matthewspencer Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 Hi all, please forgive my lack of specifics in this post. I know vaguely what kind of components I'm looking for, but I don't know how to determine which components are the best bang for my buck, and I know literally nothing about compatibility between various parts. Also don't know the first thing about power supplies or cooling parts. If someone could push me in some tangible direction, I would appreciate it. I do product design work (Solidworks, Rhino, C4D) and rendering (Maxwell, others). Desired components: Ample CPU power, mainly for Maxwell (2x 6-core?) Robust enough GPU for smooth viewport navigation, specifically for wild C4D scenes. Gaming not relevant. Probably a 100 - 250gb SSD Decent sized storage HDD Enough RAM for complicated IGES surface processing or polygon reduction. Pref 16gb+ Not trying to make someone else do my dirty work. Just don't feel qualified to go randomly shopping for components based on internet reviews without personal insight. Keeping under $2k would be superb. Feel free to harass me if this is not possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zanderadrian Posted October 5, 2012 Share Posted October 5, 2012 (edited) $2k is a fair amount for what you would like to get. You can read a few posts written a while back to get a feel what suits your needs the best and other (already expressed) opinions. I would suggest getting the following: CPU: i7 3930k - hexa core cpu with hyper threading meaning you will have 12 cores (most powerful cpu worth the buck, except the 3960x scoring almost double the price and very little more in performance) Motherboard: Asus P9X79 or a Gigabyte GA-X79-UD5. I personally went with asus sabertooth x79 because of a good offer on ebay GPU: well...we dive into the rabbit hole again...i went with the gtx 580 3gb because of the adobe support...otherwise a gtx680 4gb. There is plenty of room for debate here...i advise reading other posts for a clearer view. RAM: 16 gigs would be a good starting point and is usually enough but I think you can go form the start with 32gb. I chose the Kingston hyperx t1 because it was the best value to price ratio. Storage: Samsung 830 256 Gb for OS and software and a 1 TB Western Digital for data. Power supply: Corsair AX850 gold series should suffice (I do not know how power hungry the GTX680 is but with a GTX580 you still have about 150w headspace) Dimitris Tolios can sure bring his input on this one (and anything else ) because he owns the card. Cooling: Corsair hydro h100. Pre built, maintenance free water cooling sistem or a Noctua NH-DH14 air cooler. I choose the watercooling (a quarter more expensive) as a personal preference. Benchmarks temperatures are very close. I just don't like the beefy heatsink hanging form the motherboard. Case: personal preference but i would advise getting a full tower for better airflow and room. This configuration will hit the $2k limit and offers top rendering power for a single machine. Hope it helps. Edited October 7, 2012 by zanderadrian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zanderadrian Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 ...forgot to mention that of you choose to go with the aircooling solution you will have to get low profile ram memory because the one I suggested will have clearance issues due to their high heatsinks. any 1600Mhz cl9 ram form the "big" companies will do just fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthewspencer Posted October 8, 2012 Author Share Posted October 8, 2012 Zander, thanks so much for your response; those concrete suggestions were exactly what I was looking for. One question: is there any danger is downgrading the water cooler to the H80 instead of the H100? Could I go even lower? Is there some rule of thumb when determining how much cooling is "enough cooling?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zanderadrian Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 The difference between the h80 and h100 is that with the h80 you have half the radiator size. If you do not plan on overclocking it will do just fine, is a little bit cheaper and quieter. If you get a full tower case that can fit the h100, you do no worry about noise and you have a few extra bucks go with the big one in case one day you will overclock. If you want to go even lower ( on the price ) get the noctua aircooling. It compares with the h100 in terms of temperature results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zanderadrian Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 ...just remember that if you choose the i7 3930k you choose one of the most powerful cpu's out there and it needs proper cooling. It would not suggest going lower than the h80 or a big aircooling solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthewspencer Posted October 8, 2012 Author Share Posted October 8, 2012 (edited) Oddly enough, a very similar workstation came up for sale on my local Craigslist. I think I might snag it. I can sell the components that I'm not interested and upgrade as necessary. newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/sys/3323847929.html Edited October 8, 2012 by matthewspencer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zanderadrian Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 looks good...you can sell the extra motherboard, screen and the ssd, get the 256gb ssd and i think you might be ready to go. The graphics card and ram memory should suffice but and if you feel like upgrading you will have the money. Considering it is a used machine ask a little bit about warranties and papers...who knows when they might come in handy. otherwise...best of luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dimitris Tolios Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 nVidia gaming cards have little to offer for OpenGL viewports and GPU accelerated renderers. I would go with an AMD Radeon card if you don't want to spend the money for a decent Quadro card, and even then probably a V5900 Firepro will be the best bang for the money. I do have the 670 SC 4GB, and I am not "impressed" with viewport perfromance. Doesn't have much against a Quadro 4000 I use @ work, and a V5900 is not that more expensive than the top-end gaming cards while beating the Q 4000 in some areas. Surely the 670 does the trick and rocks as far as my home VRay RT tests went. Overclocked does play close or above (stock) GTX 580 levels, while still maintaining amazing performance difference. An overclocked/overvolted 580 draws nearly 2x the power...and you get a 1GB adv. that I never got to use yet...the placebo did not wear out yet tho, I am happy. 3930K + H80 will work great, at least for stock speeds and/or mild overclocks. Closed loops eliminate the Ram Heatsink (HS) height compatibility issues too - tho there are lots of excellent Ram kits with low profile HS or no HS at all. SSD wise, I would go for either of a 256 version of Samsung 830 / Plextor M5 Pro / OCZ Vertex 4. Currently I have a Crucial m4 256 that I've seen selling for $160 regularly - amazing value in comparison, tho slower. Samsung 830 and Vertex 4 are in the $190-200 (this is US market, I know it is different in EU for some of the readers out there). Plextor M5 should be the most expensive as it is the newest, and also the fastest drive to date, plus it is not that of a popular brand nowadays - at least not in the US. Amazon.co.uk has them like 10-15 pounds apart. For Data storage I got myself a Caviar Black 2TB, driven mostly by the 5y warranty and the "ok" price in comparison to slightly slower drives with 2y warranty. Almost all 2TB 7200rpm drives are "up there" in performance = i.e. pretty solid as far as current HDD technology goes. For a workstation with more critical data in it, I would go for a 2x1GB or 2x2GB Caviar Greens for Raid 0. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthewspencer Posted October 9, 2012 Author Share Posted October 9, 2012 Hi Dimitris, I wondered when you would chime in I've seen you suggest the GTX 670 before. What makes you feel different about my case? Keep in mind I do not use GPU renderers. Also thanks for the HDD recommendations. It looks I will almost certainly be getting the workstation from that link I posted. Probably going to yank one HDD and the SSD, toss in a new SSD, and call it a day. I will be very surprised if the GTX can't handle my projects. If I work on a totally unwieldy project, I also have a Quadro 6k at work, we'll call that the "nuclear option" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dimitris Tolios Posted October 9, 2012 Share Posted October 9, 2012 (edited) I've seen you suggest the GTX 670 before. What makes you feel different about my case? Keep in mind I do not use GPU renderers. The 670 and the rest GTXs are cookie-cutter suggestion for 3DS + Nitrous / D3D that favors them, plus GPU accelerated renderers that are usually picky with AMD drivers and/or CUDA exclusive. The 670 is fast, relatively cool and the 4GB version does cater for those deep into complex models that use GPU renders for production etc, so for the price is a solid value. The programs you use are using OpenGL viewports. That favors the latest AMD Radeon cards as the last 3-4 gens of GTXs lag behind the respective gen Radeons when it comes to OpenGL - and OpenCL, when it works...at least viewport performance is consistent. I believe a both 78xx / 79xx (depending on the money you want to invest) will match or surpass the best GTXs have to offer today. Now if you get the used system that comes with a 670, I would not suggest going through the hassle to resell/replace it ofc. I will do fine for the most part. Edited October 9, 2012 by dtolios Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthewspencer Posted October 9, 2012 Author Share Posted October 9, 2012 Great, thanks to you both. Radeon down the road if I run into problems. Adieu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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