Comments on this build?

[HankB]

Hi all,
I'm considering upgrading my desktop. It's nearly 10 years old! Based on an I7-4770K with 32GB RAM it's no slouch, but there are many faster. Occasionally it hangs and may not boot Doesn't boot unless I power cycle and stuff like that. My desire is to up performance and include ECC RAM. My constraint is I'm on a fixed income. Storage is covered. I need to look into my PSU to see if it is appropriate. Basically considering Mobo, RAM and CPU.

I've done a little research and I believe the following would serve:

• Ryzen 7 5800X
• ASRock B550M Steel Legend
• 2X Kingston KSM26ED8/16ME (on the QVL list for this board and processor.)

Total comes to a bit less than $600US. I have a Corsair H110 AIO and I think I can get a free adapter to fit an AM4 CPU. I have an EVGA 550 B5, 80 Plus BRONZE 550W PSU (B5-0550-V1) and a Radeon 580 GPU.

Regardoing ECC... The newest Raspberry Pi (4Band CM4) are described as using ECC RAM. It's actually on die ECC used to improve chip yield IOW to cover RAM that may have some weak bits. It doesn't report errors or uncorrectable errors to the OS. It also covers less of the data path than true ECC RAM (according to https://www.hardwaretimes.com/ddr5-vs-ddr4-ram-quad-channel-and-on-die-ecc-explained/) I could consider skipping the ECC RAM part if I can be confident that the AM modules get some protection from on die ECC. But this could be the last build I do so I hate to cut corners.

Thoughts and comments?

Thanks!

 

[EarthDog]

I just wonder why you desire ECC? Just doesn't seem worth it for what it brings a typical home user (especially one on a fixed income). Do you do something mission critical on it to warrant the expense?

That memory you chose is slow for the platform. For under $100, you can get 2x16gb ddr4 3600. Save the money or get 5900x.

 

[MisterEd]

I don't understand why you would consider ECC RAM. It might work OK but I don't see the value of using it in a home computer. ECC RAM is mainly used on server motherboards. Error correction is very important for servers where data accuracy is required.

The Raspberry Pi 4B has LPDDR4 on-die ECC RAM. This not the traditional ECC RAM like you are thinking about.

While traditional ECC ensures data integrity by handling memory errors while data is being moved, on-die ECC ensures higher reliability of higher-density memory and protects the data that is in the memory chip.

BTW, the Raspberry Pi 4B is not the newest anymore. On September 28 I pre-ordered a Raspberry Pi 5 (8GB). I should be receiving it in 2 or 3 weeks.

 

[HankB]

I'm on the fence WRT ECC. Thanks for your thoughts on this.

I understand that on-die ECC is not the same as the ECC I have on my server. But if it corrects bit flips due to weak cells, it should also correct bit flips due to cosmic rays etc. But once the data is off the die, there is no more correction.

Pi 4B is the latest I can buy today. I have a pre-order for a Pi 5, but except for some reviewers, they're not generally available. And depending on how many they make up front, they may not be generally available for a while.

best,

 

[Zerileous]

If the 5700X is available in your area, it performs nearly identically for sometimes substantially less cash.

Are you planning to continue using the GTX460? These chips do not have an iGPU, although there are reasonably priced models in the series that do (those will have a G designation instead of an X, following the model number, i.e. 5800G)

 

[Woomack]

If there is a limited budget then why not, but it's already old stuff looking at how hardware is being released. I also doubt that these lower motherboards have "working" ECC. I mean it works with ECC unbuffered RAM, but most motherboards don't support ECC on this RAM.
I know it costs more, but Ryzen 7600/7700, B650/E motherboard and DDR5 will last much longer (regarding support, upgrade options and some more). With current prices, I'm not sure if it's so much more expensive. DDR5 has on-die ECC. It's not "real" ECC, but better than not working unbuffered ECC modules.
I'm still not sure why you need ECC in a regular desktop PC as it changes pretty much nothing.

 

[EarthDog]

Yeah, scrap the ECC idea. You're cutting off your nose to spite the face.

It's not worth the cost for a home user, period....especially for someone working within a strict budget. Spending half your budget on RAM doesn't make a lot of sense.

Step up to AMD 7000 series/b650 and get ddr5 and the same 'benefits' (I use that term loosely - cosmic rays and flipped bits aren't a concern for a home use) if you insist on ECC.

EDIT: You can easily have a Ryzen 7 7600X, 2x16GB DDR5 6000 RAM ('ECC'), and a B650-class motherboard for well under ~$600. You may be able to find a 7700X and a board for close to $600 too.........

 

[DaveB]

If you can get to a Microcenter store here's a 7700X bundle with a B650 motherboard and 32GB DDR5-6000 for $400.

AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, MSI B650-P Pro WiFi, G.Skill Flare X5 Series 32GB DDR5-6000 Kit, Computer Build Bundle

 

[TerranBrackiatt]

my thoughts for ECC: what EarthDog said: if you really MUST have it.. then step up to the newest generation [Ryzen 7700x (or higher) + DDR5 RAM]

 

[HankB]

Thanks all for your comments. Once I settle on standard RAM that opens up the selection a *lot*. I did check the Microcenter page (and I do have one a bit more than half an hour away.) And I was already looking at that AM5 based system so I'm happy to see it endorsed by a member here. I think I'm going to pull the trigger on that one. I hope to have a better experience with it than the previous MSI board I bought. On that one MSI removed the higher power processors from the supported list after I bought it so there was no option to upgrade processors. And the sound malfunctioned before I was ready to upgrade. But it was a $50 motherboard so I should expect more of this one.

The description of my current system in my sig is woefully out of date. The GTX 460 is on the shelf and I'm using a Radeon 580 (purchased from another user here.)

I successfully navigated spousal approval and pulled the trigger. Picking up an el cheapo cooler from Amazon to use until I can get the AM4/AM5 mounting bracket for the H110 AIO I'm presently using. Microcenter opens at 10:00.

 

[EarthDog]

Awesome! Keep us posted and show some pics.

... update that signature when you get your hardware.

 

[HankB]

Couple questions about the motherboard. (https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/PRO-B650-P-WIFI)

1. It has two 8-pin CPU power connectors. "CPU_PWR1~2" in the manual. My PSU - EVGA 550 B5 (https://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=220-B5-0550-V1) - has one 8 pin CPU connector. How important is it to populate that? One of my ancient Supermicro motherboards has the same setup and runs fine with just one 8-pin socket powered.
2. Lots of motherboards have limits where multiple I/O options share resources and can't be used at the same time. One example is sharing PCIe lanes. Another example is my current motherboard which shares a SATA port between a motherboard socket and an eSATA bulkhead port. I don't see any such limits in the motherboard manual. Is this true or have I overlooked something?
3. Do I really have two NVME slots? (One PCIe 3.0 and the other PCIe 4.0)

Thanks!

And yes, I'll update. I plan to run some benchmarks before and after.

 

[EarthDog]

1. One 8-pin required, the second is optional.

2. If the specs page or manual doesn't mention sharing, it doesn't share/disable anything. Your biggest worry is using the right PCIe slot for your RAID array (if that's still current - if it is, consider getting a single PCIe 4.0 M.2 drive when you can swing it... simplifies things and is orders faster anyway).

3. You have 2x m.2 sockets... both 4.0 x4 according to the specs and manual.

 

[DaveB]

Couple questions about the motherboard. (https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/PRO-B650-P-WIFI)

1. It has two 8-pin CPU power connectors. "CPU_PWR1~2" in the manual. My PSU - EVGA 550 B5 (https://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=220-B5-0550-V1) - has one 8 pin CPU connector. How important is it to populate that? One of my ancient Supermicro motherboards has the same setup and runs fine with just one 8-pin socket powered.

For your 105W TDP CPU only one 8-pin connection is required. You need both for overclocking higher-powered CPUs that can go over 250W.

I used an MSI B450 Pro for my Zen, Zen+ and Zen2 systems with no problems at all.

 

[HankB]

New H/W is up and running. So far the only quirk is that the new mobo Ethernet resulted in renaming of both interfaces and needed some sorting. And I just noticed that the time is wrong. More later - need to run before the rain returns.

 

[EarthDog]

Congrats! Glad she's up and running!

Ethernet resulted in renaming of both interfaces and needed some sorting.

I take it you just dropped your current install of Windows in the new build? I would went fresh for as many generations as you upgraded. If you end up with other issues, I'd look at a fresh OS install first.

Time is wrong just needs you to connect to the server to syncronize it.

 

[HankB]

No Windows - no worries. Debian Linux, and most drivers are installed as modules. But IAC most of the peripherals did not change, just the Ethernet. But that reminds me I need to make sure the AMD microcode package is installed.

Time was just too far off - about 8 hours. System uses an NTP server but if it is too far off, it backs off to allow inervention. Fixing it was as simple as "date --set 14:20:00" at 1420. (I did have to look it up since I so seldom use that.) I probably should have set the clock when I was poking around the BIOS.

Couple questions:

• The BIOS reports that RAM is rated at 6GHz and reports (in VERY BIG FONT) that it is running at 4.8GHz. Is this right? I can see where it can be changed in the OC settings but would not expect that this is needed to run the RAM at it's rated speed. (G.Skill Flare X5 Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5-6000 PC5-48000 CL36 Dual Channel Desktop Memory Kit F5-6000J3636F16GX2-FX5 - Black) Perhaps I'm confusing DDR-6000 with PC5-48000.
• The lowest frequency reported by Linux for the processor is 3GHz. That seems high. Is that right? By comparison, the minimum for my Intel laptop is 400MHz. It's using about 74W idling. Previous build (I-4770K) was about 54W so this is a significant bump in power usage.
• BIOS version is reported as E7D78AMS.170 (build date: 2023-08-10) and the download page lists the most current version listed on the MSI support page is 7D78v17 (release date 2023-08-16). Am I current? I recall a time when one did not upgrade their BIOS unless they had a good reason (due to the potential disaster if the upgrade went bad.) I think that philosophy has changed, likely due to the more complicated H/W and the need to fix bugs and potential security issues. Should I be tracking BIOS upgrades closely? (I usually wait for a week or two for *any* upgrade to avoid any problems introduced by the upgrade.)

Note of interest. I had forgotten that MSI is Micro-Star International. On my very first job developing firmware for an 8088 based system, we used Micro-Star PCs that had the most advanced processor available - 80286 - with a whole megabyte of RAM. At the time DOS did not use the entire memory space but there were utilities to load stuff in upper RAM to make more RAM available to applications - the Watcom C compiler. We also used Spinrite to tune disk interleave for reduced HDD latency. It was a real powerhouse of a system at the time.

 

[Zerileous]

1. Yes you will need to enable the higher speed in your BIOS. It should be called EXPO. Every memory ships at a standardized stock configuration and the higher speeds must be manually enabled. It's not overclocking for the RAM but it is for the memory controller. That said, at this point, the manufacturers basically support this practice officially https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-confirms-ddr5-6000-ram-is-the-sweet-spot-for-ryzen-7000-cpus

-keep an eye on your SOC voltage when you do this. If it is running high (over 1.3v IIRC but don't quote me on this) you may need a BIOS update. It was one of the launch hiccups that I expect to be fully resolved, but if that board sat in a warehouse for a while it is possible it didn't receive the update.

2. IDK about Zen 4 but my 3700x clocks down to 2700MHz, but minimum power draw is about 25W. 75w seems high but it's not going to sip power like a laptop chip either.

3. Generally I don't upgrade unless I need to. It can still cause complications for sure. In this case an August BIOS *should* avoid the issue I discussed above, but I also wouldn't think it's a bad idea to use the newest BIOS when you first set up the system. After that, I personally don't go in and keep changing it. After a certain point, it is likely support for newer hardware or something else.

Thanks for sharing the story about Micro-Star. I remember people using them 20 years ago but I never made the connection.

 

[EarthDog]

You edited that post over a day after it was posted. You're lucky anyone saw it, lol!

I'd update the bios to the latest version. You may have the same, but doubt it. Advice to not update your bios is dated, imo. It's so easy and thr risk of problems so low, there's no reason not to. It also resolves the issue Z mentiond about the SOC voltage. As far as following releases of bios? No. I check every couple of months...

Re: ram speed. Yeah, enable EXPO. RAM has ALWAYS started off at lower JEDEC speeds and you need to enable profiles.

 

[HankB]

> You edited that post over a day after it was posted. You're lucky anyone saw it, lol!

I wasn't sure if it was better netiquette to do that or followup to my own post.

Thanks for both the suggestions. I'm still getting the H/W and S/W tuned in. The cheap air cooler I got (Thermaltake) does a pretty decent job, but at high loads the processor is breaking 90°C so I'm postponing lengthy benchmarks until I get the adapter to use the AIO I used with the previous build.

First impressions: It is pretty snappy. Post takes longer than expected, but there's probably a setting for skipping some tests to speed things up. Once things are up and booting, it takes about 30s to get to a full desktop. I don't recall if that is much faster. Lots of the boot process is determined by how long it takes to initialize peripherals and I haven't analyzed that.

Time from login to desktop is about 3s which is a lot faster than before. Starting things up is also pretty quick too, though anything that depended on SSD speed is about the same since I'm using the same one. I may get a little benefit from the a Gen 4 NVME slot but the drive is Gen 3. (Intel 670p) I have a second 2TB drive (couldn't resist when they were $65 for 2TB) and may mirrir them to see what benefit that provides.

I'll probably update the BIOS. Anything that was an issue with the August BIOS should have been identified and fixed with a subsequent release by now. I was looking for an online update but MSI seems not to include that (like the ASRock one did.) Still an AMI BIOS but looks entirely different. I guess it should after nearly ten years.

Thanks!

(Pictures when I get the AIO connected.)