128gb/threadripper 3970x

[robinlawrie]

hi all! as title, im building a new 3d workstation. im getting very confused researching ram. i would like 128gb (im a 3d animator, trust me, ill use it)

so.. there is precious little info online regarding compatibility with threadripper 3rd gen and 128gb+ ram setups. i understand its much better than 2nd gen threadripper, ive seen a few people reporting success with 3200mhz and 128gb .

however looking on the motherboard memory QVL's there is veeeery little choice.. mostly below 3000mhz.

so i have to choose.. i assume there is no point in a proper 3600mhz kit? double the price, worse timings, and i probably wont get anywhere near those speeds with 128gb.

so 3200 mhz.. corsair seems to be the only vendor easily available in the uk...

do i choose 4x32gb (strangely much cheaper, and gives chance to upgrade in future) or 8x16gb?

the 8x16 has better timings but ive no idea what difference it makes.

does the trx40 have any preference between 4x larger sticks and 8x smaller ones.?

according to the qvl for the asrock creator motherboard only 2x 32gb sticks are supported.. which seems very odd.

are there any definite b-die 128gb kits around? is b-die still the one to get?

advice MOST appreciated, ive not done a build for 7 years, im a bit rusty.

 

[Blackbadger]

I was in the same position, and took a gamble

I got the the Asrock creator board, 3970x & 2 kits of corsair CMK64GX4M2D3600C18 (it is on the qvl - but tested just for 2 sticks, I expect all they had was 2 sticks to test)
I just set the XMP in bios and the Infinity fabric to 1800, It's rock solid @ 3600mhz 128gb No tweeking or fiddling needed. Have been running calculations 24/7 for weeks on end.

From what I understand, as trx40 has 4 memory channels channels and 8 slots, using 4 sticks is better than 8 for less stress on the memory controller.
I would expect if you had 8 of them reaching 3600 maybe a challenge. It's a bit of luck with the silicon lottery to how good the memory controller on your cpu & motherboard is etc.

From what I can see all 32gb dimms have quite slack timings, so not ideal for those wanting the highest fps in games (slower by a couple of %). However for 3d rendering and most work tasks they are perfect.
They are dual rank, from what I understand they effectively have 2 dimms on each stick, which is what allows for the greater capacity. This does stress the memory controller more than 4 regular sticks, but not as much as 8 regular sticks.

OCUK do sell 256gb kits of the 3200 variety, I expect they have tested things too, and found 256gb is best left at 3200 rather than 3600.
You can also get the RGB LED variety for a couple of quid more, however in my opinion, LEDS are horrible and I dont spend my time looking in my case wanting it to look like a 80's disco.

The ram calculator tool, nor tiphoon burner support these memory chips or the platform as of yet, so any fine tuning is going to be tricky at the moment, as the platform and chips are too new.

All that said. I'm delighted with the performance. And stability has been 100% - It just works, so I'm happy where things are currently.

As you say information is still very limited. However for me it all worked perfectly first time out of the box.

In the wise words of Shia LaBeouf ".... .. .."

 

[robinlawrie]

You can also get the RGB LED variety for a couple of quid more, however in my opinion, LEDS are horrible and I dont spend my time looking in my case wanting it to look like a 80's disco.

best comment of an extremely useful post yeah ill only get led ram if its cheaper.. i believe you can turn them off?!

anyway you basically have the same setup im considering. i really like the asrock board because its "cheap" has room for 4 gpus and is atx instead of tennis court size. however ive seen a few negative comments (without data to back them up) that the 8 phase power is problematic... as far as i can see if it can provide 620 amps it should cover my needs, im not after beastly overclocks.

do you use PBO offset (is that it?) if so what single/ all core boosts do you get?

ive got a meaty external watercooler (2x mora 3 radiators) so temps wont be a problem.

 

[Blackbadger]

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/posts/33256637

For the Creator 8*90=720 Amps - Full tilt with a 'sensible' OC you'l be running the system at comfortably around 45% of the capacity. I assume that's correct, and still well within sensible margins. I know you never want to run anything near 100%.
My VRM temp hasn't gone over 50 so I assume the fan kicks in. I guess time will tell. It looks like all trx40 mobo's have overkill vrm's whcih is good. Maybe the asrock creator will struggle more with the 64core cpu. However that doesn't look to be as good of a buy as the 32/24 core variants. You get 50% more perf of the 3970 for double the cores, it doesn't appear to scale well. I guess due to reduced frequencies & overheads.

Otherwise the creator board seems great.

Back on track. The stock single core boost is 4.5ghz on 4 cores for the 3970x. Or less if you manual oc and get a better multi core. I believe you can do manual ccx tuning, I'm a bit confused with all that so haven't touched it. Nor done any of the PBO things, again I'm confused by it all, so haven't fiddled. Hopefully someone will do a guide.

 

[robinlawrie]

so, ive ordered my bits. when i finally get them all and build my machine, we will have to compare notes. i was wobbling horribly about my memory choice, conflicting advice everywhere on wether those 32gb dimms were going to leave loads of performance on the table due to slack timings or wether the difference would even be noticeable.

in the end my boss (who was buying) made my mind up for me by just buying the more expensive kit i was considering.. so i should soon be receiving a nice g-skill 128gb kit -3200 15-15-15-35.

if and when its all working we can do some benchmarks to compare.. see if it makes any real-world difference or not for actual productivity tasks. we can fill a gap in the internet for the next one who comes along.