US $2k 3ds max workstation - critiques please

[jackbird]

499.99 intel 3930K

209.99 ASRock X79 (mATX)

69.99 Antec Kuhler 620

 

369.99 EVGA nVidia GTX 670 (2 GB)

89.99 OCZ 700 W PSU

 

72.99 Crucial DDR3 – 1600 (2 x 8 GB)

72.99 Crucial DDR3 – 1600 (2 x 8 GB)

 

189.99 Samsung 840 250GB SSD

149.99 Seagate Barracuda EP 3 TB HDD

 

69.99 Lite-ON Blu Ray burner

 

94.99 ATX mid tower case

 

139.99 Win 7 Pro x64

------------

2030.88

 

Questions:

-Is the 3930K worth the price premium over a 3770K/much cheaper 1155 motherboard combo?

-Is the PSU under/overpowered?

-If you were going to add $500 to the budget, what would you add? (Other than a current-model Wacom tablet)

[Dimitris Tolios]

- 3930K worths the price difference only if you are rendering a lot. Generally it is not any faster than a quad core as most apps are not heavily threaded.

- 700W are more than enough. You will be pulling some juice out of that with this rig, so make sure you get a quality unit. A 80+ Gold will pay the price difference from a lower quality unit within a few years - less important with US utility prices, nontheless it is better for both your pocket and ease of mind to get a quality, efficient PSU (without getting on the green-wagon, as this kinds of rigs are energy hogs one way or another).

- The Samsung 840 SSDs are TLC, while the 830 and 840 Pro are MLC. In a nutshell more and higher electric pulses are needed with TLC vs. MLC NAND chips, and that wears them faster. The price difference is not great enough for the consumer to pick the TLC unit imho.

 

 

Comments - If money was really tight?

* I would opt for a cheaper case that still fits my rig (there are great $50-60 cases from NZXT, Corsair and Coolermaster). That would make some room for a slightly better mobo with 8x dimm slots - in case I would want 64GB in the future? Rarely required but why gimp myself?

* I would seriously evaluate the need for BR-R drive

* I would check on the 3TB Drive - maybe saving some money with a 2TB?

* The 670 won't work wonders as far as viewport performance goes. Unless you really want to play with GPU accelerated renderings, a 660ti 2GB can do virtually the same job, and can be found below $300 (esp. after rebates). 2-2.5GB versions of older GTX models like the 560Ti or the 570 might also work just as well, with the only penalty that will run a bit hotter under full load - something you will never come even close to in anything other than games or GPU renderings. Due to driver limitations, gaming cards do not see more than 30-40% utilization in usual 3DS max/maya etc applications. The larger VRam buffers are not required, but handy if you are planning on big models and/or still want to mess with moderately complicated GPU accelerated stuff here and then that 1GB might not allow (but generally works just fine).

 

EDIT: nVidia announced today GTX 680 price-cuts, with the 2GB version dropping to $399, some $30 lower than the holiday season average. I would expect similar reductions across the GTX 6xx line.

Edited January 16, 2013 by dtolios

[jackbird]

Thanks for your thorough and insightful comments as always.

 

Very curious - why would a BR-R drive be something to drop? Are they not actually good for making backups? I'd be thrilled to get a whole project onto a single disc.

[jackbird]

229.99 intel 3770K

94.99 ASRock Z77 Pro3

72.99 Crucial DDR3 – 1600 (2 x 8 GB)

72.99 Crucial DDR3 – 1600 (2 x 8 GB)

249.99 Samsung 840 Pro 250GB SSD

149.99 Seagate Barracuda EP 3 TB HDD

69.99 Lite-ON Blu Ray burner

309.99 EVGA nVidia GTX 660 Ti (2 GB)

129.99 Corsair 650 W PSU (80+ Gold)

39.99 DiabloTec EVO case

69.99 Antec Kuhler 620

139.99 Win 7 Pro x64

--------------

1630.88

 

I'm buying several bare-bones render nodes at the same time, so 4 vs. 6 cores probably isn't worth the premium.

 

I think you just saved me almost $400! Unless I can spend $400-$500 over this config for amazing max viewport performance...

 

Looks like that would mean a PNY Quadro 4000 with 2 GB, or a FirePro W600 or V7900...

Edited January 16, 2013 by jackbird

[Dimitris Tolios]

Well, in order not to be misunderstood, the 3930K (6Core/12Threads) IS considerably faster than the rest of the 4C/8T i7s when rendering. Almost 50% faster at comparable clocks, as someone could guess, which is a huge improvement - when it happens.

BUT, since most of the operations outside rendering / video editing (the actual transcoding process) / certain PS filters etc are not multi-threaded, those extra threads just idle or take care of minor tasks that barely push any but the core assigned with the main running application.

 

So, the smaller the % of the running time you actually use your computer for multi-threaded tasks (games don't count), the less important it is to have more cores, and since the 3770K is already the fastest CPU you can get for general lightly threaded computing, you will be fine either way.

 

If you are buying these configurations for render nodes, "you are doing it wrong"...this is fine for a mid-range manned workstation.

Rendering nodes featuring intel K CPUs have no need for dedicated GPUs (the integrated intel HD GPU is more than fine), and ofc no need for large HDDs and SSDs. You can assemble perfectly capable i7 nodes floating around the $500-550 range. I believe you get most of your prices from microcenter.

 

It is at this price point, where economy of scale kicks in easily the more nodes you plan on connecting, and you can get an extra 3770K node every X number of 3930K nodes etc.

 

Also keep in mind that the 3770K is usually available "boxed" with a factory cooler that works just fine. You don't need the closed loop WC, or any other 3rd party cooler, unless you plan on O/Cing the thing, where the factory one won't be enough. The s2011 CPUs don't come with a cooler, so purchasing one is mandatory.

 

BD-R/BR-R (never got it right): guess if you are working with video and you deliver BD disks, it is ok? Since large HDDs got more and more affordable (and I am going back to 500GB disks being large), I thought DVD-Rs got impractical. Too much hassle to burn and archive, too much hassle to retrieve, with the worse downside of the all: too often disks failed. No matter the price, no matter the use. I had disks fail after a few years of storage, having zero "running"/reading hours. From the burn process to the case. Add those that you would give out and not return, those you would lose yourself etc...

BD-R matured later, so I never got to own one. Maybe those are much more reliable? Surely have more expensive media - nothing like those CD-Rs we had in the 90s but still...expensive.

 

I believe in HDD archiving myself. Either a couple of separate USB 3.0 drives (more than double the real speed of USB 2.0 = aka at last) or eSATA before where you double-backup your stuff, or a single RAID 1 (or 5 if you don't mind the investment) and you have a much much more flexible solution. If it is network attached will help a lot in case you have rendering nodes that need to share assets.

 

I treat my HDDs as "consumables" - warranties mean nothing if you lose critical data.

I have all my non-disposable data in at least 2x drives at any given time, and I do use SugarSync/Dropbox for smaller stuff - esp. back in my Grad school days when I was working on my laptops (and yes, I had an HDD fail out of the blue in one of them - did not lose work, but I did lose around 2 months work of photos and site visits, among them private case study houses, dramatic HDR from Salk institute and other. Had some of them given to the owners and the professors in DVD-Rs - guess what? They all lost them - true story).

Edited January 16, 2013 by dtolios

[jackbird]

Yes, the above config is for a workstation; I was saying that I'll have a fair # of render nodes, so since the price drop covers 2/3 of a 3770K node, why not have it on the WS, too.

 

I'm much more afraid of losing an HDD to age/mishap than a disc, so we'll have to agree to disagree there.

 

Any insight as to whether the $600-$700 workstation cards are worth it?

[Dimitris Tolios]

Yes, the above config is for a workstation; I was saying that I'll have a fair # of render nodes, so since the price drop covers 2/3 of a 3770K node, why not have it on the WS, too.

 

I'm much more afraid of losing an HDD to age/mishap than a disc, so we'll have to agree to disagree there.

 

Any insight as to whether the $600-$700 workstation cards are worth it?

 

HDD: copying between HDDs is in the ballpark 4-5x times faster than the peak of a 4x BD-R (HDD @ 60MB/sec), and a 2-3TB 3.5" HDD has less volume than a handful of boxed BD-Rs. It is much easier to index and search through. At any rate, both backup mediums require more than a single copy to be safe.

 

Quadro: yes and no...it all depends on the type of work you do. If it is simple residential interiors/exteriors the GTX will do fine. If you struggle with tenths of millions of polygons all the time, then probably a Quadro 4000 won't disappoint. Ofc that follows realistic expectations - I read above "amazing viewport performance"...well - you won't get that. Nothing is magic, and software/CPU limitations etc might start being the problem before the GPU does.

 

I thing the more disappointed buyers are those who get Quadro 5000 or 6000 class cards, expecting "to be amazed".

 

Just like with most products, after one point you pay 2-3x the price for single % improvements. The leap from a Quadro 2000 to a 4000 is far more impressive than that from a 4000 to a 5000, and the gains from a 6000 are so diminishing, you definitely won't be impressed - unless ofc the deal-breaker with anything less than the 6000 is the VRam, and you have to have 6GB. If that is the case, you know what you are going for.

[AlboRegency]

My work got a similar setup with nividia 660 Ti. I gotta say it's a bit disappointing. Viewport performance is still lacking and rendering is not too bad but when it comes to vegetation, it's pretty slow.

 

 

I plan to buy a pc soon. When is IVY-E cpu coming out? Would you recommend I get that or quad core haswell? DDR4 probably won't come out in time but that might not be a big deal for a workstation. I think I'll get a cheaper GPU and then upgrade to maxwell when it releases as it is supposed to be a big improvement. Overall, the hardware market for a workstation is very disappointing for performance/cost.

 

I guess it makes sense they don't provide efficient drivers because if they did, there would be no incentive to buy very expensive workstation hardware. Hopefully someone will hack/ create custom drivers one day to help us out.

[Dimitris Tolios]

Haswell is supposingly entering production anytime now, and will be available in laptops by Summer or a bit earlier.

Its performance gains are focused in lower power consumption and a much more powerful integrated GPU, with performance that is expected to be on-par with the current generation of FM2 APUs from AMD. That will be of great importance for portable devices without dedicated GPUs, but irrelevant for most desktop workstations - i.e. the Haswell will have nothing to offer vs. a dedicated card above the $75 point today.

 

CPU performance gains are not expected to be greater than 5-10% of the current generation of Ivy Bridge CPUs, which in the same fashion offered 5-10% performance gains over a similarly clocked SB CPU, but almost double the GPU performance.

 

Thus, IB-E that will be coming in theory around Q3 2013 (earliest 6-7 months from now that is), and assuming we will still be talking 6-core CPUs, will comfortably be 40-50% faster than a Quad Haswell in multi-threaded apps, and 10% or so slower in single thread. Exactly like SB-E i7 vs. IB i7 today.

 

The above numbers are pretty conservative, but with AMD having no new FX line really threatening their market share, I doubt that intel will "try harder". They are hitting hard only AMD's APUs that are low-mid end products.

[AlboRegency]

hmm what about AVX2 and TSX, etc. I heard these features may help with cad programs if developers utilize them. Haswell may have a lot of overclock potential as well. I guess I'll wait for both CPUs and compare benchmarks. If AMD was doing good, we might have gotten 8 core consumer class CPUs by now from intel.

[Dimitris Tolios]

hmm what about AVX2 and TSX, etc. I heard these features may help with cad programs if developers utilize them. Haswell may have a lot of overclock potential as well. I guess I'll wait for both CPUs and compare benchmarks. If AMD was doing good, we might have gotten 8 core consumer class CPUs by now from intel.

 

I would not mind them going all-out 256bit computing with AVX but...

I would say we are at least 2-3 years before newly introduced concepts get adopted widely.

 

By the time AVX2 is broadly available to consumers, and companies to see it economically viable to recompile their stuff for it, GPGPU computing and its naturally favored OpenCL should have penetrated the market more - logical with both AMD and Intel pushing the "APU" concept and all the main players in hardware and software being involved with OpenCL one way or another.

 

Supercomputers have already made the switch to GPU computing etc, I don't know if AVX2 will be able to provide the staggering performance advantage to make them reconsider those long-term investments.

 

Haswell has the pedigree to be a great product, but I doubt it will revolutionize 3D CAD software with its debut.

Edited January 24, 2013 by dtolios

[AlboRegency]

Thanks for the insight. We will have to make do with what we have then. Autodesk is supposedly more focused in making 3d max stable now rather then just add new features so maybe the program will become more efficient. Vray RT should be improving too. I think the future of rendering will be gpu focused. To me, Cpu rendering doesn't make sense anymore. The improvements are just too slow. Like you said, even super computers are now gpu based. I saw the video of tesla+ quaddro combo doing real time ray tracing with vray which was pretty amazing. If we can get at that point with architecture at an affordable price then we are golden. Next gen consoles will render photo realistic environments and assets in real time at 60 FPS, and yet we struggle with a single image using much more expensive hardware lol just doesn't make sense to me.

 

I'll probably get IB-E as it's more appropriate for work. Hopefully the iGPU is good enough until maxwell comes out.

[artmaknev]

Looks like a solid build for everyday max use, I would get 1 more HDD and create a RAID 1 mirroring, unless you are also buying NAS with the saved money.

[unrinoceronte]

Well, in order not to be misunderstood, the 3930K (6Core/12Threads) IS considerably faster than the rest of the 4C/8T i7s when rendering. Almost 50% faster at comparable clocks, as someone could guess, which is a huge improvement - when it happens.

BUT, since most of the operations outside rendering / video editing (the actual transcoding process) / certain PS filters etc are not multi-threaded, those extra threads just idle or take care of minor tasks that barely push any but the core assigned with the main running application.

 

So, the smaller the % of the running time you actually use your computer for multi-threaded tasks (games don't count), the less important it is to have more cores, and since the 3770K is already the fastest CPU you can get for general lightly threaded computing, you will be fine either way.

 

If you are buying these configurations for render nodes, "you are doing it wrong"...this is fine for a mid-range manned workstation.

Rendering nodes featuring intel K CPUs have no need for dedicated GPUs (the integrated intel HD GPU is more than fine), and ofc no need for large HDDs and SSDs. You can assemble perfectly capable i7 nodes floating around the $500-550 range. I believe you get most of your prices from microcenter.

 

It is at this price point, where economy of scale kicks in easily the more nodes you plan on connecting, and you can get an extra 3770K node every X number of 3930K nodes etc.

 

Also keep in mind that the 3770K is usually available "boxed" with a factory cooler that works just fine. You don't need the closed loop WC, or any other 3rd party cooler, unless you plan on O/Cing the thing, where the factory one won't be enough. The s2011 CPUs don't come with a cooler, so purchasing one is mandatory.........

 

Hello Dimitris, i am also planning on building my own machines in the next 2 monts, and this forum has great information. I just wanted to say that all your posts that i have been reading in the last 3 hours have been incredibly useful, i like that you are quite open to give detailed information and opinions, and certainly very knowableand informed ones.

 

I hope i can count with your help in the near future...

 

And to the Jon, did you ended up buying the system? If you did could you post your configuration, along with price, and how well is it perfomring?

 

Thanks a lot for the exchange of useful information.

[Dimitris Tolios]

You are welcome Javier.

Feel free to ask w/e you want, and there are multiple people willing to share their opinion on each subject.

 

You got it right, for me at least, the goal is for you to reach and educated decision. There is no magic solution for everything, nor any of us can know everything, nor be infallible.

 

After one point the market doesn't forgive mishaps, and despite the whining in forums and review sites, unless you completely low-ball your components, you will get a decent machine should you do some reading here and there.

 

After one point the completely dissatisfied users might be just unlucky with a product that slipped Quality Control, or just splitting hair cause their colleague brags about getting a tiny bit faster PC (which is easy the case every 6 months or so). The number one reason though for being dissatisfied, is having unreasonable expectations.

Edited April 9, 2013 by dtolios

[unrinoceronte]

Thanks again Dimitris.

 

English is not my native language, so just to so i understand well, is a Render node just like a normal PC, but without dedicated Video Card and unecesary drives? Meaning: CASE, MAIN BOARD, PROCESSOR, RAM, SMALL HARDDRIVE, ETHERNET CARD? Am i correct?

 

In a previous message you stated " You can assemble perfectly capable i7 nodes floating around the $500-550 range. I believe you get most of your prices from microcenter. " and i became very interested in getting myself a render node for that budget and with i7 processor. So i just started a new Thread in case you have time and care to comment. Your help will be much appreciated.

 

i7 Render Node New thread:

http://forums.cgarchitect.com/73301-recommendation-i7-render-node-configuration-500-600-budget.html#post374791

 

Thanks.

[yurisaniko]

I would get a pair of these and evga sr-2 moverboard:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PAIR-TWO-2-INTEL-XEON-6-CORE-X5679-3-2GHZ-12MB-CACHE-SLC2E-x5680-x5690-x5670-/111055207814?pt=CPUs&hash=item19db67fd86

[Dimitris Tolios]

I would get a pair of these and evga sr-2 moverboard:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PAIR-TWO-2-INTEL-XEON-6-CORE-X5679-3-2GHZ-12MB-CACHE-SLC2E-x5680-x5690-x5670-/111055207814?pt=CPUs&hash=item19db67fd86

 

Good luck getting a 2P system that can beat a 3930K for under (or close) to $2K.

Those two might beat it barely (like 10%) in multithreaded when the 3930K is @ stock speed but lack considerably in single threaded performance.

 

A 3930K can also be even mildly overclocked to smoke low end 2P Xeon systems in multi-threaded performance too.

 

Xeons that come close to the single threaded performance of a stock 3930K are above the $1400 range new, and you need 2P to say that you actually have a notably faster configuration.

Edited April 20, 2013 by dtolios

[yurisaniko]

Those two might beat it barely (like 10%) in multithreaded when the 3930K is @ stock speed but lack considerably in single threaded performance.

I'm running a pair of these at 4ghz and it gives me 80% faster render times then my 2nd box with 3930K @4.5ghz.

It was a bit below $2.5K for the entire system. Well worth it.