Critique new workstation build

[CGstorm]

Hi everyone,

 

Ive been a member of this site for a while and have to say has been a useful tool in keeping me up to date and has even saved my neck a few times. Ive been a ghost most of the times through out the forums but this time I really would appreciate your expert opinions on this new build.

 

My current machine is a Dell Precision 490 / Dual core Xeon 5160 3.0Ghz / 4gb ram /Quadro FX4500 512mb / XP pro 32bit. It has served me well for the past 4-5years but its time to upgrade things are just starting to get slow large models are getting difficult to work. I still intend to keep this machine and utilise it as a general render node. My primary use is modelling large scenes, rendering and slowly moving more into animations.

 

Software I use includes:

Rhino

Revit

3Dmax

Autocad

Vray

Maxwell

Adobe Suite

 

Heres the spec ive come up with:

 

Intel Core i7-950

Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R

12GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600MHz

950W Corsair TX950W Power Supply

ATI-FirePro V5800 1GB

2 x 1TB Samsung SpinPoint F3 HD

Sony DRU-870S 24x DVDRW

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64bit OEM

Logitech M500 Corded Mouse

Logitech Illuminated Keyboard

Lian Li PC-C32B Black Rackmount Case

 

System totals to £1475 or approx $2285

 

Initially decided to go with an i7 920 overclocked to 4.0ghz however after speaking to the suppliers they couldn’t guarantee a stable system as I had opted to go with 12gb ram. They actually recommend going with the extra ram and not with the overclock. So with the i7 950 only £10 more than the 930 seemed like a sensible option.

 

Areas I am still unsure of is the graphics card and whether ive picked the right motherboard. The case is something I still need to look into not sure if I can get all this in there.

 

Any opinions good or bad would be most appreciated.

 

Ps. A massive thanks to AJlynn your workstation recommendations and insight has been much appreciated.

[AJLynn]

You're welcome. Okay, let's see here. The case is a type that's sized to go with your home stereo system, not sure if that's what you want (it's not a rackmount in the usual sense of that word). If you're got a shelf for that size case it's a good choice. The CPU... I'm not going to say what you should expect to get from OC'ing, but I'm assuming you've researched it. If you do, make sure to get a metric shitload of cooling. The X58 motherboard is good for that sort of thing.

 

Now I can't necessarily say that the 950 is the best way to get the amount of rendering speed that a 950 has. (I assure you, that sentence makes sense the third time you read it.) Without overclocking, an i7-950 renders as quickly as an AMD 1090T, but the 1090T costs half as much. You'd need to run the numbers on what your vendor can sell you, I don't know what it's like in the UK market.

 

FirePro V5800 - my vote is yes. That's a FirePro'ed Radeon 5770, best thing in "workstation" graphics under $400, great for the software you listed.

[mu_688687]

Hi Welcome to CG Architect your configuration is good but not for heavy rendering I'll suggest Intel Quad core 2.93 ghz 5570 instead of Inter core i7 950 if you are spending money then make the system for long term.

[AJLynn]

Using two Xeons can double render speed, but the price is much higher.

 

For example, the MB, CPU and RAM Ketan describes sell for $1140 from Newegg. Two X5570's with a MB and 12GB sells for $3670.

[Slinger]

Andy is on track here,a s usual. Personally I would get the i7-930 and go with only 6gigs of ram. You should be fine honestly. Skip on the 12gigs and i7-950. These guys are honestly trying to upsell you. I am not sure the price difference on doing this, but it seems a bit BS in my book.

Also, you may think about getting a smaller drive for your OS and programs. I run a 640gig WD Black Caviar(7200 rpm,16mb cache) for my main drive and I honestly wish I would of stayed with a faster raptor drive(10,000 rpm). The two TB drives are great for storage but I am not sure it is wise to have such a huge drive for your main OS and programs. If something goes wrong with your drive, you are screwed.

[Derek Forreal]

thanks to sites like this i managed to build my first PC recently and am now running an i7 980x system at 4ghz with temps barely over 55degs.

 

my final specs:

 

CPU - i7 980x

CPU cooler - Noctua NH-U12P SE2 with Fan Mate fan control

GPU - HD5850 2GB (will upgrade when i know what's going on with GPU rendering but this serves me great for now modelling 1m+ polys)

Case - Silverstone FT-02 with rotated MB design - really quiet and cool (looks and temps!)

Motherboard - ASUS P6X58D-E

RAM - DDR3-1600 12GB

Power supply - OCZ GameXStream 850W PSU (see below comments)

HDD WD RE3 1TB (will add an SSD soon)

 

my 2c:

 

if you're only planning on using 1 graphics card, a 950W power supply is way more than you'll need. i had a problem with the above power supply (made a really loud buzzing noise and fan was on full power constantly) so i'm waiting for a replacement but while it was gone i replaced it with a Corsair 650W supply and the system is running fine fully overclocked under full load (rendering). i'll still be installing the 850W replacement (if it turns out to be as silent as advertised) but i do plan on adding a 2nd card at some point.

 

next, from what i've read i too would say go with the i7 920 or 930. they overclock well whereas i haven't read much about i7 950 OCing.

 

regarding the OS, i moved to Windows 7 x64 from XP32 and i have to say, now that i've personalised everything, got rid of all the cleartype fonts and have figured out how to get the utilities i need to start with windows, i'm very happy i didn't stick with XP.