advice needed for new workstation

Hello,

I'm planning to buy a new workstation (mainly for 3dsmax, autocad and photoshop)

Currently i have a dell precision T5500 (dual xeon E-5620 - 24GB - nvidia quadro fx3800)

I was looking at the new dell precision T5610 (dual xeon E-2650 v2 - 32 gb - nvidia quadro k5000). The price is 6520 euro's (about 8928 usd)

Although the T5610 is autodesk certified hardware and my current T5500 served me very well, i think i should consider buying a custom built workstation instead because of the price.

For a few euro's more i maybe could throw in a renderslave (dual xeon E-2630 v2 16 GB). Also the quadro K5000 is a bit of an overkill for me and think i would do with a quadro k4000 (which is about 1000 euro's cheaper).

Can anyone give me good advice or suggestions on this?

If i wanted to go with a renderslave is it better to have a workstation based on a I7 processor with lots of ghz and a renderslave with a dual xeon with lots of cores?

Or both with dual xeons?

Kind regards.

"autodesk certified hardware" this is such utter nonsense I would be offended by it rather than take that as some sort of positive.

The only plus on Dell/HP prebuilt workstations is the 24hour service if you opt to pay for that. There is nothing else.

On other hand, you will pay premium, get subpar oem compomenents ("good enough" only) so the result will be noisy, heated trash.

Any Xeon bellow 2660v2 is not worth buying, if you want to go Xeon route, choose one of the higher-clocked ones, as 2660,2687WS,2680/2690,etc// it's been discussed enough before here.

Same goes for complete uneccessity of any current Quadro range card, unless you specifically know exactly why you would benefit from it (Hardware LUT support,14bit color pipeline,....basically nothing for our work at all).

Dual-Xeon for WS or Node or Both, well, depends on the amount of money you have :- ). If you have roughly 10-12k euros, you can have both.

And it's absolutely worth it. Zero hassle with installations, maintenance, service,etc... just two silent boxes each with render-power of 3 top i7 hexa-cores.

thanks for the advice Juraj. What about this configuration for the workstation?

cpu: dual xeon E5-2680v2 (10 cores - 2,8-3,6 ghz)

motherboard: asus Z9PE-D8 WS

memory: DDR3 32 GB quad

harddisk: SSD samsung 840 evo 1TB (540 read 520 write)

harddisk 2: sata western digital caviar green 3TB

What to do with the graphics card? You mean quadro hasn't got advantage over gtx in the viewport (don't use iray or vray rt, only cpu rendering)

If the quadro range hasn't got advantage, what card should i install?

kind regards

I use 2680v2 for nodes, they're 2.8Ghz baseclock, and 3.1Ghz for all-cores turbo, so this where they render, and 3.6Ghz is just 1 or 2 cores turbo, not sure straight from head. But to be honest, it's still more than fine for workstation too.

2667v2 or more expensive 2687WS v2 are higher clocked octa-cores with higher turbo too, so they are slightly better choice for Workstation, but also bit more expensive. The difference is all chips will be roughly the same for rendering, but the higher-clocked less amount of cores, will be slightly faster in workstation tasks that aren't multi-threaded.

Quadro doesn't currently seem to give any advantage in viewport, buy a middle-level GTX like 760 and it will be enough.

Even though plenty of people run 32GB on these high-threaded dual-xeons, it's probably better to play it safe and saturate all the available memory slot (8 of them) @ maximum non-registered modules capacity (8GB) so 8x8=64GB total. That's enough to feed all the cores and get quad-channel (for peace of mind) at best price value. And 64GB is very enjoyable, I couldn't go back if I had to. You can keep so many scenes and stuff in PS/AE opened without hassle.

More reasonable SSD capacity like 256 or 512GB if you feel like spending is more then enough for software installations. Scenes and props will not fit under 1TB anyway so you would still keep those on higher capacity HDD or network.

The board is great, old, but there is nothing else so.

something like this then:

motherboard: asus z9pe-d8 ws

cpu: dual intel xeon E5-2687W

mem: DDR3 64 gb 2x4x8gb 1866mhz corsair vengeance xmp

graphics: gtx 760

ssd 1 TB: samsung 840 evo 1tb

sata 3 TB: western digital caviar green 3tb

this setup (incl cooling, case, dvd, etc...) would cost about 6600 euro's

Should i make special attention regarding cooling, powersupply, case? Also i want the workstation to run relatively silent.

You are really sure about the videocard? Since i read all kinds of opinions on gtx vs quadro on the net. Looks like a cheap card in a high-end workstation. But i don't know much on hardware.

Once again, thank you very much for the advice.

Don't worry about how it feels cheap inside workstation :- ) I use 760 myself, and I am absolutely fine no matter what.

I presume the "E5 2687W" is typo and you meant 2687W v2, but just in case.

I use Fractal XL R2 for this setup (but for all my workstations too, I have now 7 of these cases heh), it's silenced, minimal case.

If you'll run dual air cooler (like Noctua U-12 series) in horizontal setup (2 or 3 fans, with 2 heatsinks of course) with air push to the side (keeping the top of case shut) it will be absolutely noiseless. And I mean it.

You can keep default Fractal case fans which are very silent already (but with slight humming of the motor), or swap them to bitt more silent Noctua (NF-A14 PWM), or completely noiseless Noiseblocker 140mm NB PK1 (Made in Germany!), I swear by the last, that it's the best case fan ever invented by humanity. Again, don't populate the top case slots if you want silent PC. With single GPU, you can afford this luxury.

Regarding ram, even with latest bios, most people struggle to run 1866mhz on that board, even though it seems supported officially. Save the hassle and just buy 1600Mhz, low-profile modules (or otherwise they won't fit bellow cpu coolers).

I've posted the Node before, so I hope no one will be bothered...just for you information how it will look I attach a photo of inside.

Thanks Juraj, you've been a great help.

Kind regards,

Wim Clissen

The next Xeon E5 generation (E5-2600 V3) is coming in maybe 2-3 months - with up to 18 cores and DDR4.

http://wccftech.com/intel-haswell-ep-xeon-e52699-v3-18-cores-benched-haswellep-xeon-e5-cpus-spotted-retail/

2690v3 Octacore at 2.9GHz baseclock, pretty nice. But it looks like the 'mid'-tier of Haswell Xeons aren't much different, they just stretched the high-core models to the right. Utmost top model now won't cost 3000 euros, but 4000.

From what I've heard, it's already damn hard to come across some v2 Xeons, so maybe waiting for v3 is alternative.

Looks like there's Eng. Sample of GTX880 with 8GB ram, I knew it :- ).

Spend your whole budget on nodes, you'll get a better ROI.

Spend your whole budget on nodes, you'll get a better ROI.

Absolutely not.

Cheapest 32GB equiped 4930k is around 1200 euros.

Cheapest 32GB equiped dual-Xeon with multithreaded performance equal to 3x4930k cost about 4000 euros.

That's absolutely minimal amount of budget difference, which gets quickly offset by---)Vray per Node licence, Windows licence, plugins licence,etc...

I've done this math over and over, 100 times. Super-budget friendly vs overpriced Xeons is myth.

And this doesn't even take into account, cheap nodes need lot of cooling (Didn't you write yourself 3 times in this forum you have trouble cooling and storing yours ?) and much more electricity. Single dual-xeon machine will consume

Tom,

Don't have the place to put a bunch of nodes at my office. Just considering to get 1 good renderslave to relief my workstation.

Juraj,

From what i understand there isn't much of a difference in the xeon v2 and v3?

How about this configuration:

Workstation:

i7-4970K overclocked

what motherboard would be best?

32 GB DDR3

ssd 250GB + ssd 1TB

GTX 780 3gb

Renderslave:

dual xeon e5-2680 v2

asus z9pe-d8 ws

64gb ddr3 (or 32GB?)

ssd 250GB

cheapest graphics card

The single workstation dual xeon E5-2687w v2 mentioned in my previous post with 64 GB would cost about 7000 euro's.

This setup (workstation + renderslave) aprox. 7750 euro's. Would this work better? I guess so since my workstation has more ghz and my renderslave more cores?

Should i wait for xeon v3? I could even wait for the new I7-4970K which has better thermal so overclocking would be better?

thanks.

Please ignore the cheap Node advice. I could go really further into this but I don't feel like anymore.

Well, to me, based on those few models they outlined, the middle-ground won't be effectively much more powerful at same price, because they seems to have same amount of cores at identical frequency, so the performance difference will be mostly by architecture (IvyBridgeEP---)HaswellEP), ~10perc. They do of course, have higher cache and support DDR4 memory, the latter could come with some decent price margin on top.

But they will also offer much higher-amount cores having models in the high-end range, like the 18cores(36threads)@2.2Ghz (the 4000 euros per CPU model, so, this doesn't interest us)

I btw have the similar setup as your second configuration: I use 5x 4930k as workstations (we're only 3 in office most of the time so the 2 are basically nodes) and 2x 2x2680v2 as nodes. Yes, this is the most price-efficient solution, because 2680v2 is much cheaper than 2687v2 but with basically identical multi-threaded performance.

So if you build i7 as workstation, dual-xeon is excellent node.

If you can wait, it's always up to you how much waiting you want to make. But bear in mind you won't loose anything if you don't.

Unless you want to wait for mid-September until both v3 and 5930k(still hexacore)/5960X(Octacore( will hit the market, haswell refresh like 4970k is good choice too. But bear in mind you won't be able to ever upgrade it to 64GB ram.

From what i understand there isn't much of a difference in the xeon v2 and v3?

The normal performance improvement should be almost the same like from Ivy Bridge to Haswell (s1150) - only a few percent. But what you get with Haswell-E is socket 2011-3 (X99) and DDR4 which should be compatible with Broadwell-E. So you will be able to upgrade the CPU.

s2011 is a dead end.

And they come with AVX2, maybe we'll see some speed improvements when this gets adapted by the render engines...

The problem could be the price for the DDR4 modules, especially in the first time - but we'll see.

If you have to buy a new board and new RAM later to upgrade to Broawell-E it shouldn't be really cheaper...

And btw. another option could be the "cheap" hexacore 5820K for maybe 350€.

Please ignore the cheap Node advice. I could go really further into this but I don't feel like anymore.

 

Well, to me, based on those few models they outlined, the middle-ground won't be effectively much more powerful at same price, because they seems to have same amount of cores at identical frequency, so the performance difference will be mostly by architecture (IvyBridgeEP---)HaswellEP), ~10perc. They do of course, have higher cache and support DDR4 memory, the latter could come with some decent price margin on top.

But they will also offer much higher-amount cores having models in the high-end range, like the 18cores(36threads)@2.2Ghz (the 4000 euros per CPU model, so, this doesn't interest us)

 

 

I btw have the similar setup as your second configuration: I use 5x 4930k as workstations (we're only 3 in office most of the time so the 2 are basically nodes) and 2x 2x2680v2 as nodes. Yes, this is the most price-efficient solution, because 2680v2 is much cheaper than 2687v2 but with basically identical multi-threaded performance.

So if you build i7 as workstation, dual-xeon is excellent node.

 

If you can wait, it's always up to you how much waiting you want to make. But bear in mind you won't loose anything if you don't.

 

Unless you want to wait for mid-September until both v3 and 5930k(still hexacore)/5960X(Octacore( will hit the market, haswell refresh like 4970k is good choice too. But bear in mind you won't be able to ever upgrade it to 64GB ram.

Who said anything about cheap nodes? I said spend youre WHOLE budget on nodes. Putting money into a workstation is pointless unless you can work while your processors work. I prefer to have the processing power separate from my workstation, hence the nodes advice.

Alternatively you can watch your $8k machine crawl through your current tasks whilst it renders in the background.

Return on investment per node is hugely advantageous over ROI in your workstation only. Like driving a Ferrari through treacle or a Hyundai on a clear road.

Specifying the nodes is a very wide subject. I have indeed gone the budget route, but there are as many solutions as there are scenarios. If you work it out $ per gHz then the i7's are cheaper, but add the variables that Juraj mentioned and it becomes a balance of speed vs price vs space vs pwr consumption vs noise vs depreciation and so on.

"$ per gHz then the i7's"

And this is the very debatable thing. It's still in most people minds that the price margin Intel asks for Xeon range makes makes them very performace/value inneffiecient. Becase i7 4930k costing 500 euros equivalent in 26xx Xeon range 2643v2 costs 1200 euros. But in overall machine unit (no matter if it's workstation or node, it's just dedicated functionality difference) the costs get much closet to each other once you factor in for example 64GB ram, which alone costs 600 euros, 256GB SSD disk, another 200 euros, PSU + Case + Fans.

Once we add software licencing, the price will either be equal, or in big favour towards dual Xeons. And that still doesn't account to comfort difference (single, silent PC, drawing less electricity, easier to manage, install,...etc...comfort level).

It's just another of those things like "Quadro are for professionals" that doesn't really hold true.

Then performance stacking. Single powerful machine will always outmatch parts of rendering that either aren't well multithreaded or can't be distributed (like LightCache for example). Also 3 machines stacking perfomance =/= 300perc. of multi-threaded parts.

Then super-fast test renders (because no scene needs to be sent to distribution, LC gets computed 3times quicker if we consider Vray for example renderer).

But on other level, I do apologize, because you indeed specified only "nodes" as in opposed to single expensive workstation. I simply assumed you directly meant your own setup, multiple cheap i7 nodes. I just think too fast..but not properly..

How about this configuration:

Workstation:

i7-4970K overclocked

Do you mean 4790K or 4930K? Because i would say that a quadcore doesn't make much sense for a workstation.

I agree about the nodes, next time Ill buy fewer higher end. But to be honest, I dont think there will be a next time. I think my power will come from the cloud when I need to upgrade, but thats not the issue in this thread, or is it?

Regardless of the cpu solution, it should not be at the expense of your ability to create. People who render on their workstation are missing a trick. If the OP has a workstation that is servicable then at most he'll need to upgrade the graphics card and put some RAM in there. I work on an i7 920 / GTX 580 / 256gSS c drive and its pretty slick, even after 4 yrs or so.

I dont think there will be a next time...

Yeah, maybe not. Things do change, eventually. Or you die.

Do you mean 4790K or 4930K? Because i would say that a quadcore doesn't make much sense for a workstation.

yes was a typo i do mean i7-4930K

nothing wrong with the i7 4790k

straight of the box it's got a higher single core speed in comparison with the i7 4930K and rendering performance is close to the i7 4930k in 3dsmax with vray (there are tests on the net)

so, if you can live with the max 32 gb ram of socket 1150 the i7 4790k is definitely worth a look

and rendering performance is close to the i7 4930k in 3dsmax with vray (there are tests on the net)

If you compare the stock speeds... yes. Due to the increased clock speed of the 4790K (4,0GHz/4,4GHz). But he wrote that he plans to overclock...

And the 5820K is coming.

hello again, thanks for all the good advice. So after doing some research and tips from this forum i decided to go for the following system:

WORKSTATION: (i7-4930k overclocked)

case: fractal design big tower xl-atx - define xl r2

fan: 2X antec case fan true quiet 140mm

psu: corsair rm gold series rm1000m 80 plus gold modular 1000w

mobo: asus p9x79-e ws

cpu: intel i7-4930k (overclocked to 4.4 ghz)

cpu cooler: noctua nh-d14

mem: ddr3 corsair vengeance xmp 2x 4x8GB 1600 mhz (64gb)

ssd 1: samsung 840 evo series 250 gb

ssd 2: samsung 840 evo series 1 tb

videocard: asus gtx780-dc2oc-3gb5 - nvidia gforce gtx 780 3gb-gddr5

optical drive: samsung 224db dvd writer

os: win 7 pro 64 bit

software: office 2013 home and business

About 3300 euro's assembled

RENDERSLAVE: (dual xeon E5-2680 v2)

case: fractal design big tower xl-atx - define xl r2

fan: 2X antec case fan true quiet 140mm

psu: corsair rm gold series rm1000m 80 plus gold modular 1000w

mobo: asus z9pe-d8 ws

cpu: dual intel xeon E5-2680 v2

cpu cooler: 2X noctua nh-d14

mem: ddr3 corsair vengeance xmp 2x 4x8GB 1600 mhz (64gb)

ssd 1: samsung 840 evo series 250 gb

videocard: asus gtx650-dc-1gb5 - nvidia gforce gtx 650 1gb-gddr5

optical drive: samsung 224db dvd writer

os: win 7 pro 64 bit

About 5175 euro's assembled

TOTAL 8475 euro. Maybe i still can negotiate about the price.

You guys have some final remarks?

Have a nice weekend.

I don't much. You probably can ask for discount, knowing that most bigger sellers do offer it on workstations starting at 2k euros.

It's lot of money, but then again, there is additional 1TB SSD, 780GTX,etc.

In workstation, swap the NH-D14 to NH-D15, this year version. It's already available just fine (was problem to get last month though). It's about 3-5C cooler, for about 20 euros more expensive. I think it's worthy update, it already took excellent air cooler to godly level.

Buy 1 additional fan for each case, mount 2 of them in front. Don't mount any on top, unless you plan on overclocking to extreme level but you should be fine even with GTX. This will keep the computers rather silent. Rip the ribcage in lowerhalf (in front of those 2 frontal coolers). You will not have 10 HDDs there so you will benefit from better air-flow.

I am not completely fond of Corsair RM series, but it's decent middle-class option and does save a bit of money.

For single GTX780 and overclocked 4930k 750W of more quality, platinum grade PSU would be better choice. Like Seasonic, or Corsair AX(Seasonic again) or some other top brands (Goldflower).

For Dual-Xeon, you need only about sub 500W. I use 1000W because I use it in passive mode (passive under 50perc. load) but you need PSU that does that. If you don't plan on such, it's good again to rather go for 650W platinum grade PSU.

I don't think NH-D14 fit next to each other in horizontal position. The probably do so in vertical (so you would need to fit 2 case fans on top).

I would research a bit some forums (guru3D, extremeoverclockers,etc..) if someone has such setup. As you see, I use only U-series, with only 2 fans, and it keeps completely fine. If you would keep them with 3 or 4, there is no need for NH monsters here. The clock will stay at 3.1Ghz even in turbo.

Not much else :- )

mem: ddr3 corsair vengeance xmp 2x 4x8GB 1600 mhz (64gb)

Low Profile RAM (LP) could be the better choice with these huge CPU coolers...

And as Juraj said, a good 750W PSU should be enough for a 4930K+GTX780, even when overclocked... maybe 800W if it is a semi-passive model which then could stay longer in passive mode - but to be sure you should read some reviews to see at what load the fan is starting.