M9z wrote The average of technical tests I've found is that the differential between the CPU/GPU combo is only around 6% on average so definitely a very small bottleneck and you should be able to stream just perfectly. Intel is known for breaking the charts on single core performance, but a lot of streamers are actually swapping to AMD based systems because of the price to performance ratio they offer while still being very good with multi-tasking.

If you have the budget for this, do it, but I do have to say I don't feel like you're taking full advantage of this board. If you drop the SSD you chose from the equation, and instead opt for m.2 NVME storage, it'll be less wires over all, plus a bit faster. Go for like, a Samsung 970 Pro Plus 250gb for the top slot just below your CPU socket, and then for the m.2 slot below it, stick a 970 Pro Plus 1tb in that one.

As an addition to the m.2's, you can opt to remove the heat spreaders that come with the motherboard, and go for a heatsink instead, heatsinks for those can be as low as 10 bucks each, with color options, and compared to a heat spreader it does affect thermals, I use the heatsink on my boot drive and it stays around 32c, and for my game drive it stays around 43c with the spreader that came with my motherboard. Though this is just if you're like me and prefer the lowest temps possible, because most m.2 manufacturers state that they can operate up to even 70c before throttling speeds on that.

As for power parts though, CPU/GPU you should have no issues as far as I can tell.

M9z wrote If you drop the SSD you chose from the equation, and instead opt for m.2 NVME storage, it'll be less wires over all, plus a bit faster. Go for like, a Samsung 970 Pro Plus 250gb for the top slot just below your CPU socket, and then for the m.2 slot below it, stick a 970 Pro Plus 1tb in that one.

M9z wrote As an addition to the m.2's, you can opt to remove the heat spreaders that come with the motherboard, and go for a heatsink instead

NastyGamingNation wrote

M9z wrote The average of technical tests I've found is that the differential between the CPU/GPU combo is only around 6% on average so definitely a very small bottleneck and you should be able to stream just perfectly. Intel is known for breaking the charts on single core performance, but a lot of streamers are actually swapping to AMD based systems because of the price to performance ratio they offer while still being very good with multi-tasking.

If you have the budget for this, do it, but I do have to say I don't feel like you're taking full advantage of this board. If you drop the SSD you chose from the equation, and instead opt for m.2 NVME storage, it'll be less wires over all, plus a bit faster. Go for like, a Samsung 970 Pro Plus 250gb for the top slot just below your CPU socket, and then for the m.2 slot below it, stick a 970 Pro Plus 1tb in that one.

As an addition to the m.2's, you can opt to remove the heat spreaders that come with the motherboard, and go for a heatsink instead, heatsinks for those can be as low as 10 bucks each, with color options, and compared to a heat spreader it does affect thermals, I use the heatsink on my boot drive and it stays around 32c, and for my game drive it stays around 43c with the spreader that came with my motherboard. Though this is just if you're like me and prefer the lowest temps possible, because most m.2 manufacturers state that they can operate up to even 70c before throttling speeds on that.

As for power parts though, CPU/GPU you should have no issues as far as I can tell.

Thanks. That helps a lot. I have a AMD Cpu right now and it's a lot of issues for me. That's why I'm looking towards intel. And I could do m.2 storage. I might look around some more at different builds. I'm an I just pm you with my builds I'm thinking of?

21 wrote

M9z wrote If you drop the SSD you chose from the equation, and instead opt for m.2 NVME storage, it'll be less wires over all, plus a bit faster. Go for like, a Samsung 970 Pro Plus 250gb for the top slot just below your CPU socket, and then for the m.2 slot below it, stick a 970 Pro Plus 1tb in that one.

It would also be significantly more expensive, and likely unnecessary for OP, so it would be a huge waste of money. OP should just take that $300+ and put it towards a better GPU or something, rather than storage he might not even properly utilise.

M9z wrote As an addition to the m.2's, you can opt to remove the heat spreaders that come with the motherboard, and go for a heatsink instead

Heatsink = heat spreader. They're the exact same thing.
IIRC NVMe drives actually operate better once they heat up a little. Obviously, they can overheat, but you don't want NVMe drives to be too low temperature either.

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OP - What exactly are you using the system for? What games are you gonna be playing, what are you streaming?
Also, what monitor(s) are you using with this system?
Will you be overclocking?
I'm assuming your budget is $1800/1850 USD??

M9z wrote They actually aren't the same thing, heat spreaders do exactly what the name suggests, heatsinks however can be actively cooled by the case airflow and can show a significant change in temps between the two.

M9z wrote ]The gap for my m.2's thermals is around 10c between two of the same models, so it definitely does make a difference

M9z wrote Also, m.2's are as fast as traditional SSD's, you're right there, but NVMe m.2's which this board supports do perform a bit better, and can also help performance on some games like Fallout 4 where storage speed does play a significant part due to it being a port and not that well optimized for PC, even using my NVMe there were a few mods I had to install to further help that particular issue resolve itself.

21 wrote

M9z wrote They actually aren't the same thing, heat spreaders do exactly what the name suggests, heatsinks however can be actively cooled by the case airflow and can show a significant change in temps between the two.

In terms of m.2 SSD "heat spreaders", yes they're the same thing. It's a sheet of metal that pulls heat away from the SSD. "Heat spreaders" can also be "actively cooled by case airflow" so long as it's making proper contact with the heat source.

M9z wrote ]The gap for my m.2's thermals is around 10c between two of the same models, so it definitely does make a difference

Different heat spreaders in different locations, yeah that doesn't surprise me that both drives aren't the exact same temp.

M9z wrote Also, m.2's are as fast as traditional SSD's, you're right there, but NVMe m.2's which this board supports do perform a bit better, and can also help performance on some games like Fallout 4 where storage speed does play a significant part due to it being a port and not that well optimized for PC, even using my NVMe there were a few mods I had to install to further help that particular issue resolve itself.

I didn't say NVMe wasn't better, I said it's a waste of $300+ to go with a 1TB 970 Pro if all OP is using the system for is gaming/streaming. A far cheaper NVMe SSD would perform more than adequately, and the extra money would make far more sense in a better GPU, which WILL actually show a noticeable improvement in performance for OP.

M9z wrote I decided to experiment, I had a heatsink on both boot and game drive. I put the spreader on the game drive and left the boot drive alone, game drive got hotter, I flipped them, and the temps changed again in favor of the heatsink. previously I was getting 34c on both with a heatsink on both, whichever drive I put a heat spreader on all of a sudden jumped by about 10c.

my control group I used was both m.2's with heatsinks registered 34c, same exact stress test using the spreaders registered 44c, using a mix of both heatsink on one and spreader on the other, swapping, then testing again, showed the exact results I expected. A proper heatsink with fins is more effective and most definitely not the same thing as a heat spreader.

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