A new workhorse.

[Vizioen]

I think it's almost time for a new workstation. My current workstation is still pretty reliable and hasn't failed me once but he's almost 6 years old and I'm starting to get jealous of computers with more speed so I think I'll have to demote him to a renderslave or something.

Currently I have a Dual Xeon E5 2695 V2 with 64GB DDR3RAM. Budget would be between 4000-5000 euros. Could anyone provide some insight in what is a good combo. I have configured something myself but not sure if it's any good. Dual Xeon isn't an option due to the prices and the threadrippers are just wiping the floor with them.

So I had something like this in mind. I'm hearing that the 2080ti is overrated and that I should consider Radeon RX 5700 XT instead, but not sure.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX
GIGABYTE AORUS X399 XTREME
NZXT Kraken X62 AM4 ready
HyperX 128 GB DDR4-3000 Octo-Kit
IGABYTE GeForce RTX 2080 Ti GAMING OC GIGABYTE
AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD, 1 TB SSD
Corsair Obsidian 750D big tower
be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 1000W

Also should I maybe wait for DDR5 to come out and/or the new threadrippers. I've been working on this computer for 6 years, I can wait for a little longer maybe .

[Nejc Kilar]

My recommendation would be to wait if you can. Threadripper Gen 3 is apparently around the corner (Q4 2019) with a chance that you'll be getting at least a 32 core TR first followed by a 64 core in Q1 2020 (speculation alert). The 2990wx is definitely what I'd buy right now if I needed the horsepower today but AMD is apparently still going to be rocking the HEDT market moving forward

[Vizioen]

Thanks for the insight. That is indeed what I was thinking. But in terms of price, I'm not sure if the new processors will be around the same price, or skyrocket, in any case, new CPU means the older ones will be cheaper so waiting couldn't harm, just hoping I can wait that long haha.

[psanitra]

My advice, as someone having 2990WX almost a year now, wait for 3rd gen TR. Specially if you use only Windows, 2990WX even after "W10 scheduler fix" still does not run as good as it should, and definetly not as good as it does on Linux. Hopefully 3rd gen will be better in this aspect. Also you`ll get more choices for motherboards, which currently with TR2 there are very few suitable for 2990wx.

[Vizioen]

Thanks Peter. I guess i'm going to have to restrain myself

[super gnu]

if youve got the budget, my crystal ball says the workstation chipset (wrx80) for new threadripper with be dual socket.

[psanitra]

if youve got the budget, my crystal ball says the workstation chipset (wrx80) for new threadripper with be dual socket.

quite possible, with the advertised 8 channel DDR4 memory

[super gnu]

quite possible, with the advertised 8 channel DDR4 memory

especially since there is the "enthusiast" TRX80 which also has 8 channel memory... if its not dual socket, what is there to differentiate? surely not worth a seperate category of chipset for a few small differences. They already have the hardware in the epyc platform, so a version with a massive power budget and high clocks would fill a nice gap in the lineup for those who need great single thread performance and as many cores as possible. (and very deep pockets i imagine)

the cooling will be "interesting" if so.

i love speculating on fancy new hardware.

[psanitra]

super gnu , i just found out that AMD changed the plans with compatibility of TR3, info was shared by 1usmus, creator of DRAM calc for Ryzen, i quote:

"Hey. Unfortunately there is not very good news, AMD has changed its mind about making X399 compatible with the new generation.
For this reason, HEDT disappeared from all calendars and the release of these processors was forced to postpone.

Since the new processor has a new memory controller and he in a single copy (instead of two as before) had to seriously change the pins. Also, the new PCI Gen 4 standard and new power pins made a special contribution.

TRX40 and TRX80 are a new generation and a new architecture. Nothing to do with the past generation"

[super gnu]

- for me this is not a problem, i will be building an entirely new system and have no interest in backwards compatibility. i dont think it could ever have been different - it would be impossible to get 8 channel memory working on a motherboard with traces only for 4 channels of ram.


i believe the delay will not be too long. - HEDT chips dissapeared from presentation slides from AMD about 6 months ago, and all rumours since point to a 2019 release date. I prefer to wait a few more months and have a more refined/higher clocked chip.. In my opinion the first ryzen 3000 cpus could have done with a bit more testing and tuning before release so we didnt have the bios/boost clock issues we see now.