Upgrading PC, help!

nikola3d

Hello guys,

I need your opinions in what should I change or upgrade on my pc so I can get better performance in 3D modeling, sculpting, seamless texturing in Substance Painter or Mari, also decent rendering in Arnold or upcoming Toolbag 3.

My current specs:
AMD FX-6100
8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 799MHz
1024MB ATI AMD Radeon R7 200 Series (MSI)
MSI 970A-G43 (MS-7693) 

298GB Western Digital WDC WD3200AAKS-75VYA0 ATA Device (SATA)

111GB KINGSTON SV300S37A120G ATA Device (SSD)

I would prefer to give me compatible parts for AMD because changing to nVidia would cost me alot.

m4dcow

For substance painter performance is typically limited by the GPU.
For Arnold rendering and similar (offline rendering) the CPU is the limiting factor.

So I would suggest upgrading the GPU, what you get depends on your budget.

You can check out this thread for more information and advice
 http://polycount.com/discussion/173350/upgrading-or-building-a-new-pc-this-is-the-thread-for-you

nikola3d

m4dcow said:

You can check out this thread for more information and advice
 http://polycount.com/discussion/173350/upgrading-or-building-a-new-pc-this-is-the-thread-for-you

Thanks alot for a referral to this thread, it is very helpful!

ZacD

Nvidia GPUs work with AMD processors, there's no compatibility issues there. 

There's a lot that could use upgrading, the GPU, GPU, and more RAM. Here's my thoughts.

First get more ram if you are frequently using close to your max ram (6GB+). Windows pre-caches a lot of stuff into memory, so even if you aren't quite running out of ram, getting more ram will still speed up switching between and launching applications.

Next you need to decide if you are going to prioritize upgrading your CPU or GPU. If you spend a lot of time baking, waiting for 3d operations to complete, and rendering, consider upgrading your CPU first. If you have sluggish viewport performance, or Substance Painter is running slow, consider upgrading your GPU first. 

I'm not as knowledgeable with AMDs current hardware lineup, but the FX-8320 looks like your best upgrade option, which is not a big jump up in performance, and wont help too much in non-heavily-multi-threaded applications. It'd probably be best to save up for a bigger upgrade and get a new CPU/Motherboard if you feel like your CPU is your bigger bottleneck. AMD should have new processors releasing next year, they might be competitive with Intel this time, but they will required a new motherboard.

The AMD 480 is a great option for $200 if you want to stick with AMD, Nvidia has a pretty evenly matched option with the GTX 1060.

SonicBlue

The FX-8350 (like the FX-8370) offers better single core performance than the FX-8320, but I don't know, this depends on the budget, because at this point it's better to wait for Zen (if you want to buy an AMD system) or if you need the speed now, you have to build your new system around Intel processors.

There's also to consider that a new GPU with his current CPU (FX-6100) will be bottlenecked quite easily.

nikola3d

@SonicBlue @ZacD
So if I would like to go with Intel processors I would need to change everything from motherboard to GPU?

SonicBlue

Not necessarily, the GPU is not specified (it's an R7 260?) nor the PSU, but let's assume you have a good quality one. In this case you could buy a 1150 motherboard (check dimensions to see if it will fit with your case) and a compatible CPU, for example a cheap but capable i5-4590 (I don't know your budget). All the parts will be reusable, if you follow this path, remember to choose a motherboard with 4 RAM slots, so that you can pair your 8GB DDR3 with 2x 8GB for a total of 24GB, if needed,

On the other hand, if you have the budget, just change everything, if you need some examples of complete builds, take a look at this website: http://www.logicalincrements.com/

Refer to the previously posted Polycount guide for the recommended PC parts, watch some YouTube videos about the components you are interested into, and obviously, post here your questions.

nikola3d

@SonicBlue
Well I agree.
I have looked into this sites and setups, and to be honest, machines these days are pretty expensive, especially for my country which is poor as hell (Serbia). 
It might be a better solution to wait couple more months and save much more money, sell this PC, and buy a complete new with Intel CPU and nVidia GPU because Radeon is getting pretty much useless in all aspects productivity, gaming, etc.

However thank you for your thoughts and help, but as I think again it's better wait lil more to buy whole new expensive high end pc, rather than buying crap by crap now.

Sharur

You might as well prepare yourself for VR, while you at it. It's all about videocard.
Go for Geforce GTX 1060 or 1070 (even better, but huge difference in price).
Two slots RAM 2x4 GB.
Also, you might want to try SSD instead of HDD. Works much faster.

nikola3d

@Sharur
Well, that's an option too. But we'll see how VR production goes till then. 

Sharur

@nikola3d

Well, everyone is getting crazy about it. Not sure if I like this trend but it is what it is.

nikola3d

@Sharur
Yeah indeed. But in my opinion and many others it's still too expensive for mass community. Just a gadget is like 700+ USD, plus PC which can support VR seamlessly is way more in price.

Sharur

@nikola3d
Some of stores offer credit for this sort of thing. But yeah, it's way too expensive to upgrade from non VR to VR just like that. Well, hope you're going to get it done.