New "What machine should I buy" site

[danb4026]

Well that's good to know (not swapping out other components).

 

I typically render out high res stills. With my 5 machine render farm, including my workstation, a typical still can range from a few minutes to a few hours depending.

 

My render nodes have a x79 and 3930k setup. I watch their buckets fly by my workstation with the 2600k. My workstation is already over locked to 4.2.

 

Maybe it's psychological, but having a workstation that seems slower than my nodes is irritating.

[Dimitris Tolios]

Well, even @ 4.2 your workstation is faster than your 3930K nodes core per core...yet 4.2 is kinda of a "joke" O/C for that chip.

I believe it is psychological believing your local bucket moves slower than the node's. Shouldn't be even @ stock speeds.

 

Just stick with it, it is fine...if you are working with complex models, a mid-range quadro might get you that oomph upgrade keeping your viewports a bit happier and calming your consumerism...

 

Should I want a 3930K that bad, I would not even buy a new one for a workstation in your case. I would swap the internals from one of the nodes...overall render time would be altered what? 2 cores out of the 30... = meh.

 

s2011 will be refreshed with new CPUs and perhaps a new chipset closer to the end of 2013 - still compatible with current mobos, but would be a shame to get your 3930K now.

Well, the 3770K is in even worse fate, as haswell i7s will be out sometime this summer - I would give it a few months for the market to settle and more motherboards to be unveiled, but since this is the end of the line for the s1155, I would not bother unless I would get something used or new as part of a very very good deal.

[danb4026]

Thanks all the insights. I will stick with what I have until that next gen comes out In a few months. No need to spend the money.

[crismatt]

Hello Everyone, This is Cris Matt .. I am 3D Artist n Looking for Upgrade my system or buy new one...for Architectural Walkthrough ,

Like In Production house do..even A Work Station configuration also ?

Can I know what configuration needed for which can do support for batch renders..!!??

Will be Great Help if i get configuration Details...

[aman3dartist]

Hello Everyone... i need to buy this configration for 3ds Archi view and Video Editing After effect & Nuke.

 

 

Looking for this config... plz review and suggest

 

 

CPU INTEL CORE I7 3930K

MOTHER BOARD MB ASUS X79 SABERTOOTH

RAM GSKILL TRIDENTF3-2400C10D-16GTX

PCI EXPRESS MSI GTX 660TI

POWER SUPPLY COOLER MASTERHYBRID 1300

ATX / POWER SUPPLY ANTEC ELEVEN HUNDRED

MONITOR / TFT BENQ GW2450 ( WITH VA PANNEL )

 

Plz check our recommend me some good configuration....

 

 

 

Regards

All Design Solution

[Dimitris Tolios]

Hello Everyone... i need to buy this configration for 3ds Archi view and Video Editing After effect & Nuke.

 

 

Looking for this config... plz review and suggest

 

 

CPU INTEL CORE I7 3930K

MOTHER BOARD MB ASUS X79 SABERTOOTH

RAM GSKILL TRIDENTF3-2400C10D-16GTX

PCI EXPRESS MSI GTX 660TI

POWER SUPPLY COOLER MASTERHYBRID 1300

ATX / POWER SUPPLY ANTEC ELEVEN HUNDRED

MONITOR / TFT BENQ GW2450 ( WITH VA PANNEL )

 

Plz check our recommend me some good configuration....

 

 

 

Regards

All Design Solution

 

CPU is great.

 

MOBO: great

 

RAM: DDR3 2133/2400 etc is not that important and you won't see any speed benefits in real life. 1866 is just fine. Go for 32GB, preferably with a 4 x 8GB configuration, leaving the option for 64GB open for the future. Most likely 32GB will be more than enough though.

 

GPU: 660Ti is "ok", but it is a gaming card. A Quadro K2000 might not look the part, but it will be faster for viewports in 3DS. GPU accelerated renderers and Adobe Premiere/AE will most likely be faster with the 660, but if you are after GPU acceleration outside viewports you should look @ a better card altogether, or a combination of display card (most likely a quadro) and acceleration cards (high-end gaming cards with lots of VRam).

 

PSU: 1300W? Really? Huge waste, unless you were planning on an overclocked 3930K + 3x Overclocked Titan GTX cards. A 650W will be fine for what you have, a 750W-800W will be plenty for a CPU + 2x GPUs.

[aman3dartist]

Thank you Dimitris Tolios for the suggestion

 

 

Ram i have ordered Corsair Vengeance 24GB right now for the start

 

GPU : 660TI is not good enough for 3ds max walk though rendering ??? I want to use this PC for 3D designing and rendering. Kindly suggest me any other GPU in same budget with good performance. i shall be thankful to you.

 

PSU The shop keeper told me to use this because if i want to CPU overclocked it so i need more power for it. Is it really needed. So tell me which will be good to buy

 

Regards

Aman

[Dimitris Tolios]

First of all, asking for advice AFTER buying it, it is not very wise...what can change after the fact?...

 

RAM : 24GB is not a good config for the X79. It is a Dual or Quad Channel chipset, which means it likes dimms in pairs or quad kits.

Dimms come in 2/4/8/16 GB, so would probably go for a 4 * X GB set to get full Quad Channel support...that most likely be 4 x 4 GB or 4 x 8GB.

 

24GB is a probably a kit marketed for the triple-channel, older socket 1366 CPUs that you either mistakingly chose, or your "trusted" shop keeper had in stock and unloaded to you.

 

It is not the case that it will not work. It will. You just don't get the max performance with it, not because 3x or 6x dimm kits are different, just because your board likes 4x or 8x number of sticks.

 

GPU: Well, it is a bit hard for me to explain the role of the GPU in renderings (as there are many things that do and do not care about the GPU). If you read above, I had already suggested a better all-around alternative to the 660Ti or any other GTX that would set you back $450 or so.

 

PSU: A shop owner that suggests 1300W PSUs to their clients for a 1P + 1 GPU system is not trying to inform you, just to take your money.

 

To put things into perspective...a 3930K is 130W stock...overclocked it gets crazy, with crazy being 250W or so - and that includes the mobo itself (it is crazy as far as the % increase). A 3770K can get even more crazy with more than 100% increase, still stay below 200W total.

 

Most powerful gaming cards would be 200-250W. A K2000 is 75W, a 660Ti is 175W.

HDDs, SSDs, Fans etc are no more than 5-10W each average, i.e. a "joke"...the main players in consumption are the CPU + GPU by far.

 

That said, depending on your GPU choice, an overclocked 3930K system with 1x GPU is dowable with a good 500W PSU. In real life you won't be seeing more than 300-350W drawn. CPU + GPU rarely both operate @ 100%.

You want to give some headroom to the PSU, plus account for QC inconsistenses, so you don't want to stress it more than 80% of its rated capacity for prolonged times...thus lets say a 650W to be safe. There....a good quality 650 from Corsair, Seasonic, Antec, Cooler Master, Enermax XFX etc, preferably 80+ silver or gold rated and you are set. Get a bigger one if you read about GPU accelerated rendering and you want to try it out with more than 1x GPU, and get a 800W (same as above choices).

[crismatt]

is this will be good for 3ds max vray rendering?? more likely batch renders?

 

3.2GHz

 

3.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz) with 6MB L3 cache

Configurable to 3.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz).

 

8GB (two 4GB) of 1600MHz DDR3 memory; four user-accessible SO-DIMM slots

 

Configurable to 16GB or 32GB.

 

 

1TB (7200-rpm) hard drive

Configurable to 3TB hard drive, 1TB or 3TB Fusion Drive, or 256GB, 512GB, or 768GB of flash storage.

 

 

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX graphics processor with 1GB of GDDR5 memory

Configurable to NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX with 2GB of GDDR5 memory.

[crismatt]

Hi, I have this system right now , wanna upgrade for 3ds max vray high batch renders or please suggest me new High configuration workstations?

mother board : M5A97

Processor : AMD Fx™ 4100 quad-core

Ram : 16 GB Corsair vengence DDR3 1600 Mhz

windows 7 64-bit SP1

Display : AMD Radeon HD 7700 series

chipset : Graphic Processor (0X683F)

DAC type : Internal DAC (400 MHZ)

Approx Memory : 1734 MB

display : 1600x900 (32 bit )( 60 Hz)

 

I REALLY NEED ADVISE BEFORE BUYING A NEW WORKSTATION ??.. so please suggest me ...!!!?

Edited May 14, 2013 by crismatt

[Dimitris Tolios]

Hi, I have this system right now , wanna upgrade for 3ds max vray high batch renders or please suggest me new High configuration workstations?

mother board : M5A97

Processor : AMD Fx™ 4100 quad-core

Ram : 16 GB Corsair vengence DDR3 1600 Mhz

windows 7 64-bit SP1

Display : AMD Radeon HD 7700 series

chipset : Graphic Processor (0X683F)

DAC type : Internal DAC (400 MHZ)

Approx Memory : 1734 MB

display : 1600x900 (32 bit )( 60 Hz)

 

I REALLY NEED ADVISE BEFORE BUYING A NEW WORKSTATION ??.. so please suggest me ...!!!?

 

You don't ask for advice on cars or PCs or anything without a budget, real usage scenario etc.

Batch rendering means nothing in itself.

High configuration means nothing in itself.

 

Pages and pages could be written on what you are asking and answer nothing of use to you.

You have to be more specific.

 

CPU: You have the basis for a decent machine and you can upgrade it singificantly just by replacing the FX-4100 with a FX-8350, or even the new FX-6350. Nothing really helps improving rendering speeds outside the CPU in your case. You don't need to change the mobo for those upgrades.

 

RAM: 16GB should be enough for the most part, but you could go for 32. If you don't really need it (few arch-viz scenes do), don't bother.

 

Monitor: your screen is too small, but again screen, graphics card etc are tools that help you interact with the programs more effectively, not render faster per se.

 

If you want to start batch rendering, even the most expensive single machine cannot beat the performance of a few render nodes with a decent CPU each.

[crismatt]

Hello, yes you are right without budget its just not possible . i can spend $3000 for workstation..please check

Intel® Xeon® Processor E5-2620 (Six Core, 2.00GHz Turbo, 15MB, 7.2 GT/s)

motherboard : s5000XVN,S5520SC OR WX58BP ??????? which will be work well ????!!

16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 RDIMM Memory, 1600MHz, ECC

500GB 7200 RPM 3.5'' SATA3 Hard Drive

Dell U2412M 24 Monitor with LED

Graphics : 2GB nVIDIA Quadro 4000 (2DP & 1DVI-I) (1DP-DVI & 1DVI-VGA adapter) (MRGA17H)

 

so please suggest me if this ''Workstation'' will work well??

Intel Xeon or i7??

nVIDIA Quadro 4000 ??? or anything in same cost??

maya, max, vray, After effect, Realflow ??? will this able to handle n render well ??

now please suggest if anything better configuration which i can be buy in my budget?

[crismatt]

please anybody reply ?????

-thanks

[Dimitris Tolios]

Hello, yes you are right without budget its just not possible . i can spend $3000 for workstation..please check

Intel® Xeon® Processor E5-2620 (Six Core, 2.00GHz Turbo, 15MB, 7.2 GT/s)

motherboard : s5000XVN,S5520SC OR WX58BP ??????? which will be work well ????!!

16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 RDIMM Memory, 1600MHz, ECC

500GB 7200 RPM 3.5'' SATA3 Hard Drive

Dell U2412M 24 Monitor with LED

Graphics : 2GB nVIDIA Quadro 4000 (2DP & 1DVI-I) (1DP-DVI & 1DVI-VGA adapter) (MRGA17H)

 

so please suggest me if this ''Workstation'' will work well??

Intel Xeon or i7??

nVIDIA Quadro 4000 ??? or anything in same cost??

maya, max, vray, After effect, Realflow ??? will this able to handle n render well ??

now please suggest if anything better configuration which i can be buy in my budget?

 

What you are asking has been discused a lot of times. All these days you could do some research within this forum and get many answers.

Atomized responces to each of the thousands posible variations in configurations are not easy nor required.

 

If you are talking single CPU system, the Xeon makes not sence. Even 2x E5-2620s are not really faster than 1x i7-3930K - thus these are so cheap.

Just look at the frequencies - both 6-cores, one much cheaper.

Even the much faster Xeons, retailing $1500+ each, don't beat the single thread performance of the 3930 (again, lower frequencies on the same architecture = lower performance). The fact that the high-end Xeons are 8 core doesn't change the sad fact that most of the applications we run are not 100% multithreaded - actually only rendering is. Most of the tasks we perform when modelling or editing images etc, are single threaded still. Only one thread of one core is working overtime, while the others are waiting.

 

RAM: you don't need ECC. It doesn't hurt, but more and faster UDIMM (regular DDR3) is better most of the time. 16GB is enough, 32GB is plenty. Few use more.

 

GPU: Quadro 4000 (K4000 now) is fast. I have tried both Quadro 2000 and Quadro 4000 and I would say the performance is indistiguishible in low to moderate complexity scenes. Ofc what each is naming a high complexity scene differs greatly and moreover, the way high complex stuff can be offloaded using proxies and/or point clouds etc also differs with our workflows or even preferred display modes.

 

HDD: get a 2TB or equiv. model. Usually those are much faster, and trust me, you will need the space as you build up your libraries and archive your models.

 

SSD: easily within reach with your budget. Samsung and Plextor are great all around. Latest OCZ drives are too (don't go for anything before Vertex 4). Intel is over-rated with the latest models, doesn't worth skipping Samsung or Plextor for those.

 

Questions around cookie-cutter workstation configs like those have also been written in my blog-site, pcfoo.

Just don't want to advertize it over and over.

[crismatt]

I really appreciate that , you gave time for my question. thanks

[justinh]

Hi, I have pretty much decided to get the Thinkpad W530 for use in architecture school. It will be my only machine and I require a laptop. I plan on running Rhino, 3DS Max, V-Ray, AutoCAD, Revit, ArchGIS, Adobe CS6, Processing.

 

Which processor best suits my needs? At what point does it become pointless to upgrade?

I currently have my eyes on the Intel i7-3740QM, but would consider the i7-3840QM if it is significantly better for my tasks.

 

I plan on installing 16GB of RAM and an SSD, third party.

 

Aside: does anyone have any first-hand experience with this computer? Like it? Thanks.

[Dimitris Tolios]

I don't think the price difference will be justified by the performance difference. We are talking 100Mhz out of 3.7GHz, or 3% increase for $200 more.

The 2MB Cache is almost insignificant. Real life performance will be hard to distinguish between the 3840QM and the 3630 QM (the lowest available model) tbh.

3740 is an "ok" upgrade...you get 300MHz for $80 (instead of 400MHz for $280).

Good call on doing the RAM + SSD upgrades yourself. Lenovo asks for too much on those.

The laptop has 4x Dimm slots, so you can easily go 16 or even 24GB without "retiring" the initial 2x4GB sticks.

Which GPU are you getting? K2000M or the K1000M?

It is funny as I had a conversation exactly about this model last night with a friend of mine who wants a decent laptop for his M.Arch II...

 

The W530 is around $1650-1700 before tax with a K2000M and the mid-range 1080p screen...not bad, but a Y500 can do almost all of that for $1200 or less, using a GeForce ofc, yet 16GB RAM, better storage options and...a numpad! (that was the cherry topping that got us to lulz).

 

In his case, he will be using it for just a year, and my take on it was that spending too much on a laptop that will never match a desktop in speed, for just a year, could be a knife edge decision.

A decent laptop is needed, yes, but spending too much for no real benefit is always a danger.

He will be using Maya, where Quadros have a bigger advantage over GF than they do in 3DS. Same goes for Rhino (like C4D and Maya it's OpenGL).

 

The fan part will be how many of your colleagues will be spending twice that on MBPs, featuring inferior specs to both W530 or Y500 with depending on your degrees length, opting to upgrade to the newer model before they are done...guess its because windows are not optimized...

[justinh]

@Dimitris

Thanks for the processor advice. Yep I am choosing the K2000M over the K1000M. And in my case, I plan to be using this machine for at least three school years.

 

About RAM, should I be worried about combining different memory kits?

 

How would you recommend setting up an SSD? If I use an SSD exclusively for the OS and applications while reading and writing my files to the main HD, will I experience the speed improvements I expect from having an SSD?

 

Is it worthwhile to get a larger SSD so I can run, read, and write everything from it?

 

How would you compare the performance of an upgrade like this to using an mSATA SSD as a cache drive?

 

Wow. The Lenovo Y500 does look like a good alternative. The Canadian store actually has a $470 discount off two of the three Y500 models right now which makes it even more attractive.

 

I think I noticed something weird though (but it could just be a bad typo). Both the Y500 and W530 ship with the i7-3630QM. However, the processor has different specs under each laptop. It is 2.4GHz on the Y500 and 3.4GHz for the W530.

[Dimitris Tolios]

RAM:I have combined memory in almost all laptops I or friends/family had...older laptops, with very expensive memory upgrades would often have you replace one out of 2 available slots (i.e. it had 2x256MB, you would add a 512 for a total of 768MB - there was no dual channel or anything back then to worry about), or for newer, larger laptops with 4x slots like the Lenovo W5xx or my Acer 7745G, you usually add to the 2 available slots, keeping the factory sticks in place. Never had an issue.

So, I would not "worry". Just make sure you shop from a place where returning the extra ram is not an issue, but I doubt you will need to. (keep you options open tho )

 

SSD vs HDD: SSDs are faster, hands down...it is not the sequential transfer speed you are after (which also is there, 2-5x times faster on absolute speeds) but the random seek/small file read+write operations that are 10-100x faster in smaller, insequential files.

Smaller, 2.5" laptop HDDs are slower than 3.5" drives. Very high density of data in single platers of 500+ GB changes the notion that 2.5" are slow. I am not saying slow, I am saying "slower than 3.5". Thus, the change to a SSD is usually more pronounced.

 

　

SSD Caching: having used a Momentus XT 500GB which uses just 4GB of NAND to cache files in my laptop for a bit more than 2 years, I would say the speed difference over the original 5400rpm 500GB drive was impressive. Yes, the XT is a 7200rpm drive, but still…the speed difference on things you did repeatedly (like launching Photoshop, Illustrator or 3DS, which usually take a while) was not something a simple 7200rpm drive can do. Was close to mainstream SSDs 2 years ago.

If their caching algorithms are anything like Seagates, I would expect that laptops with 20-32GB caching drives will have a very very decent boost in speed.

 

SSD Caching vs. all-SSD? I don't know...SSD will be faster, true, but a 512GB SSD is expensive, while a 500GB HDD + 20-32GB caching drive is probably 1/3 the cost - and already there in fast laptops...after one point, the SSD is faster when initializing stuff: start the render, not rendering itself, load Photoshop - not apply photoshop filter per se etc etc. The caching will probably fill in the gaps quite nicely after it adapts to your workflow (i.e. 2-3 days of usage in most cases). Next laptop around (if it is in 3 years), we will probably be comfortably "all-SSD" for $1000+ laptops with NAND getting more and more affordable, but...not there yet.

CPUs + difference in speeds: probably it is a typo or a marketing thing (intentional). One is puting down the "minimum" clock rating when all cores/threads are in use, the other one is puting down the "speedboost" clock. Both CPUs are identical and will have the same clocks.

Edited August 6, 2013 by dtolios

[Dimitris Tolios]

I know that this is probably not available outside the US, and I don't want to make ppl apset for that (I would be, knowing myself living as a PC geek in Greece) but Lenovo Shop has an offer for people registering their .edu account on a Y510:

 

Lenovo Y510p

Intel Core i7-4700MQ (2.40GHz)

NVIDIA GeForce GT750M GDDR5 2GB

8GB PC3-12800 DDR3L SDRAM 1600 MHz

15.6" FHD LED Glossy Display (1920x1080)

1TB Hard Drive + 24GB SSD

DVD Recordable (Dual Layer)

6 Cell Lithium-Ion Battery

Intel Centrino Wireless N-2230

Bluetooth Version 4.0

Integrated HD Camera

HDMI

Windows 8 64-Bit

 

Price? $789

 

Yes, no a Quadro, no GTX, but that's a lot of laptop for that price.

 

1. Click Here
   
2. Sign in or create an acct
   
3. Add Model # 59370005 to cart
   
4. Proceed to checkout
   
5. Total should be $789 with free shipping
   

[danielphillips1]

Hi,

 

I would like to say a big thank you to the OP who put up the amazon lists, for the various setups.

It helped me alot.

 

I would like to ask some advice, as I am interested in upgrading my system, but I am not sure how big a jump the new spec would give me, in terms of cutting down on rendertimes.

 

Currently, I use 3DS max and vray, I mainly produce stills of arch-vis type shots.

Im still not sure if i should look at focusing on GPU rendering, and throw in two extra GTX570s

 

If the new spec, is not expected generate significantly quicker render speeds, over my current, im not really sure what to do.

 

My current spec

Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 Intel X58

Intel® Core™ i7 965 3.20GHz Extreme

Corsair XMS3 12GB (6x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz

500GB 7200RPM SATA II

Palit GeForce GTX 285 with 2GB of GDDR3

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium

 

New system spec

AMD Firepro 7900

Intel 4930K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor

Asus P9X79 WS Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard

Corsair Vengeance RED 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C10 1866MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit

2x - Intel 335 Series 180GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - Retail

Antec P183 v3 tower

 

 

The new spec comes to £2,323 its a significant price to pay, im just unsure how much of an increase i will see in render times.

[numerobis]

I don't know what you would call "significantly better", but a 4930K will give you two more cores, more single core performance and a higher clock speed resulting in roughly 100% more render power...

 

cinebench 11.5 values:

i7 965 ~5.73

i7 4930K ~11.58

 

Combined with a fast SSD (maybe samsung 840 Pro 256GB or EVO 240GB) and 32GB RAM the difference will be more than noticable...

 

I think GPU rendering is still not useable for production in vray, but if you plan to use it (for production or preview) you should definitely go for an nvidia card to be able to use CUDA - and at least 4GB VRAM.

Edited December 21, 2013 by numerobis

[danielphillips1]

Thanks for the reply, perhaps significant was a bad word to use. Im just not sure how much of a cut down in render time, spending 2 grand would get me on the spec I wrote. If its shaving off only a few minutes, i would probably re think.

 

Would one perhaps suggest, replacing the fire pro with a titan?

Alternatively i could use my gtx 285 and add a titan, disregarding the firepro.

 

Or I just keep using my original card (gtx 285), and instead spending the money on a xeon processor, with more cores?

For example,

Intel Xeon E5-2660v2 2.20GHz 10-Core with Hyperthreading & Turbo (Socket 2011)

Comes to the same price of the Firepro and I7 combined.

If I brought over the GTX 285 from my current system, and used that for viewport, would this be a better move to make?

 

Alternatively, how much of a benefit would i get if i used my current machine as a rendernode, if gone with a new system?

 

I feel like a right nucense writing these posts/questions. I do apologise.

Edited December 21, 2013 by danielphillips1

[numerobis]

Alternatively, how much of a benefit would i get if i used my current machine as a rendernode, if gone with a new system?

From the numbers above... ~50%?

 

and instead spending the money on a xeon processor, with more cores?

The titan is currently the fastest card for RT, yes. If it is worth the money is your decision. Personally i think i would not buy one at the moment if you don't need it now, because nvidia should release the new generation of cards (Maxwell) in feb/march next year - i don't know how long it will take until they can be bought, but they could be a real game changer for GPU rendering since they are announced to be able to access the system RAM. But we'll see...

 

I think the 4930K currently has the best price/performance ratio - especially when overclocked. I don't know if this would be an option for you. The problem of the 8-12 core Xeons is, that the lower priced models have significantly lower clock speeds than the 4930K and a higher clocked 8- or 10-core will cost you three times as much money than the i7.

[Dimitris Tolios]

A common issue with questions like this Daniel, is that you are attacking too many fronts at the same time.

Your old machine is by no means slow. It is just...a few years old and nowhere near as "extreme" as the 4930.

Yes, it was expensive for its time, but it is a quad core, 3 (or 2, depending how you count, product release cycles or achual architecture changes) generations old and runs @ slower speeds.

 

You GPU was a high end gaming card - you now throw in a med-high end workstation card. Different leagues, different niches (no effect in rendering speeds whatsoever tho, unless we are talking GPU accelerated rendering.

 

So lets start throwing my usual points for thought:

 

• RAM: i don't know if you need more than 12GB that you currently have. All i can say is that Quad channel RAM is kinda of a gimmick, don't expect anything pliable with it - at least with current generation of software.
  
• Firepro: if you are using 3DS Max, I don't know if you really need a workstation card. I did not do the hands on tests I was hoping for, so I cannot comment on Workstation vs. Gaming really. All I know is the adaptive degradation viewport engine 3DS Max 2014 uses is very effective with my GTX cards. It just knocks down shadows, or hides geomertry temporarily to keep fps up, and does the latter very effectively. What it DOESN'T do, is return to the previous state (i.e. all quality/shadows/textures/geometry ON) fast. It takes time for them to recalclulate. All in all, I don't know what is better: you rotating the view instantly without you seeing the object to its full quality, or you rotating the view slowly while actually maintaining more information visible. Guess it is kinda subjective to a point.
  The question I have (and leave) un-answered is really: does the adaptive degradation enginee perform any differently with a good Quadro or Firepro (or more likely their drivers) or is it just as aggressive as it is with my GTX Titan? I only have a Quadro 4000 (kinda old by comparison to either Titan or W7000) but up to par with a 7900 marketing wise.
  
• 4930K vs Xeon vs 965. The 4930K will be the faster of the 3 in single threaded. Yes, kind of a lot faster than the 965 as it has both higher clocks and a vastly improved architecture (the leap from Nehalem to Sandybridge was quite big, and Ivy Bridge improves over that). The Xeon has the same arhiteture as the 4930K, but runs slower for general computing, modeling, most of the PP tasks other than certain filters etc. The Xeon will probably be the fastest only while rendering, and other purely heavy-threaded task.