Hey all, Looking to upgrade a very aging workstation to something more modern. Main use case is photo and video editing with a small side of gaming (but no terribly demanding games) Was looking at the AMD 7950X (non 3D VCache as it doesn't seem to improve workstation style workloads) What I'm stuck on is what motherboard to pick - I'd be looking for a full size case so I can watercool the CPU so size isn't a concern, and really the only requirement is it has at least 3 NVMe slots (OS/Working/Scratch). Any recommendations for the mobo and RAM? Budget wise - not hugely a concern right now - but I'd prefer to not overspend on significant diminishing returns etc. Thanks!
Both of these have 2x PCIe4 & 2x PCIe5 NVMe slots. https://www.asus.com/us/motherboards-components/motherboards/proart/proart-x670e-creator-wifi/ https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/X670E-AORUS-PRO-X#kf I'm looking to get the Gigabyte one myself as it has a front HDMI out to drive my in-case screen (no more cables looping back into the rear of the case!).
The 670E is the most expensive chipset right? Is there a measurable benefit over the B650/B650E ones? I'm not too bothered by pcie gen5 as I doubt lightroom will benefit
We use those ProArt X670E's at work, something like 30 so far, all rock solid! They're one of the rare ones that has 4 M.2 slots.
Ah makes sense! Just a shame the cost doubles! Thank you! Any suggestions on ram? It seems to be utterly bewildering these days
We're running 64GB kits, so I doubt you'll want that. If you use all 4 DIMMS the speed will be reduced though (we run 128GB on ours), althuogh its stable like that at least. This is what we run https://www.corsair.com/uk/en/p/mem...-s-c40-amd-expo-memory-kit-cmk64gx5m2b5200z40
You don't really get lots of M2 slots on either as consumer platform doesn't have an abundance of lanes, just enough to do the job for your average user, 670 has 44, 650 has 36, sounds like loads but these are used not just for expansion but system and peripherals 3xM2 is 12 lanes,16 for GPU and 4x for chipset link never mind what's it needed for the various IO configs, so you see stuff like slots sharing etc and functions going dark if you max it out, like in the pro art. Sounds like you want to pretty much max it out from the start with 3x M2 drives, this'll leave you with nowhere to go as you say at least 3 M2, these are not the boards you really want to use IMO. I mean there are options to expand M2 with add in cards, I use these but it is not max speed, still fast though but obviously require a choice made on such platforms to run GPU in 8x, which should be plenty. But really if you want loads of M2 and expansion, then a proper workstation setup like the soon to be released Threadripper 7xxx might need to be considered or do as I do off load to filer server with nice 20Gb LAN link so you can have some things non local but quick enough for fast retrieval or temp. Of course perhaps you don't need all the M2, sata SSDs still have there place and you can build as fast storage array with those.
thanks @Bloody_Pete - really useful info! @sandys aye seems so - i'd happily run one of the NVMe disks in a PCIe slot but they also seem to be limited (and need 1 for an Intel 10G NIC) I'd also consider running two SATA SSDs but when dealing with video files they easily hit 2GB/s read/write on my current set up sadly. The new threadrippers just seem overly expensive for what you get - I'm happy to wait for November to see what gets announced motherboard wise, especially considering the board @Bloody_Pete recommended is already ~£500!
4x sata array will do >2Gb. QNAP does some interesting cards that help with lane limitation which work nice on PC as their NAS also have limited lanes for example one I use here In addition they do stuff like combo 10G and NVMe etc. here these things don't come cheap of course and some times the best way is the more expensive board that already has 10Gb on board and all the ability onboard, like the creator or some TR board. Outlay for HEDT system is high but you are getting so much more, if it's like last time you'll probably find a TR board can come in cheaper than some of the high end 670e, just look at epyc boards as an example, even the chips don' cost much more, by the time you have spent the dough to kludge a desktop system to try and be a workstation you are most of the way to that wokstation which has loads more expansion. You want 10 PCI gen 5 M2s, you can have it and more. Definately worth waiting to see, though I'd imagine AMD having the best of everything these days they probably aren't going to be so cheap as when I first bought in.
