Upgrade from i7 3700 to...

xy16644 · 29 Jan 2018 at 20:09

Howdee

My current machine is approaching the 6 year mark and although it's still going pretty well it could do with an upgrade considering how much I use it for my work and studies.

Currently I have:

Intel i7 3770 3.4ghz with BeQuiet BK017 CPU cooler
32GB DDR3 1600mhz (4 x 8GB)
Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe motherboard
Samsung 850 Pro SATA SSD 256GB (boot drive)
Samsung 950 Pro NVMe SSD 256GB (virtual machines)
3 x old school spinning disk SATA drives ranging from 2TB to 6TB
Fractal Design Define R4 case
BeQuiet 850W PSU

This machine has been absolutely fantastic and I use it every single day and (touch wood and all that) it has been rock solid but I'm finding that with all the virtualisation I do with VMware Workstation Pro for work and my studies that I sometimes run out of resources.

I'm also finding that 4k videos sometime stutter or drop frames so I have ordered an EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 video card so I don't have to use the onboard Intel HD4000 anymore.

Things sure have changed since I bought the above system with AMD coming out with some killer CPU options!! Considering that I will be using the machine for email, internet, virtualisation and watching 4K videos is AMD a good choice? It absolutely must work with Windows 10 and VMware Workstation Pro 14. I'm still trying to decide if I should go Ryzen or Threadripper? AMD or Intel?

I was thinking of the following for a Ryzen setup:

Ryzen 7 Eight Core 1800X 4.00GHz
Asus ROG Crosshair VI Hero AMD X370
Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16GB)

Could I reuse my BeQuiet CPU cooler with the Ryzen with a bracket maybe? Or do I need a new CPU cooler?

I haven't decided on a budget yet but the above costs about £800 ex VAT. I'll be reusing my current drives so no need for new ones. Same goes for my dual screens.

A Threadripper setup is more expensive (obviously) as is the Intel i9 platform so I'm wondering if its worth spending the extra considering that I will use it mainly for virtualisation?

I can easily bottleneck my current setup when I spin up a test nested vSphere environment (maxes out all 4 cores on the CPU sometimes) and although the RAM usage can get high I think 32GB is fine for now but upgrading to 64GB later on is a nice option to have.

Booting off the M2 NVMe drive I have is a must!

Look forward to any advice or comments

Edit: I'm looking to upgrade in the next 6 months and I don't overclock or game

koooowweeee · 29 Jan 2018 at 22:23

The main question is, does Workstation Pro 14 use all 8 cores and treads? If not you could get a 1600?

I think most people get the 1800 instead of the 1800x. Apparently they are pretty much the same. The 1800x might clock a little higher.

tamzzy · 29 Jan 2018 at 23:09

xy16644 said:
Edit: I'm looking to upgrade in the next 6 months and I don't overclock or game

come back to ask when you're ready to upgrade. no point speccing one now when prices/tech will change when you order.
what may be the best fit today may not be when you're ready to order

xy16644 · 30 Jan 2018 at 17:23

koooowweeee said:
The main question is, does Workstation Pro 14 use all 8 cores and treads? If not you could get a 1600?

I think most people get the 1800 instead of the 1800x. Apparently they are pretty much the same. The 1800x might clock a little higher.

I'm going to say yes, VMware Workstation Pro 14 supports all 8 cores and threads. I have a VM setup on my current 4 core machine and I can assign up to 4 cores in the VM.

I could only see a 1700/1800/1800x on OCUK? Theres "only" a £50 difference between the 1700 and 1800x.

I know I'm looking into a new machine a bit early but I'm asking about the options that are suitable for a new desktop build that will be used for virtualisation. I don't follow CPUs too much unless I need to buy one (which doesn't happen often) so am trying to decide between Intel/AMD and Ryzen/Threadripper/i9 Skylake X?

koooowweeee · 30 Jan 2018 at 21:55

I don't know anything about them type of programs but you might want to look into the Xeon CPUs with 10+ cores and 20+ threads. They are only low GHz but they could be better for your needs?

Maybe Google benchmarks for the programs you use?

There's new ryzen CPUs out soon. So once the come out I'm sure intel will be bringing something out straight after. So as mentioned above, you really need to wait and see what's available then and ask the question then.

Steveocee · 1 Feb 2018 at 08:35

In 6 months Zen+ will be out so there is no point speccing this now with current gen. The new lineup of Zen is expected to raise the bar on performance again closing the gap a bit more and making the value that but better.

I personally went from a 4.2Ghz 3770K to a 3.8Ghz 1700X and haven't looked back but I'm already loving AMD's ethos of 1 socket so I'll be upgrading just because I can.

EsaT · 1 Feb 2018 at 13:27

xy16644 said:
BeQuiet 850W PSU

Asus ROG Crosshair VI Hero AMD X370

Edit: I'm looking to upgrade in the next 6 months and I don't overclock or game

What particular model that PSU is?
BeQuiet isn't exactly quality PSU brand and overall most of its PSUs have been average in quality.

Even if you didn't overclock luxury motherboard doesn't give much return for its price extra over normal good motherboard unless there's soem specific feature you need.

koooowweeee said:
I don't know anything about them type of programs but you might want to look into the Xeon CPUs with 10+ cores and 20+ threads. They are only low GHz but they could be better for your needs?

Threadripper beats that in bang per buck if needing that many cores.
AMD has now extremely good product palette for multithreaded load uses.

koooowweeee · 1 Feb 2018 at 14:19

No idea. Might want to do a few comparisons for OP as I've not named a chip and neither have you haha. Might help him make a better choice when it comes to buying

xy16644 · 30 Aug 2018 at 14:14

Hi Forum

I'm almost ready to upgrade my PC in the next month or so. Lots has happened since my original post!

I think I want to stick to Intel because that's what I have currently and everything "just works".

I've been looking at upgrading to the following:

Intel i7 8700K
Gigabye Z370 AORUS Gaming motherboard
Corsair CMK16GX4M2A2400C16R Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4 2400 MHz (2 of these for 32GB of RAM in total
Intel Optane 900P 280GB PCI-e NVMe 3.0 x4 (bootable OS drive)

and then I'll reuse my other drives, case, PSU and screens.

Does the above look like a good combo? The only thing I am a bit unsure of is the number of PCIe lanes the CPU supports (16). Will this be enough lanes if I use an NVMe drive to boor from and use an NVMe drive for my VMs using the M2 slot? I'll still be using my "legacy" SATA SSD and spinning HDDs as well. I don't game so won't be bothering with a dedicated GPU.

Also, I assume i can boot off the Intel 900P SSD drive using the Gigabyte motherboard and Windows 10?

I know Intel are releasing the 9000 series in October but I'm not sure if it's waiting for this or even considering it?

pandem0nium · 30 Aug 2018 at 15:59

You can mod your current mb's bios to add the modules needed for nvme boot.

xy16644 · 30 Aug 2018 at 16:06

pandem0nium said:
You can mod your current mb's bios to add the modules needed for nvme boot.

My current mobo is 6yrs old, are you sure you can add NVMe boot to this mobo?

pandem0nium · 30 Aug 2018 at 16:08

xy16644 said:
My current mobo is 6yrs old, are you sure you can add NVMe boot to this mobo?

yep, I've done it myself with a z77 mATX gigabyte board.

xy16644 · 30 Aug 2018 at 16:09

pandem0nium said:
yep, I've done it myself with a z77 mATX gigabyte board.

Interesting! Is there a tutorial online which outlines how to do this?

pandem0nium · 30 Aug 2018 at 16:13

xy16644 said:
Interesting! Is there a tutorial online which outlines how to do this?

have a look here:
https://www.win-raid.com/t871f50-Gu...rt-for-all-Systems-with-an-AMI-UEFI-BIOS.html

xy16644 · 30 Aug 2018 at 17:11

Thanks for the link but I think I would rather upgrade as my machine is now 6yrs old and it's time to upgrade!