New PC Build

Tenchi · Sep 2014

Hi guys, I would really appreciate some advice for putting together a new rig. I should mention I don't have any experience in putting together hardware. To put in context, I will be mainly using Photoshop zBrush, Maya/Modo creating high end character concept design. I won't use this for any gaming. Do these specs seem good:

CPU - Intel Core i7 i7-4790K

MOBO - MSI Z97 MPOWER Intel LGA1150 Z97 ATX Motherboard

GPU - NVIDIA QUADRO K4000 (or GeForce GTX 780 Ti)

HD - Samsung 840 EVO 1TB 2.5-inch Basic SATA Solid State Drive

RAM - HyperX Beast Series 32 GB 2400 MHz DDR3

PSU - 1000w

OS - Win7

With an eye to the future I know the next zBrush will be 64bit, unlocking that RAM threshold. But with my motherboard choice it maxes at 32GB and there isn't one that even goes to 64GB according to:

https://pcpartpicker.com/parts/motherboard/?compatible_with=intel-cpu-bx80646i74790k

I could go the Xeon route and get a server type workstation, but that could be too expensive. So my possibly silly question is, in the future will I need more than 32GB of RAM for zBrush?

Thanks

almighty_gir · Sep 2014

omg drop the quadro... if you're desperate to burn money get a 780ti and spend the difference on a 4930k.

EarthQuake · Sep 2014

Drop the quadro indeed, if anything, put the extra money into a quality IPS monitor if you don't already have one. 780 Ti at most, but a 780 standard is still very good and will save you a bit of cash.

4930 is a bad idea, almost twice as expensive as 4790 but only 15% faster.

32GB ram should be plenty, remember that with zbrush being 32bit, everyone has been working with what, a 3-4gb limitation? 32 will be fine for quite a while.

ZacD · Sep 2014

Or you could go with a socket 2011 v3 build, that platform just launched, what's your budget?

RobeOmega · Sep 2014

Build 1: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/W8HkHx (Some fat can be cut from this)
Haswell-E Build: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/hs87sY (x99 and DDR4 is very expensive right now note that 16gb of ddr4 can be equal to 32gb of ddr3)

If you are in the US it is best to make this build in USD rather than GBP because currency converters does not do the price differences in hardware from UK to US justice.

martinszeme · Sep 2014

Been using Quadro couple years ago and its absolutely not worth it unless you do some scientific, engineering/CAD stuff. As everyone said, get 780 or something like that.

beefaroni · Sep 2014

WAIIIIT!! The new X99 mobos just came out!! The 5820K is 6 cores for $389!!

Don't have exact specs but here's an idea of what you should go for (similar to others here).

CPU - Intel Core i7-5820K

MOBO - Some X99 Mobo

GPU - 780Ti for sure

HD - Samsung 840 EVO 1TB 2.5-inch Basic SATA Solid State Drive

RAM - HyperX Beast Series 32 GB 2400 MHz DDR3

PSU - any good PSU 650 watts and above will be fine.

OS - Win7

ZacD · Sep 2014

beefaroni

DDR4 not DDR3

beefaroni · Sep 2014

Oh ya my mistake. Copied and pasted his OP and changed a few parts but forgot about RAM, good catch.

EarthQuake · Sep 2014

5820 runs at a slower clock than the 4790, which means the 5820 is probably slower (or at best not significantly better) at most day-to-day tasks. On the other hand, for high end rendering the 5820 should be faster, but only if your renderer can efficiently thread all 6 cores. I think Modo's renderer is very well threaded (though I haven't tested it with anything other than a quad core system) and I think Maya is pretty awful with threading, unless they've updated it recently (last I heard normal map baking was single threaded, ffghdfghf).

For whatever reason people rarely seem to talk about this, but if you're not actually using all of those cores, a faster clocked cpu is better.

Anyway, just something to keep in mind if total system cost is way higher going to the new cpu.

beefaroni · Sep 2014

@Earthquake - Good points, although I find myself going through my cores pretty quickly (only a i5 3570K @4.2 though).

Between UE4, Substance Designer, Maya, and a few other programs running (Hangouts, etc), I go through all 4 cores pretty quickly. I believe UE4 also uses the CPU for building lighting. I guess I never looked into whether or not UE4 supports more than 4 cores but speeding up lighting builds would be awesome.

Also I wonder if XNormal supports more than 4 as well. It'd be nice having more CPU for things in there that don't support CUDA.

almighty_gir · Sep 2014

bear in mind EQ, you can set specific processes to always run on certain cores of the CPU, so if you know you're always going to run (for example) UE4, Photoshop, 3dsmax in tandem, on a hex core processor you can assign two cores to each program. and that does make a difference over raw clock speed.

ZacD · Sep 2014

Clock doesn't mean much outside of comparing processors in the same series, which isn't the case here. Also these processors overclock well, which is pretty safe to do, especially since the processor is only $300 on a lot of websites.

almighty_gir · Sep 2014

not to mention power consumption will be a lot lower on the new cpu.

beefaroni · Sep 2014

The 5830K consumes a good bit more power (or at least has a higher TDP)

http://ark.intel.com/products/80807/
http://ark.intel.com/products/82932/

ZacD · Sep 2014

Yeah, it uses a lot more power and the socket and chip is a lot bigger, we probably won't see that socket on an ITX board.

EarthQuake · Sep 2014

ZacD wrote: »

Clock doesn't mean much outside of comparing processors in the same series, which isn't the case here. Also these processors overclock well, which is pretty safe to do, especially since the processor is only $300 on a lot of websites.

Well, these two aren't drastically different generation cpus, the benchmarks I've seen so far, where the app has better threading support, the 6 core cpu does better, and where it doesn't, the higher clocked cpu does better.

And yes, if you're running multiple demanding apps at once, even if each app can't fully utilize 6 cores on its own, you'll get better perf on the 6 core cpu.

I just think its worth mentioning that more cores isn't always better, it depends on exactly what you're doing, and if the total system (not just cpu but mobo+ram) cost difference is quite a lot, it might not be worth it. Again, its something that is rarely mentioned. I would probably go with the 6-core cpu anyway, just playing devils advocate here.

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