Phrozt
Weaksauce
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2007
- Messages
- 102
I really haven’t done a ton of research for this build, and I’m doing something different this time. I’ve used Intel/Nvidia for every build, but not because I’m a fanboy. I usually buy high middle tier or low high tier, and AMD has just never had any offerings in that range when I’m looking to build. However, as I’m sure you’re all aware, this is quite a time to be alive, because AMD is kicking the pants off of Intel w/their latest offerings. I’m definitely going for a 5900x for the CPU, and I’ll most likely go for an AMD GPU as well, but I’m going to wait for the benchmarks first. If they aren't as promised, I'll go with a 3080.
The other interesting thing about this build, is the storage arrangement. I do a couple interesting things in that department. To begin, from all my builds previous… I really don't delete many things, and I have a LOT of games loaded, so I use up a huge amount of storage. Also, on my last build, I tried out RAID5. Now, while I was WILDLY optimistic w/performance (RAID5 on platters still isn’t remotely comparable to a single SSD), I did get used to the idea of having redundancy. I also was very fortuitous in this department, because out of all my previous builds, I never had a HDD fail, but the first time I tried RAID5, one of the disks failed – which was no problem! After having that happen, I really don’t think I want to go back to a single disk for all my files and stuff. The last note in the storage section, is that I’ve done a bit of streaming, but even when I’m not, I have lowkey.gg or some other capture program so I can make clips. The problem is that this is very disk intensive, and it fights for disk IO w/anything else I’m running – namely the game that I’m running that I would want to capture things from in the first place!
Here's my current storage layout:
C: 91GB free of 464GB (500GB SSD)
D (Downloads): 159GB free of 200GB
F (Files): 146GB free of 200GB
G (Games): 473GB free of 4TB
P (Apps): 444GB free of 500GB
R (Archive): 134 GB free of 400 GB
X (Desktop): 192 GB free of 200 GB
My C drive is an SSD, and the reason I’ve used a lot of it is because, in addition to some apps that will only allow installs on the C: drive, I’ve also ended up putting my most played games on it for performance. I actually have D, F, and X bound to their respective functions in the system. I like this, because when I want to go to my documents, I just type F: in the address bar and there I am! Same w/downloads/desktop. This also REALLY helps get me back up and running after a new build/restore, because all my files are exactly where I want them after a bit of configuration. D, F, G, P, R, X are all part of the RAID5 array, just split into logical drives. Currently, I’m using R for the temp storage for lowkey/obs… but it’s still part of the same RAID array, so it still fights for IO. The plan for the new build is m.2/NVMe for the C, a RAID5 of at least the size you see here for everything else…. And then m.2/NVMe to dedicate to video encoding processes.
tl;dr – This is a gaming build w/a unique storage situation. On to the parts list, where I have several questions.
CPU – Ryzen 9 5900x – pretty firm on this
GPU - Probably a Radeon RX 6900XT. Possibly a RX 6800 XT, depending on the actual performance difference, but if I’m in that range, getting a RTX 3080 might be just as much of a possibility depending on deals/etc. I do know about the smart tech or whatever where the CPU and GPU from AMD are supposed to be able to talk to each other for better performance, but again, that all hinges on third party benchmarks (let’s be serious, I’m primarily talking about JayzTwoCents).
Mobo – I don’t know? Again, never having built an AMD machine, I’m WAY out of my research zone for this, but I’m pretty sure it will be an X570 board, and most likely the AUS ROG Strix X570-E. Thoughts on this would be appreciated. One of the things I need to make sure is that the board will support my storage strategy, so I would need at least 2 NVMe, and plenty of SATA connections after that.
Cooling – I have never done a water build… don’t ever really want to. I’m pretty impressed w/the fact that Noctua FINALLY got away from their aged beige color scheme, so I will most likely go with a NH-D15
Memory – Again, I haven’t done much research, but I doubt there’s that much difference, so I’ll probably look for a good BF deal, and I’ll be getting 32GB, unless you guys shout at me.
PSU – Anything 1000+ watts from Silverstone or Corsair – will look for some deal on BF
Case – Another area I haven’t done a lot of research. My primary concern here would be great airflow and proper room/accommodations for 2 NVMe/m.2s, and 3-4+ SSDs.
Storage – Here’s where we get into the fun, and I’m hoping you have good knowledge/advice on performance, problems, etc to help guide me away from noob mistakes and into a solid configuration.
C – NVMe or m.2, probably 1TB, but potentially 500GB. As you can see from the above, I currently have a 500GB C, and while a lot of space is used and I have to fight to free space, that’s mostly because of games, which should be solved if the RAID5 option is chosen wisely. The reason I’m flirting w/a 1TB option is because I have a friend who might be able to get me a good deal on a 1TB WD black NVMe. That being said, I’m not tied to anything at the moment, so I’m very open to your thoughts on this.
Video/Encoding – Again NVMe or m.2. Again, 500GB or 1TB depending on deals. I’m less worried about the performance of this one, because the major performance upgrade will just be getting the video encoding to work w/a separate drive. I could even go down to an SSD for this option. I thought about doing an elgato device or something similar, but I don’t want to use this just for streaming. Even if/when I do other video/music editing on this drive, final products won’t necessarily live here, so I don’t necessarily need to carve out a huge chunk of storage space for this attribute.
Everything else – Here’s where we get back to RAID5, and I’m shooting for at least the size I had before (as you can see, I’m already pushing the limits of my games drive, and that’s with some of the games being offloaded to the C). So that’s 3x3TB drives minimum, and SSD at least. The thing is, in my first RAID5 foray, I completely underestimated the performance, and I don’t really want to do that again. I know there are a plethora of differences in SSDs when it comes to speed, especially when you tie that in to size. I know there are some who warn about using SSDs for RAID, because of the fact there are is so much IO w/the parity and everything, but I think most of those fears are assuaged by pretty much anything currently available on the market. That being said, this could be another area where I’m underestimating the potential risks. Does anyone have knowledge/thoughts on using SSDs in RAID? Also, because of the need for multiple drives, and because of how much large capacity SSDs cost in the first place, this is where I really have to take price into consideration, because things can scale up quite quickly. I had previously stated that I need 3x3TB drives… but the cheapest option right now is a 4TB drive, and actually there really aren’t any options at the 3TB range that are affordable. So really, I’m looking at 3x4TB drives.
The cheapest option is the Samsung 870 QVO. Then you’ve got a couple other Samsung options, WD, SanDisk and some Kingston options. I have 0 knowledge of the reliability of Kingston at the SSD level. However, after that, you get right into m.2 options. I’m pretty sure m.2 would be better, but you’ve got to have a mobo that can handle that.. right? And while there are some mobos out there that handle 4-6 m.2s, part of the idea of RAID5 is scalability, so I don’t really want to be bound by a number that low (considering my C and video drives would also be counted in there), even though realistically I wouldn’t be doing more than 4 drives in my RAID, especially since they’re already bumped up to 4TB instead of 3.
However, the other option is to go lower, and get more than 3x2TB drives. So, if I’m shooting for 6TB minimum, and RAID5 is n-1, then I would need at least 4 SSDs to get to my current storage size. The 2TB drives are roughly half of the price of the 4TB drives in their respective categories, but I could even go to 5x2TB drives, have more space than I currently have, and still spend under what it would cost for 3x4TB drives. However, once again, we get back into the discussion of speed/performance of larger drives vs smaller drives. I’m way out of my league here, because the only thing I really know about SSDs…. And m.2…. and NVMe… is that there are SUCH huge differences in performance over a wide array of factors. Also, if I push to 5x2TB drive, then add in the C and video drives, and I do m.2/NVMe, then I bust out of the limit of most mobos. Course.. I could drop the C and video to SSDs and then use all m.2/NVMe slots for the RAID.....
Ok.. so I posted this on a different forum... someone mentioned that AMD boards don't have RAID, but I could just use a RAID controller. As I was looking those up, however, I also saw that apparently RAID5 is deprecated?? Even though I'm currently using it on this PC and in my NAS?
Now I'm thinking I might need to rethink my whole storage system *outside* of RAID5...
The other interesting thing about this build, is the storage arrangement. I do a couple interesting things in that department. To begin, from all my builds previous… I really don't delete many things, and I have a LOT of games loaded, so I use up a huge amount of storage. Also, on my last build, I tried out RAID5. Now, while I was WILDLY optimistic w/performance (RAID5 on platters still isn’t remotely comparable to a single SSD), I did get used to the idea of having redundancy. I also was very fortuitous in this department, because out of all my previous builds, I never had a HDD fail, but the first time I tried RAID5, one of the disks failed – which was no problem! After having that happen, I really don’t think I want to go back to a single disk for all my files and stuff. The last note in the storage section, is that I’ve done a bit of streaming, but even when I’m not, I have lowkey.gg or some other capture program so I can make clips. The problem is that this is very disk intensive, and it fights for disk IO w/anything else I’m running – namely the game that I’m running that I would want to capture things from in the first place!
Here's my current storage layout:
C: 91GB free of 464GB (500GB SSD)
D (Downloads): 159GB free of 200GB
F (Files): 146GB free of 200GB
G (Games): 473GB free of 4TB
P (Apps): 444GB free of 500GB
R (Archive): 134 GB free of 400 GB
X (Desktop): 192 GB free of 200 GB
My C drive is an SSD, and the reason I’ve used a lot of it is because, in addition to some apps that will only allow installs on the C: drive, I’ve also ended up putting my most played games on it for performance. I actually have D, F, and X bound to their respective functions in the system. I like this, because when I want to go to my documents, I just type F: in the address bar and there I am! Same w/downloads/desktop. This also REALLY helps get me back up and running after a new build/restore, because all my files are exactly where I want them after a bit of configuration. D, F, G, P, R, X are all part of the RAID5 array, just split into logical drives. Currently, I’m using R for the temp storage for lowkey/obs… but it’s still part of the same RAID array, so it still fights for IO. The plan for the new build is m.2/NVMe for the C, a RAID5 of at least the size you see here for everything else…. And then m.2/NVMe to dedicate to video encoding processes.
tl;dr – This is a gaming build w/a unique storage situation. On to the parts list, where I have several questions.
CPU – Ryzen 9 5900x – pretty firm on this
GPU - Probably a Radeon RX 6900XT. Possibly a RX 6800 XT, depending on the actual performance difference, but if I’m in that range, getting a RTX 3080 might be just as much of a possibility depending on deals/etc. I do know about the smart tech or whatever where the CPU and GPU from AMD are supposed to be able to talk to each other for better performance, but again, that all hinges on third party benchmarks (let’s be serious, I’m primarily talking about JayzTwoCents).
Mobo – I don’t know? Again, never having built an AMD machine, I’m WAY out of my research zone for this, but I’m pretty sure it will be an X570 board, and most likely the AUS ROG Strix X570-E. Thoughts on this would be appreciated. One of the things I need to make sure is that the board will support my storage strategy, so I would need at least 2 NVMe, and plenty of SATA connections after that.
Cooling – I have never done a water build… don’t ever really want to. I’m pretty impressed w/the fact that Noctua FINALLY got away from their aged beige color scheme, so I will most likely go with a NH-D15
Memory – Again, I haven’t done much research, but I doubt there’s that much difference, so I’ll probably look for a good BF deal, and I’ll be getting 32GB, unless you guys shout at me.
PSU – Anything 1000+ watts from Silverstone or Corsair – will look for some deal on BF
Case – Another area I haven’t done a lot of research. My primary concern here would be great airflow and proper room/accommodations for 2 NVMe/m.2s, and 3-4+ SSDs.
Storage – Here’s where we get into the fun, and I’m hoping you have good knowledge/advice on performance, problems, etc to help guide me away from noob mistakes and into a solid configuration.
C – NVMe or m.2, probably 1TB, but potentially 500GB. As you can see from the above, I currently have a 500GB C, and while a lot of space is used and I have to fight to free space, that’s mostly because of games, which should be solved if the RAID5 option is chosen wisely. The reason I’m flirting w/a 1TB option is because I have a friend who might be able to get me a good deal on a 1TB WD black NVMe. That being said, I’m not tied to anything at the moment, so I’m very open to your thoughts on this.
Video/Encoding – Again NVMe or m.2. Again, 500GB or 1TB depending on deals. I’m less worried about the performance of this one, because the major performance upgrade will just be getting the video encoding to work w/a separate drive. I could even go down to an SSD for this option. I thought about doing an elgato device or something similar, but I don’t want to use this just for streaming. Even if/when I do other video/music editing on this drive, final products won’t necessarily live here, so I don’t necessarily need to carve out a huge chunk of storage space for this attribute.
Everything else – Here’s where we get back to RAID5, and I’m shooting for at least the size I had before (as you can see, I’m already pushing the limits of my games drive, and that’s with some of the games being offloaded to the C). So that’s 3x3TB drives minimum, and SSD at least. The thing is, in my first RAID5 foray, I completely underestimated the performance, and I don’t really want to do that again. I know there are a plethora of differences in SSDs when it comes to speed, especially when you tie that in to size. I know there are some who warn about using SSDs for RAID, because of the fact there are is so much IO w/the parity and everything, but I think most of those fears are assuaged by pretty much anything currently available on the market. That being said, this could be another area where I’m underestimating the potential risks. Does anyone have knowledge/thoughts on using SSDs in RAID? Also, because of the need for multiple drives, and because of how much large capacity SSDs cost in the first place, this is where I really have to take price into consideration, because things can scale up quite quickly. I had previously stated that I need 3x3TB drives… but the cheapest option right now is a 4TB drive, and actually there really aren’t any options at the 3TB range that are affordable. So really, I’m looking at 3x4TB drives.
The cheapest option is the Samsung 870 QVO. Then you’ve got a couple other Samsung options, WD, SanDisk and some Kingston options. I have 0 knowledge of the reliability of Kingston at the SSD level. However, after that, you get right into m.2 options. I’m pretty sure m.2 would be better, but you’ve got to have a mobo that can handle that.. right? And while there are some mobos out there that handle 4-6 m.2s, part of the idea of RAID5 is scalability, so I don’t really want to be bound by a number that low (considering my C and video drives would also be counted in there), even though realistically I wouldn’t be doing more than 4 drives in my RAID, especially since they’re already bumped up to 4TB instead of 3.
However, the other option is to go lower, and get more than 3x2TB drives. So, if I’m shooting for 6TB minimum, and RAID5 is n-1, then I would need at least 4 SSDs to get to my current storage size. The 2TB drives are roughly half of the price of the 4TB drives in their respective categories, but I could even go to 5x2TB drives, have more space than I currently have, and still spend under what it would cost for 3x4TB drives. However, once again, we get back into the discussion of speed/performance of larger drives vs smaller drives. I’m way out of my league here, because the only thing I really know about SSDs…. And m.2…. and NVMe… is that there are SUCH huge differences in performance over a wide array of factors. Also, if I push to 5x2TB drive, then add in the C and video drives, and I do m.2/NVMe, then I bust out of the limit of most mobos. Course.. I could drop the C and video to SSDs and then use all m.2/NVMe slots for the RAID.....
Ok.. so I posted this on a different forum... someone mentioned that AMD boards don't have RAID, but I could just use a RAID controller. As I was looking those up, however, I also saw that apparently RAID5 is deprecated?? Even though I'm currently using it on this PC and in my NAS?
Now I'm thinking I might need to rethink my whole storage system *outside* of RAID5...
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