Building a Workstation PC
polycounter lvl 2
Hey there. I'm building a desktop PC to use as a personal 3D/CG workstation and was hoping to get some advice from those more knowledgeable than myself. I want something that can run typical industry software like Maya, ZBrush, etc with ease.
My current build is:
PCPartPicker Build
CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($328
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($135)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($195)
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($83)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($53)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card ($492)
Case: Corsair SPEC-01 RED ATX Mid Tower Case ($50)
Power Supply: SeaSonic G 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($80)
Wireless Network Adapter: Gigabyte GC-WB867D-I 802.11a/b/g/n/ac PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter ($30)
Monitor: Asus VX238H 23.0" Monitor ($140)
Other: [ame=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HJZEA2S/]4 Port PCI Express (PCIe) SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Card Adapter w/ 4 Dedicated 5Gbps Channels - UASP - SATA / LP4 Power[/ame] ($83)
Should run me around 1700 USD after all is said and done. Does this build seem like it will get the job done quickly, considering the price tag? Would I be better off with a different graphics card or processor?
My current build is:
PCPartPicker Build
CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($328
)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($135)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($195)
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($83)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($53)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card ($492)
Case: Corsair SPEC-01 RED ATX Mid Tower Case ($50)
Power Supply: SeaSonic G 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($80)
Wireless Network Adapter: Gigabyte GC-WB867D-I 802.11a/b/g/n/ac PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter ($30)
Monitor: Asus VX238H 23.0" Monitor ($140)
Other: [ame=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HJZEA2S/]4 Port PCI Express (PCIe) SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Card Adapter w/ 4 Dedicated 5Gbps Channels - UASP - SATA / LP4 Power[/ame] ($83)
Should run me around 1700 USD after all is said and done. Does this build seem like it will get the job done quickly, considering the price tag? Would I be better off with a different graphics card or processor?
Replies
Why do you need the USB card?
You'd be better off getting a better monitor, especially with how much you are spending on everything else.
I've been told that the RAM would be worth it when working with a lot of different software. I don't need that big of an SSD.
When doing markeless mocap with USB cameras, I need a lot of different USB controllers to support recording from 6-8 cameras at a high framerate and resolution. With the card, I'll be granted 2 additional USB controllers, allowing me to use 4 USB cameras by itself.
What's wrong with the monitor I have selected? It seems to have good ratings, and is relatively cheap despite having decent stats.
You sure 1TB hard drive is enough? I may go lower on the SSD and get 2 TB storage drive at least. 1 just feels really small these days. Unless you have externals.
For monitor, AOC is a good choice. Color corrected, and much cheaper than DELL
http://www.aoc.com/
VX238H is considered a gaming monitor. That 1ms response time is not needed for our job generally speaking.
For the same price point you can get one of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236335&cm_re=asus_ips-_-24-236-335-_-Product
Though personally I would go with a 24" at 1920x1200, but that class of monitor generally costs quite a bit more, you could probably get two of the above instead.
he dosnt need more usb ports, he needs more usb busses. Most motherboards have all the ports share 1 or 2 busses.
also for the moniter, what EQ said you want a good ips display, and you might want 2 displays or a 2k to have some more screen real estate.
RAM/SSD size is really just a question of how much you want.
Overall the specs for this system look really good, other than the monitor. There's a variety of places where you could drop down to a lower end model and save some money, but if you're within your budget I wouldn't sweat it.
Have you considered i5820k? or 6700k?
I will be assembling new PC in september and this is a difficult choice between 5820 and 4790. First is better for baking and rendering, supports mor than 32GB ram and have support for 4channel DDR. Second one is better for gaming, still strong for rendering, only max 32GB and dual-channel. But it's also cheaper. 6700k will be a successor of 4790k, curious about it.
For SSD i will probably choose Samsung 850EVO 500GB, for motherboard some top-range model of ASUS or Gigabyte.
I also can't recommend the AMD 390 8GB enough. Once again, it depends what you're doing, but the extra VRAM vs. the 980 (4gb vs. 8gb) is amazing for 4k 3d painting (think Mari, 3d-coat, or Substance Painter). You'll also save about $150-$170 that you could put towards something else vs. the 980.
CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($330)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($135)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($195)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($98 )
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($53)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card ($492) OR MSI R9 390X GAMING 8G Graphics Card ($430)
Case: Corsair SPEC-01 RED ATX Mid Tower Case ($50)
Power Supply: SeaSonic G 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($80)
Wireless Network Adapter: Gigabyte GC-WB867D-I 802.11a/b/g/n/ac PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter ($30)
Monitor: Asus VN248H-P 23.8" Monitor ($130)
Other: [ame="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HJZEA2S"]4 Port PCI Express (PCIe) SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Card Adapter w/ 4 Dedicated 5Gbps Channels - UASP - SATA / LP4 Power[/ame] ($83)
Interesting! I wasn't aware of the AMD 390; how come it has twice as much VRAM but is ~$150 cheaper? How's this one? [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Gaming-Graphics-GV-R939G1-GAMING-8GD/dp/B00ZGF3UAQ"]Gigabyte AMD R9 390 512 Bit GDDR5 8GB[/ame] Or this one? [ame="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZGF0UAE/?tag=pcpapi-20"]MSI R9 390 GAMING 8G Graphics Card[/ame]
Will the AMD 390 straight-up outperform the NVidia 980 in Maya, ZBrush, mental ray, Substance Painter, etc because of the extra VRAM? Or would the NVidia 980 outperform the AMD 390 in some cases? What about the 390x?
Can't say that I have; I'm unfamiliar with those models. The main focus of the build is to be effective at modeling/sculpting/rendering/baking/etc first and foremost; gaming specs are definitely second. Given this, do you think I should switch to one of those models over the i7 4790K?
Thanks! I replaced my old monitor choice with this one.
Thanks! I replaced the SSD I had selected with this one.
Yep, I've got plenty of externals already, so a 1TB internal should suffice for this build.
What this means is that in situations where you are CPU limited but working with applications that are well multi-threaded, the 5820k will be faster. Typically this means offline renderers, bakers like xnormal, etc. There are a lotttt of apps that don't scale linearly with multiple cores though. Even if an app can use 4 or 6 cores, that doesn't mean the load will be evenly distributed. The flip side here is that if you're using more than one or two cpu-heavy apps at the same time, 6 cores may help vs 4. It's generally sort of hard to max out two apps CPU wise unless you have 4 hands and two mice though. =P Though baking in xnormal while setting layers in photoshop would be a case where more cores are better, or any other situation where you're working in one app with another processing information in the background. Compressing files, processing video, processing scan content, etc.
The 4970k will be faster where you're CPU limited but dealing with apps that don't thread very well, due to the faster core clock. For instance, baking normal maps in Maya is only single threaded (which is terrible and probably reason enough to use xnormal instead), and many other apps or games aren't designed to use more than 2 cores.
Keep in mind the 5820k requires a (typically more expensive) LGA2011 socket motherboard rather than the more common GLA1150.
That said, you can't really go wrong with either. Both are very, very fast and priced at a sane level (the value curve gets out of whack with anything faster). I would probably stick with the 4790k because it will cost less, and it's certainly fast enough.
And DDR4 ram, and a CPU heatsink, on top of the processor, you'll probably be spending $200 more at least.
Ah yeah, forgot about that. At that point it's not worth it for the ~14% better performance only with well-threaded apps.
I would recommend an external USB 3.0 wifi adapter, though. You'll typically get interference from the case with an internal wifi adapter. Plus, you can move an external one around, and the antenna wouldn't be obstructed.
Something like one of these that have large antennas instead of tiny internal ones:
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Alfa-Long-Range-Dual-Band-Wireless-External/dp/B00MX57AO4/"]Amazon.com: Alfa Long-Range Dual-Band AC1200 Wireless USB 3.0 Wi-Fi Adapter w/2x 5dBi External Antennas - 2.4GHz 300Mbps / 5Ghz 867Mbps - 802.11ac & A, B, G, N: Computers & Accessories[/ame]
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Panda-300Mbps-Wireless-Adapter-Antenna/dp/B00JDVRCI0/"]Amazon.com: Panda 300Mbps Wireless N USB Adapter with High Gain Antenna - Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10/2008r2/2012r2, Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, CentOS, Zorin, Kali Linux and Raspbian Wheezy: Computers & Accessories[/ame]
I really don't know the business decision behind why it has 8GB. Both of those cars will work fine. I have the MSI myself.
The 390 will be slightly behind the 980 in Maya, Zbrush is more about CPU/RAM). Substance Painter is where the 8GB will really start to show.
https://support.allegorithmic.com/documentation/display/SPDOC/Performances
.
Basically, IF you are doing work @4k, the small performance gain of the 980 won't matter because you'll eventually (more layers) run out of memory and that will cause everything to slow down a lot. The extra GPU memory will also allow you to run a few more GPU taxing apps at the same time (e.g UE4, Painter, and Designer all open).
Say, the PNY Quadro K2200 4GB card versus the AMD R9 390x 8GB card. Gaming isn't the main priority of this machine, so would the quadro ultimately be the better decision, or would the 390x be fine? Both are $430.
A 4GB GTX 750TI will outperform that K2200, they seems to be based on the same chip, according to the specifications.
I think there is still this dated view that 3d work always means a Quadro or Firepro card. Some people end up spending way too much $$ for a really slow card. For game development, a game oriented card is a much better choice.
Maya has a DX11 viewport now, 3d-coat can either use OpenGL (better for AMD) or CUDA (better for Nvidia). Furthermore, Allegorithmic actually states that you should not buy a Quadro or Firepro since they're not supported!
Working with softwares like these often require you to not only multitask between them but also to keep your screen panels ordered and sorted.
There's been a number of consumer cards you can softmod into the commercial versions of them; same hardware et al. Just in case someone wants to try it out for a day or two.
Edit: Totally forgot to mention that for apps not dealing well on higher core CPUs, you can always play around with overriding their processor affinity. It's situational but can help with speed/stability.
The AMD has more VRAM, but I've read that NVidia products play nicer with 3D applications; I'm not sure if this is entirely true, though.
The Quadro is more optimized for 3D applications, but I've read that they aren't cost effective for personal use versus a GeForce card. Again, not entirely sure if this is true, but seems to be a general consensus I've seen.