PC Upgrade-SSD-Mobo etc.

[hardminder]

Thanks to all of you, I think I came down to a conclusion. I went a little over the budget but WTH, I'll have a great machine for some years to come I think. Here's what I'm planning on getting:

CPU : AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core, 12-thread
MOBO : ASUS Prime X470-Pro AMD Ryzen 2
Samples/librairies : Samsung 970 EVO 1TB NVMe M.2 Internal SSD
OS + Program Files : 860 Evo 500 Go Intrnal SSD, 2,5 inch
RAM : Ballistix Sport LT 32GB Kit (16GBx2) DDR4

the reson I'm splitting the OS and librairies on SSD and NVMe M2 respectively is because 1 tb is not enough for both my libraries and OS+ProgFiles. And A 2TB M2 is just to expensive compared to a regular SATA SDD

What do you guys think?

[hardminder]

So you guys can stop the arguing about 2000 vs 3000 series etc I think!

[n o i s e f l e ur]

Looks good to me, sensible choices. Ought to be quite the step up from your current system - you'll be amazed by how much better running a system off SSDs (of any type) is over spinning-rust.

Agharta - you seem to have taken my posts as pro-Intel / anti-AMD . . . and this simply isn't the case. I was just trying to point out that previous-gen Ryzen CPUs weren't competitive with their Intel counterparts for low-latency audio work. 3000 series, different story.

[Agharta]

Agharta - you seem to have taken my posts as pro-Intel / anti-AMD . . . and this simply isn't the case. I was just trying to point out that previous-gen Ryzen CPUs weren't competitive with their Intel counterparts for low-latency audio work. 3000 series, different story.

No, I just thought you missed the overall context relating to budget and that a Ryzen 2000 series will still look fine compared to Ivy Bridge.
I second your words regarding the Ryzen 3000 series as being a decent upgrade for DAW usage.

It's often a case of walking a tightrope when recommending gear as things like budget can be more flexible than initially apparent which is a good thing.
Some areas are more subjective than others meaning that one can only offer loose advice.

Make sure the ASUS Prime X470-Pro can support the Ryzen 5 3600 without you requiring a 2000 series, although AMD did offer free loans in the past for such scenarios.
Here it is but not sure if this is still active:
https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/p ... n-Boot-Kit

[n o i s e f l e ur]

No, I just thought you missed the overall context relating to budget and that a Ryzen 2000 series will still look fine compared to Ivy Bridge.
I second your words regarding the Ryzen 3000 series as being a decent upgrade for DAW usage.

It's often a case of walking a tightrope when recommending gear as things like budget can be more flexible than initially apparent which is a good thing.
Some areas are more subjective than others meaning that one can only offer loose advice.

Make sure the ASUS Prime X470-Pro can support the Ryzen 5 3600 without you requiring a 2000 series, although AMD did offer free loans in the past for such scenarios.
Here it is but not sure if this is still active:
https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/p ... n-Boot-Kit

Fair enough!

It's not that I missed the context re: budget so much as I paid attention to the OP mentioning they had no intention of upgrading this new CPU at any point, so my take was to get the best available at the outset . . . and I confess that super low latency is a bit of an obsession of mine, hence the criticism of the 2000 versus the 3000 (or Intel).

I agree it can be hard to provide advice over the internet like this, I did try and keep things fairly non-prescriptive. It might not have come across that way, I can only apologise.

The ASUS Prime X470-Pro are what Scan offer in their build, so unless they have a custom UEFI it should be fine (fingers crossed!).

As for stretching the budget . . . it appears a new Windows licence might have to be accounted for on top of the fancy new hardware!

https://www.soundonsound.com/forum/view ... 20&t=68787

I'd forego the Ballistix RAM for something cheaper, if trimming the budget.

[Agharta]

The ASUS Prime X470-Pro are what Scan offer in their build, so unless they have a custom UEFI it should be fine (fingers crossed!)

That board doesn't support updating the BIOS without a CPU present but Scan will be able to use an older CPU to update the BIOS prior to installing the 3000 series.

Some manufacturers will put a label on newer stock confirming that the installed BIOS is ready for the 3000 series so you can check with the supplier before purchasing.
Not sure if Asus do that?

Boards that you can seemingly update with no worries:
https://premiumbuilds.com/motherboards/ ... flashback/

[hardminder]

The ASUS Prime X470-Pro are what Scan offer in their build, so unless they have a custom UEFI it should be fine (fingers crossed!)

That board doesn't support updating the BIOS without a CPU present but Scan will be able to use an older CPU to update the BIOS prior to installing the 3000 series.

Some manufacturers will put a label on newer stock confirming that the installed BIOS is ready for the 3000 series so you can check with the supplier before purchasing.
Not sure if Asus do that?

Boards that you can seemingly update with no worries:
https://premiumbuilds.com/motherboards/ ... flashback/

So basically, you're saying I need to choose another mobo? How am i supposed to know the compatibility of two components. Even you guys, who are much more knowledgeable than I am, seem to be a bit confused by it.

[hardminder]

Yep, my W7 licence is OEM

[n o i s e f l e ur]

Well, the board's compatable - it's just you may have to jump through some hoops, or ascertain ahead of purchase if it already has the correct BIOS.

BUT!

Here's the 470 Pro . . .

https://www.amazon.com/Asus-Prime-X470- ... B07C64R1TW

And here's the 570 Pro . . .

https://www.amazon.com/Asus-Prime-X570- ... B07SW925DQ

70 bucks cheaper, and out-of-the-box compatible. I see Scan use this board in their more expensive build, so it ought to be at least as suitable as the 470.

[hardminder]

"70 bucks cheaper, and out-of-the-box compatible. I see Scan use this board in their more expensive build, so it ought to be at least as suitable as the 470."

Yeah but still 125$ over the one I had planned to buy I'll right tomorrow, it's getting late here

[n o i s e f l e ur]

Yeah but still 125$ over the one I had planned to buy I'll right tomorrow, it's getting late here

You've found an Asus Prime X470 Pro going for $70 ???

Post a link man, I might be tempted to throw together an AMD box myself!

[Agharta]

The ASUS Prime X470-Pro are what Scan offer in their build, so unless they have a custom UEFI it should be fine (fingers crossed!)

That board doesn't support updating the BIOS without a CPU present but Scan will be able to use an older CPU to update the BIOS prior to installing the 3000 series.

Some manufacturers will put a label on newer stock confirming that the installed BIOS is ready for the 3000 series so you can check with the supplier before purchasing.
Not sure if Asus do that?

Boards that you can seemingly update with no worries:
https://premiumbuilds.com/motherboards/ ... flashback/

So basically, you're saying I need to choose another mobo? How am i supposed to know the compatibility of two components. Even you guys, who are much more knowledgeable than I am, seem to be a bit confused by it.

No confusion this end.
1. X570 supports 3000 series out of the box.
2. Old stock of older chipset boards (X470/B450 etc) will require a BIOS update before they support the 3000 series.
3. New stock of older chipset boards (X470/B450 etc) may have a more recent BIOS so don’t need a BIOS update. Check with manufacturers and retailers about this.
4. Some boards support BIOS updates without a CPU present so you can safely buy one of these and update to the latest BIOS prior to installing a 3000 series chip.
5. AMD were running a programme in some countries where they’d lend you a 2000 series CPU to use to update the BIOS to make it ready for 3000 series chips. Check if this is still available in your area.

Notes:
1. If you want PCIe 4.0 support then buy an X570 board. Hardly seems essential.
2. I wouldn’t recommend a 3 series chipset at this point, partly because support for the 3000 series is more patchy and the A320 doesn’t support it all.

[hardminder]

Yeah but still 125$ over the one I had planned to buy I'll right tomorrow, it's getting late here

You've found an Asus Prime X470 Pro going for $70 ???

Post a link man, I might be tempted to throw together an AMD box myself!

Well, The x470 pro you linked (on amazon US) is 263$ USD= 350$ CAD

The x470 pro I initially found (on amazon canada) is 190$ CAD = 150$ USD for some reason...

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07C57Q1XH/ref ... YDb56QSSTW

It's the opposite for the x570 pro
The one you linked to is 190 $ USD = 250$ CAD (+shipping, +1 month to ship...)

The cheaper I found (amazon canada) is 315$ CAD = 240$ USD

Go figure...

I'll check what Agharta has written on the matter.
I might buy the x570 pro on Amazon US to save 70$ but it sucks that I'll have to wait a whole month to get it.

[n o i s e f l e ur]

Ahhhh right!

That does suck. Looks like it's going to cost you one way or the other, time or money or effort.

Well . . . effort, regardless.

Alternatively, contact the seller and see if the installed BIOS is version 4801 or later. If so - good to go.

[hardminder]

I've just found a x570-P (not pro) for 200$ (150$USD)

I think I'll jump on that, all the x570 are compatible with 3rd generation Ryzen

"Boards that you can seemingly update with no worries:
https://premiumbuilds.com/motherboards/ ... flashback/''

Agharta thanks for that!

So my final build would look like that:

RAM : Patriot Viper Steel Series DDR4 32GB (2 x 16GB) 3200MHz Performance Memory Kit

MOBO: Asus Prime X570-P Ryzen 3 AM4 with PCIe Gen4, Dual M.2 HDMI, SATA 6GB/s USB 3.2 Gen 2 ATX

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core, 12-thread unlocked desktop processor with Wraith Stealth cooler.

Sample/librairies: Samsung 970 EVO 1TB NVMe M.2 Internal SSD

OS: Samsung 860 EVO 500GB SATA 2.5" Internal SSD

Total before tx: 963$ CAD (727$ USD, 566£, 659€)
Total after tx: 1079$ CAD (815$ USD, 634£, 739€ )

I'm about to press ''Place your order'', I'm excited, christmas as come early, with the first snow storm (yes 20cm for tonight).

Anything to add guys?

[n o i s e f l e ur]

edit:

Can't really comment one way or the other about that motherboard. It might be fine, it might be completely unsuitable.

The whole point to getting a board Scan use is they've already done most of the hard work validating it for use in a DAW.

[Agharta]

I have a 256GB PCIe Boot Drive and a SATA SSD for data.
I find that easily enough for a boot drive and the O/S and apps are what tend to push the drive in terms of latency if not bandwidth.
Be interesting to read a review that looks closely at the impact of PCIe SSDs for DAW usage and particularly with Kontakt and sample library loading.

You tend to pay a premium for Samsung SSDs which I'm not sure is warranted.
If 1TB gives you enough headroom then go for it as adding another SSD isn't difficult.

Good luck with the build.

[hardminder]

''Be interesting to read a review that looks closely at the impact of PCIe SSDs for DAW usage and particularly with Kontakt and sample library loading.''

Some interesting stuff on the subject here, scroll through it a bit :

https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php? ... their-daw/

''Can't really comment one way or the other about that motherboard. It might be fine, it might be completely unsuitable.

The whole point to getting a board Scan use is they've already done most of the hard work validating it for use in a DAW.''

I'll look deeper into it.

[Agharta]

''Be interesting to read a review that looks closely at the impact of PCIe SSDs for DAW usage and particularly with Kontakt and sample library loading.''

Some interesting stuff on the subject here, scroll through it a bit :

https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php? ... their-daw/

His boot drive is an Intel Optane drive which has significantly lower latency and higher Q1 throughput than the NAND based SSDs that us mortals use and are much more expensive.
His Sample drive is a regular SSD though.

[n o i s e f l e ur]

Yeah, that's why I said the NVMe drive would be fine for OS / apps and data / libs - the latency and queue depth / concurrency would handle both with ease . . . but that was before the OP told us 1TB wasn't sufficient for the sample libs.

It would be interesting to see benchmarks based on sample loads alright. My intuition is it really wouldn't matter too much outside of auditioning different presets (kits, what have you) since we seem to have moved away from streaming from disc?

Just saw the new posts before I posted this so . . . yep, Optane, super stuff for latency and throughput, but hella expensive. I expect the price to drop considerably over 2020 - but that goes for NAND too. Can't wait!

It's definitely a sound suggestion to reverse the capacity of the NVMe (M2) and the SATA - though I think it's probably wise to stick with the Samsung. They might command a premium, but it's justified by their performance - they also manufacture the whole stack, which few other vendors do. As for reliability . . . we simply don't have access to that information, and those that do - aren't gonna be telling.

Another suggestion to manage the budget would be to go for more vanilla RAM, there's really no need to pay for bling gamer stuff. So-called "heatspreaders" . . . pfffft!

I'll look deeper into it.

If you can compare onboard stuff like NIC, Wi-Fi chip etc and they're identical - might be okay. It's your money though - the risk is yours to take.

[hardminder]

"Another suggestion to manage the budget would be to go for more vanilla RAM, there's really no need to pay for bling gamer stuff. So-called "heatspreaders" . . . pfffft!''

The ram I chose is almost the cheapest I can find on Amazon, 167$ CAD for 32gb

I found cheaper at 148$ but it is really the cheapest of the cheapest. You wouldn't care to use that?

[n o i s e f l e ur]

If it's the best deal on offer, that's cool - it's usually the opposite case, where stuff with bling costs more.

I'm generally inclined to stick to brands like Samsung / Crucial (Intel / Micron) / Corsair but at least Patriot are a fairly well-know brand in their own right.

amazon.ca seems weird for pricing, I don't know if that's because the Canadian $ amounts are just unintuitive for me as I'm more used to $US / £GB / €Euro or . . . no, pricing just seems weird! Must be import-related or something.

And defintely don't be tempted by Optane lol!

[Mike McLoone]

Some great input on this thread. I'm going to throw some petrol on the decision making fire however, as this was an issue which affected my mainboard choice. And it is, my existing ATX power supply didn't have a 4-pin ATX power connector. Now, certainly adapters are available to try and squeeze this from a 12V molex drive power connector, but I was weary with this approach. There are mainboards available which simply do not need the 4-pin ATX power, and I went with one of those (ASRock X570 Pro4).

The spec of the Asus Prime x570-p shows:
1 x 8-pin ATX 12V Power connector(s)
1 x 4-pin ATX 12V Power connector(s)

Which means, as can be seen on the photos on the Asus site, an extra 4-pin ATX connection is required (just left of the 8-pin connector on the board). This is not to be confused with the PCIe 12V power cables, which are designed for graphic cards. The polarity is reversed between these, and they are anyhow keyed to prevent such misfortune. However, start messing around with 1-euro adapters from Amazon, and if you end up connecting the 12V output of the PSU directly to ground, it will have been your own fault and no dodgy cable manufacturer is going to be held liable.

Plus, there were enough photos of such adapter cables literally melting and burning out due to inadequate gauge of wire (even if they had the correct polarity), to send me looking for a mainboard which didn't need that at all. And there are several, just check for 4-pin ATX power connector in the specifications, if it has the connector, it needs that output from the PSU.

Does your PSU have a 4-pin ATX output? You'll have to check. If so, it will be a white/black/clear plastic connector with exactly 4-pins. If it's red or marked "PCIe" or "graphics" or "GPU", then no, it is a PCIe power (4 or 6 pins) and not the one you need.

Some pics here:
http://www.smpspowersupply.com/connectors-pinouts.html

Mike

[n o i s e f l e ur]

Great advice Mike - I already informed the OP of the possibility of having to replace the existing PSU but you've illustrated and expanded on the issue very effectively!

[hardminder]

Some great input on this thread. I'm going to throw some petrol on the decision making fire however, as this was an issue which affected my mainboard choice. And it is, my existing ATX power supply didn't have a 4-pin ATX power connector. Now, certainly adapters are available to try and squeeze this from a 12V molex drive power connector, but I was weary with this approach. There are mainboards available which simply do not need the 4-pin ATX power, and I went with one of those (ASRock X570 Pro4).

The spec of the Asus Prime x570-p shows:
1 x 8-pin ATX 12V Power connector(s)
1 x 4-pin ATX 12V Power connector(s)

Which means, as can be seen on the photos on the Asus site, an extra 4-pin ATX connection is required (just left of the 8-pin connector on the board). This is not to be confused with the PCIe 12V power cables, which are designed for graphic cards. The polarity is reversed between these, and they are anyhow keyed to prevent such misfortune. However, start messing around with 1-euro adapters from Amazon, and if you end up connecting the 12V output of the PSU directly to ground, it will have been your own fault and no dodgy cable manufacturer is going to be held liable.

Plus, there were enough photos of such adapter cables literally melting and burning out due to inadequate gauge of wire (even if they had the correct polarity), to send me looking for a mainboard which didn't need that at all. And there are several, just check for 4-pin ATX power connector in the specifications, if it has the connector, it needs that output from the PSU.

Does your PSU have a 4-pin ATX output? You'll have to check. If so, it will be a white/black/clear plastic connector with exactly 4-pins. If it's red or marked "PCIe" or "graphics" or "GPU", then no, it is a PCIe power (4 or 6 pins) and not the one you need.

Some pics here:
http://www.smpspowersupply.com/connectors-pinouts.html

Mike

Thank you Mike for that. I read a couple things online about the subject. A lot of people are saying the extra 4 pins are useless.

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/10 ... tra-4-pin/

https://pcpartpicker.com/forums/topic/2 ... -to-my-psu

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads ... r.3088447/

Some people say it doesn't affect overclocking, some people say it's just for marketing (which a find a bit easy to say) etc. What's your thought on that?

Thanks a lot