A little advice before I take the plunge?

I'm thinking about doing something and I want advice before I take the plunge...

What I have now: A laptop for home use and a self-built machine in my shop:

• ASUS motherboard
  
• 1090T 4.1 GHz Hex-core CPU
  
• 16 GB DDR3 RAM
  
• (2) 1TB HDDs
  
• Win 7 Ultimate
  
• On-board Radeon graphics

That machine works well for what I use it for: number crunching. It's main use is running electrical simulations, 3D animation (a hobby), MATLAB, Adobe CS3, etc. I should also mention that I use TeamViewer to remotely access between machines and move files around for backup. The problem there is that some things I can't do remotely due to the lag, mainly intense graphics and 3D setups. It works great for simulations and MATLAB though.

I also have quite a bit of computer hardware from over the years... cases, keyboards, mice, that sort of thing.

Now, here's the idea:

I have a small spare room that I don't need. In the next couple of months I am going to be able to work again, and I need something to do! So I have decided, since the shop is sorta dusty and not temperature controlled like the house, I would turn it into a home office. I want to put my wireless laser printer in there along with a 3D printer, and a new computer that will take the job of holding all of my data away from the shop machine. And of course I'm on a budget, but it should be enough to do what I want for now.

The home desktop should be able to run all of the software on my shop machine. It also needs good internet connectivity for tutoring (I am approved as a Chegg tutor). It needs a secure data storage system, so I am considering a RAID... something I have zero actual experience with. The RAID will be the final resting place for any files I create anywhere else (note that I am the ultimate file packrat!).

I would also like to use an SSD for the OS and apps, to speed things up.

Now, I should mention, if I have computing power, I tend to USE IT. I have locked up MATLAB on that hex-core. I will (and have!) set up PoserPro to cut an animation and peg all 6 cores at 100% for days at a time in cold weather when I'm not going to be in the shop (lately I restrict it to 5 cores so I can still use TeamViewer to check on it). Some of my animations can take a few hours per frame to render, so cutting a clip can be a very long and tedious process. So this new machine must be able to handle that kind of abuse.

Here's what I am looking at:

• ASUS Prime X470 Pro Motherboard (on-board Radeon graphics are fine for now)
  
• AMD Ryzen5 2600x Hex-core processor (I'm an AMD fan).
  
• Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo (same thing I use in my shop, and it works great)
  
• 32 GB DDR4 3000MHz RAM
  (I went with 32 instead of 16 so I can expand later to 64 if needed... and if anyone has experience with G-Skill, say something?)
  
• Mushkin 1TB 2.5" SSD
  
• (5) Seagate 1TB BarraCuda 6GB/s HDD RAID

Now the fun question: I want to run Win 7 on this thing (there are a couple things I don't like about Win 10, and all my apps work well under Win 7). I did a little research and found the only real issue is that the USB drivers won't work initially, so you have to use a PS2 keyboard/mouse to set it up. Not an issue for me; I gots all kinds of old crap. I even called ASUS directly and they verified, but if anyone here has any information on that, please speak up. And yes, I have a license for Win 7 64-bit Ultimate.

Networking is not an issue... I plan on tying this to my router through ethernet instead of WiFi (that room is close to my networking area).

Future plans: I want a damn server! So my thinking is that maybe, should I be able to afford it, I can later swap this out for a Threadripper (16 cores!) or whatever is the latest and greatest in the future, and use it for a server unit. I can up my pipe to 10 M/s (higher if I need it) and get a static IP pretty reasonably through my ISP.

Any help finding potential problems in my set-up will be appreciated. I've not built a computer in a while, and gotten behind on the technology. Not to mention, expensive mistakes could kill my budget.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

With the setup that your eyeing you should be just fine.
My only change would be to make the jump to win10. I love my 7 ultimate but ended up making the jump. Now I wish I did earlier. I would also get intel but that is just my bias though.
Good luck man.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Triple your memory.

And get a fast as speed as your budget allows.

pcpartpicker.com... this is the site i used to build my PC ,you seem much much much more knowledgeable then i was when i started so only posting as it has a compatibility checker to make sure all the parts play nice with each other. it had issues 6 months ago but they claim to have fixed the compatibility checker

OS on a NVME drive.

And put your important stuff on a secondary drive. The muskin or whatever.

Samsung evo

originally posted by: neo96
a reply to: TheRedneck

Triple your memory.

And get a fast as speed as your budget allows.

My home pc has 12g of ram ddr3 high speed and can handle everything I do. Mostly games and streaming. Even run multiple screens.
So my question is does 32g of ddr4 makes a noticeable difference? Keep in mind I don’t do any video editing.

a reply to: neo96

The 16GB in my shop machine has never... never... page-filed. Not once. I have had it hit 15GB+ usage, but that is only when I raise the size of Poser's rendering block too high. The larger blocks speed up rendering some, but very little.

I cannot imagine needing more than 32 GB any time in the foreseeable future. In 20 years, it might be insufficient, but I can up this machine to 64 GB easily.

TheRedneck

a reply to: Allaroundyou

Building a system one needs to take in to account the now, but the future, and how long before they next planned upgrade.

1 or 2 years fine.

If they don't plan to upgrade anything for 5 or more then it can become a problem.

The progress of the net has put so much snip on even website it can be painful on older systems.

I desperately need a new system, but other things keep coming up.

10 year old system with 8gb of memory.

Had I it to do over then. I would have maxed out my memory.

a reply to: TheRedneck

but I can up this machine to 64 GB easily.

Do it.

A little pain now beat a lot of pain down the road.

a reply to: Allaroundyou

I have Win10 on the laptop... I installed ClassicShell to make the menu a little easier for me to maneuver.

It works good, but it's a little stubborner than Win7 on where it wants to put files. I have a proprietary filing system that I use to handle the mass of stuff I generate. Also, Win 10 has this thing that removes software when it updates without a prompt... I hate that! The first time I saw it pop up, I hit the power down button immediately... thought I had a virus! So far, it hasn't caused any issues on my laptop, but there's something about giving Microsoft complete control over what apps I run that bothers me immeasurably.

Also, I have a tried and tested set-up in the shop... everything works, and works well together. I'd like to duplicate that, just with better speed and more secure data storage.

Oh, went checking on RAID capability... looks like the Prime x470 Pro might have a problem with the RAID I want (Raid 5), so I found this little gem: ASUS RoG Strix B450-F Gaming. It supports RAID 5 and is actually a little cheaper.

TheRedneck

a reply to: neo96

That's why I went with 32 gigs instead of 16. 16 is two 8 GB sticks, which means I could only add 32 GB more for a total of 48, without throwing away the 16 G already there. 32 GB is two 16 GB sticks. This way, all it takes to upgrade to 64 GB is buy the RAM and plug it into the already open slots.

You're right, though... everything is getting more and more resource hungry by the week, it seems. I tend to overrun the 8 GB in this laptop even at times, and it's not a number-cruncher.

TheRedneck

Whelp, when you start getting all egg-heady again and way over this mere mortal's head I'm pretty sure you are recovering nicely indeed! Made me smile this morn. Sounds like some serious creativity is about to happen in multiple arenas.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Oh that’s a nice motherboard! I was going to upgrade my desktop with something similar obviously Asus. But I need a laptop for my astrophotography.

msi newegg

Waiting till cyber Monday to place the order though.

a reply to: The GUT

Hahaha, I gots to be me....

You have mail.

TheRedneck

a reply to: Allaroundyou

I absolutely LOVE ASUS! I use an ASUS in my shop... it works flawlessly, and the temperature monitoring/ fan options are fantastic (I haven't even tried overclocking, even though it supports it natively). Only complaint is, if you want an ASUS board, get a surge protector! They won't take any serious line fluctuations. The one in my shop is the third one... first one died while I was putting off getting a surge strip, second one was on a cheap surge strip when it went, now I have a good protector and no issues.

Luckily I was able to find exact replacement boards on ebay for a decent price... just swap it over and set the BIOS options back.

I've been tempted to set up a UPS here... a good inverter hooked to a car battery with a charger connecting that to the line power. I can build a switching charger here easily enough.

TheRedneck

Tripling his memory would be difficult as the board only supports 64GB and Ryzen architecture is very Ram speed and latency depending for performance so you’re better off with going with 32GB of 3400mhz+ DDR4. Also Ryzen is picky about the ram so whatever ram you’re planning on running check the motherboard model’s QVL Memory list so you know that everything will play nice everything looks fine but if you’re planning on possibly going threadripper in the future I’d go with X399 mobo and Threadripper TR1920x they are an insanely good bang for the buck now that 2nd gen TR came out 12c24t for 420 is sure hard to beat.

originally posted by: Allaroundyou
a reply to: TheRedneck

Oh that’s a nice motherboard! I was going to upgrade my desktop with something similar obviously Asus. But I need a laptop for my astrophotography.

msi newegg

Waiting till cyber Monday to place the order though.

Nice lappy I’ve got GT62VR 7RE you’ve got me beat cpu wise but I’ve got dat 1070 powa!

a reply to: BigDave-AR

The Threadripper will be a new build sometime later on... different socket.

I'm curious... you recommended 3400 RAM (drool, droll), and I was looking at 3000. How much difference will I actually see? There's a pretty big price differential.

TheRedneck

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: BigDave-AR

The Threadripper will be a new build sometime later on... different socket.

I'm curious... you recommended 3400 RAM (drool, droll), and I was looking at 3000. How much difference will I actually see? There's a pretty big price differential.

TheRedneck

I was thinking later on you could get another X399 board and move up to a 2950x for the server but then again not my wallet that’s gonna take a beating

You’d be surprised the difference can be 20%+
link

a reply to: BigDave-AR

Actually, I'm greedy... was gonna repurpose this build for the server and get me one faster!

I'll check out the 3400 then... 20% is substantial! Thanks!

TheRedneck