Advice FormD T1 + Other Unobtainable Things - Help Me Plan ?

[br0qn]

Hello sff.network

Just posted in the intro section.

I've long been dreaming of building a pc and given the new gpus, forthcoming zen, and the imminent cyberpunk release, I figured the time is now.

Given that I've been wanting to do this for 20+ years I decided go straight for the abyss and plan the build around the FormD T1.

I've just started collecting components and have put together this spreadsheet which should, if nothing else, illustrate the silly amount of money I may well sink into this 9.5L void. I hope some of you take and use the spreadsheet to help you plan your own builds. Feel free to copy it, improve it (some sort of loop planning would be cool?), and disable the equations and remain in the dark about the financials.

Here is a consolidated list for those not clicking the above link

Chassis	FormD T1
Motherboard	Gigabyte Aorus Pro B550-I
CPU	AMD ryzen 5 5600x
GPU	RTX 3080 ASUS TUF
RAM	CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 16GB 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3200
Storage	WD BLACK SN850 NVMe M.2 PCIe4 500GB
Storage	WD BLACK SN750 NVMe M.2 PCIe3 500GB
PSU	Corsair SFX750

The planned build components were compiled after hours deep in the rabbit hole, especially those cooling bits, and referencing many builds here and on the sffpc subreddit.

Being a general wfh + gaming system, the gpu is central, and based on what look to be solid out-of-the-box thermals I'm trying to get my hands on a 3080 TUF and run it with the stock cooler until I want to tinker again and add a gpu waterblock + 2nd rad.

One question I have off the bat is how to get the EK ddc pwm pump powered? Would appreciate a link to a post I'm sure I missed somewhere.

I'm sure I've got more than is necessary things on the list and there's likely parts missing so please weigh in and wish me luck. Parts availability willing I may be up and running by the new year.

Cheers.

 

[cpt.bubbles]

Is there a reason you split your storages into two 500GB m.2? I think going with a terabyte of one m.2 stick will be much better for your upgrade options when you eventually need more than a terabyte.

 

[Kallus]

You should probably set the google sheets link to public so anyone can view it without having to send you an email

 

[br0qn]

Is there a reason you split your storages into two 500GB m.2? I think going with a terabyte of one m.2 stick will be much better for your upgrade options when you eventually need more than a terabyte.

Split it over the 2 nvme slots, 1 being pcie4 and more than twice the price. Considered more for the second nvme but figured I could add a 2.5" drive when needed later. Maybe better to run 1tb + on the back slot to start

You should probably set the google sheets link to public so anyone can view it without having to send you an email

Thanks, it was supposed to be public, fixed it.

 

[weap0nkil]

I would suggest going with the new Samsung 980 PRO NVMe as it takes advantage of the new pci express 4.0

Here is a article if you would like to reach a short bit about it:

Samsung Delivers Next-Level SSD Performance with 980 PRO for Gaming and High-End PC Applications

980 PRO SSD unlocks a new range of advanced applications for gamers and creative professionals

news.samsung.com

 

[br0qn]

Hey thanks. So does the WD BLACK SN850 which is why I have it planned for the boot/front nvme slot (the one that supports pcie4). They look to have the same pricing, good to know there are options.

 

[devolv]

I would highly suggest DDR4 3600 memory at the bare minimum, these new Zen 3 5000 series chips will most obviously better than the last Zen 2 refresh. If they are even remotely similar, the Zen 2 XTs loved higher infinity fabric / FCLK speeds, which I assume is the case with Zen 3.

It would be fairly easy without overclocking to pop in DDR4 3600 sticks and run XMP Profile (or D.O.C.P depending on the board) at 1800mhz FCLK, you'll get slightly higher performance out of the new processor. My guess is that these Zen 3s will like DDR4 4000 speeds (the Zen 2 holy grail) , but those are going for a pretty penny at the time of writing.

 

[br0qn]

I would highly suggest DDR4 3600 ....

thanks devolv for the input (you're mining rig is sick), updated my spreadsheet to reflect for now 3600, sounds like additional $5 well spent. What sort of real world noticeable difference would you expect to feel at 3600 vs 4000mhz ? Twice the price for my application might not warrant the upgrade here, though I really have no idea. As of now I'm not planning any OC, time will tell.

GPU selection is likely going to come to whatever I can get at this point, maybe come Thursday we'll see 3080 stock with the 3070 release, or maybe AMD will put forth a compelling option with Wednesday's announcement.

edit: just leaving this latency calculator here for anyone wondering about frequency vs latency

 

[devolv]

What sort of real world noticeable difference would you expect to feel at 3600 vs 4000mhz ?

To be honest, not too much. Which is why my recommendation is sticking with 3600 mhz as it's not much more for the money but put you higher up in the spectrum (albeit not that much) but not too slow for the future technology.

Here's a comparison between 2666 vs 3200 vs 3600

With that video, you'll see that the higher you go up the scaling diminishes. I think the numbers are about 2-5% performance gain in games and slightly higher in productivity benches like Cinebench and production software like video editing or 3d rendering etc. This is based however on Zen 2 3000 processors, and we won't know how well Zen 3 IPC will take advantage of the additional memory bandwidth until they launch or how much the applications or games will take advantage of it in the future. My guess is that since Zen 3 is reportedly much faster by 19% over it's predecessor, a part of that IPC uplift is utilizing faster memory speeds.

 

[devolv]

GPU selection is likely going to come to whatever I can get at this point, maybe come Thursday we'll see 3080 stock with the 3070 release, or maybe AMD will put forth a compelling option with Wednesday's announcement.

Yeah the 3070 looks decent, but I probably wouldn't get that and look for either the RTX 3080 / 3090 or see what AMD has to offer with their RX 6000 lineup. It's definitely interesting that the competition is getting furious with GPUs. Very exciting and a great time to buy. I heard that the AMD RX 6800XT actually edge out the RTX 3080 in non-RTX situations and also has more VRAM. Sure, RTX w/ DLSS is definitely very cool in terms of game graphics but other than the mirror reflections and some lighting situations, it's very hard to decipher the difference, and I'm in a field with computer graphics and artwork. Games like Control for example use RTX but with it disabled you really don't really miss much.

 

[br0qn]

Thanks for the thorough input. 16gb @ 3600mhz seems to be a sweet spot for price : performance, zen3 aside as we don't yet know.

Not considering a 3070 just hoping that the vendors/retailers have all been holding 3080 stock to release with the 3070 release. As far as a handful of frames between an 6800xt and a 3080, the (speculative) performance difference for me is negligible for a couple of reasons. A) I haven't ever owned or even played on a proper rig, those last few frames will be lost on me. and B) I'm more concerned with power/cooling efficiency and value as that seems like a more interesting proposition than splitting hairs with frames, especially in this form factor. Shaving a few degrees while drawing less power is the game here.

Thanks again ?

edit: also my EK order arrived. Feels a bit silly sitting on $300 worth of tubes and fittings with no other component in hand/on order apart from a back ordered PSU ? Hopefully by this weekend will have a solid update on that front. Hoping in addition to a GPU that there will be t1's up for preorder up this week.

 

[devolv]

Now that the AMD Announcement was made, and man! $580 for the 6800 XT looks like an awesome card with better power/cooling efficiency and let's not forget about the 6900XT at the same 300W and size footprint.

 

[br0qn]

$649 for the 6800xt but ya, updated my spreadsheet. Curious to see what the partners come up with though ultimately I want to water cool the GPU as well so less concerned. Was up at 6am this morning checking on the 3070 launch and seeing if any 3080's popped up but it was the same story as 3080/3090 launch. Really hoping AMD has better availability but gamers + miners = fuck.

Same thing with the case, may have to rethink the t1, seemingly impossible to get. The Winter One is looking interesting just far larger than what I was hoping to achieve. On the plus, you can buy it.

edit: managed to get a t1 pre order this morning. Now just hoping ryzen 5600x and rx 6800xt availability is reasonable and we'll be on our way.

 

[T_Dawg]

edit: managed to get a t1 pre order this morning. Now just hoping ryzen 5600x and rx 6800xt availability is reasonable and we'll be on our way.

I'm in the same boat. What motherboard are you planning on using.

Going to wait to see how the 6800xt performs, along with availability, but slowly building up my parts. The T1 won't likely arrive until January, so I have some time.

 

[br0qn]

I'm in the same boat...

Ya same boat it seems.

Currently still eyeing the gigabyte aorus 550i (check first post) but I haven't bought any actual computing hardware yet ;D though probably will have it all ordered in the next 2-3 weeks pending getting my hands on the new cpu/gpu. Right now sitting on my newly arrived Aquanaut, EKWB order that arrived already, and PSU/additional loop parts backorder.

 

[br0qn]

I have a couple of questions for anyone who can help -

-Am I correct in that the molex connection on the pump I've chosen needs to be modified to work with my motherboard choice ? Any articles out there on this I may have missed in my search?
-Does anyone have experience with the heatsinks that can be ordered with the WD sn series of drives? I know EK made the custom heatsink for the sn750 though not sure if they also are responsible for the one on the new sn850 (pcie4) which is what I plan to use as my boot drive.
-Is it possible the dedicated heatsink will perform better than the one on the chose motherboard and will the drive even fit with the dedicated heatsink (of course omitting the mobo coupled heatsink?)


Thanks in advance.

 

[br0qn]

Purchased a number of parts over the past week or two and managed to get a preorder on the 5600x, going to try and get to microcenter on wednesday and see if I can't get a gpu. Hopefully then it will be a matter of waiting for the t1 and cpu to arrive.

 

[br0qn]

Well I pre ordered the 5600x from amazon back on saturday with a ship date of jan 15-21 and it arrived yesterday, seems supply isn't so bad. Gpu's on the other hand...

I ended up not going to micocenter for the big navi launch as I found online there were some 130+ people in line 18 hours before launch. pass. and the 6800xt proved to be non existent for the launch, most citing 2units / store. I did try the web and I just couldn't compete, managed to get a card in the cart but couldn't pay for it. Hoping aib release next week provides opportunity.

I know I'm a solid 4-6 weeks away from the T1 landing, an am considering any new gen gpu really and have started thinking about the side radiator configuration and am trying to work out the max waterblock size in 3slot mode with the tx240 and 15mm noctuas. Seems height and width should be strongly considered here, and the EK 6800 series waterblock I think will fit (whereas the 3080 TUF blocks don't look like they'll work without modification to the case).

From what I gather there is ~59mm of space to work with in 3slot mode.Though the tx240 is about as hard to get as the gpus, I may consider the 17mm rad option I see floating around and am beginning to wonder if the extra 3mm breathing room is worth more than the 3mm radiator density. Any thoughts here?

 

[br0qn]

From initial plan to realization the build changed a ton including a case swap (though t1 is still the ultimate goal)

For anyone following along I made a new thread here.