New PC Build Help

gms2257

I'm working on a new build and have some questions. I went through the 7 part series on the site on how to choose parts and changed some things around from another configuration I was working on. I tried calling the store a few times today but the hold queue was full. I was thinking of going in but I ran out of time.

Here's the build. 
https://www.microcenter.com/site/content/custom-pc-builder-amd.aspx?load=9663e30f-b83c-4201-a1d6-e92d64a583e4

Here's some background on what I will be using the machine for.

I'm a full-time day trader and I put very heavy loads on my machine with multiple trading platforms, running other multiple programs, and a screen capture recording my screens during market hours. I’m a very heavy multitasker and put heavy loads on my machine. I will NOT be using this PC for any gaming. It’s strictly a work PC for heavy multitasking and day trading. The trading programs I use are Think or Swim, Scanz, Stocks To Trade, and Etrade Pro. 

I was informed today by a tech at Think or Swim (one of the main trading platforms I use) to use this link below in choosing a graphic card. He said to choose from the upper blue/green area since the platform is very demanding. So I chose the GeForce RTX 2070 but not sure if I made the best choice.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2019-09-27-gpu-power-ladder-all-graphics-cards-tested

Monitors I currently have:

Two Acer S271 HL monitors https://www.cnet.com/products/acer-s271hl-led-monitor-full-hd-1080p-27/ 

One  40 Inch MU6290 4K TV https://www.samsung.com/us/televisions-home-theater/tvs/uhd-tvs/40-class-mu6290-4k-uhd-tv-un40mu6290fxza/. 

I'm not currently using the MU6290 4K TV but may want to in the future. There's also slight possibility I may decided to get another MU6290 4K. If I do buy another one then the setup will be:

One Acer S271 HL monitor https://www.cnet.com/products/acer-s271hl-led-monitor-full-hd-1080p-27/ 

Two 40 Inch MU6290 4K TV https://www.samsung.com/us/televisions-home-theater/tvs/uhd-tvs/40-class-mu6290-4k-uhd-tv-un40mu6290fxza/. 

The questions I have are:

1. Processor: Is the AMD 3900 overkill for what I need and if it is does it make sense for the future?
2. Video Card: Is the GeForce RTX 2070 a good choice? Does it seem like overkill for my use?
3. Motherboard: Is the motherboard a good choice? I think it has wifi which I don't need but someone from another forum recommended it. I'm lost on this.
4. RAM: Does the 64GB of RAM make sense? Originally I was going to get 32GB but since Think or Swim is such a resource hog and it's recommended to put the settings to half your RAM. Theoretically it should only use what it needs. Are there any other benefits to having 64GB of RAM for my use?
5. GPU: I ordered the Seasonic 850 GPU today but received an email that it was out of stock so the order was replaced with Corsair RM850x 850 Watt 80 Plus Gold ATX Fully Modular Power Supply. Is that a good choice?
6. SSD Drive: I was told to get the NVMe M.2 drive for the main drive. I keep the bulk of my files on the D drive to keep the C drive clean basically with just programs and what's in my documents folder. That's why I chose two 500GB NVMe M.2 drives vs 1TB so that I could do that. Does this make sense and does it even matter anymore? In other words is there a benefit to doing this for performance or other reasons or should I just go with 1TB  500GB NVMe M.2 drive? Can I even have 2 NVMe M.2 drives? Will it affect anything performance wise?
7. Sata 3 Drives I chose 2 8TB Internal Drives for storage and backups. Will both these drives fit in the case and connect to the motherboard since I already have the two NVMe M.2 drives?
8. Case: Is this fractal design a good choice? Many recommended it.
9. Are the five P12 Fluid Dynamic Bearing 120mm Case Fans a good choice?
10. Is the Reaver CC-1101 CPU Cooler a good choice? Is this a good idea to have?
11. Any other thoughts or recommendations?
If you've gotten this far you're probably exhausted so thanks so much for taking the time to read it. This build is very important to me since I daytrade for a living and I also need a powerful machine for all the multitasking I do.

TSPhillipT

Hello @gms2257

I have moved your thread to a more suitable category.  


I disagree with the tech that you spoke with earlier in regards to picking the proper Video Card.  Unless you are doing in depth Stock Analysis and are grinding data and logarithms, you don't need a high end Video Card.  The link the tech provided you was for benchmarking Video Cards playing games at a 1440p Resolution.  This doesn't reflect any actual performance gains while using multiple stock trading applications.


The main thing you will want to make sure your video card has are ports that match your monitors/TVs.  I see you are looking at using monitors/TVs that have HDMI as their main connection... most video cards will rarely have 3 HDMI Slots.  It's more common for Video Cards to have DisplayPorts rather than HDMI ports.  You are likely to use an adapter that converts DisplayPort to HDMI, just make sure you get a good adapter that promotes 4K Resolution.  


Going into answering each question now;

1.) The 3900X is a great processor for stock trading.  It boasts a high amount of cores and threads that will assist with multitasking the multiple stock trading programs you have as well as computing calculations with high clock speeds.  It leaves room for extra multitasking and futureproofing as well.

2.) Video card question was answered above mainly.  2070 will work of course, but it is definitely not needed unless you are more into stock analyzing and number crunching.  You can definitely go to a lower model of graphics card, like an Nvidia 1650 or 1660.

3.) Your motherboard is like the skeleton for the build, and it's the base.  Your motherboard doesn't have a large impact in performance, it just decides what parts you can use on it.  After picking your processor and RAM that work with the motherboard and their Chipset, you begin looking at things like integrated WiFi/Bluetooth or 10GB Lan Ports, or other small changes with the motherboard.  There is very little differences between motherboards besides additional features as listed above.  I think the motherboard you picked is fine.

4.) 64Gb is what I would recommend when it comes to heavy multitasking.  I am unsure why would you limit your RAM to half, I would let it eat up more RAM if it allows for faster loading and storage of data sets.  The benefit for more RAM is the ability to store more data in higher speed storage temporarily, including large data sets for stock trading.  They also allow for more multitasking.  

5.) Your PSU (Power Supply Unit) is fine and doesn't have major changes between brand.  The 80+ Standard shows efficiencies for the Power Supply, with the higher rating, the less your computer affects your electricity bill.  You can go to a lower wattage if you change to a weaker Video Card.

6.) There isn't a very large benefit in having 2 M.2 Drives.  The biggest benefit is the ability to Write and Read from the second drive very very very fast.  This mainly applies to video editing, where you can grab large 4K-8K Files from a second drive and write/save your video back onto the secondary drive.  In my opinion, I would just do the 1 500GB M.2 SSD and have the 2 8TB Drives on the side. 

7.) Curious, does Stock Trading take up that much storage?  I'm not sure on the storage side of this.  For back ups, I understand however you can usually do a 2TB or 4TB drive for back up and still have more than enough storage generally.  You will receive wires/cords to connect and power the Hard Drives.  

8.) Fractal Design is a great case brand, especially the Meshify C.  Very good airflow and keeps things inside nice and cool.  

9.) These are solid Fans, no issues with them.  You may need to get a Fan Hub or Fan Splitters as there are enough Fan Headers on the motherboard to connect all these Fans.  

10.) It's a good cooler, however it's more commonly used in ITX Builds.  ITX means a very cramp and small build since it is a low profile cooler.  Your processor does come with it's own CPU Cooler and it's what I would recommend using rather than another Air Cooler.  

gms2257

Thank you @TSPhillipT so much for all this info. I updated the build to your suggestions and have a question regarding the memory. Hopefully I can have this wrapped up soon and have it built at microcenter today or tomorrow.

Here's the new build.

https://www.microcenter.com/site/content/custom-pc-builder-amd.aspx?load=d16d4afe-90fe-4bdd-a43d-9fa1c20bbc64

The only thing missing from the build is the cooler which I ordered from Amazon and will have today. 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00C9FLSLY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I've read and heard so many conflicting things about this and I'm not sure what to do. I doubt I'll ever need more than 64GB but some say it's better to leave 2 slots open for a less expensive upgrade just in case. 

It's also $60 less to get 2 sticks of 32GB vs 4 16GB but I'm mostly concerned about performance and if it will make a difference with the motherboard or anything else. Here's both options and the motherboard. Thank you.

https://www.microcenter.com/product/623520/gskill-ripjaws-v-64gb-(2-x-32gb)-ddr4-3600-pc4-28800-cl18-dual-channel-desktop-memory-kit-f4-3600c18d-64gvk---black

https://www.microcenter.com/quickViewConfigurator2020/625143/gigabyte-b550-aorus-pro-ac-amd-am4-atx-motherboard

Thank you again for your help!

TSPhillipT

Build looks good!  

I recommend going with the 2 sticks of 32GB.  The benefits for going with 4x RAM sticks are if your system supports Quad Channel RAM which your motherboard does not support, you would be getting the same speeds as the 2 sticks of 32GB.  

gms2257

@TSPhillipT Thank you!
Sorry just one more question to finalize is the motherboard. Do you think the Gigabyte B550 AORUS Pro AC AMD AM4 ATX Motherboard or ASUS X570-Pro Prime AMD AM4 ATX Motherboard is better for my use? 
Again I'm getting a lot of different info and not sure which to buy.

TSTonyV

The primary difference between the two boards is that the X570-Pro Prime has all PCIe 4.0 slots, whereas the B550 Aorus Pro has one and the rest are PCIe 3.0 instead. The X570 also has two USB 3.1 Gen1 headers internally where the B550 only has one. However the B550 does come with WiFi built in. 

Unless you have specific needs for those extra features on the X570, then there's no practical difference between. They'll perform the same.

gms2257

Ok great thanks. I was reading on a custom trading computer site that's been in business over 10 years that doesn't use anything other than Asus because of reliability they said and just about every part in this build they use and I got multiple confirmations from different places including you that the parts look good.

So I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something in the motherboard especially since everything is connecting to it. I see that the B550 was released this year vs last year for the x570 so I guess the newer technology is an advantage too.

As far as the thing you mentioned with the differences I'm guessing they probably won't matter to me. Maybe the extra 4.0 PCIE slots if I wanted to add another video card or something (not even sure what) would make a slight difference but maybe not even noticeable to me. 

TSTonyV

B550 and X570 are built on the same kind of technology actually, the X570 just released first is all. B550 is kind of the "budget" option compared to X570. It lacks a few of the features X570 has but those features don't make a difference for most users, like PCIe 4.0. On that note, PCIe 4.0 likely won't make any significant performance differences for you either, even in the future since what you're doing doesn't really rely on PCIe bandwidth. Unless you're planning on using PCIe 4.0 M.2 drives and doing a LOT of high-capacity data transfer across those lanes at some point. 

gms2257

Thanks for that info. That helps me understand better. I don't plan on doing what you're doing with M.2 Drives.

That actually brings up another point. I was originally going to go with 2 M.2 Drives (in question #6) but I decided against it because there seemed to be an issue with having 2 of the M.2  I was told it's better to have just one because of less PCIe chatter. Someone else told me it's better to have 1TB anyway because when the drive starts to fill up it becomes slower.

The reason I was going to have a 2nd was because I was told many years ago it's better to have all data on a data d drive to keep the c drive clean. So that's what I've been doing since 2004. Now I'm wondering if I can get an additional 2.5 SSD to use as a  data D drive in this setup  (not the M.2 but a 2.5 SSD) to to keep the C drive 1TB M.2 cleaner

Is it beneficial to to keep the 1TB M.2 cleaner and have a 2.5 SSD drive for a data D drive? Or am I just overthinking this whole thing and not even matter anymore to keep the C drive clean these days? 

gms2257

I just went and found what someone told me so if I didn't explain it correctly reading below should. Again, I 'm mainly concerned with causing more issues by introducing a 2.5 SSD data D drive and if it doesn't even matter.

"SSDs increase in performance by size, and decrease in performance when they get closer to full. So a 1TB Evo will outperform the 500GB Evo. Less PCIe chatter with a single fast nVME is also preferable to multiple drives if you don't need to."

"You can manually map the various profile folders to other locations easily (desktop, documents, downloads, music, pictures, and video folders). I usually do this for people with smaller SSDs. For you I'd probably recommend a mix, setting only download, music, and video to remap to \Profile\etc for example. This means anything that goes into those folders doesn't have to be manually moved off your SSD after the fact, it's just seamless. But your documents and any desktop items you're working with are stored on the SSD for max performance. And leaving open nVME slots is optimal for later expansions."
"I would recommend going with an x570 motherboard if you're going to be running 2x Samsung 970. Fyi, the B550 aorus pro uses the pcie x4 electrical slot bandwidth for the 2nd m2 drive, so you won't be able to use that slot for much if you go with that board."

gms2257

"I would recommend going with an x570 motherboard if you're going to be running 2x Samsung 970. Fyi, the B550 aorus pro uses the pcie x4 electrical slot bandwidth for the 2nd m2 drive, so you won't be able to use that slot for much if you go with that board."

TSTonyV

I'd say if you can get the same thing with one part that you'd otherwise get with two, then there's no reason to buy the multiple parts. You save some space to leave room open for future expansion. I would only go with multiple drives if I specifically wanted to look for some kind of RAID setup or simply because I was running out of storage on my existing drives and needed to add more. Or if I wanted to have a dedicated drive for backup purposes. 

Running an extra 2.5" SATA drive won't negatively effect your performance on an NVMe drive. 

I don't know enough about the wiring/PCIe setup on these boards to make a comment about the lanes or operating in x4 mode vs not, but it doesn't hurt to have features you don't use. Better to have it and not use it than to need it and not have it. 

gms2257

Ok that makes things easier for me thanks. I'm just going to stick with the 1TB M.2. I guess the days of keeping data on a 2nd D drive to keep the c drive clean to perform better are gone.

Also, all my backups are going on the 8tb drives so I was only going to use the 2.5 Sata for storing the files I work on most, which I'll probably benefit from having on the M.2 performance wise.

Thanks for all your help.

Ian

You're welcome! Please let us know if you have any other questions.