Advice on this pc build (using Ryzen) for rendering

[juliabryant]

Hi, I'm new to the forum and would value advice from you folks. I am planning on building my first pc aimed at running the following (as best as possible in my budget):

 

Blender:

Advanced Particle systems. (Full grass fields with 1000000’s of strands using low poly grass meshes)

Cloth/Fluid Simulations

High poly meshes.

Faster Render mode in the viewport as well as faster rendering images.

Advanced PBR shaders as well as Procedural materials.

 

Other software:

Substance Painter

Substance Designer

3ds max

External rendering software. (Vray)

Photoshop/Corel painter (with bigger canvas and brush size but not getting lag when painting)

Illustrator

After Effects

Unity

 

Based on my budget (~AUD$2000, excluding monitor, keyboard, mouse etc), I have been recommended the following build and would like some advice on whether this is suitable or can it be improved (without increasing the cost):

 

AMD Ryzen 7 1700x

Noctua NH-U12S Multi Socket CPU Cooler

ASUS Prime X370 Pro Motherboard

Corsair Vengeance LPX CMK16GX4M2B3200C16 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 Black

Samsung 960 EVO NVMe M.2 250GB SSD

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 WindForce OC 6GB

Phanteks Enthoo Pro Chassis Black

EVGA SuperNOVA G2 Gold 850W Power Supply

Hitachi 2TB HGST (secondary drive)

windows 10

 

I do understand that I will need an excellent monitor as well, but that will be an extra cost not included in this build cost.

 

Any advice would be welcome.

Thanks!

Julia

[Nikolaos M]

What's the rendering engine you mostly use? Is it Cycles or Vray?

 

Personally, I wouldn't invest money on the AM4 platform right now. It's too early imo, and as I see, the new motherboards are quite buggy. The oc potential seems underwhelming too... While a 1700(-X) would be nice for rendering and top vfm for this use, the single core performance is still low compared to most high-end Intel cpus, and simulations in Blender can really make use of it.

[juliabryant]

Thanks Nikolaos!

 

At the moment I will be using Cycles more but in the future I will definitely use VRAY.

 

Do you mean that Blender makes use of the single core performance more?

The Intel cpus do perform better with single cores but the comparable ones are 3-4 times the price of the 1700X, and so I'm not sure I can get better performance at this price, but if you think the intel i5's would be a better bet then please do let me know.

Many thanks for your advice!!

[Nikolaos M]

I'm currently using Blender with Cycles too, but with gpu rendering, which is several times faster compared to cpu rendering.

 

To give you some numbers, my rig is based on an i7 5960X oc'ed at 4.2, and my gpu is a new Asus 1070 Strix OC. The gpu renders almost 6 times faster than my cpu (which is quite good in rendering).

 

So, since your budget is somehow limited, and Cycles would be your main renderer, I would suggest that you invest more money on the gpu and use it for rendering too. With a good psu you could add a 2nd gpu in the future and double your rendering speeds easily.

 

I've too made some attempts to make fluid simulations in Blender, and this task is still single-threaded (I hope this will change somehow in the 2.8 version), so a good single core performance is needed too to chop down simulation times.

 

So, it comes down to what you're going to use more eventually. If it's Cycles with gpu rendering then you could build a totally different rig upon a, let's say, i5 7600K. If Vray cpu is the target at the end of the road, then the AMD 1700X would be the best vfm right now.

 

Make some tests with Cycles gpu if you have an Nvidia gpu (go to Files/User Preferences/System and choose CUDA in "Cycles Compute device" and under "render" drop down menu choose GPU) with the Render "Auto Tile Size" Addon enabled, and you'll see a massive improvement in rendering times. If your renderings aren't so RAM heavy, then a gpu with 8gb of Vram should suffice.

Edited March 24, 2017 by nikolaosm

[juliabryant]

Thanks again so much for your advice.

So based on that, I think that I'm probably better accepting slightly worse single core performance now with the hope that the better graphics card and the multicore performance will be more beneficial as I expand into Vray and other software. I do understand what you mean about rendering using the GPU and that will certainly be the plan.

 

I've been thinking a lot about all of the components and googling a lot and this is now what I've come up with. I have to admit that the case and the lighting is really based on making it look cool, but with the important parts (CPU, graphics card etc.) I've gone for what I think is the best performing combination within my budget. I realise that I will need to upgrade some components in the future, but for the money I have now I'm thinking this is the best I can do and it should be sufficient. If you have any comments on this combination or whether you think there would be any bottlenecks between components then I would value your advice. I've dropped back to the Ryzen 1700 with a plan to overclock it.

 

CPU: AMD RYZEN 7 1700 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor

Motherboard: Asus CROSSHAIR VI HERO ATX AM4 Motherboard

Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory blue

Storage: Crucial MX300 525GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (I'll add another other Toshiba extra hard drive later)

Video Card: Galax GeForce GTX1070 EXOC Sniper White 8GB GDDR5 Video Card [i will add a second one of these (or 1080) later when I can afford it]

Case: Phanteks ECLIPSE P400S TEMPERED GLASS ATX Mid Tower Case white

Power Supply: SeaSonic 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit

Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WDN4800 PCI-Express x1 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi Adapter

EVGA SuperNOVA G2 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

 

Thanks!

Julia

[Nikolaos M]

It looks OK, but let me point out some things:

1. If you can, go for 2x16gb RAM now. Prices get higher day by day. If this stretches your budget, then 1x16gb would be more preferable imo, because it will allow you to upgrade to 32 or 64 gb in the future. With 2x8gb you'll have a lower limit in RAM.

2. Galax gpu? I can't say I know much about this brand. I would pick something among Asus, Gigabyte and MSI for Nvidia gpus.

3. I see two psus, one Seasonic 650 and one EVGA 750 G2. You'll need a 750W psu or bigger for two gpus in the future. I'd personally pick a 850W golden for this task.

 

I've done some math with your configuration and I think the cost is ~2300AUD.

 

So, I tried to reconfigure it to something slightly better imo. PCPartPicker part list

It's only 100$ more and you'll have an AIO cooler for better oc potential. The stock cooler wouldn't do much. I also added the EVGA 850G2 which would hold much easier two gpus in the future.

 

The Enthoo Pro M (tempered glass) is a bit more spacious than the P400, so it's a better option for oc and dual gpu setup imo.

Edited March 30, 2017 by nikolaosm