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  • I'd like to upgrade my PC.

    Main aims are quality of life and faster IO - in particular I want to go from thunderbolt 3 to 4 (and have more of those ports even if they're not all tb4 but some flavour of USB 3 - I currently have 2 x tb3 and 2 x usb 3.1/2 in c). I'd like better networking (more ethernet options but also open to better BT/wifi). I don't hate my case but I can't use one of the usb ports in the front by design which seems silly.

    I'd like an attractive case with really good IO - ideally a way of connecting TB4 to any ports at the front so I can plug in drives without having to reach around. What I currently do is have the back of the computer facing me. It's not pretty and actually the connections on the B550 ports are stiff, awkward and feel flimsy. I'd like something with a bit more space around the ports so I don't have to use needle nose pliers to change a cable.

    I'd like a motherboard that can do the above and make use of more nvme drives without clogging alongside my processor and GPU. Is there a limit on nvmes? I'd love 4 internally but open to sticking with 2.

    Currently I'm pretty happy with performance and unless I go the threadripper route (which I will at some stage) I don't expect anything that will boost it.

    So I suspect I want a new motherboard and case and the rest can stay? Plus potentially a TB4 card assuming TB4 isn't native on any AMD compatible motherboards?

    Currently:

    5950x
    vision b550 d mobo
    vision 3090
    64gb 3600 corsair vengeance rgb (2x32gb)
    wd black sn850 4tb x 2
    noctua nh d15s
    4 x nf s12a
    corsair 4000d airflow

    My end goal is to be copying data from cameras as fast as I possibly can with no bottlenecks.
    Then I want to edit as fast as I can natively on the nvme rather than over a cable (usually less than 4TB per project - typically 1-2TB)

    Current workflow if I'm on a shoot and backing up to portable drives:

    Camera > card > reader (acceptable bottleneck here depending on the card/reader) > backup to laptop and also to portable drive simultaneously > finish shoot and come home to backup to computer nvme > when that's done I duplicate to the raid (tb2, still, using a tb3 adapter ) then edit on the computer and when I'm finished do a project backup to the raid, export proxies of rushes and do a cloud backup of the proxies and projects, retaining the master rushes for 12 months unless otherwise paid.

    Portable field drives I use:
    https://www.westerndigital.com/en-gb/products/portable-drives/sandisk-pro-g-drive-pro-thunderbolt-3-ssd#SDPS51F-002T-GBANB
    https://www.westerndigital.com/en-gb/products/portable-drives/sandisk-pro-g-drive-usb-3-2-ssd#SDPS11A-002T-GBANB
    My field laptop is an old macbook pro. Will upgrade to a new one with TB4 this year which will help bottlenecks there.
    My RAID is an old TB2 g-raid (still chugging away after nearly a decade and due an upgrade - looking at a couple of these daisy-chained for desktop aesthetic even though softraid: https://www.owcdigital.com/products/thunderblade )
    Cards typically some flavour of CF/SD/ Red mini mags / arri codex.

  • I couldn't find any with TB4 on the front panel, the best I found was the one I purchased... Asus x570 ProArt WiFi... This has two TB4 on the back and I use one to carry video too (from the GPU, looped back in and then out on the TB cable). That then terminates on my desk with a CalDigit dock... Giving me a thunderbolt on my desk.

    Looking at what you have... I'd be considering just a motherboard change and some minor upgrades to provide the workflow you want.

  • Is there a particular reason why you’d like 4x NVMe drives internally, instead of 1 or 2 drives of a higher capacity?

    If there is, and you need full bandwidth to all PCIe/NVMe devices, then Threadripper/EPYC/Xeon-W are your only choices. Consumer Ryzen/Intel i9 platforms have too-few PCIe lanes to support more than a couple of devices at full bandwidth.

    Note also that consumer NVMe drives, even ‘prosumer’ ones like the Samsung 980 Pro, are all hobbled in terms of sustained write speeds. For example, a 2TB 980 Pro has a quoted write speed of ‘~5GB/s’, but will only hit that for a small fraction of its capacity, and fall back to under 2GB/s afterwards once the SLC-alike cache is exhausted. Enterprise/server NVMe drives actually sustain their quoted write speeds across the entire drive with no slowdown.

    I use 3.8TB Samsung PM9A3 drives (same controller as 980 Pro but with enterprise firmware and better NAND chips) in RAID5 arrays for uncompressed video ingest and editing servers; they hit 4GB/s sustained sequential writes per drive all day.

    Also consider the fact that M.2 drives are difficult to cool and will easily overheat and throttle if pushed hard. I only use U.2 form factor drives for this reason; their chips are more spread out and they run much cooler. I use PCIe bifurcation risers with re-driver chips that split a 16-lane slot into 4x 4-lane U.2 connectors:

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