Feedback on Hardware for New PC Build

techguy817

Honorable
Apr 2, 2018
10
0
10,510
Hi all,

Looking for feedback on the below components for my next PC build. Primarily for everyday power use, photo and video editing, etc. No real gaming.

Case: Fractal Define R6 Blackout with window
Mobo: ASUS Zenith Extreme (seems to have mixed reviews but apparently still top choice)
CPU: AMD Threadripper 1950X
Cooler: Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 (good reviews and watercooling is probably overkill)
PSU: Seasonic PRIME Ultra 850W Titanium
RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 32GB DDR4 3600 (32GB is max supported at 3600 apparently)
GPU: ASUS ROG GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
HDD: Samsung 960 Pro SSD 1TB
Monitors: LG 27UD58-B 27-Inch 4K UHD IPS

Thanks in advance!

Regards,
Al
 
Solution
1. How large is the video you want to edit? 4k or else?
2. Are you going to OC CPU? the air cooler is good for mild ocing but not good enough for heavy ocing, you will need Enermax water one to do so.
3. I will pick Taichi over the Zenith MB according to reviews and Taichi seems to be solid across all platforms.
4. Titanum PSU may be overkill, it only stands for efficiency, not quality, little diff with gold ones. What is the price tag?
5. Threadripper loves quad channel ram, so make sure you buy 4 sticks pack :)
1. How large is the video you want to edit? 4k or else?
2. Are you going to OC CPU? the air cooler is good for mild ocing but not good enough for heavy ocing, you will need Enermax water one to do so.
3. I will pick Taichi over the Zenith MB according to reviews and Taichi seems to be solid across all platforms.
4. Titanum PSU may be overkill, it only stands for efficiency, not quality, little diff with gold ones. What is the price tag?
5. Threadripper loves quad channel ram, so make sure you buy 4 sticks pack :)
 
Solution

techguy817

Honorable
Apr 2, 2018
10
0
10,510


Thanks for the reply.

1. Video will mainly be HD quality but may evolve to 4K over time.
2. No plan to overclock the CPU.
3. Can you point me to some reviews that choose the Taichi over the Zenith Extreme?
4. Seasonic Titanium 850W PSU is $189 on NewEgg now. Fairly small % of overall build price and don't mind spending for the efficiency and expandability.
5. Yes will get at least 4 sticks of RAM (one I mentioned is)
 
One detailed review:

Returning this board to replace it with AsRock.
So far it got two major issues.

1. They don't officially support bootable NVMe RAID. I've spent a whole day figuring it out.
1.1. RAID feature is hidden, you have to change SATA mode to RAID and disable CSM, just to make it appear in Advanced menu.
1.2. M2 disks aren't shown anywhere, except for Boot menu in ACHI mode.
1.3. RAID manager still wouldn't show M2 disks.
1.4. ASUS support responded to my ticket and told me about SATA RAID and CSM thing I already knew, they asked to verify M2 connections and included a picture of a different motherboard, and they referred me to Samsung support for bad disks (disks were okay, as you'll see later). This is not helpful at all, I'd say their support is neither professional nor knowledgeable.
1.5. After tons of digging, I've found a youtube video that explains how to configure RAID with AMD utility (but I had to use a spare SSD just to install Windows on it, so I could install the drivers and run the utility), it did help me create a RAID array, but it's not bootable without BIOS support.
1.6. After some more digging, I've found that they have a beta (!) BIOS firmware, v.0801, only downloadable through forums, not the product support page, moreover, asus forums had a broken link that leads to a wrong file, and the only place to get the correct file is a third party forum (overclock dot net). Yes, it made the array bootable!

2. The advertised 10GBe interface is actually a standalone card 4x PCIe card, that will force me to waste a whole PCIe 3.0 slot on it. I think this is a very bad, misleading advertisement, because I could've bought a discrete card myself. I chose this motherboard to have it included on chip so I could use all the PCIe slots. It's similar like saying "our motherboard provides you with an extra 16 GB of RAM" just to realize that they ship a 16 GB DIMM, leaving only 7 other slots empty.

So, for the price they had a few weeks ago (top dollar card), it's definitely not worth it. I don't want to use only 3 PCIe slots, and I don't want to run unsupported Beta BIOS firmware just to support the core feature of X399 setup - bootable NVMe RAID.

Icing on the cake - the 3200 MHz CL14 G-Skill RAM runs at 2133 MHz, it doesn't overclock automatically and there's no easy way to enable G-Skill XMP profile. I envision another full day of fine-tuning OC settings to get that RAM perform per specs.

Update: scratch that last paragraph, only took me half an hour to get my RAM working at 3200.
 
If it were me and have 4k editing in mind, I will get:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Threadripper 1950X 3.4GHz 16-Core Processor ($869.99 @ Newegg Business)
CPU Cooler: Enermax - LiqTech TR4 360 102.2 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($132.79 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock - X399M Taichi Micro ATX TR4 Motherboard ($329.53 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 64GB (4 x 16GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($661.99 @ Newegg Business)
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($99.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Samsung - 960 EVO 500GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($199.99 @ B&H)
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($43.21 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB FTW3 GAMING iCX Video Card ($1079.89 @ B&H)
Case: Fractal Design - Define R6 Black TG ATX Mid Tower Case ($145.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Platinum 850W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($104.90 @ Newegg Business)
Total: $3668.17
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-04-02 14:59 EDT-0400

small SSD is for OS and software caching, 500 gb ssd is for material only, HDD is for raid backup. You get my point :)
 

techguy817

Honorable
Apr 2, 2018
10
0
10,510


Is there are link or two you can provide?

https://www.esportsource.net/best-x399-threadripper-motherboards/ seems to like the Zenith Extreme. Newegg is showing pretty mixed reviews for all TR boards at https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100007625%20601301149.
 
Those tech website reviewers are focused on what the mb has to offer. I focus on user experience and read between the lines if they really know their stuff or just blame without a cause. The one I quoted is from Amazon and seems quite reasonable.

Not saying Zenith is not a good mb, but it seems to be a hit or miss to me. One selling point is the 10G internet which does not make any diff for me.