3080 Ready Build

[Orwellian]

Looking for advice on this build please. Will add a 3080 once it arrives. Hopefully this will all perform well together?

Case
CORSAIR 275R AIRFLOW TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 9 3900 12 Core CPU (3.1GHz-4.3GHz/70MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF X570-PLUS GAMING (USB 3.2 Gen 2, PCIe 4.0, CrossFireX) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
NONE, I ALREADY HAVE A GRAPHICS CARD
1st Storage Drive
2TB Samsung 870 QVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (up to 560MB/sR | 530MB/sW)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H100x Hydro Cooler w/ PCS Ultra Quiet Fans
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS

Thank you!

Looking to run Flight Sim 2020 as well as possible.

 

[Orwellian]

Also is it worth going for the 3900X?

 

[Scott]

There are a few strange choices. The 3900 definitely wouldn't be advised as it's the low-fat version of the chip. 3900X or the 3900XT would be my choice in general.

You would want a better cooler also. The H115i or H100i RGB platinum would be the ones I would recommend.

 

[Orwellian]

Hi Scott, thanks for the advice. I have updated as per below. I've also changed to 3600 RAM over four slots. Not sure if this is worthwhile but reading online I have read recommendations for this with the 3900X. Keen to validate all of this before taking the leap and purchasing.

Thanks.

Case
CORSAIR 275R AIRFLOW TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12 Core CPU (3.8GHz-4.6GHz/70MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF X570-PLUS GAMING (USB 3.2 Gen 2, PCIe 4.0, CrossFireX) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3600MHz (4 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NONE, I ALREADY HAVE A GRAPHICS CARD
1st Storage Drive
2TB Samsung 870 QVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (up to 560MB/sR | 530MB/sW)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H115i PRO Cooler w/ PCS Ultra Quiet Fans
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS

 

[Scott]

You've selected the H115i PRO, this isn't the correct cooler and is a very old standard now. The one you want is at the very bottom of the list. It's called the H115i RGB Platinum.

Everything else looks fine but it should be noted that you're limiting any upgrades with the RAM (Not that it's ever likely you will need them) and you are using 4 slots so will poll the memory controller far more. There's no real speed increase between the offerings on the RAM when it comes to 3200Mhz or 3600Mhz as the timings are different making them actually equal. With that in mind I would choose 2x16GB 3200Mhz although I would actually go with the 2x16GB 3600Mhz if they were actually available..... just because faster.

 

[Grinder]

Dont forget the Arctic thermal past for £9

 

[AgentCooper]

The Arctic paste won’t be necessary if you go with the H115i RGB Platinum cooler, it comes pre-applied with a thermal paste that’s at least equal, if not better 👍

 

[Deleted member 17413]

If its in the budget, wouldnt it be worth it to get Firecuda's rather than samsung for the 1Tb and 2Tb M.2s?
Again, its a bit like the difference between the RAM and 3200MHz v 3600MHz speed choice. But if we're not cutting corners and the budget is there?

You would be building a full on beast though, it would smash pretty much any task you can think of.
With that in mind have you thought about the case? Also, you have only mentioned MSFS2020 do you need it to do anything else? Or if you need to be more restrained on budget?

 

[ubuysa]

If its in the budget, wouldnt it be worth it to get Firecuda's rather than samsung for the 1Tb and 2Tb M.2s?
Again, its a bit like the difference between the RAM and 3200MHz v 3600MHz speed choice. But if we're not cutting corners and the budget is there?

I'm going to partly disagree there.

There is a difference between the way the operating system drive and the user data drive are used. Because the OS runs everything you don't want anything slowing it down, so the drive on which it lives wants to be the very fastest drive you can afford, with a capacity commensurate with the software you expect to install on there. For gaming 1TB is probably plenty.

The user data drive is used for holding.....well, user data. Whilst you want a fast response when a user application accesses user data it's generally to provide a response to the end user. Cost/benefit has a big impact there, the response wants to be fast enough without wasting money on a drive that provides a stupidly fast response.

As an example, a raw 4k image file (3840 x 2160 pixels with 24 bits per pixel) has a file size just under 190MB. Reading that file from a 5000MB/s drive takes 38ms. Reading the same file from a (much cheaper) 550MB/s drive takes 345ms, about a third of a second. Can the average end user see the difference between 38ms and 345ms?

A more realistic example is reading a 5MB user data file (actually most user data is smaller than this). From a 5000MB/s drive it takes 1ms, from a 550MB/s drive it takes 9ms. Think you can see an 8ms difference?

It isn't always the case that the fastest drive is better and there's no point throwing money away if you can't see the benefit. You want to be buying a user data drive that provides the read speed you need for the applications you use. Music and video for example are 'played' in real time with the next buffer being loaded from the drive as you watch the first buffer. Putting these types of file on an SSD buys you nothing useful at all. For music and video files the most cost effective storage medium is an HDD!

 

[Deleted member 17413]

I had made a mistake and thought they were both M.2... Sorry about that, but my point about replacing the samsung M.2 with a Firecuda, that would be better wouldnt it? as the 1Tb and 2Tb Firecuda's are faster than the Samsung, its only the 500Gb Samsung thats is better than the firecuda.

 

[Scott]

I had made a mistake and thought they were both M.2... Sorry about that, but my point about replacing the samsung M.2 with a Firecuda, that would be better wouldnt it? as the 1Tb and 2Tb Firecuda's are faster than the Samsung, its only the 500Gb Samsung thats is better than the firecuda.

Indeed, I would personally opt for the 1TB firecuda as the primary. The secondary drive, as suggested above, shouldn't make much odds. Always nice to have an SSD for game loads etc but otherwise, it's a complete luxury to go with the M2 drive. I would always choose M2 simply because they are harder to access/install than a conventional SSD. Thinking of the future I would rather PCS did the tricky install leaving the simpler solution up for me if I wanted to add more in future.

I wouldn't be overly concerned about speed differences though

 

[ubuysa]

That hard drive configuration will be mega quick if you transfer files a lot....I have a fairly new Samsung Evo SSD (think it's the 970, 950? Something like that) and an ADATA M2 drive (basically the same as the PCS branded ones) and I can transfer 100GB of data between the 2 in just under 8 minutes!!

This goes exactly to my point when you say 'if you transfer files a lot'.

It's well accepted that you can't properly select a graphics card without knowing what monitor it will be driving. In a similar way, you can't properly select a user data drive (or drives) without knowing how the applications you have will use it.

We rightly advise against buying the most expensive graphics card if you don't need that performance, we should also advise against buying the fastest M.2 NVMe drive for user data if you don't need that performance.

First understand your application suite and then select user data drive(s) best suited to those applications.

 

[Scott]

Ironically, unless it's part of your usage, you actually want to try to avoid bulk data transfer to prolong the life of the drive

Read speed should technically always be king. Once you're into TB read speed though it's a bit of a numbers game