New Workstation options

[JamesL]

Hi all,

 

I'm costing up my new workstation and its come down to two options as follows:-

 

Option A (Standard CPU, 16GB RAM) - £1098

 

Case

COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE

 

Processor (CPU)

AMD PHENOM II X6 1090T (3.20GHz/9MB CACHE/AM3/) - BLACK EDITION

 

Motherboard

ASUS® M4N98TD EVO: DDR3, 2-Way SLI, SATA 3.0GB/s

 

Memory (RAM)

16GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (4 X 4GB)

 

Graphics Card

2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX460 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11

 

Memory - 1st Hard Disk

640GB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD6400AARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE

 

2nd Hard Disk

1.5TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD15EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE

 

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive

24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

 

Memory Card Reader

INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT

 

Power Supply & Case Cooling

600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£59)

 

Processor Cooling

STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER

 

 

Option B (OC'd CPU, 8GB RAM - but faster speed RAM) - £1001

 

Case

COOLERMASTER ELITE 310 BLUE CASE

 

Overclocked CPU

OVERCLOCKED AMD PHENOM II X6 1090T (3.20GHz @ MAX 3.80GHz)

 

OC Settings

AI OVERCLOCK TUNER: MANUAL

CPU RATIO: 19.0

AMD TURBO CORE/HT LINK: DISABLED

CPU BUS FREQ: 200

PCIE FREQ: 100

DRAM FREQ: 1333

CPU VOLTAGE: 1.4000

COOL N QUIET: DISABLED

C1E SUPPORT: DISABLED

 

Motherboard

ASUS® M4N98TD EVO: DDR3, 2-Way SLI, SATA 3.0GB/s

 

Memory (RAM)

8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (4 x 2GB KIT)

 

Graphics Card

2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX460 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11

 

Memory - 1st Hard Disk

640GB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD6400AARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE

 

2nd Hard Disk

1.5TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD15EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE

 

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive

24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

 

Memory Card Reader

INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT

 

Power Supply & Case Cooling

600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£59)

 

Processor Cooling

TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)

 

Thermal Paste

STANDARD OVERCLOCK THERMAL PASTE

 

 

If anyone can help me pick which one to go with it'd be much appreciated - dont know whether more RAM or OC'd CPU is the better way to go!

 

These costs are based on http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk

 

Thanks in advance!

[luckyluc]

Hello James,

 

Seems like a nice machine, maybe the Gpahics Card is overkill, unless you use the card to render.

I would never overclock a processor of my working machine, seems not to stable, if you let it rdner all night.

I would go for more Ram if you intend to render big scenes with lots of trees, it makes a big difference if you can use a lot of Ram.

 

also maybe check in tests wich hadrdrive is faster at the moment. That would't make much difference for the pice. but influence renderspeed.

 

 

Good luck

[AJLynn]

Really, the OC vs. more RAM thing is up to you. If it's a vendor OC'ing it for you (which would seem to imply the OC is covered under warranty) I'd probably go with that. I think the video card choice is fine, it's not like that's an expensive choice, but as Luc said my concern would be the hard drives. I don't like Caviar Green drives as primary drives because they're slow (but I do like them as secondary drives because they use less power and should last longer on average than faster drives). They don't do much or anything for render speed but speed of loading anything is affected.

[JamesL]

Hmm yeah good point re: OC'ing and stability, hadnt really considered that - as you say, it would be a nightmare for an important render to crash.

 

I'm heading down the route of Option A (more RAM, not OC'd) - someone has suggested that I opt for a GTX 465 rather than a 460 as it has more CUDA cores for rendering (although it has only 1GB of memory), is this a good suggestion or would I be better sticking with the 2GB GTX 460?

 

Also, regarding hard drives - I realise that the 'best' option would be to go for an SSD drive as primary but I think I would rather keep costs down and go for a SATA (plus have added storage space for the money) - what would you recommend in place of the Caviar Green? I could get a 640GB Caviar Black for £11 more.

Edited November 17, 2010 by JamesL

[abacus06]

The GTX460 with 2GB of memory is a better option over the GTX465 with 1GB of memory. GPU's will only render scenes that will fit onto their memory, hence you can render a scene twice the size with the 460. 1GB bottlenock is hardly sufficient. The performance difference between the 2 cards is minimal anyways.....

 

If you are using the GPU to render, I would recommend atleast 2 - 2GB GTX460's to make it worth your while.

[AJLynn]

Well, CUDA rendering is only relevant if you actually use CUDA rendering software. And the 465 is not more powerful than the 460 in most situations, it just uses more power, so as a general statement I don't think there's any good reason to buy a 465.

[JamesL]

Good answer on the GPU, i will eventually upgrade to 2 x 460's...

 

Any thoughts on the Hard Drive?

[AJLynn]

Don't bother with 2 video cards unless you do start using an actual GPU renderer - otherwise it's not worthwhile.

 

Hard drives - a good 7200 RPM model for primary, or SSD if the budget allows. For SSD, the Intel M series is good, and for regular hard drives, WD Caviar Blue or Caviar Black (the Black should only be used in cases with good air flow because they heat up), Hitachi 7K series, the Seagate "hybrid" type...

[JamesL]

I'm edging away from SSD, on a budget vs storage issue - I can probably stretch for the Intel 80GB SSD drive, but I dont think thats realistically enough space to hold Windows 7, 3DS Max, Vray, Adobe Suite etc...

 

Windows 7 - 16GB

Adobe Suite - 16.3GB

Adobe Lightroom - 1GB

3DS Max 2011 - 3GB (at least)

MS Office - 3GB

Vray - 350MB (minimum)

 

So that takes me to about 40GB already - I'm sure there will be plenty more to add on top of that...

 

Do you know if there is a notice-able speed difference running Windows and software from an SSD drive? For much less money I can get a 500GB 7,200 RPM drive (either an unbranded one or a Western Digital Caviar Black)...and if I do go for a regular HDD, what difference does Cache make (8MB, 16MB, 32MB...)?

 

On another forum they suggested that the speed difference of getting an SSD drive would even be worth getting a cheaper processor for - that sounds like an exaggeration to me...any thoughts?

Edited November 19, 2010 by JamesL

[luckyluc]

hi James,

 

I stood for the same choice a year ago and choose for the little SSD.

If you earn you money with 3D, I would put max and windows on the SSD. It starts up very nice.

 

Then use the wd caviar black as secondary drive, and put al you other software on that one.

The adobe suite does't have to be on the primary disk.

 

I also put my outlook-folders etc on my second drive.

 

Hope this helps you.

 

Kin Regards,

Luc

[F J]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_Jz7IMwBt4

[AJLynn]

I wouldn't get a slower CPU to afford an SSD. Opening programs fast is great but an SSD only helps your render speed if you overrun your RAM and go to virtual memory.

[JamesL]

Agreed - I thought that was a bit of a stretch. This is the only decision I have left before ordering my workstation...so the options are:-

 

- 1TB unbranded HDD, 7200RPM, 3-Gb/s with 16MB Cache

- 640GB WD Caviar Black HDD, 7200RPM, 6-Gb/s with 64MB Cache (+£8)

- 80GB Intel X25-M SSD (+£100)

 

But I'm still unsure if 80GB is enough space!

 

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Edited November 19, 2010 by JamesL

[JamesL]

Just saw Luc's reply earlier, not sure how i missed it!

 

Not a bad idea going for the SSD for Windows & Max...I'm still torn as I was hoping to have two disks, where the first is OS and software - the second split between projects & assets...mixing in software adds another layer of confusion!

[Brodie Geers]

Related question AJ. I got a new work computer lately and tried to have them put in a SSD. Besides going through their litany of anecdotal horror stories, they said that it wouldn't really speed up the opening of programs - that RAM does that. Any truth to that?

 

-Brodie

[AJLynn]

No truth in that. Your IT guys either:

A. Are idiots.

B. Are giving you a run-around.

 

Putting Windows and your software on an SSD absolutely does speed up opening programs and loading files, which is why they needed a new version of SATA with double the throughput to fully utilize them, but does not speed up CPU-intensive tasks like rendering.

[Brodie Geers]

Good to know. They did set me up with 2 HD's in Raid 0. How much does that help in opening programs?

 

Have you been hearing any negatives lately with SSD's in use? The latest horror story was about one of the IT guy's friends who one day just couldn't access the hard drive at all, as if it wasn't there with no way to even try to fix it.

 

-Brodie

[AJLynn]

The failures are usually of the controller onboard the drive, not the flash itself. Controllers have improved a lot over the last couple of generations, so get a new model disk and you're looking at a 7-10 year average life expectancy assuming normal use.The thing is, this is an average. It's probably close to a normal distribution and I don't know what the standard deviation is but it's always the case that given a large supply of some type of part a majority will last reasonably close to the average time, a minority will last a substantial amount more or less and a very small number will either die almost immediately (because of manufacturing defect) or last forever (because of miracle).

 

Now, take any given techie, and he's knows so many techies that somebody he knows got one that failed very quickly. That guy (it's always a guy) is the person he knows with by far the strongest and most-often-voiced opinion on SSDs, because it's always like that with bad experiences. (I knew one idiot back in Pittsburgh who insisted all Fords were crap because one time he tried to tow two school buses with a Ranger and broke some major part; punch line: "And that's why they call it a "light" truck!") So every techie knows somebody who will denounce SSDs as unreliable at every opportunity.

 

Now a RAID 0 is fast - in theory it could be twice as fast at sequential read/write as a single hard drive, but the controllers are never 100% efficient. BUT, its failure rate is HIGHER than for a single drive, because if either drive fails all the data is lost. So for a 2-disk array, the probability of failure on any given day is doubled. I once asked a mathematician friend to figure out the average lifespan of an n-disk RAID 0 in terms of the average life span of the member disks, but instead he tried to teach me some hideously complicated formulation that I'm sure was the hardest way to get the answer, so I gave up. (I'm sure that when I was in high school and taking probability I could have figured it out in my head, so if any of the readers happen to be in high school and taking probability, please tell me the answer.)

 

If the disks are in RAID 1, you lose half the capacity and there is no speed gain, but the probability of failure is very close to 0.

[JamesL]

Right, I've narrowed it down to two options - both have their pros and cons, be good to get anyones feedback to inform my final decision! They are from two different suppliers:-

 

They both have the AMD 1090T processor, 16GB RAM, SLi compatible motherboards, 1.5TB secondary drives and Windows 7 Professional.

 

Option A

- Better motherboard (Asus Crosshair IV)

- Bigger SSD drive (Corsair 120GB Force)

- Budget graphics card (as they dont stock the GTX 460 2GB, so I'll get a cheap card e.g. GTX 250 to start and then look at an upgrade in the future)

- Xigmatek Asgard case

 

Option B

- Smaller SSD (Intel X-25 M 80GB)

- Choice GPU (GTX 460 2GB)

- Coolermaster Sileo 500 Case

 

 

Option A is marginly cheaper, but obviously will cost me in the long run as I may want to upgrade the GPU.

[AJLynn]

Hmmm... well... what MB do you get with option 2? Just eyeballing the two cases, the Xigmatech looks better ventilated (after installing one of more of the optional fans - something like this should have minimal impact on noise and power, and since the option A motherboard is very good and I don't know what the B MB is I'd lean toward A. My only concern would be the Geforce 450 - it's a bit pathetic. Do they have a 768MB version of the 460? If this correlates at all to US market prices it's maybe a $30 difference but it's a good bit more powerful, and the extra memory on the 2GB version doesn't do very much for you anyway unless you use CUDA.

[JamesL]

Hmm...excellent feedback! For reference, the motherboard in option B is an Asus M4N98TD EVO.

 

While the ventilation in the Xigmatech is better, its likely to be noisier - which could be important if using it at home?

 

I could get Option A with the GTX 460 1GB for £55 more - but I'd be slightly more hesitant to upgrade any time soon from that (but would I need to?!)

[AJLynn]

Okay, that Asus MB is also pretty good, the only thing you may want that it doesn't do is the 6GB/s version of SATA, which the Crosshair IV line has, but really you could do either and not notice any difference. The Crosshair is best used for multiple video cards - it's designed for gaming.

 

Anyway, so with the video cards - I see no reason to need a 2GB 460 over a 1GB unless using a CUDA renderer. Cases - the Coolermaster would be quieter. Bottom line, the differences in the systems are very small, it's not going to make much or any difference which you choose.

[JamesL]

Looks like its decided then, I'll go with Option A with a 1GB GTX 460 GPU...I can always double it up in SLi if needed for GPU rendering.

 

Thanks Andrew.

[AJLynn]

Be aware that SLI does not let you combine the RAM of two cards for GPU rendering. You end up with two cards working in parallel, each needing to load all the data independently of the other. Also, as it's working now, the limiting factor is the RAM of the card that has the least RAM (the weak link).

[JamesL]

Point taken - but it still would be beneficial to render on two GTX 460's rather than just one?