Following advice on the thread I started I have updated my spec (and budiet, this comes in at $2,340 aussie ) apologies for jumping on this one
Am I getting there ?
AMD Ryzen 7 1700 3.0Ghz 20MB AM4 Retail Box - With Fan
None / Included
Gigabyte AX370-Gaming K3 AM4 ATX Desktop Motherboard
GeIL 16GB Kit (2x8GB) DDR4 SUPER LUCE White (Red LED) C15 3000MHz
WD Green 120GB 2.5" SSD
WD Blue WD20EZRZ 3.5" 2TB 64MB 5400RPM Desktop HDD
Gigabyte GeForce GTX1080 Turbo OC 8GB GDDR5
Integrated - Onboard
GamerChief Essent E101 Mid Tower Case
Corsair RM750x 750W 80PLUS Gold Modular Power Supply
Hi Adjuster,
If I may ask, outside of playing AHIII, what are your planned usages for this setup? Video rendering, content creation, CAD work, etc?
What would be a good ratio of this type of usage vs gaming? Say mostly gaming w\ some of the other items mentioned or mostly the other items w\ some gaming thrown in?
This info would help to give some better recommendations.
But to start off w\ a typical recommendation of what you have provided based on a best balanced approach.
1. The AMD Ryzen 7 1700 CPU is a good CPU to pick if you really want a good value on a 8-core CPU, but a better pick IMHO would be the
AMD Ryzen 5 1600 6-core CPU as most games will only use up to 4-6 CPU cores max anyway, regardless of whether AMD\Intel. SMT will allow this CPU to process more than 6 threads (up to 12 if the game\app will make use of them) but this CPU will still do very well w\ the other uses due to the 12 thread capability. Essentially it is a Ryzen 7 1700 clocked slightly higher w\ 2 less cores for less money. If you're gonna be running 1080 res or higher this CPU will be more than enough. This CPU should also come w\ a CPU HSF (Wraith) included. The only difference between the X & non-X models is XFR is enabled w\ the X models & the X models are usually the better binned chips.
2. This Gigabyte GA-AX370 Gaming K3 is a good AM4 mobo as Gigabyte AM4 mobos have been getting good reviews for being well built & stable.....but w\ any AMD AM4 socket mobo, regardless of manufacturer, the very 1st thing you want to do is to check for or flash the UEFI (or BIOS if you prefer) to the latest version for the particular mobo to ensure that the latest AMD AGESA 1.0.0.6a firmware is being used (fixes mem compatibility w\ Ryzen CPU's). This mobo should have the F3 UEFI installed....if not then flash it. This X370 mobo is capable of true overclocking of CPU AND mem (some models will only allow OC to mem so check on this before buying if OC'ing is a preference) so this is covered w\ the Gaming K3 mobo. This mobo only has 2 PCI-E 3.0 x16 slots (to provide 2-way SLI\Crossfire graphics cards) in 8x\8x lane configuration so if you want a single graphics card to have the full 16 lanes DO NOT put anything in the 2nd slot or it will be cut to 8 lanes. This isn't an issue per se as far as graphics card performance goes at the moment but you do need to know this. If you want to install a PCI-E NVMe SSD on this board in the future then use the M.2 slot w\ a M.2 PCI-E SSD or a 2.5" NVMe SSD w\ a U.2\M.2 adapter. If you desire to use an audio interface (external USB sound device) then please use the yellow USB 3.0 slots w\ it as these 2 slots are specifically designed for these devices (Gigabyte USB DAC-UP2) to provide good, clean stable power regulation to a USB DAC-AMP.
3. As far as mem goes, the sweet spot for AMD Ryzen CPU's IMHO is 2667 & up w\ 3200 being the preferred frequency at this time. Any mem past 2667 is essentially OC'd mem (onboard CPU mem controller) & can be a crapshoot to get it working at rated speed....especially IF AMD's AGESA 1.0.0.6a firmware isn't installed in UEFI\BIOS. If you can swing it, get the GSkill FlareX 3200 DDR4 CL14 16Gb 8Gb x 2 mem kit instead as this mem kit was specifically designed for AMD Ryzen CPU's running on AMD X370\B350 chipset mobos & will usually load up using it's XMP SPD settings (14-14-14-34-1T timings @ 3200 frequency) w\o any fiddling. The main reason for faster mem w\ Ryzen is to get the most out of the CPU's Infinity Fabric interconnect performance (interconnect currently runs at 1\2 mem speed) to reduce CPU latency thus speeds up the CPU's processing capabilities. Since the advent of AMD Ryzen 9 Threadripper CPU's there are even better mem kits being available to get to 3600 frequency if desired. The Geil mem you posted should work @ 3000 but most likely only at 2933, which would be OK but get the non-LED version & save money.....unless you really like bling (you did mention that you wasn't interested in LED lighting).
4. As for these 2 drives I won't comment per se (I know TC doesn't like WD drives of any stripe) as I do know if you stick w\ the 16Gb of system mem you should be fine using the SSD as the boot drive (your box shouldn't be paging out to this SSD or even any HDD w\ that much system mem being used for the most part which is the best protection to have when using a SSD drive). I would recommend using a Samsung 850 Pro 2.5" SATA III SSD instead of the WD SSD as these are the best performance-wise at the moment (including longevity). There is some evidence that AHIII could encounter some issues if being run off a SSD but it will depend on which SSD\firmware being used so be aware. I'll defer the recommendation on the HDD to others.
5. The only player I knew that was using a large screen 4K TV as a monitor was Dobs running a Nvidia 980Ti graphics card & according to Dobs he was getting good performance from his setup (I think the TV was 4K @ 60Hz) so in theory a Nvidia 1070 & up should handle this to some acceptable degree, depending on the settings used. IMHO, the 3 things that a user needs to be real about when considering any graphics usage is what is most important, graphics imagery, FPS or both. Then AFTER making this decision 1st, start looking for the associated monitor\TV to use THEN after this is done start looking for the graphics card that can drive it ACCORDING to what you have decided at the start beforehand as this will determine the real costs. If the 4K TV is wanted then the graphics card choices are pretty much already defined......the base card will be the 1080 & up for Nvidia w\ the preference being the 1080Ti or Titan Xp. The only card AMD can put forth at this time is the Fury X which can run 4K @ 60 Hz but not near as well as the current Nvidia cards (you'll have to back off on AA & TF to min settings and reduce some graphics settings as well). If AMD is in the running then it's gonna have to be Rx Vega 10....most likely the AIO liquid-cooled version but I'd wait for the reviews to come out Monday on this card before considering it for 4K usage.
6. Please explain what you mean by "Integrated\Onboard"? I'll assume you're referring to sound? If so then no worries. With sound make sure that you're using the mobo onboard sound chip for playback\recording & not the HDMI sound chip on the graphics card unless you really know what you're getting into.
The rest is OK as far as I can see but you could get by w\ a smaller, high quality PSU, say around 650W range to save some more money.
This is for reference info on current AMD graphics cards..........
If anyone is interested in considering an AMD Rx Polaris or Rx Vega vid card I'd highly recommend either getting the AIO liquid-cooled version or getting the reference model & slap a waterblock on it for a custom loop watercooling kit (what I'm gonna do) or wait for the AIB versions to come out w\ better cooling solutions IF you want the absolute best performance from it. From my experience w\ my AMD graphics cards, good air cooling\watercooling is a
MUST to squeeze the most out of them as it is important to maintain the GPU's operating temp within 10*C of the GPU's TDP thermal throttling threshold w\o exceeding it to allow AMD's PowerTune to optimize the GPU power output\regulation to the GPU so it can perform to it's best. This is due to the way AMD has designed\coded their GPU's w\ PowerTune & only good air HSF's\watercooling can effectively maintain this temp threshold consistently enough to consistently achieve maximum Radeon GPU performance. The biggest mistake most users are making w\ AMD GPU's from a performance perspective since the advent of Hawaii IMHO is trying to "cool" them down & in some aspects trying to overclock them w\o fully understanding what I've typed here. AMD's PowerTune GPU control is HIGHLY dependent on this GPU temp delta to properly calculate the necessary power wattage for the GPU work load(s) at hand & if you over cool a Radeon GPU you WILL be cutting power to it excessively regardless of the GPU work load causing them to not perform to their best. AMD's Radeon WattMan GPU power control is already tuned to do this so I would recommend to leave the settings in default and just set the power to +50% to give WattMan full power to use if needed then adjust GPU\mem clocks. I have a copy of AMD' engineering white paper on PowerTune & how this works and have tested this out on a R9 290X on air and this Fury X on water and have found this to be true. This is IMHO the MAIN reason why Fury X can't overclock as well as it could.....you'd need to alter the BIOS to get more out of these cause there IS more to be had....AMD won't allow users to tap into it. I believe AMD's Rx Vega is gonna have the same issue. If you followed the Gamers Nexus review on the Vega FE air-cooled card after they put an aftermarket waterblock on it to show the performance difference between the 2 cooling methods this is already made apparent. This is the big issue w\ AMD's GCN GPU architecture IMHO.
Well this is my rambling 2 cents to attempt to help out. Hope all this can be of some value to you.
