Help me choose a mobo and memory for hard-working 5950x

pekirt · August 2021

Hi everyone,

I have a specific use case and a budget and I need advice.

CPU "has to be" 5950x. I explain below why, but if you think I'm wrong in any of my arguments, I'd love to hear it. If not, please skip to the next bullet point. ;)
- I need MOAR COREZ with more clock-speed. I'm doing numerical simulations, which involve forming millions of 100k x 100k sparse matrices and inverting them.
- My work consists of 100%'ing all cores for 24 hours but one (for cooling purposes as well as leaving something for the computer to handle itself).
- A few hours of rest is in order after 24h 100% work! (I need time to analyze the output.) So the work is not always on, but it's on for a long time.
- The output of all of this work is a text file of ~50MB size per 24 hrs, so fast communication to storage (pcie 4.0) is not an issue.
- Because of stability, overclocking is not an option.
- I can't justify a threadripper, because I have access to an HPC grid of a university. This is for "small stuff" that doesn't merit an HPC.
- While the instruction set of intel is superior, core count and clock speed of AMD beats it.
Connectivity: Nothing out of the ordinary.
I already have a 850W gold+ power supply and a decent case. I have a wifi card so the mobo doesn't need to have wifi. I "need" only one NVME slot and a few SATA slots.
Memory: I need minimum 32GB of memory (the more the merrier but budget considerations). I suspect memory speed is less important than memory size.
Budget: $750 for the CPU (thanks for the $50 off!), $300 for the mobo and $200 for memory? So $1200'ish? The less the better of course.
I have a no-name Radeon RX560 and I can't justify buying new stuff. Unfortunately I don't have the time for proper gaming.
Dual boot to Linux and Windows is a must. (Are there still mobos out there that have a problem with linux?)
Case size: ATX. Mobo must be able to fit my Noctua NH-D15. (Water cooling is out: I suspect I'd hit the thermal capacity of an AIO and I'm not willing to do custom watercooling.)
I need a stable mobo that can supply the necessary power to the CPU consistently. This is very important for a 24h 100% load CPU!

I'm not far from the Madison Heights, MI store.

So... which motherboard and which memory?

Thank you all for your time and suggestions. :)

Edit: I have a build below, but I have no idea if the motherboard has enough good VRMs for the use case I described. It's just under $1100+tax.

https://www.microcenter.com/site/content/custom-pc-builder.aspx?load=a2f49f09-3aad-4ef9-afcf-395d375ca616

PowerSpec_MikeW · August 2021

Greetings @pekirt

Generally in that price range I'd aim for 3600 C16 RAM: https://www.microcenter.com/product/613487/gskill-ripjaws-v-32gb-(2-x-16gb)-ddr4-3600-pc4-28800-cl16-dual-channel-desktop-memory-kit-f4-3600c16d-32gvkc-black

Load your XMP/DOCP profile and go. IF, uclock sync with the memory speed, so you ideally get the best result from 3600. Going above 3733, you'll need to increase it manually, and you said you don't want to overclock. You can spend more, I saw some C14 that I'd may be B-Die on the site. It's an extra $85 for about 1ns. Wouldn't recommend it.

For the board, you don't seem to need much in the way of extreme expandability, so I'd go with a B550 board. Anything that supports your requirements would work. I'll suggest my personal preference: https://www.microcenter.com/product/632800/msi-b550-meg-unify-amd-am4-atx-motherboard

Generally I'll choose boards for their VRM quality. The VRM on the Unify boards are top notch.