Xeon 1230v3 upgrade to i7 9800x
 

Hi everyone, and thanks for the nice forum.

I currently have a pc with xeon 1230v3, 4x4 gb ddr3, 980ti, and I have been thinking of upgrading to i7 9800x with 4x8gb ddr4 and keeping the same gpu. I also use this computer for gaming and would like to learn cfd also when I have more time.

Currently I'm doing my thesis with nonlinear fem simulations, and im struggling a bit with calculation power.

How much faster would a i7 9800x be compared to my xeon, assuming that the fem solver can use at least 8 cores? I have read that 4 memory channels should be a lot faster for simulations using a lot of ram compared to only 2 of the xeon.

One thing that concerns me is that this might be a bad time to buy new processor, because of the rumours of next generation cpus being released soon.

I7-9800X sounds like a pretty good choice in your case. Assuming your simulations can scale up to 8 cores, you are looking at somewhere between 2-3x performance increase. Much more if your cases don't fit into 16GB of memory, much less if 32GB still is not enough ;)
So check the total memory usage (physical memory + swap) of your simulations before deciding how much memory to buy for the new system. And as always: go for fast memory, DDR4-3600 at least.

With the frequent release schedule of new CPUs these days, there will always be something new and shiny on the horizon. But in this particular case, I am not aware of any upcoming releases that would benefit you. Do you have anything specific in mind?

Thanks for helping me out!

My current simulation model is running right at the edge of 16GB, so I cant refine the mesh further without losing much speed. This is one of the reasons why I'm thinking of upgrading my pc, It seems stupid to buy new parts for this over 5 year old pc anyway.

I just read some rumours of Intels next generation is being released this spring, but it's still 14nm so the speed increase probably isn't that much.

Are there any AMD cpus that are close to speed and price of the i7 9800x?

What features I should be looking for when deciding which motherboard to buy for the 9800x? I have a noctua nh12 already, would that allow semi decent oc?

I see no compelling CPU release in the near future.
AMDs Threadripper lineup is way out of reach with your budget, and it probably would not be a huge upgrade compared to the I7.
And Intel...who knows what they have planned for their HEDT lineup, but it won't be cheap either. And again, no real upgrade due to still being quad-channel.

The only potential alternatives today are TR 1920X and 2920X. But they will be a bit slower, require expensive X399 motherboards, and you need to be careful which memory you use.

I can not know which features you need in a motherboard. So far, your requirements could be met by even the cheapest boards like ASRock X299 Extreme4.

A Noctua NH-U12S is not exactly the quietest air cooler I ever owned, nor particularly powerful. It will be able to cool this CPU, but expect higher noise levels when overclocking. You decide if you can live with that.

Okey, the 9800x seems to be the best option for me right now.

Only problem is that availability seems to be really bad at the moment in europe at least, so I guess I'll have to wait and see.

Thanks for help.

Question
 

What RAM do you recommend for the 2920x?
(Bandwith, capacity, etc)
My budget is limited, so i cant afford anything too fancy.

I can't know how much memory you need. The only reasonable options for a value-oriented workstation with a TR 2920X CPU are either 4x8GB or 4x16GB. Rated for DDR4-3200 MT/s, CL16.
This should cost you in the range of 150€ or 280€ respectively.

That being said, you need to carefully evaluate the total system cost, and your use-case. New X399 motherboards are still fairly expensive compared to entry-level X299 boards. And an I7-9800x costs about the same as a TR 2920X, has higher single-threaded performance, a single NUMA-node, and is better for overclocking.

Thanks flotus1

In this case I already have the equipment. My doubts were about the RAM.

It should be minimum 4 sticks? One per processor channel?

thanks in advance

Yes, at least one DIMM per memory channel.