Building a new rig, any advice?

the proof for "not 2 cores"

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/attachment.php?attachmentid=174144&d=1513106650

There it is! Thanks for retreiving

Imho, the time and effort it takes to run, maintain and test your sophisticated Backups for "just" the homeland OS...I decided LONG ago to rather take the risc, save my actual data only to ext. USB and different clouds, that I rather and faster reinstall 10 ( or 7 ) than the combined time effort of running the backup, headache, testing, verifying, space requirements..etc...

It does make sense if you run a highly sophisticated machine and need the help of others to get it back, I dont need anybody and are very fast in doing so.

As always, different people different strategies, all work if followed correctly with preparation and precaution.

A bold move indeed

I decouple my data from my OS eg my docs point to a different drive

I use acronis to backup my OS partition, takes about 3 mins 60G used data -> 11G backup image so a lot smaller

Takes about 5 mins to restore the OS image back onto the OS partition should stuff go wrong

I use some batch files to backup my important data folders to the NAS eg my docs etc

Its pretty easy to do and sure is a lot faster than installing my OS again .. then installing all the programs I use again

It's the installing the program after that takes time and effort. You have to fight with some vendors to activate software etc. Not worth the hassle since I upgrade once a year at a minimum, and sometimes twice a year.

All automated so I don't have to think about it. And my data too is decoupled and there are two levels of backup done. Once a week to Google Drive and once a month full image ghost to an external drive. I don't want it just onsite, so I keep a copy on Google drive. And yes, I realize I'm more paranoid then most, but being in the tech field, you get used to paranoia :)

Back to the OT. So Pro is not needed, got it. In the back of my mind, there was always something that precluded me from buying home versions. Maybe it'll come to me.

And yes, RockitTool's delid'ing is about as simple as it gets.

Oh, forgot. If you don't wait for a year, it's typically not hard to get matching memory. But I take Johnny's point about mistmatched memory. But I even ran the "higher priced" memory at a slower speed and had zero issues. If money is an issue, it's an option.

yes, back to OT:

If you can. hold off with the purchase till the new Ryzen are out. That could really be it !

They have certain things Intel does not have in the consumer chipsets, for example direct NVMe links, not PCH slaved, soldered IHS, not that squirk Intel gum between the die and IHS, usually more USB ports than Intel.

That NVMe link is a nice feature if you really need bandwidth, I man real throughput, sustained, without drops in speed when you do something else heavy with a different I/O path, they should not hinder each other but add up. Like NVMe copy to Backup, network 1GB full stroke to SSD #2, and SSD # 3 being used for another heavy task, a damn eth wallet for example. This would on Intel all run across the PCH, that is anno 2008 tbh, Core2Duo layout. Intel still uses it today for consumer boards.

I would defo not buy this rig again that I have, I would pick a Threadripper or Threadripper-2.

If your math stuff uses multiple cores, by all means, think about TR, forget Intel unless you are

willing to buy into X299 and a 1-2k$ CPU, with fewer features, just IPC is a bit better. But wait till TR2 comes, that will close that gap further.

It's the installing the program after that takes time and effort. You have to fight with some vendors to activate software etc. Not worth the hassle since I upgrade once a year at a minimum, and sometimes twice a year.

 

All automated so I don't have to think about it. And my data too is decoupled and there are two levels of backup done. Once a week to Google Drive and once a month full image ghost to an external drive. I don't want it just onsite, so I keep a copy on Google drive. And yes, I realize I'm more paranoid then most, but being in the tech field, you get used to paranoia :)

 

Back to the OT. So Pro is not needed, got it. In the back of my mind, there was always something that precluded me from buying home versions. Maybe it'll come to me.

 

And yes, RockitTool's delid'ing is about as simple as it gets.

my delid kit got AGAIN postponed by caseking :mad: from 2.2. to 12.2.

Problems, that ONLY Intel fanboys have. -->AMD way to go now

yes, back to OT:

If you can. hold off with the purchase till the new Ryzen are out. That could really be it !

I know.. but it's been more than a year now of keep "holding there", first because of lack of time, then holding just for the usual reasons of waiting 'cause smt is right behind the corner'.. The new Ryzen does seem interesting, but letting aside the idiotic thermal screw up, the 8700 is quite the beast, and it could very well be that performance/price ratio will be on par. Who knows. Plus, release is in April :(

Again, I am grounded, and German winter is not kind on me :D

And I am now leaning towards a 6GB 1060 to keep me warm until the Volta. Prices for the 1070 and up are not worth in my case for all the reasons listed above..

It's the installing the program after that takes time and effort. You have to fight with some vendors to activate software etc. Not worth the hassle since I upgrade once a year at a minimum, and sometimes twice a year.

 

All automated so I don't have to think about it. And my data too is decoupled and there are two levels of backup done. Once a week to Google Drive and once a month full image ghost to an external drive. I don't want it just onsite, so I keep a copy on Google drive. And yes, I realize I'm more paranoid then most, but being in the tech field, you get used to paranoia :)

I feel you! I am not that paranoid, BUT once my ex-beloved managed to crack an HDD containing all sort of sensitive data, and since then I am quite careful about back ups. But I do all system maintenance through Linux.

Back to the OT. So Pro is not needed, got it. In the back of my mind, there was always something that precluded me from buying home versions. Maybe it'll come to me.

Good that you pointed this out though: in my shopping cart I had a Win 10 DSP/SB (for 80€), and I naively thought it was the full, hardware-unlocked version. Turns out it's like an OEM version. I am NOT going through the hassle of calling them up everytime I'll change my PC in the future. Has any of you experience with re-activation issues on these kind of Win licenses?

And yes, RockitTool's delid'ing is about as simple as it gets.

Good to know :thumbup:

I found the order of the last rig I built, back in 2013 (!).

16GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance Low Profile schwarz PC3-12800U CL9-9-9-24

Stock balance: ready for dispatch

Price per unit: 151,19 €

 

Article number: HV21A27QDE

Name: ASUS VK278Q

Stock balance: ready for dispatch (only 1 article)

Price per unit: 287,03 €

 

Article number: HVR850CODE

Name: Corsair Professional Series HX850 80PLUS Gold 850W

Stock balance: ready for dispatch from 2013-10-01

Price per unit: 135,12 €

 

Article number: HV20T47KDE

Name: Intel Core i7-4770K Tray,3,5 GHZ, 8MB Cache, LGA 1150, VGA

Stock balance: ready for dispatch

Price per unit: 297,70 €

 

Article number: HV1137MEDE

Name: MSI Z87-G45 Gaming, ATX, Sockel 1150

Stock balance: ready for dispatch

Price per unit: 136,38 €

 

Article number: HV12S8P2DE

Name: Samsung SSD 840 Pro 256GB SATA 6Gb/s

Stock balance: ready for dispatch

Price per unit: 199,99 €

 

Article number: HV1032SBDE

Name: Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Boost, 3GB GDDR5, Full Retail

Stock balance: ready for dispatch

Price per unit: 345,44 €

 

Article number: HV13SB37DE

Name: Seagate Barracuda 7200 3000GB, SATA 6Gb/s

Stock balance: ready for dispatch

Price per unit: 109,19 €

 

Article number: HV30THRFDE

Name: Thermalright HR-02 Macho Rev.A (BW)

Stock balance: ready for dispatch

Price per unit: 40,43 €

 

Article number: HV203T46DE

Name: Thermaltake Overseer RX-I Snow Edition, ohne Netzteil

Stock balance: ready for dispatch (only 1 article)

Price per unit: 100,87 €

It's funny: a) RAM price/GB was not that higher than today (freq./type not really comparable) b) The 256 GB SSD went for the same price of a modern 500 GB M2 ! c) This system would still be working nicely, with just a GPU refresh needed, me thinks.

Yep, with a hefty CPU overclock + a newer GPU you'd still be good to go.

I'm in a similar position - I want to upgrade but at the moment I'm treading water waiting to see the lay of the land. DCS will be a primary application , but i do play other games in ( mostly ) VR, and will be looking to convert my media library to h.265 ( So an 8700k, 1800x or Ryzen 2 are on the table )

If I go with an 8700k I get a 5-8% drop in performance and 30% degradation on my SSD reads ( Windows 10 defaults the format to 4k blocks - I've not read if changing the block size to 8, 32 or 64k has the same impact)

I'm waiting to see what Improvements 2.5 will bring with regards to multi-core support which may help swing it to Intel or AMD

Ryzen 2 in April has big improvements to Precision boost for games mostly on a single thread ( Ring any bells? ) - Marketing blurb lifted from a site below:

The new Precision Boost 2 and Extended Frequency Range (XFR) 2 features have changed the CPU goalposts for boosted clockspeeds. In the previous design Precision Boost would only kick in when there were just two cores being used, but now it’s going to be enabled even when all CPU cores are engaged.

 

That’s going to allow the boost frequencies to be used for more real world applications, such as gaming. A lot of games are still designed to primarily use a single core or thread, but they will often also spill small workloads off onto other threads. With the previous version of Precision Boost, even if these other threads were barely ticking over, it would be enough to nix the auto-overclocking and would immediately drop the 1000-series Ryzen chips down to their base clockspeeds.

 

With this second generation version on the Ryzen 2000-series processors it’s much more opportunistic and will aim for the highest possible frequency, with increased granularity, by constantly checking against CPU temperature, load, and current. That means there’s no longer a step change in frequency and more of a gradual move up and down the curve.

Nowadays, you login using your MS account. The default is to use MS account when you first build the OS. It then remembers the license I believe. I've had to rebuild my Z370 already (due to my user error) before I had a chance to back it up. Hey, it was only a few days since I had this thing! :) And when I reinstalled it, it remembered the license from having logged in once before.

I'm in a similar position - I want to upgrade but at the moment I'm treading water waiting to see the lay of the land. DCS will be a primary application , but i do play other games in ( mostly ) VR, and will be looking to convert my media library to h.265 ( So an 8700k, 1800x or Ryzen 2 are on the table )

 

If I go with an 8700k I get a 5-8% drop in performance and 30% degradation on my SSD reads ( Windows 10 defaults the format to 4k blocks - I've not read if changing the block size to 8, 32 or 64k has the same impact)

 

I'm waiting to see what Improvements 2.5 will bring with regards to multi-core support which may help swing it to Intel or AMD

Ryzen 2 in April has big improvements to Precision boost for games mostly on a single thread ( Ring any bells? ) - Marketing blurb lifted from a site below:

I don't think there will be monumental differences between NTTR 2.x and 2.5 - other than the unification of Caucuses. So I wouldn't build up too much hope. And 6 cores isn't enough for you? :D

yes, back to OT:

 

If you can. hold off with the purchase till the new Ryzen are out. That could really be it !

 

They have certain things Intel does not have in the consumer chipsets, for example direct NVMe links, not PCH slaved, soldered IHS, not that squirk Intel gum between the die and IHS, usually more USB ports than Intel.

 

That NVMe link is a nice feature if you really need bandwidth, I man real throughput, sustained, without drops in speed when you do something else heavy with a different I/O path, they should not hinder each other but add up. Like NVMe copy to Backup, network 1GB full stroke to SSD #2, and SSD # 3 being used for another heavy task, a damn eth wallet for example. This would on Intel all run across the PCH, that is anno 2008 tbh, Core2Duo layout. Intel still uses it today for consumer boards.

 

I would defo not buy this rig again that I have, I would pick a Threadripper or Threadripper-2.

 

If your math stuff uses multiple cores, by all means, think about TR, forget Intel unless you are

willing to buy into X299 and a 1-2k$ CPU, with fewer features, just IPC is a bit better. But wait till TR2 comes, that will close that gap further.

I've never seen an AMD chip, so I can't say what their TIM looks like. To be fair, people all over the world are using Intel's factory TIM just fine. I just like to go above board and cool it another 10 deg by using liquid metal after delid'ing it. But if you tell me AMD's IHS is better, I believe you.

The NVMe argument is actually quite compelling. I don't do too much IO intensive stuff on my PC. Let's face it, I play PUBG, DCS, and Prepar3D sometimes. So it's an expensive XBox essentially. Threadripper won't benefit me too much.

32Gb Corsair Vengeance LPX DD4-3200 CL16 Quad Kit

Why a quad kit for Z370?

Why a quad kit for Z370?

Because there was an offer (now gone), simple as that. I may go for a 2x16GB and leave space for upgrades down the line.

If the question relates to the fact the Z370 is dual channel, my understanding is that a 2x kit or 4x one won't make a difference.

Nowadays, you login using your MS account. The default is to use MS account when you first build the OS. It then remembers the license I believe. I've had to rebuild my Z370 already (due to my user error) before I had a chance to back it up. Hey, it was only a few days since I had this thing! :) And when I reinstalled it, it remembered the license from having logged in once before.

This matter still confuses me (and I believe the foggy procedure has its own purpose, from MS point of view..):

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/20530/windows-10-reactivating-after-hardware-change

As you say, one can login with a MS account and take care of it. But what kind of license allows for this? Does this apply to a OEM or DSP/SB version?

Do you have a full Win10 license?

My hand was forced due to my machine going pop yesterday.

Arriving tomorrow:

Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4 DRAM 3200MHz

Core i7-8700K

NZXT Kraken X62 Liquid Cooler

Asus ROG STRIX Z370-E GAMING Socket 1151 DDR4 ATX Motherboard

Will transfer across my old Corsair RM750i RMi PSU and MSI GTX 1080 seahawk in my existing nzxt case

My hand was forced due to my machine going pop yesterday.

 

Arriving tomorrow:

 

Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4 DRAM 3200MHz

Core i7-8700K

NZXT Kraken X62 Liquid Cooler

Asus ROG STRIX Z370-E GAMING Socket 1151 DDR4 ATX Motherboard

 

Will transfer across my old Corsair RM750i RMi PSU and MSI GTX 1080 seahawk in my existing nzxt case

Bios 0606 has the Spectre fix, it is not mentioned in the Bios but it has.

DO not install AI-Suite from DVD but newest from Asus, see reason 1 line above

;)

Order placed, thank you all for the input, I'll see you up there!

G.

This matter still confuses me (and I believe the foggy procedure has its own purpose, from MS point of view..):

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/20530/windows-10-reactivating-after-hardware-change

As you say, one can login with a MS account and take care of it. But what kind of license allows for this? Does this apply to a OEM or DSP/SB version?

Do you have a full Win10 license?

I do have a full Win10 license. I actually bought Win7x64 Pro way back when. Then got the free upgrade and since then changed my motherboard 2 or 3 times. I've never had to dig up the Win10 license or even Win7.

I see you ordered you kit. Enjoy!

Did the bunge cord mod to my case

It has stopped the annoying noise from the mech HD's (vibration)

I do have a full Win10 license. I actually bought Win7x64 Pro way back when. Then got the free upgrade and since then changed my motherboard 2 or 3 times. I've never had to dig up the Win10 license or even Win7.

 

I see you ordered you kit. Enjoy!

my experience differs a little, tho basically I could reuse my upgraded 10s on like 5 boards now, those RMA's from 3 z170 boards stress my hotmail account's license thing. it sometimes took 2-3 days until it self-activated, some i used a different lic for as it denied to use the actual matching one, etc..

its not perfectly made from ms imho, sometimes it bugs.

I spent 4 hours with MS support to get my activation working. They infact issued me with a new key after all that :doh: