Computer question (Am I wasting money)

[ch1le]

edit#2. Apparently my first thread had some kind of error i guess, cant see it anymore..

 

Good day.

 

First of all, I render stuff on vray.

Ive been running a late 2009 imac for the past 7 years. I think its time for an upgrade.

 

Main problem is that people expect me to come to their offices for the render work (usually its because the stuff I need to render is unfinished and they like having me around to complete the facade or what not).

This means I need to be able to move my hardware around, alot.

 

for this reason, the Imac has been quite good, but its 7 years old and its carrying case is broken from heavy use (also the processor and graphic cards are stone age tech).

So Ive been looking around and thinking of building something into a Mini-ITX case.

 

Ofcourse i want a good processor so i picked out the i7-6900k, with 8 cores and 16 threads it should be a bit faster than my old imac. But Immediately there is a drawback to ITX - the motherboards dont support 4 memory sticks for the 4 channels the CPU supports, so im throwing 50% of the bandwidth overboard. Is this a huge waste or isnt this a very big bottleneck? I dont know nothing about computers but its one issue i picked out.

If its a huge bottleneck i mightaswell go with a cheaper CPU.

 

Any thoughts or experience in the matter?

 

Thank you!

 

edit:

heres the build I have in mind

 

CPU Intel Core i7-6900K

GPU Nvidia GTX 1070

SSD Samsung 850 Pro 512GB

RAM Crucial Ballistix LT ddr4 2400 16gb x2

MBD Asrock X99E-ITX/ac

 

also some other stuff like the PSU, case and uhm, nothing much else.

[Nikolaos M]

Check out this build: PCPartPicker part list

I really love the Prodigy M case. It must be easy to carry around with these two large handles.

[ch1le]

thats a definite improvement. I will check if the suppliers here have the case. (cant believe the case is the thing that is making or breaking a build for me....)

 

thank you for the suggestion!

[Nikolaos M]

Choose a mATX motherboard, not an iTX. It would be hard to have everything you need for your build with such a small mobo.

[ch1le]

Choose a mATX motherboard, not an iTX. It would be hard to have everything you need for your build with such a small mobo.

 

oh yes, if im going with a case that support mATX, it would be kind of stupid to use iTX case!

Still, talked with someone who deals with computers for a living and he was sceptical that those components under rendering workload was a good idea even in a mATX form..... He suggested that a dell precision laptop would be a better fit. But I guess he might not understand the relationship between vray and CPU power.

M.

[Nikolaos M]

Dell Precision? Not even close... If you don't highly oc the 6900K this system would be cool enough, don't worry.

[joelmcwilliam]

What's the processor in your mac?

 

Does it render good enough for you or is it way too slow. How much faster would you like to render the new pc compared to your mac? Like 1.5x or 2x or 3x?

 

(could you download, install and run cinebench on your mac?)

[ch1le]

Im running a late 2009 imac.

I think the processor on it is the i5 750 2.66ghz.

[RyderSK]

Hey, regarding the bandwidth (quad-channel vs dual-channel), you can safely ignore it. I did tons of rendering benchmarks and not even single-channel caused any kind of performance disadvantage. (not even of 80 thread xeon machine).

 

Since DDR4 now comes with 16gb modules that you included, you're fine as long as 32GB capacity will always be enough for you.

 

The Prodigy case is pretty cool ( I built it for my brother, although about 2 months before they released the mATX version....bummer), but it's neither small nor that easily portable as might seem :- ). The ears are very thin and sketchy. But I guess it does fine, not sure what else is there.

Something thinner could potentially fit into backpack, which would be more portable, but those thin cases are harder to cool.

[joelmcwilliam]

Could you answer my other questions aswell. And give the cinebench results.

 

The reason is because I just wanted to see if you can get away with a laptop which your friend suggested. Seems like a pita to carry a desktop everywhere, even if it is a small one.

 

A laptop is much more handy. Go to clients to show things and if you are back at home, connect it to a big monitor and a mouse and you can carry on.

[ch1le]

Could you answer my other questions aswell. And give the cinebench results.

 

The reason is because I just wanted to see if you can get away with a laptop which your friend suggested. Seems like a pita to carry a desktop everywhere, even if it is a small one.

 

A laptop is much more handy. Go to clients to show things and if you are back at home, connect it to a big monitor and a mouse and you can carry on.

 

Ah, sorry. No, my current imac is at its limits and is very slow. Basically, it has forced me into a workflow where i render really minimally and photoshop almost everything, this is something which I would like to try to change and put a little bit more of the work on the shoulders of Vray. It is definitely a pita to carry a desktop along but im not sure its much more cumbersome than the Imac, and it has worked fine for me.

About cinebench - im pretty sure it will just crash my Imac, so i wont even bother.

[ch1le]

Hey, regarding the bandwidth (quad-channel vs dual-channel), you can safely ignore it. I did tons of rendering benchmarks and not even single-channel caused any kind of performance disadvantage. (not even of 80 thread xeon machine).

 

Since DDR4 now comes with 16gb modules that you included, you're fine as long as 32GB capacity will always be enough for you.

 

The Prodigy case is pretty cool ( I built it for my brother, although about 2 months before they released the mATX version....bummer), but it's neither small nor that easily portable as might seem :- ). The ears are very thin and sketchy. But I guess it does fine, not sure what else is there.

Something thinner could potentially fit into backpack, which would be more portable, but those thin cases are harder to cool.

 

Thank you for the feedback, i will take it into consideration. I have never used anything with more than 8GB of ram so 32 is mindblowing for me, so definitely 2 slots is fine. I will keep looking for options with smaller cases sizes, still worried about heat management though.

 

best,

M.

[joelmcwilliam]

No cinebench wont crash your pc. Try it.

 

So you are willing to carry around a small pc around. But how about a monitor? You need to carry around that as well?

 

Further it all comes down to the case if you want to go small and carry it around. Do you have a case in mind?

 

Here is an example:

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/builds/by_part/sV38TW

 

Temps will be a little bit on the high side, but as long as you wont be running prime95 you will be fine. Or else mod the thing and add a watercooler:

 

[ch1le]

No cinebench wont crash your pc. Try it.

 

So you are willing to carry around a small pc around. But how about a monitor? You need to carry around that as well?

 

Further it all comes down to the case if you want to go small and carry it around. Do you have a case in mind?

 

Here is an example:

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/builds/by_part/sV38TW

 

Temps will be a little bit on the high side, but as long as you wont be running prime95 you will be fine. Or else mod the thing and add a watercooler:

 

 

ran the cinebench.

 

The CPU score was a whopping 325.

The GPU renderer just gave an error saying something is broken.

 

Best,

M