MSI X399 Creation Threadripper Build - Start to Finish

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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A real build for once from start to finish! Vice the warehouse full of gifted glitter items, tools and hardware that would cost a small fortune put into a system that will never really be used on so many YouTube builds. For me video was right on target and looking forward to building a TR system later this year. You will actually be testing the system, building upon it - like a real user. As a side note, thank God it doesn't light up like the Vegas Strip, :cool:.

Only question I have is on the last two M.2 drives placed on the motherboard, did you use the retaining screws? Looked like you put the cover right down onto them without the screws?

MSI looks like they won the Best TR Motherboard maker this round and definitely picked the right person to show it off and test it. Look forward to this system upgrades, performance etc. As for Corsair, I've been extremely happy with virtually anything I bought from them and that has been much.
 
Good video. The smooth texas drawl makes for a relaxing and sensual experience.

Watching other Youtube build videos (LTT, Jayz2cents, bitwitkyle) I found their voices too 'hyper' - like they need to be excited the entire time. And the constant jokes (usually dick jokes) were distracting.
 
Very cool to watch, thanks!

The 860 in the Aero didn't work because it's SATA and the card only works with PCIe M.2 drives.
 
Thanks for the vid Kyle and Co. Best TR CPU install I have seen to date. Really feel like I have a more complete understanding of how that goes now. Great to see the 'box' test too as so many new builders slam everything into the case and are lost if nothing happens when that power button is pressed. Points for finger painting the TIM too! I have been doing that since way back on GPUs and CPUs and find that I get consistent results. Other methods are fine too of course. Definitely a 'what works for you' thing.

Anyway thanks again!
 
Please do a video on the custom water loop if you install one.

It's good to see some support for the site from hardware companies, and I know [H] will always be up front about what is sponsored.
 
noko said:
A real build for once from start to finish! Vice the warehouse full of gifted glitter items, tools and hardware that would cost a small fortune put into a system that will never really be used on so many YouTube builds. For me video was right on target and looking forward to building a TR system later this year. You will actually be testing the system, building upon it - like a real user. As a side note, thank God it doesn't light up like the Vegas Strip, :cool:.

Only question I have is on the last two M.2 drives placed on the motherboard, did you use the retaining screws? Looked like you put the cover right down onto them without the screws?

MSI looks like they won the Best TR Motherboard maker this round and definitely picked the right person to show it off and test it. Look forward to this system upgrades, performance etc. As for Corsair, I've been extremely happy with virtually anything I bought from them and that has been much.
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I agree. I'll be building a 7nm TR system later this year.
 
Great informative video.
That using the power supply on the desk to be your ground was interesting. Working in the electronics manufacturing world I have always used a ground strap/cord.
I have never done a prebuild outside of the case to test components to see if they are working or not, and it never really occurred to me, so +1 on that.
20+ years and still learning keeps this stuff fun for me.
 
Thanks for video Kyle. Before I totally jumped into upgrading everything in 'the cave' I was actually considering doing a build similar to this. The same exact motherboard and either 2700x or 2950x. Really like the evolving nature of CPU slot/pin designs. We've come a long way from the old days with pins like needles to the ridiculous amount of clamp pressure I saw with my 4930k to this.

I never knew the trick with a PSU for grounding. Good tip. Interesting W10 having NIC driver issues with something this new. I've repeatedly had problems with each build of W10 not having the NIC driver for my X79 board and just figured it had to do with the age of the board. Fortunately I've got other PC's on hand to put it on a flash to install from.

Can't emphasize enough for those building that they follow your advice with testing as you go before the full case install. I've upgraded probably hundreds of systems from servers>desktops>laptops and can totally agree working on things in the case can be a PIA depending on design. I've still got my old P4 rig that was basically built thru upgrades as everything but the case was changed over 6-7 years. That rig gave me the biggest headache when I did a ram upgrade and the original motherboard died. Had to take it all out and to a friends shop to test. I can imagine what it would feel like coming from a build stand point.

The rigs in my profile are the only 2 I've ever done from scratch. Spent 30-50 hours each researching all their potential parts, reading reviews, tests, threads, and price comparisons. I put them together sans any guides/tutorials out of pride and wanting to test myself from all the knowledge I'd gathered over decades. I actually paced putting them together across a couple of days for a total of 6-8 hours each. I did not test as I went. I got lucky, no problems but my wife was always surprised how stressed I looked when I went to 'push the button' the first time. For what it's worth, I recently went thru this same anxiety when I installed the 2080TI. As they been upgraded thru the years it's always been an ongoing process to simplify cable management and other physical issues.

As someone who still does air I was happy to see someone else still applying flow/exhaust principles to AIO's. I honestly hadn't considered it would still be something think about with H20. Still learning about this stuff from you guys and really appreciate being able to watch it.

As always, love watching the 4k streams and great camera angles. Could easily see all the details. I also thought the fade/edits pacing was perfect. It never felt like some manuals or a you tube vid where you just know some important step hasn't been mentioned.
 
Grebuloner said:
The 860 in the Aero didn't work because it's SATA and the card only works with PCIe M.2 drives.
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I figured that out when I broke it back down later. I assumed it was NVMe when I picked it up of the bench. I did update the article to point that out. Thanks for reminding me!
 
I have the SE version of that case, trying to shoehorn that metal cable bracket back on when you have cablemod psu cables is fun. Plus all the rgb with the corsair commander and the extra cables just makes it even more of a nightmare. :mad:
 
Chris_B said:
I have the SE version of that case, trying to shoehorn that metal cable bracket back on when you have cablemod psu cables is fun. Plus all the rgb with the corsair commander and the extra cables just makes it even more of a nightmare. :mad:
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Agreed, needs to be bigger to be usable. The biggest issue was two 8-pin 12v leads that are used on that E-ATX board. Still not sure all the cabling would have fitted however if I had only had one to run.
 
Hehe, I will take that compliment.

upload_2019-1-6_20-19-44.png
 
I'm actually kind of thinking of using the Air 540 case for similar airflow reasons, funny that is almost identical to the build I have in my cart right now (well one of them, it's hard to ignore the value of the 1700x at the moment too...but I really want TR just because quad channel memory should give me some extra lifespan, I've been rocking this overclocked Thuban forever, 4.2ghz since 2008, almost 200k power-on hours).

Also of note, while there are other boards that will let you raid 4-6 NVMe drives, only TR4 lets you boot off that raid (as long as you slipstream the raid drivers in your windows install). With all 6 connected to the CPU Raid5 performance is snazzy AF.
 
Excellent Video Kyle! Solid build you have there! I assume you will be doing a follow up video in a few weeks on performance?
 
I knew the threadripper was a big CPU, but still when i unpacked mine i was like Duuuude :)
My new system threw a fit the day after new year when i got home and the computer had been on for 5 minutes, as it turned out it was my old GTX 570 that have up, so i gad to go get a new cheap replacement, which ended up being a 3Gb 1060 as no ATI cards in the right price range was in store.
Hope i get something exiting to look forward to as i still need a proper GFX card some time this summer.

I was hoping to win a 1950X this X mas, but as usual my luck in gaming and love are at a absolute minimum, so will have to make do with the 12 / 24 cores.
 
Since AMD has physical pins unlike Intel for it's sockets that's got me wonder there is a empty area of space underneath them in the middle why don't they put a single DRAM or HBM chip in the case of APU's directly in that middle section? It would require re-engineering the layout a bit to do so, but it happens to be a spot where they could integrate a single chip relatively easy.
amd-ryzen-7-cpu-inhandpins-1500x1000.jpg
 
knowom said:
Since AMD has physical pins unlike Intel for it's sockets that's got me wonder there is a empty area of space underneath them in the middle why don't they put a single DRAM or HBM chip in the case of APU's directly in that middle section? It would require re-engineering the layout a bit to do so, but it happens to be a spot where they could integrate a single chip relatively easy. View attachment 133618
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the only reason it looks clean is that AMD puts the circuitry for the processor on the processor side of the PCB while intel puts most of it on the pin side. but put that aside, even if it was possible how exactly would you cool a dram/hbm module with zero air movement or way to transfer the heat since it's also going to have to deal with heat from the cpu on the other side?
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
the only reason it looks clean is that AMD puts the circuitry for the processor on the processor side of the PCB while intel puts most of it on the pin side. but put that aside, even if it was possible how exactly would you cool a dram/hbm module with zero air movement or way to transfer the heat since it's also going to have to deal with heat from the cpu on the other side?
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It wouldn't be difficult at all on a new socket increase the socket height a bit and incorporate a vapor chamber. That or just do a CPU pad socket instead and engineer it so that middle section leaves room for a DRAM die that the heat spreader connect with and actually on the newer thread ripper behemoth chips with the I/O hub it would pair perfectly connected directly above or below it minimal traces thus ideal latency.

Thinking about this though it's a shame DRAM channels and sticks aren't laid horizontally flat more like in laptop design around a CPU socket to make memory traces shorter plus it allows for much better heat sink clearance and at worst you might need only marginally higher socket height to allow for such a design. Do that and put NVMe M.2 slots beside them for the same reason or even the primary full speed PCIe slot for the GPU or whatever high end card you use it for in a system. There is a lot of room for improvement on the layout arrangement and placement to shrink the overall MB size down and reduce the traces connecting to the CPU.
 
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Love when an expert makes a mistake (SATA - NVME).

Reminds me of the time I was watching a Dolly Parton live video, and she made a mistake on the guitar. But just keeps going with a smile ;-)

Makes being mortal, so much more bearable!
 
Thanks for the video, look forward to more.


I just ordered the x399 Meg to replace my Auros x399 Gaming 7. I’ve had so many issues with the gigabyte bios (crazy voltages and instability), I’m going to stay far away from them going forward. I’m hoping for a better experience with MSI.
 
SpeedyVV said:
Love when an expert makes a mistake (SATA - NVME).

Reminds me of the time I was watching a Dolly Parton live video, and she made a mistake on the guitar. But just keeps going with a smile ;-)

Makes being mortal, so much more bearable!
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Hehe, yeah, my bad. I did update the article as well. I just assumed that drive was NVMe due to the branding. Going back and looking, it actually says SATA on that drive. :) Oh well, worse things have happened.
 
dobieg2002 said:
Thanks for the video, look forward to more.


I just ordered the x399 Meg to replace my Auros x399 Gaming 7. I’ve had so many issues with the gigabyte bios (crazy voltages and instability), I’m going to stay far away from them going forward. I’m hoping for a better experience with MSI.
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I actually have three MEG X399 Creation boards here, and like working with all of those, and we have put those through a huge amount of Threadripper testing.
 
It's a real shame the HardOCP TV Youtube channel doesn't get more views! Great content with professional presentation....which is something of a rarity these days.

Though I will never afford a Threadripper system, was a great build to watch. I like using the power supply for grounding, never thought of that in 25 years of building PCs! :LOL:
 
That was great! You should do more video content - cases and motherboards, especially, benefit from a video format, versus an article, I think.

One thing, though - you have a habit of clicking your tongue against your teeth, which is SUPER obvious in the audio. I do this to, and it drives me crazy trying to edit it out of my own videos for Youtube. In the future, maybe either just edit that out (relatively easy), or be more mindful and try not to do it (even harder than it sounds when you're shooting by yourself).
 
I’m debating Jumping to a 2950 from my 1950, I know there isn’t much difference, but I can get the speed I want (PBO) without OC.
 
Well for my build together, I should have paid more attention to the pci-e slot spacing. My video card consumes almost 3 slots which doesn’t leave much room for the pci-e card.
 
dobieg2002 said:
Yes, I do :)

Did you have issues flashing the bios to 1.2? I couldn't get the MFlash tool to recognize the file on any form of USB and I had sever issues with 1.1 (Bluescreen, no boot, etc...). I was able to find a Beta bios 1.31 and everything is great so far, memory running at XMP speeds (4x16 Corsair Vengence RGB), there is a mod bios 1.31 that enables access to AMD CBS options if anyone is interested. "after flashing to 1.31 it suddenly recognized the 1.2 bios file on the same USB?" I decided to sell off my 1950x and jumping to a 2950X just for the PBO options and not messing with P-State OCing (I prefer over static OC).

1.31 beta bios https://www.station-drivers.com/download/msi/E7B92AMS_131.7z
1.31 mod bios https://www.overclock.net/forum/27779864-post496.html
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No flashing issues.
 
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Stupid enermax TR4 2 failed on me, that’s the second failure. Now onto my 3rd, hope it stays working added Noctua 2000 PWM fans. Swapped out the MSI M.2 card for an ASUS one with 4x1TB 970 Evo+ and moved the RTX to the 4th slot as there was more room for fresh air. All core PBO is now 4.1 on prime95, software raid (windows) 12-12GBps ATTO benchmarks.
 
dobieg2002 said:
View attachment 141204 Stupid enermax TR4 2 failed on me, that’s the second failure. Now onto my 3rd, hope it stays working added Noctua 2000 PWM fans. Swapped out the MSI M.2 card for an ASUS one with 4x1TB 970 Evo+ and moved the RTX to the 4th slot as there was more room for fresh air. All core PBO is now 4.1 on prime95, software raid (windows) 12-12GBps ATTO benchmarks.
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Was that the second generation Enermax TR4 AIO that failed on you? Just wondering because Enermax claimed that the second generation doesn't have the same issues that the first one did.
 
Yes, the first failure was the first generation, the second failure was the TR4 II model. The second unit, worked very well with the 1950X, but failed for some reason when I installed the 2950x, 45-48 Idle temps with Jumps into the Mid 50s, any load would push it to 68 throttle. The only difference I see right away with the new one, is the Pump RPM is about 1000 RPM lower on the second TR4 II model compared to the old. The new TR4 II, stays at 64 under Prime 95 4.1 all core PBO, the old one would throttle to 3.1 All core @ 68
 
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