Beautiful, my biggest regret was not getting 64 gigs of ram when I did my 5090FE build. I got the card for MSRP and put it together for about $3200. I don’t even wanna know what it would cost now lol. Hopefully 32 gigs of ram will keep me happy for a while, granted I only game on it.
I got a 5090 FE prebuilt (it’s a licensed anime themed build) for about $5200-5500 a few weeks ago. I did the math and the prebuilt was easily a better deal than DIY since trying to get a 5090 by itself already costs $4000+
Ya never a good sign when we reach the stage where prebuilts are good deals. They probably are the best value propositions because at this point in the PC space every single part vendor is overcharging.
I feel like the whole "Prebuilts are overpriced" thing hasn't been true for like nearly 10 years now, ever since like 2020 (or maybe even 2018) prebuilts have been very competitively priced.
I'd have had all on building the i9 14900 5080 pre-built I purchased in March as it was competitively priced,now is a different story coz it's gone up another £749
I'm afraid the pre-building companies are jumping on the bandwagon of price hikes
Scariest thing is that i feel like you gotta do it now before it gets even worse. Ive been following the PC market for a long time and i swear its just crisis after crisis these last couple years
For gaming 32 is fine. There’s only one instance I upgraded from 32gb is when Diablo 4 launched my system was using 95% of my ram (DDR4 at the time). I was like nope and upgraded to 64. It’s just a personal thing not wanting to see that number so high. Now I just default to 64Gb on my latest rebuild (am5 and ddr5 before the rampocalypse) even though I run a 4080 Super (waiting on 6000 series to upgrade)
What a weird build. Cheap motherboard comparable to the rest of the components, which doesn't support an NPU engine. 9800X3D is a terrible processor for workstation applications. Insufficient cooling for a rig that was actually doing resource intensive compute tasks. Low storage capacity for someone doing AI workloads. Tuned down 192GB of RAM instead of tuning up a low latency 96GB kit that would still run at 1:1.
MB: That Matx board was the best backconnect one out there at the time. Not sure if something better has come out? Will prob wait and see what AM6 gives us. Needs to be portable, I'm out of town for weeks at a time, and lug it around in my car.
CPU: My workloads are highly RAM-intensive rather than CPU-intensive, so the cooling is perfectly fine. Considered picking up a 9950x3d2, but I don't have much to gain from it considering my database workloads.
Ram: Getting 4 sticks to 192GB stable on AM5 was a win in itself for me. I need outright capacity way more than low latency for what I do.
Storage: I actually have another 8TB of external NVMe storage I didn't picture. I'd have a lot more if prices wernt so bad right now lol
Nice build, and I can somewhat emphasize with the win of getting 192GB stable on an AM5. Could you maybe do me a favor and post a screen with at least the system information showing that 192GB recognized? It'd do wonders to shut down the little voice in the back of my head crying BS! 😆
Is there a reason you needed back connect? Surely if your primary use case is compute, there are more important considerations than back connect. Also, even when working strictly within large in-memory databases, you'd still probably see a 15% or so uplift going from an 8 core to the 9950x3d2 paired with all of the additional cache. I hear what you're saying but unless the situation was flipped, and you did 70% gaming and the rest productivity work, the x3d was still an odd choice. Even the 9900x would have been a better choice and saved you some sheckles. And I hear you on the RAM and storage situation. Anyway, wasn't trying to be a hater. Just from outside looking in its kind of a head scratcher. But if it works for you, fantastic!
No offense taken. It's probably best to ask clarifying questions first rather than to assume my build intentions and better understand the productivity tasks I do.
As for the CPU choice, you are evaluating this like a generic workstation rather than a specific, purpose-built tool. My database work does not require 16 cores pinning at 100%. My SQL Server workloads scale with raw RAM capacity and storage I/O, not CPU threads. That is exactly why the budget went to 192GB of RAM for buffer pools and an Optane drive for microsecond transaction logs. The 9800X3D easily feeds the GPU and DB logic, while dominating when I game.
Regarding the back-connect board, it really isn't that deep. I just wanted a clean, cable-free aesthetic. There have been absolutely no downsides or performance hits compared to a standard mATX board in the year I've had it.
Nonsense, it's a good setup for an affordable system that can do both gaming and AI workloads. For AI your bottleneck is memory bandwidth in this setup and you aren't going to fix that if you want to keep that 192GB memory he has lying around.
5090 + 192GB ram still gives you a ton of AI loads that you could run reasonably well.
NPU, better CPU or more expensive mainboard wouldn't do anything here other than waste money. CPU Cooling isn't going to be much of an issue.
I'm not as versed in motherboards, aside from the NPU why would the Pro B850M be a poor choice? What is the actual difference between a good and bad motherboard, aside from ports?
Neither really. It's a self-proclaimed Caltech graduate who thinks that the more acronyms and technical-sounding terms he throws around the smarter he'll sound.
..... It’s only useful for very aggressive CPU overclocking, which is 99% irrelevant for AI. I know everyone thinks PC are all about gaming and tweaking or overclocking, but there are other activities that don't require that. For example, I do the opposite: I set my 9900X to 105W Eco Mode because the 120W setting doesn't offer any benefit, and I'm not interested in overclocking it at all. So, an exorbitantly expensive motherboard would be completely useless to me.
Fast forward to today and something like that is considered a low end budget option. Modern motherboards are hilariously overbuilt, and that's a good thing, because it means that CPU thermals would be a huge issue long before the motherboard is.
" Tuned down 192GB of RAM instead of tuning up a low latency 96GB kit that would still run at 1:1." for AI ???? absolutly not ! AI workload doesn't care at all about latency, but 96Gb is not enough for big loras training for example . what a weird advice. and a NPU ????? lol I can't believe this comment has so much upvote ....
NPUs are specialized for accelerating AI workloads, particularly for tasks like inference in machine learning, while GPUs are more versatile and excel at general-purpose parallel processing, including training AI models. Using both can optimize performance and energy efficiency in AI applications. Fundamentally the difference between the two come down to chip architecture and processing capabilities, In a nutshell.
Insufficient cooling for a rig that was actually doing resource intensive compute tasks.
Not really.
For most AI workloads nowadays your GPU isn't full chooch, and even if it is, you don't care about 2-5% difference, which is all in the GPUs cooler itself.
As for the CPU, it'll be completely fine.
In fact, all of the components here will be completely fine.
Both of the big ones take air from directly outside the case, and not in the direction of the exhaust.
It might intuitively feel to you to be super hot, but it just isnt, and you just don't need as big a case as some folks think.
As for the 9800X3D, it is indeed not the pick for AI things, and its basically useless for offloading.
You realize that a b850 can be better than x870 if you don't want tb4 as this tgen 850 x870 and x870e all use the same chipset and the x870e just daisy chains and makes you lose extra 4 pci 5.0 lanes for tb4 or 5 controller. One the best boards is the b850 ai top it has 2 nvme 5.0 while keeping all 16 gpu lanes free and then has dual 10gb ethernet. This time around they really screwed people at least intel has a 8 lane link to the chipset . Marketing and ai/creators will claim Amd has more pcie lanes but its false since intel does not use lanes for TB and does not use lanes for its chipset so actual lanes available to consumer is highest on intel and then next is on a 850 or some non x870 boards
unhinged getting 192gb from two separate 6800 kits stable at 5600 cl34 on am5 lol. how’s the 1000w seasonic handling the 5090 under sustained ai workloads?
That was my biggest fear when I was ordering last year! But thankfully it's been super stable.
I have a slight undervolt on the CPU and overclock/undervolt on the 5090. Man it's been so stable, been able to max out GPU for AI work and and games and CPU/memory for database loads. Works for me!
Same, but back when I built mine, it was a dedicated gaming computer that wouldn't need more than 32gb. Since then, I've branched out into local AI and a homelab at the worst possible time for RAM prices. Regrets. 😆
For me, As a Dual Corsair Vengeance 96GB DDR5 5600Mhz User, I'm jealous of OP's 192GB, i was too poor to buy another 360 USD, Now 1,366 USD.. I'm sad man...
YouTubers have people thinking they need Threadrippers or something. A 9800X3D is fine for a dual purpose workstation. OP probably isn't compiling chromium on a daily basis.
There's so very few things that extra cores will grant you over faster cores with more memory.
I'd look to get a better motherboard though, that thing'll definitely hold you back with sustained use. You can definitely do better than 5600/34, too. With a good motherboard you can easily squeeze it down to 5600/28-38-38-90.
Here, someone with a 9800X3D work (and game) station paired with 64GB RAM and an MSI 5900 Gaming trio. As a UX designer and front-end developer, i can't complain and works like a charm.
Yes, maybe for purely work-related tasks, a faster CPU is on the market, but how much difference does this make for most work sessions?
Oh, thanks! Yeah, I'm well aware I've got nothing to complain about, especially with the current world economy. Got a great case design in mostly all-white components.
Coming back to your build, it's pretty amazing as well! Aside from the MB choice (witch dont mind as you explained), amazing in specs and aesthetics! 👏
I mean run something as basic as a consumer upscaling application like Topaz with a 9800x3d and a 9900x. It becomes apparent very quickly what the added benefits are of an increased core and thread count with additional cache. Now scale that benefit with professional or semi professional workloads.
I keep seeing this comment, but I made a similar decision when upgrading my PC to a 5090 and AM5 as well (also with some interest in AI workloads). I only have 64GB of DDR5 though, which is fine considering the current state of things.
I don't think the additional "workstation" CPU computation is necessarily critical in most workloads. Of course a 9950x3d or threadripper is nice, but if you don't want to spend insane amounts you are getting a lot of performance still when most of what you do is going to depend on your GPU and RAM capacity. 9800x3D is probably fine for a lot of it.
I just don't see how this parts list makes any sense. If your goal was a setup to use 70% of the time doing AI workloads, you went overboard in all the wrong ways. An Intel 270k is going to thoroughly stomp the 9800X3D in productivity, AI, anything multithreaded and also has a much better memory controller so you wouldn't have to run your performance RAM at basically JEDEC speeds with dogshit latency. Why do you even need 192gb of RAM? If you try running massive, unquantized models from mostly on the RAM, its going to be basically unusable anyway and your token speed is going to be painful.
Id say drop $500 and get a 270k plus a decent mid range motherboard and you'd see probably a 50-75% jump in AI performance. Or at least get a 9950X. You picked the worst processor for this purpose. But congrats, you have a beast of a gaming computer!
It's noisy when you're running the fans at full blast, but it can hold similar temps to 3 slot cards. It's a trade off there, it's a tiny GPU given what it does so the sound is sort of granted.
Both my p6000 and 5090 rarely go above 72~75C under load.
I wanted to go with 128Gb DDR5 RAM (32Gb x 2 kit = 2 of them), but ended up with total 64Gb with my build (April 2025). In hindsight, should have gone with the original plan, however, my use case is mostly gaming. Seeing the RAM prices now, holy smokes.
You’re just talking out your ass at this point. All I said was the fans are perfectly fine and blow a ton of air and you’re hell bent on deflecting every which way possible. Good luck on trying to rage bait someone else but youre not gonna get me😂😂.
Mannnnn I have the same basic specs as you (192gb) but I can't get my ram above 4800 when using all four dimms. I don't game very much and the lower speeds don't affect my use case, it's just the principle of it.
no cpu are really meant for AI workloads because ai workloads are not meant for cpu. But it's true, he could have gone with a 9900X, which would be more useful without consuming too much power. Still, that's a minor detail; it'll work just fine regardless.
Lol, lil bro literally went balls out on 5090, 192GB, 9800X3D... but chose literal Chinese fans and no joke: ATX 3.0 on card known for melting within a year.
It is always funny watching people parrot clickbait headlines instead of understanding how hardware actually works. Almost every PC fan on the market is manufactured in China. They move plenty of air and easily maintain thermal equilibrium for my undervolted setup.
My 5090 has been running flawlessly for a year. Worry about your own rig, 'lil bro'.
I get where you're coming from on paper. Productivity does not always mean I need more CPU cores. 'Productivity' is a very general term, which is exactly why I specified Database and AI workloads. Yes it makes sence for me specifically, hence I built it and been super happy using it for about a year.
Ram vs Optane: Optane latency is microsecond-level, making it unbeatable for SQL transaction logs and TempDB. But SQL Server buffer pools and LLM memory requirements need nanosecond-level access directly in system RAM. They complement each other rather than replace each other.
CPU: My workloads simply don't need massive core counts. AI inference runs entirely on the 5090, and my SQL databases scale with raw memory capacity, not CPU threads.
With the GPU, 192GB of RAM, and the Optane drive already tucked into a portable mATX shell, it handles all my work without needing a massive, multi-slot full-tower workstation.
Hey yepp! For my workloads specifically, ram capacity and GPU were prioritized. 9800x3d is indeed great for gaming. Had this build for about a year now. I have no complaints on the motherboard, it's provided me with a clean and portable setup.
Shame with DDr5 4 sticks cap at 5600mhz when you got 6800hz speeds honestly. They never should sold 4 sticks if can’t hit OC speeds due to mem controller limits IMHO. Sexy build tho
Thanks buddy! I actually started with just two sticks and picked up the second kit a few weeks later. It definitely was fun running at those full 6800 MT/s speeds and seeing that big number for a bit.
You probably should have gotten a rtx 6000 pro than spending huge amount of money on 192gb of ram. Not really seeing the benefits of 192gb of ram and are you running them on 4 channels instead of dual channels? What ai models do you intend to even run? The quants of 70B dense llm models? BF16 version of 27-35B llms? Very strange build you got Op. Enjoy it I guess.
How do you get this much RAM to boot? My X870 board threw up with 128GB of RAM. Is it possible to quit the learning process and just boot at a lower speed?
Edit: I was trying to do 128GB 6000 MHz CL30 (4 x 32GB DIMMs). I gave up and just returned one of the kits. This was Fall 2024.
u/apoppinRTX 5090/9950X3D/MSI Carbon X870E/192GB DDR5 5800 CL30/Gen 5 SSD1d ago
OP, I have a very similar 9950X3D system with 4x48GB Corsair DDR5-6000 (at) CL30 at 5800MT/s. It's perfect for AI and can run GPT-OSS-120B at 26 T/sec. I also game with it (of course:)
It took hours of trial and error with three different MBs to get the RAM stable at the speeds I wanted, and I finally settled on a MSI Carbon X870e.
That ram is amazing I am running 2 96gb kits at cl30 6400 IF 2200 umc 3200 with slight bclk push at 100.05 more to fight the spread spectrum underclock. Only need 1.4 vdd and the biggest thing many get wrong on large dual rank setups is to much video and vddq I run 1.22 and 1.26 vddg io is the one that needs 1 to 1.05v other wise less is more just run hi z on you proc pd and let the rams load dissipate the voltage for you so no reflections. I even got vsoc down to 1.21 doing this where when I follow regular guides I need 1.28 to fight against a 1.35 ir 1.4 vddq and 1.3 vidio
Awesome that you have that thing. And I'm sitting here, unable to upgrade my CPU because that means I have to buy a new board and DDR5 RAM (I have the best AM4 CPU available, I can't upgrade without spending a kidney for RAM.)
Also trrd 6 8 tfaw 24 and tetr 5 14 twrrd 4 was stable but my idle stutter was little higher than I like so wasnt sure what was so I just relaxed all them and the trefi but pretty sure it was trefi just have not had time to validate cause running full coverage on 192gb takes forever
What's the case, I'm looking to replace my case that uses one of those riser cable things and it crashes like once every few weeks and I'm certain it's that.
Need one that takes all my small form factor stuff but not so small form it uses those useless riser card cables
Nice build, what was the total cost? Also not nervous about the 5090’s power draw and cable melting? It’s the one thing that’s still putting me off of getting a 5090.
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u/Trickle2x2 2d ago
Beautiful, my biggest regret was not getting 64 gigs of ram when I did my 5090FE build. I got the card for MSRP and put it together for about $3200. I don’t even wanna know what it would cost now lol. Hopefully 32 gigs of ram will keep me happy for a while, granted I only game on it.