Subj.
Old conf:
CPU - Ryzen 7 1700 (OCed 3.75 ghz)
Cooler - Scythe Mugen 5 Rev. B (temperature won’t go higher than 74 C in stress test)
RAM - Geil EVO X (3200 mhz base freq, but works stable on 3000 mhz with carefully chosen timings and voltages, strange tho)
Mobo - ASUS ROG Strix B350-F
Videocard - ASUS Radeon RX 580 AREZ
Storages: old 1 TB HDD, SSD Samsung 860 EVO 500gb, NVMe M.2 SiliconPower 1 TB.
Audio interface: RME Babyface Pro.
So, the CPU of my dream is Ryzen 9 3900 or 9 3900X. For my tasks 9 3900X easily could be an overkill because with my projects there was no scenario in which 7 1700 would be not sufficient, so I’m thinking about 9 3900 more since it’s just 50$ more expensive than 7 3700X and almost 100$ cheaper than 9 3900X.
Question #1: is there a HUGE performance difference between X and non-X version? Looks like the answer is “no” since overall performance tests shows 5% better results for 9 3900X and noticeably less power consumption. Question #2: which motherboard should I buy? I am not ready to spend more than 150$ on a mobo. Not gonna spend my money on ASRock, I used three of them, all of them are dead now and it’s not my fault. Would B450 for like ~150$ be sufficient? Question #3: can I add other brand’s ram sticks to my Geil EVO X or just Geil’s other ram sticks?
You can probably go with what the results show. My impression from the reviews I’ve seen for the first two-three generations is that the non-X CPUs were less power efficient / hotter when overclocked and also were more variable in terms of how far you could push them. The x-models were more of a known entity for the buyer. I could be wrong about that, but that’s what I’ve gathered so far.
My 1700 for example is fine and stable at 3.6GHz all-core OC, but struggles beyond that. I think it also has to do with memory and motherboard and cooler of course (I’m running stock cooler).
Any specific reason you’re switching? I think some older 3xx boards support 3xxx-series CPUs, no?
I think my consideration probably would be what type of longevity you want here. If you’re certain you’ll be fine for a long time with a 3xxx-series CPU then find the best mobo possible for the money I suppose, but if you think you’d at some point want to upgrade the CPU again perhaps a 4xx-series mobo that can accept a 5xxx-series CPU is the way to go… (?) Probably more expensive, but you’d avoid having to toss or resell the mobo in the future.
Just a thought.
What I gather from what I’ve read is that mixing and matching sticks can lower the maximum performance you can get out of the set. So for timings (latency), voltage and memory speed you’d end up at the lower end of the spectrum in terms of performance. With the same make and model you should get closer to similar performance. And it’s probably as much about make and model as it is the actual RAM die inside of the stick since not all models will feature the same die over time. My sticks for example have Samsung B-die which was ideal at the time (and still is supposedly really good), but there are sticks out there with the exact same model name (different SKU though) that have different memory dies inside…
So I would think sticking to EVO X of the same ‘generation’ or die-type would be the better option for performance.
I have the same opinion on non-X CPU’s, but I still see 9 3900 as a good potential for upgrading because of dollar/performance. Different results are showing that 9 3900 is a little bit less productive (-5% in video render for example) than 9 3900X but much better than 7 3700X. I wanna upgrade that just because some kind of my PC’s future-proofing, I’m working at 44.1 kHz on not-so-hard-loaded-projects pretty much comfortably, but I still look in the future for some possible improvements.
7 1700 of mine running at 3.75 ghz with 3000 mhz RAM, but even this result required a plenty of tuning to make that setup stable. And a tower cooler as well. Actually, 7 1700 was working fine even at 3.95 ghz (I used Ryzen Master instead of BIOS though), but the temperatures/voltages were going so much higher and there was no exact feeling of perfromance getting better so I decided to get back to 3.75 ghz. Even 3.65 ghz would be perfectly fine I think.
I would love to stay on my current mobo + new CPU, but looks like I need to change mobo primarily because of concerns about VRM zones getting too hot in order to set 9 3900 here. Mine has a support of 3000 9 series though.
Good thoughts. Lemme share mine as well and explain some local details.
About CPU. I was considering something like 7 5800X or even 9 5900X as an upgrade option, but there are some downsides for buying those CPU. First of all, here in Russia high-grade models of 5000 desktop CPUs are still extremely rare and overpriced as heck. I don’t see any kind of reason to get them right here right now in my city. Second thing, thanks to our government policy we have a new duty on anything that costs more than 200 euros/dollars and that is ordered from EU/USA (you have to pay 30% from each euro/dollar higher than 200), it makes any purchases from something like ComputerUniverse completely pointless. Third thing, 9 5900X would be an overkill for my tasks, I can’t use 7 1700 to its full power though. Fourth thing, buying 9 5900X will leave me without pants So that’s why I considered 9 3900 as an upgrade option - it costs 32000 rubles here, which is 440$. 9 3900X is kinda overpriced and costs something like 550$. 7 3700X is hugely overpriced as well and it costs 350$. So 9 3900 looks really really good for me right now.
About mobos. I was considering MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX. But looks like some B450 are not enough to “defend” against VRM heat. I don’t know if that’s the case with MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX. So looks like adding some money and getting ASUS Prime X570-P is much more fitting and future-proof and reliable option.
Yep. There are some models that are close to mine sticks.
I’m confused; you currently aren’t maxing out your 1700? If so, why are you switching? If that’s the case I would totally wait and save up some more money so that when prices eventually fall you can get a better performing setup for what you pay…
So that’s why I considered 9 3900 as an upgrade option - it costs 32000 rubles here, which is 440$. 9 3900X is kinda overpriced and costs something like 550$. 7 3700X is hugely overpriced as well and it costs 350$. So 9 3900 looks really really good for me right now.