if pcie 5), 2TB sata ssd, 6TB WD hdd, 1600w seasonic prime platinum, arctic freezer ii 420, fractal design 7 xl case.

luckily, i talked to my colleague/boss, and we agreed that he will pay like half of it. And i will sell my current rig, almost entirely, bar some disks i want to keep, including 3090 and 2080ti… hopefully, that will fetch at least 1500 return, all around. and maybe i will eventually stick to just 32gb ram and single m2, so there is a some space to cut the costs.

bottom line though, i got a rig with i7 980x, 12gb ram, gigabyte ud7 board, 2x intel ssds and gtx 590 back in 2010/11. And it was like 3000 overall and there wasnt really anything better i could get. Another 590 maybe. Meanwhile, there is bunch of threadrippers, those expensive wrx80 boards, 4tb m2s, 16TB hdds… even if its better than what 95 percent of people have, this is nowhere near the top money can get you, and its still 2x as expensive As back then. i dont Think the inflation is the single culprit here.

 

[igor_kavinski]

2x 4090

That's half of the total projected cost. If you really need two of those, you gotta pay. No way around that. Regarding DDR5-6000, are you sure you wanna go with that? 7950X will need as much bandwidth as possible for MT workloads and by year end, you might be able to get a good 6600 or 6800 MT/s kit. Who knows? We might even see a 7000 MT/s kit before this year is over.

 

[Tuna-Fish]

7950X will need as much bandwidth as possible for MT workloads and by year end, you might be able to get a good 6600 or 6800 MT/s kit. Who knows? We might even see a 7000 MT/s kit before this year is over.

The rumor is that Zen 4 does best at 1:1, 6000MHz, and lowest possible latencies.

That's totally unconfirmed rumors so far, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[Timmah!]

That's half of the total projected cost. If you really need two of those, you gotta pay. No way around that. Regarding DDR5-6000, are you sure you wanna go with that? 7950X will need as much bandwidth as possible for MT workloads and by year end, you might be able to get a good 6600 or 6800 MT/s kit. Who knows? We might even see a 7000 MT/s kit before this year is over.

Well yeah, those GPUs are non-negotiable, they are the key component, i would want to get those even if i was not looking to build completely new rig. But there is still an option, that i will keep the 3090 and get only single 4090. And maybe replace that 3090 with 4090Ti/Titan Lovelace down the road.
Having non-matched cards on a new build kinda hurts my OCD :-D, so i would prefer to go 2x4090 now.

Anyway, its still rather unfortunate, when you compare the price "you gotta pay" for them with the price of that gtx590, which similarly boasted 2 top chips of that generation back then. By this rate 10 years from now getting top-of line rig will move into the same category as the likes of Ferrari.

On topic of RAM, we shall see what will be available later this year. That GSkill kit was what i would get if i was buying now, given the price/performance. And based on todays news, 6000Mhz should be actually be the sweet spot. I would prefer to have 64GB of 6000Mhz over 32GB of faster RAM.
It would still be 2x as fast than my current 3000MHz DDR4.

 

[samboy]

Going to wait until Zen 5. I'll be eagerly awaiting all of your impressions of Zen 4!

I think I'll be in the same boat and stick with the 5950x for now........ as long as I do not succumb to the upgrade temptation! Hold out for the new architecture (Zen 5) and let the AM5 platform mature a bit is the current strategy; subject to change if Zen 4 exceeds my expectations.

 

[burninatortech4]

I think I'll be in the same boat and stick with the 5950x for now........ as long as I do not succumb to the upgrade temptation! Hold out for the new architecture (Zen 5) and let the AM5 platform mature a bit is the current strategy; subject to change if Zen 4 exceeds my expectations.

It's not so much that I don't think Zen 4 will be an upgrade over Zen 3. I want to give AM5 and DDR5 latency time to mature. Even if Zen 4 exceeds expectations (I hope it does - Intel needs a fire under their butt) I'll still skip it for the above reasons.

 

[Markfw]

It's not so much that I don't think Zen 4 will be an upgrade over Zen 3. I want to give AM5 and DDR5 latency time to mature. Even if Zen 4 exceeds expectations (I hope it does - Intel needs a fire under their butt) I'll still skip it for the above reasons.

But there are those of us who just have to have the latest, to try it out for ourselves. Mind you my 6 5950x's and 3950x are great for what I do, and I expect them to keep doing to. But I have to see how much better the 7950x does at what I do. (DC work). Yes, its a sickness.... Or a great hobby.

 

[Makaveli]

It's not so much that I don't think Zen 4 will be an upgrade over Zen 3. I want to give AM5 and DDR5 latency time to mature. Even if Zen 4 exceeds expectations (I hope it does - Intel needs a fire under their butt) I'll still skip it for the above reasons.

Think i'm in the same boat holding out for the Zen 4 refresh or Zen 5 in 2024.

I may however go up to RDNA 3 in the mean time we shall see.

 

[Joe NYC]

Think i'm in the same boat holding out for the Zen 4 refresh or Zen 5 in 2024.

I may however go up to RDNA 3 in the meantime we shall see.

I think 7800x3d will be a very compelling upgrade for gamers.

If it runs at full speed of non-V-cache models, that will mean 20% to 25+% increase in boost clock over 5800x3d + the modest increase from Zen3 to Zen4 IPC increase.

So, if 5800x3d is already tied or leading Alder Lake, 7800x3d will be able to leap ahead both of them, to almost be in a different league in gaming.

 

[Vattila]

As part of a larger home-office update, I intend to replace my 16-core "Zen 3" Ryzen 9 5950X by "Zen 4" 7950X — or better yet, 7950X3D with V-Cache, if this model comes to market and makes little to no compromise on clock speed (as software compilation performance is my priority). And if the AMD share price keeps rising, and I feel like it, I may upgrade to "Zen 5", as well. I am intrigued by AMD Corporate Fellow and CPU Design Manager Mike Clark's enthusiastic comments about it in his interview with Ian Cutress, and I look forward to the innovations it has in store for us.

 

[Joe NYC]

As part of a larger home-office update, I intend to replace my 16-core "Zen 3" Ryzen 9 5950X by "Zen 4" 7950X — or better yet, 7950X3D with V-Cache, if this model comes to market and makes little to no compromise on clock speed (as software compilation performance is my priority). And if the AMD share price keeps rising, and I feel like it, I may upgrade to "Zen 5", as well. I am intrigued by AMD Corporate Fellow and CPU Design Manager Mike Clark's enthusiastic comments about it in his interview with Ian Cutress, and I look forward to the innovations it has in store for us.

If there is a 7950x3d, it will be interesting to see to what extent the games, even single thread games, can take advantage of the V-Cache in the 2nd chiplet.

It seems that the entire benefit of 5900x and 5950x over 5800x in gaming was the 2nd L3 cache in the other chiplet, rarely any benefit from the extra cores. The 5900x vs 5800x3d gaming benchmarks mostly confirmed it.

So, in case of 7950x3d, it would be extra 96MB of L3 to take advantage of... I can't wait to see some well-constructed benchmarking...

 

[CakeMonster]

That's interesting, I've mostly seen the opposite argument about less gains for V-Cache on the 2x CCX CPU's. I admit I don't have the knowledge to judge what is more credible.

 

[Joe NYC]

That's interesting, I've mostly seen the opposite argument about less gains for V-Cache on the 2x CCX CPU's. I admit I don't have the knowledge to judge what is more credible.

The original Zen 3 benchmarks showed 5900x and 5950x slightly ahead of 5800x. The explanation was that perhaps, some of those games are still benefiting from the extra threads (even though most of the game developers say these are very much diminishing returns from the extra threads).

Then, AMD showed this slide as part of 5800x3d launch, which demonstrated that the benefit of 5900x over 5800x was not from the extra threads but from the extra 32 MB L3.

Extending it to Zen 4, if there is 7950x3d, the games will still get some benefit from extra L3 on 2nd chiplet, but again, likely a small benefit.

But the biggest jump in gaming performance will be from 7700x (8 core) to 7800x3d (+ V-cache).

 

[mv2devnull]

It's not so much that I don't think Zen 4 will be an upgrade over Zen 3. I want to give AM5 and DDR5 latency time to mature. Even if Zen 4 exceeds expectations (I hope it does - Intel needs a fire under their butt) I'll still skip it for the above reasons.

But there are those of us who just have to have the latest, to try it out for ourselves. Mind you my 6 5950x's and 3950x are great for what I do, and I expect them to keep doing to. But I have to see how much better the 7950x does at what I do. (DC work). Yes, its a sickness.... Or a great hobby.

Being less into the hobby -- still with Intel 6th Gen (6700K) -- the Zen 4 does itch a bit. What might delay my purchase most is OS support.

 

[Markfw]

Being less into the hobby -- still with Intel 6th Gen (6700K) -- the Zen 4 does itch a bit. What might delay my purchase most is OS support.

Unlike Intel, since there are no big.little type problems, any existing OS should work fine.

 

[AdamK47]

This fall is going to be an exciting season. I'm not sure if I'm going to get the 7950X or the 13900K. I know I'm going to get the top end Nvidia card (4090 most likely). If more leaks reveal the 13900K having better gaming performance I'll go with that.