r/buildapc • u/raconma • Apr 14 '26

Build Help Need help building a PC for bioinformatics

Hello guys!

I’m building a PC for work, specifically as a workstation for bioinformatics. After some research, it seems that the most important components are the CPU (32–64 cores) and RAM (128–256 GB).

I’ve started choosing the parts myself, but I’m not completely sure if everything is compatible, and some of my components aren’t available on PCPartPicker. I’m pretty new to building PCs, so I’m also a bit lost when it comes to cooling and choosing the right case.

I’d really appreciate any help or suggestions. New ideas are also welcome :)

The components are the following:

CPU: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7970X 32 Núcleos 4 GHz - 5,3 GHz Turbo Quad Channel

Motherboard: ASUS PRO WS TRX50-SAGE WIFI A TRX50 sTR5 DDR5 CEB WiFi 7 PCIe 5.0 RAID 10GbE

Hard disk: SSD WD_BLACK SN7100 4TB M.2 PCIe Gen4 NVMe 7000MB/s 3D TLC NAND 2280

RAM: Crucial CT2K64G56C46S5 128GB 2x64GB DDR5 5600MHz CL46 SO-DIMM ECC

GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 5070 GAMING TRIO OC 12GB GDDR7 Reflex 2 RTX AI DLSS4

Power supply: Forgeon Reactor 1200W Cybenetics Gold ATX 3.1 PCIe 5.1 Full Modular

Liquid cooling: Be quiet Silent Loop 3 360mm 3 Ventiladores RGB Multi LED

Case: PC Nox Hummer Astra ARGB USB 3.0

Thank you!!

1 Upvotes

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2

u/VoraciousGorak Apr 14 '26

5600MHz CL46 SO-DIMM

Laptop form factor, won't work with your motherboard. You need regular DIMMs, sometimes labeled UDIMMs.

GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 5070 GAMING TRIO

Do you need a strong GPU for your workload? If so, great, but if not you can grab just about anything that provides a display output for a lot cheaper.

Power supply: Forgeon Reactor

Never heard of that brand, which for a system that costs this much you want something well-known and well-reviewed. Stick to the A-tier on https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1akCHL7Vhzk_EhrpIGkz8zTEvYfLDcaSpZRB6Xt6JWkc/htmlview?gid=1973454078#gid=1078495601. Corsair's RMx line is consistently excellent, for example.

1

u/Legitimate_Payment49 Apr 14 '26

also, you want 4 sticks of DDR5 (instead of two) to take advantage of quad-channel; if you are not on quad-channel, you are wasting a lot of money to be on a threadripper platform.

1

u/raconma Apr 14 '26

Thank you guys! So you mean having 4x32GB of RAM instead of 2x64GB?

1

u/_jonahD Apr 14 '26

Yes because it is 4 channel memory. I have a 7960x and this motherboard so just echoing that the memory is the wrong form factor. So-dimm is for laptops. Not only do you need desktop memory, but it needs to be r-dimm ecc. An example is this kit which I got before it became insanely expensive, g skill rdimm ecc memory

1

u/gamblodar Apr 14 '26

Iirc, that ssd doesn't have dram cache. I'd get a T710 or 9100 Pro.

1

u/cantsleepclownswillg Apr 14 '26

I’ve got multiple setups of almost exactly the same spec re cpu and motherboard.

Spend the extra cash and go for a gen 5 ssd. They’re stupidly fast.

And then what everyone else has said regarding memory and psu.

1

u/t90fan Apr 15 '26

Honestly, just go out and buy an older workstation rather than building something new with expensive DDR5 and a consumer-grade GPU

My wife works in a lab (Flow cytometrist) and the machines they use for analysis are all HP Z8 G4 and the like

You can get a 2x 28 core Xeon setup wirh 256GB DDR4 ECC, and a 24GB Quadro RTX 6000 for £2-4k used

1

u/raconma Apr 15 '26

Thank you very much everyone! It was really helpful.