Hackintosh/W7 CAD/CG Workstation

[Olliie]

Hello!

 

As my first tread here I'm looking for some advise on my workstation build.

 

It's mainly going to be used with CAD-softwares like ArchiCAD, Rhino, Revit and SolidWorks. Usually this work also involves rendering with V-Ray for Rhino, 3Ds Max and hopefully Octane which I haven't used yet (any suggestions on good GPU-renders are welcome!).

 

Budget tops at about 3800USD

 

Here is the list at Amazon http://amzn.com/w/14JIXAPLSV0EF

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K

- As I'm in no need for ECC and more than 4 cores this is a obvious choice.

 

MB: Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3

- Gigabyte make good MBs and it's quite priceworthy

 

RAM: 4 x Kingston Technology HyperX 1600 MHz 4GB

- Should be the best and most reliable according to my sources.

 

GPU1: PNY Quadra FX 1800

- Got a great price on this one; 1400SEK (about 210USD)

GPU2: PNY XLR8 Liquid Cooled GeForce GTX 580 1536MB

- Why the overpriced one? It comes with a liquid cooler for both the GPU and CPU which is great as I'm trying to build the workstation as quiet as possible.

 

SSD-HDD: Corsair Force Series GT 120 GB

- Has gotten the best reviews

HDD: 2x Western Digital Caviar Black 2 TB SATA III

 

PSU: Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold (SPG) 800 Watts

- Might have to go up to the 1000W IF I'm going to used 2 cards.

 

Display:2x Dell UltraSharp U2412M

- Has gotten fantastic reviews and is almost the best you can find after calibrating it. Display Port, S-IPS and LED plus 16:10 ratio!

 

--- Less relevant section ----

Case: Fractal Design Define R3 USB 3.0

Fancy mouse: 3Dconnexion SpacePilot PRO

CD/DVD: Cheapest one...

 

One of my main questions. Will I be able to use both cards at the same time (Quadra for OpenGL and GTX for CUDA) and would it be the optimal solution at the price of about 800USD?

 

Have in mind that part should be able to ship to Sweden or at least via a US-forwarding service (that does not mind sending as gift :-), suggestions anyone? )

 

Analyze and criticize, pleaze!

 

//Olliie

[AJLynn]

Oliver, I have some suggestions but not enough time to look a couple things up and respond right now. I'll write something later. Meanwhile look at the CUDA workstations in the link in my signature for ideas - particularly the motherboard.

[Olliie]

...

Meanwhile look at the CUDA workstations in the link in my signature for ideas - particularly the motherboard.

 

I've already looked in to some of your suggestions which gave me some thoughts about changing the motherboard to a board with true dual pci-e 16x. I'd prefer Gigabyte as manufacturer but it's nothing definitive.

 

At this point the 1155 is quite much bang for the buck but at the same time I'm still considering waiting with the buy until Intel releases the 2011 socket. As the 1155 is not so PCI-E friendly I hope the 2011 would be better!

 

//Oliver

[AJLynn]

The new socket should be out soon - Intel was talking about November 2011, though I haven't read anything very recent. IIRC it will launch with 4- and 6-core CPUs, and the new chipset will support 40 PCIE lanes. (The most an 1155 board will have natively is 20, IIRC, and the 16x in PCIE 16x means it wants 16 lanes to run at full speed so that's where the limitation comes from, and why the gamer boards for multi-GPU have nVidia addon chips that provide more lanes.)

[Olliie]

The new socket should be out soon - Intel was talking about November 2011, though I haven't read anything very recent. IIRC it will launch with 4- and 6-core CPUs, and the new chipset will support 40 PCIE lanes. (The most an 1155 board will have natively is 20, IIRC, and the 16x in PCIE 16x means it wants 16 lanes to run at full speed so that's where the limitation comes from, and why the gamer boards for multi-GPU have nVidia addon chips that provide more lanes.)

 

So what do you think about taking a step back and maybe go for the 1366 socket and a i7-980? 2 more cores and more PCIE lanes. For what I've read about the new 2011 it isn't that interesting, especially without PCIE 3 and the reduced amount of sata3 ports. The only positive side is the hexacore but its available to the 1366 aswell and maybe the 40 pcie lanes...

[AJLynn]

As to the rest of it. I don't think I'd pay that for a Quadro FX 1800. That's old tech - unless you require "certified" hardware a midrange current consumer card is going to outperform it. And the Geforce - I'm not sure about the water cooling system you get with this one, but if you want to use a CUDA or OpenCL renderer I'd go with the 3GB version. 1.5GB can get used up quick if you load a complex scene.

 

The case - the price of 999 is in SEK and not USD, right? The RAM - at $90 for 16GB from a good brand, can't go wrong there. Hard drives - 4GB? Is that a RAID? Striped or mirrored? I don't think I'd want a striped array of Caviar Black drives without a really good backup system, because those drives run hotter than most and heat kills drives. I'd go with the RE4 drives instead.

[Olliie]

As to the rest of it. I don't think I'd pay that for a Quadro FX 1800. That's old tech - unless you require "certified" hardware a midrange current consumer card is going to outperform it...

 

My main idea was to use it for viewport rendering because the Quadra drivers seems to handle complex CAD assemblies more well than the gaming cards. I know it's old tech but I don't know how it will perform compared to a GTX580 in viewport performace. Still very unsecure in this choice. Would love to have the money for both a QD 4000 and a GTX but that is money my newly started company does not have.

 

And the Geforce - I'm not sure about the water cooling system you get with this one, but if you want to use a CUDA or OpenCL renderer I'd go with the 3GB version. 1.5GB can get used up quick if you load a complex scene...

 

Such a pity that it only ships with 1,5GB because the watercooling system is performing amazingly good. A review I read tested both the GPU and CPU at max OC (both burning!) and it still outperformed the best CPU aircoolers by large. Have in mind that the system is closed with a small radiator for both the cpu and gpu. Crazy IMO! Therefore I'd love to have that system in the setup so I'd have a nice quiet workstation. Right now I can't see myself filling 1,5GB but I'd hate to figure that out after the buy...

 

The case - the price of 999 is in SEK and not USD, right? The RAM - at $90 for 16GB from a good brand, can't go wrong there.

 

999SEK it is!

 

Hard drives - 4GB? Is that a RAID? Striped or mirrored? I don't think I'd want a striped array of Caviar Black drives without a really good backup system, because those drives run hotter than most and heat kills drives. I'd go with the RE4 drives instead.

 

Wasen't planing on doing a RAID, just choose the most price worthy setup I guess. Either way I'd be mirroring the drives to two 2TB WD external cabinets at least. Can't afford loosing clients work so!

[Slinger]

Oliver we use Quadro fx1800 on our machines at the office and they viewport lag big time when using Revit2011. Just an FYI. I would go for a Quadro 4000 if you really need a Quadro part but tehn again I would probably turn to an AMD FirePro card...honestly, I am so over the Quadro line and its overpriced, or gpu cores(even the newest Quadro4000,5000,6000 use first gen fermi cores).

As for the HDDs as well, I honestly would never go over a 1TB size. Imagine if you had a 2-3TB drive full of data and it corrupted. Say bye bye. At least you are losing your chance of data loss with multiple smaller drives, unless you really need 4TB of storage.

As for stepping back to X58 chipset, I would not. If you need a solution now, go 1155 with i7-2600k9or the new released 2700k). The reason for this is that if you want to upgrade to the newest platform coming out, you will have a better chance of selling off the i7-2600k and mobo vs older X58.

Edited October 26, 2011 by Slinger

[AJLynn]

I think the Socket 2011 stuff will look pretty compelling. Okay, I looked it up and they're saying mid-November, and there will be a 3.2GHz 6-core at under $600. SATA ports - it looks like you get 10, with 6 being SATA3, and your config will need 4 and benefit from 3 being SATA3 (DVD drives don't need it).

 

GPUs: I think the benefits from 3GB on the card, if you use a CUDA or OpenCL renderer, will be greater than the benefits of having a water cooler come as a package with a GPU.

 

Also, what Chris said. Though if you had to pull the trigger right now - unless you have good reason, like you're an overclocking enthusiast and you want the 2600K or 2700k (available since 2 days ago, I see) I'd still go to the 6-core on the 1366 board. You get 40 PCIE lanes natively and the 6-core CPU will render faster, though if you factor in overclocking - well, that's not my area.