upgrade CPU,RAM,Mainboard,power + SSD for 3ds max & vray rendering

[wildeagle]

hi

i want to upgrade this pieces of system hardware:

CPU,RAM,Mainboard,power

 

my current hardwares:

 

CPU: Q6600

Mainboard: P5Q

RAM: 2*2 GIG corsair bus 800

VGA: 9500 GT 512

Power: 535W

HDD: WD 1TB Green *2 + 250 GB Seagate

Case: Cooler Master CM690

 

 

my new selection for upgrade:

 

CPU: Intel Core™ i7-3770K Ivy Bridge

RAM: Geil EVO Corsa 2400MHz 16GB 8GBx2

VGA: MSI GTX 550 Ti Cyclone II 1GB GDDR5

Power: 800W

Mainboard: ASUS P8Z77-V

SSD: CORSAIR FORCE 3 120 Gig

 

 

*in our work , i mean vray rendering ; RAM`s bus how is important?

because bus 2600 is double price bus 1600 !

have any benchmark about this subject?

 

*about VGA , my works is high poly ( multy milion poly) and i have critical problem about FPS ( frame per secend ) in max viewport. whats your point of view about nvidia VGA serie which have high performance in max? 4000 or 5000 or 6000?

 

my budget is depend on dollar value in my country which thats very unstable !

In any case, I want the same value as I bought pieces.

Please help me to get better purchasing.

thank you

[Jason Matthews]

These are the modifications I would make to your system:

1. Go with the DDR 1600 instead of the 2400 - Not worth the price

2. What is the max RAM your motherboard can take? How many slots? If it takes 32GB in 4 sticks then get 16GB in 2 sticks so you can upgrade later.

3. Reprice your system with those things in mind and then figure out how much money you want to spend on a graphics card. The 550is not very good. If you are worried about pure viewport performance then the Quadro cards or ATI fire cards are the way you want to go.

 

I have two machines with the i7-3770 and it kicks butt.

[wildeagle]

These are the modifications I would make to your system:

1. Go with the DDR 1600 instead of the 2400 - Not worth the price

2. What is the max RAM your motherboard can take? How many slots? If it takes 32GB in 4 sticks then get 16GB in 2 sticks so you can upgrade later.

3. Reprice your system with those things in mind and then figure out how much money you want to spend on a graphics card. The 550is not very good. If you are worried about pure viewport performance then the Quadro cards or ATI fire cards are the way you want to go.

 

I have two machines with the i7-3770 and it kicks butt.

 

thank you dear jason

good news to me about ram ^_^

i try to buy 32 gig RAM (the motherboard that i chosen support 32 GIG RAM ) if could not, buy 16 GIG and upgrade later...

 

Quadro VGA is very expensive here !

whats your suggestion about nvidia GTX series?

 

so you verify i7 3770 , right?

thank you jason \m/

[Jason Matthews]

Yes that MB takes 32GB max RAM, so your RAM selection will do just fine. Later on if you need to you can always add 2 more sticks of RAM.

 

The GTX card depends on how much you can spend. You can get a 3GB GTX 660TI for $325 or you can get a GTX Titan for $1000. Just tell us your price range.

 

The i7-3770 is a great processor. You may want to look into getting an aftermarket cpu cooler if you are running it all the time or looking to overclock.

[Superkames]

You can get an AMD FX 8350 for faster Vray rendering + cheaper price:

 

i7-3770k default: 12m08

i7-3770k @4.5ghz: 10m02

 

 

 

AMD FX 8350 default: 10m51s

 

AMD FX 8350 @4.5gh: 9m33s

[Jason Matthews]

Well, all the reviews I have seen target the i7 as a more powerful processor and more efficient. Here is a basic comparison between the two chips: http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-3770K-vs-AMD-FX-8350

[wildeagle]

and also:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/551?vs=697

 

3770k is awesome!

 

for VGA i can allocate ~300$ i think

whats your opinion about this VGA? : http://www.inno3d.com/product/ichillgtx660ti.html

which brand is good for 3D work?

[Dimitris Tolios]

Jason gave you good advice all around.

 

* I would stick with the 3770K if you can afford it along with a better GPU, but if you cannot, the 8350 is not a bad choice by any stretch, and if that change (along with the motherboard) can save you some money towards the GPU, then I would not hesitate.

 

* The P8Z77-V is a great mobo, but unless you plan on overclocking (and/or need the wifi module), downgrading to a VK or LE from the same family of boards is a great option that can also save you some money.

 

* Low end GTX nVidias are not that great for viewport performance. This is a known fact, especially true for really-low-end like the 550ti.

Don't get me wrong, for the price is a respectable card for gaming, and will do the casual 3D viewport just fine - even laptop GPUs do.

If you have some money to spent extra, even a low-end Quadro like the 600 or the K600 will be much much better for most viewports - including 3DS Max. If you also game or use CUDA/OpenCL accelerated apps you could look into a 2GB 560ti or a 650ti. The 2GB are important, if you really are into complex scenes, you will max out 1GB cards when displaying large textures.

 

* The 800W PSU is a huge waste of money. Depending on the GPU you are using, a quality 500W unit is more than enough for what you plan on getting. A 600-650W will leave you more than enough room to grow to a better GPU in the future (and maintain less than 60-70% peak load).

3770K CPU = 77W

Board, sound etc all included lets top it at 125W for all.

A 550ti / 560ti and the 650ti cards - all requiring a single 6pin connector (75W) + the slot power (75W), cannot possibly exceed 150W load.

SSDs and HDDs etc are joke.

That's less than 300W total, easily manageable with a 500W unit that has some 80+ certification.

 

Powerful GPUs are around 170-200W real load, with a 250W peak for monsters like the Titan. A 550-600W PSU can easily do those.

 

The real fun starts when overclocking: then a 3770K pushed above 4.5GHz and with some extra Vcore can add 100W or more easily ontop of the nominal TDP. A 8320/8350 can peak at more than 200W and hex-cores like the 3930K can be 250W or more - that's just the CPU.

GPUs can exceed 300W when pushed hard, but usually that is not possible without water cooling - cards crash before reaching that output.

 

Long story short, get a 550-600W PSU from a brand name: corsair, seasonic, cooler master, antec are all OK.

Much better case than a cheap 800W that might blow if it reaches more than 400W real load, and much cheaper than a "real" 800W unit.

 

* SSD: stay away from Corsair. Period.

Corsair and older OCZ etc units that are based on Sandforce controllers are unreliable. Warranties don't cover loss of data and time re-installing windows and apps, so its a waste. Just opt for a unit from Samsung, Crucial or Plextor. No need to spill more ink on this, just trust me.

 

* RAM: as you have been advised, RAM faster than 2133 is almost useless for anything but benching. In most intel systems, anything faster than 1866 won't give you any real life benefits. It is a waste of money.

AMD CPUs like fast RAM much more, and do become faster with 1866 or 2133 (over 1600) but the returns diminish past 2133, as dimms get too expensive. APUs that use system RAM really like speeds even above 2133, but getting a CPU with integrated graphics to save money, and then spent so much on RAM is counterintuitive. In the future when faster modules will be cheaper, might be a good choice, not today.

 

Get a couple of 8GB 1866 sticks if you want a little "oomph", but 1600 will do just fine if you go intel.

[Superkames]

You should look at the apps you or someone need, I7 3770K is more powerful in most single threaded apps, not all apps.

In this case, I would stick with Vray renderer, and if you want a review you can search about it if you dont impress with my results:

http://www.behardware.com/articles/880-7/amd-fx-8350-review-is-amd-back.html

 

Vray 2:

 

[Dimitris Tolios]

and also:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/551?vs=697

 

3770k is awesome!

 

for VGA i can allocate ~300$ i think

whats your opinion about this VGA? : http://www.inno3d.com/product/ichillgtx660ti.html

which brand is good for 3D work?

 

There is no "3d work recommended" gtx. Almost all of them are identical to the referenced design nvidia suggests.

 

Only the cooler changes, in most cases for the better.

 

The 660ti is faster than the 550ti, but all gtx cards drop rapidly with complex scenes. Outside vray rt, both should perform equally "ok" or be mediocre when things get hard.

[wildeagle]

Jason gave you good advice all around.

 

* I would stick with the 3770K if you can afford it along with a better GPU, but if you cannot, the 8350 is not a bad choice by any stretch, and if that change (along with the motherboard) can save you some money towards the GPU, then I would not hesitate.

 

* The P8Z77-V is a great mobo, but unless you plan on overclocking (and/or need the wifi module), downgrading to a VK or LE from the same family of boards is a great option that can also save you some money.

 

* Low end GTX nVidias are not that great for viewport performance. This is a known fact, especially true for really-low-end like the 550ti.

Don't get me wrong, for the price is a respectable card for gaming, and will do the casual 3D viewport just fine - even laptop GPUs do.

If you have some money to spent extra, even a low-end Quadro like the 600 or the K600 will be much much better for most viewports - including 3DS Max. If you also game or use CUDA/OpenCL accelerated apps you could look into a 2GB 560ti or a 650ti. The 2GB are important, if you really are into complex scenes, you will max out 1GB cards when displaying large textures.

 

* The 800W PSU is a huge waste of money. Depending on the GPU you are using, a quality 500W unit is more than enough for what you plan on getting. A 600-650W will leave you more than enough room to grow to a better GPU in the future (and maintain less than 60-70% peak load).

3770K CPU = 77W

Board, sound etc all included lets top it at 125W for all.

A 550ti / 560ti and the 650ti cards - all requiring a single 6pin connector (75W) + the slot power (75W), cannot possibly exceed 150W load.

SSDs and HDDs etc are joke.

That's less than 300W total, easily manageable with a 500W unit that has some 80+ certification.

 

Powerful GPUs are around 170-200W real load, with a 250W peak for monsters like the Titan. A 550-600W PSU can easily do those.

 

The real fun starts when overclocking: then a 3770K pushed above 4.5GHz and with some extra Vcore can add 100W or more easily ontop of the nominal TDP. A 8320/8350 can peak at more than 200W and hex-cores like the 3930K can be 250W or more - that's just the CPU.

GPUs can exceed 300W when pushed hard, but usually that is not possible without water cooling - cards crash before reaching that output.

 

Long story short, get a 550-600W PSU from a brand name: corsair, seasonic, cooler master, antec are all OK.

Much better case than a cheap 800W that might blow if it reaches more than 400W real load, and much cheaper than a "real" 800W unit.

 

* SSD: stay away from Corsair. Period.

Corsair and older OCZ etc units that are based on Sandforce controllers are unreliable. Warranties don't cover loss of data and time re-installing windows and apps, so its a waste. Just opt for a unit from Samsung, Crucial or Plextor. No need to spill more ink on this, just trust me.

 

* RAM: as you have been advised, RAM faster than 2133 is almost useless for anything but benching. In most intel systems, anything faster than 1866 won't give you any real life benefits. It is a waste of money.

AMD CPUs like fast RAM much more, and do become faster with 1866 or 2133 (over 1600) but the returns diminish past 2133, as dimms get too expensive. APUs that use system RAM really like speeds even above 2133, but getting a CPU with integrated graphics to save money, and then spent so much on RAM is counterintuitive. In the future when faster modules will be cheaper, might be a good choice, not today.

 

Get a couple of 8GB 1866 sticks if you want a little "oomph", but 1600 will do just fine if you go intel.

 

 

thank you very much dimitris

 

*i think thats better i take 3770K + P8Z77-V for overclocking in future when i feel rendering time is long....

is that good?

 

* so i get a 2GIG GTX for 3D and game and etc.

Inno3D ICill GTX 660 2GB GDDR5 HerculeZ 2000 or Inno3D iChill GTX 650 Ti 2GB HerculeZ 1000 or...

 

* ssd from Samsung or Crucial . plextor very rare here.

 

* ram.... i get 1600 or 1866 and currently 8*2=16 GIG . and later change to 32 GIG

which brands you confirm? patriot , GEIL , GSkill ( a bit rare in here )

is that good? :

http://patriotmemory.com/product/detail.jsp?prodline=5&catid=34&prodgroupid=232&id=1254&type=1

[wildeagle]

You should look at the apps you or someone need, I7 3770K is more powerful in most single threaded apps, not all apps.

In this case, I would stick with Vray renderer, and if you want a review you can search about it if you dont impress with my results:

http://www.behardware.com/articles/880-7/amd-fx-8350-review-is-amd-back.html

 

Vray 2:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]49153[/ATTACH]

 

It is interesting my friend !

8350 a bit faster than 3770k in vray rendering

but in most cases and most softwares 3770k in winner

though 8350 considerable in vray rendering with this compare , but in fact AMD cpus and mainboards is expensive than intel and also rare in my country ( Iran ). but I'm still on the search about 8350 and its price!

thanks.

[wildeagle]

and one more question :

for 3d max viewport & VRay & photoshop and in the second for game , Nvidia VGA is better or ATI?

Of course for intel system.

[Dimitris Tolios]

/ open GPU rant:

There is no definitive answer in Radeon vs. GTX.

For 3DS Max viewport both do reasonably well. For OpenGL viewports, AMD has the upper hand.

 

For VRay RT, Chaosgroup and AMD do not work out there issues efficiently. I don't know if it is an AMD issue - there is a high probability that the OpenCL implementation Chaosgroup uses is pretty bad, and nVidia dominates the field.

 

This is awkward, as the 79xx Radeons and the top of the line FirePro W that are based on the same GCN architecture blow the best of the best nVidia cards away...The GTX Titan barely breaks the compute performance the 79xx had for a couple of years now.

Before the Titan, the best compute GTX was the 580, which would barely do 50-60% what a 7970 GHz would do in many OpenCL benchmarks, yet VRay RT GPU is in comparison pathetically slower with the AMD card.

 

It smells fishy, as Adobe just released teasers with the performance of their new version of Premiere and AE that will be using OpenCL instead of CUDA, and their internally sourced benchmarks validate the superiority AMD cards have over nVidia. There has been too much blaming going around on AMD's behalf and bad drivers, but I am almost convinced that the culprit is the coders of VRay.

 

As far as games go, some game engines like AMD, some like nVidia. There is no absolute best. In general nVidia has a massively bigger customer base, thus AMD cards are more competitively priced and you get "more" for your money. Should AMD pair nicely with VRay RT, I would easily opted for a $300 7950 3GB instead of the GTX 670 4GB I had to shove $440 for last July. Great card, but overpriced imho. Could not find a reasonably priced 580 3GB, and the 670 blows it away in games, so 670 it was...the 7950 matches the 670 in most scenarios, and would beat them both in compute performance - if there were apps to support it that is.

Now those emerge - a bit late for my case, but there is still hope. / rant

 

For the rest of your questions:

* for mild O/C (i.e. up to 4.5GHz or so) the p8z77-V should be fine. You need good cooling ofc.

* I would go for Samsung 830, or 840 Pro. The "plain" 840 would be fine for a gaming system, but their lifetime will be considerably smaller. Read articles on MLC vs TLC flash memory chips if you want more on that. Long story sort:

 

TLC techs abuses the mem chips much more, and those wear out and cell after cell starts to die and gets de-commisioned by the drive's controller. That is true for all SSD drives: eventually all will wear out. Die = gradually wear out. This is not like normal HDDs that one day might fail and become unreadable.

MLC is ok for the casual user...it will die after quite a few years of normal use. TLC is pretty likely to die more than twice as fast.

 

I personally have the Crucial m4 and I am happy, but both last 2 gens of Samsung drives are faster (including the plain 840). Crucial is almost ready to launch the m5 which is said to be among the best, but...

 

* RAM is RAM. Patriot makes good sticks. Plan ahead and make sure that the CPU cooler you want to use, will not conflict with the large heat-spreaders some sticks have.

Memory heatspreaders are oversized and over-rated more often than not.

If you are pushing your ram, you need some short of active cooling (i.e. a fan) to move hot air away from them. Give them proper airflow, and sticks with no heatspreaders can work more reliably than those with fancy anodized armors in a badly ventilated case. This becomes apparent especially in watercooled rigs, where the airflow around the CPU is not needed for the CPU itself, so the RAM and the VRM chips suffer overheating.

Edited April 7, 2013 by dtolios

[wildeagle]

thank you dimitris

I made ​​my money

but some piece changed in my plan

 

asus mainboard ( p8z77-v ) is too expensive so i chose ASRock Z77 Pro4 with half price

 

for VGA first of all i purchase other piece except VGA and after , sell my old piece then buy VGA

 

i have problem about SSD !

samsung , crucial and plextor have not warrantied in here

and i really dont know do what

 

OCZ Vertex 4 128GB FW 1.4 (6Gbps) - Indilinx Everest 2 MLC ( used ) is available

but i dont know thats good or how hour worked or ....?

 

except that only corsair ( Corsair Force GS 128GB SATA3 SSD ) is available in here

 

if i buy ssd without warranty , Is it possible there is a problem?

 

please help me !

[Dimitris Tolios]

People talk about life expectancy of SSDs...there are quite a few articles and experiments out there...google search can help you find them.

Anandtech and others have tested some drives, especially the Samsung 840 (non-Pro) that is based on TLC memory that is supposed to "fade" much faster than MLC.

 

According to their workload calcs and experiment, a TLC drive like the 840 should last a decade. Ofc if you have double their supposed workload, you can still get 5-6 years out of it without notable loss in capacity. If this is true, then SSDs really top HDDs by far. I doubt that many high speed consumer HDDs can reliably top that when used daily.

 

Note, we are talking memory cells gradually going bad, and the drive's controller decommissioning them.

We are not talking catastrophic data loss / different things.

Data in such cells can be readable years after the controller judges that are not capable of more reliable write cycles.

 

Most of the times I am telling people to try to avoid a TLC drive if they can, but that doesn't mean that it is a bad choice if you know its limitations (which are not that bad tbh). What I am trying to be 100% clear, is avoiding sandforce controllers which despite being fast, are unreliable. I had a few friends of mine being completely frustrated with drives that get replaced and keep repeating the same issues, just like it happens with 100s of reviewers, is written in countless forum posts etc. This is a case of a bad controller that will "lose" track of the data completely, has nothing to do with natural deterioration of the flash memory cells. Thus I say, stay away from SF based Corsair, OCZ or even intel drives.

 

MLC drives are multiple times more resilient. Thus a Vertex 4 (all MLC based) which has not been on the market even a year, it is almost impossible to have less life left in it than a brand new Samsung 840 (non-pro) TLC. The Vertex 4 is a great drive, sporting some of the fastest overal read/write speeds and a very good reliability record.

 

In general though, "things" happen. I it is good to have warranty on your drives and mobos - things that fail more often in a PC according to my experience. Ofc data loss is not covered with HDDs or SSDs, but at least you get a fresh drive back that unlike a SandForce based one, probably won't fail again (and again, and again - there are reports of ppl that went through RMA process 3-4 times and kept getting faulty drive replacements in all of them - simply doesn't worth your time). If the issue is inherit in the drive's design, what good can even the best warranty do for you?

 

In a nutshell, I would prefer a used Vertex 4 over a Force GS, even if it had no warranty.