Help with Workstation build!!!

[kalisafielding]

I've seen a few other threads with this same topic, but I figured it would be easier to make my own! I am going to be using mostly 3d programs like maya, 3ds max, zbrush and than a lot of photoshop. (mild gaming would be nice too...like sims 4, age of empires...nothing to hardcore for this computer) I'd like to keep my build under 3K, ideally less but if it's going to be a much better build I'm willing to spend a little bit more.

 

I keep going back and forth on the type of build I want, so to start off I need to finally make a decision on my CPU:

 

i7-3930k(or wait for the i7-4940k) or go the xeon route (like the xeon e5-1650 or a dual-xeon).

 

as well as my GPU: Quadro k4000 or gtx 780 or firepro w7000

 

Once I get these figured out I have a basic idea for the rest of the parts (I'm sure I'll still need help though!), but these are mainly the ones I can not for the life of me decide on!:confused:

[kalisafielding]

The build I'm leaning towards currently looks like this:

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-3930K 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor

CPU cooler: Phanteks PH-TC14PE_BK 78.1 CFM CPU Cooler

Motherboard: Asus P9X79 WS SSI CEB LGA2011 Motherboard

Memory: Corsair Dominator Platinum 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory

Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk

Seagate Constellation ES.3 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive

GPU: PNY Quadro 4000 2GB Video Card

Power Supply: Corsair Professional 850W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply

Optical drive: Asus BW-14D1XT Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer

 

 

Any feedback is really appreciated!

[unrinoceronte]

Well i am no expert, but first let me say there is no 4940k, it is 4930K...Anyways it seems that for your budget ($3000) you can go for the 3930k/4930k route. BUT, if altough the 4930k seems to be just a few days or weeks to start sales, i think there was an advice from some experts here at CGarchitect, that the Motherboard "support" for this new Ivy Bridge-E platform (4930k) will not be maturely develop yet... I guess it will take a few months to get some good certified 4930k Mobos... If i am not mistaken you can use the old x79 chip Mobos, which are compatible, but i think is better to have a good certified 4930k mobo.

 

Take a look at this recent article: http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/4761/intel-core-i7-4960x---4930k--4820k-ivy-bridge-e-review-22nm-powerhouse

 

Having said that, since $3000 it some good money, it makes sense to wait a few months for the new 4930k instead of buying the almost 2 year old 3930k (but only you can tell if you can wait). If you do, you will get a slight upgrade in rendering speed (10% approx) from the 3930k, but quite a better energy consumption (around 40W less consumption), besides being a new technology (22nm, etc etc).

 

If you CAN NOT wait, my recommendation is go for the 3930k (higher overall price with all the components compared to the 4770k), or go with a very good option, not so fast, but way more cheaper: i7 4770K (Haswell) which just came out a few months ago, is new technology and is the best for the price range of Under $1500 (for whole components with budget GPU: Quadro K600, and 16 or 32 gigs of ram). Or for under $2000, the same 4770k, but with a better GPU, like the Quadro k2000 or even perhaps the Quadro K4000...

 

In my case, 1 and 1/2 months ago i bought a 4770k workstation and i built it myself for under $1300 with the Quadro K600 GPU, 16 Gigs Ram, and 1 TB HDD. At the beginning of my research I was in need of a very powerfull workstation with a budget of $3000 to $4000, but then i realized that all the new technology for a workstation with this budget was going to be available and mature until the last quarter of 2013, so instead i decided to just spend a lot less with a 4770K and have a TEMPORARY Workstation, and that then on December 2013 i would buy the really Horsepower Workstation (4930k or perhaps 2x xeon) to replace the 4770k as my main workstation, and use the 4770k workstation as a rendering node, or as a BACKUP workstation....

 

Other option you have is to Build a 4770k Workstation for $1500 to $2000, and then build 1 or 2 cheap i7 4770 RENDERING NODES on mini itx Cases. Perhaps they can cost you around $700 each. Take a look at this threads:

http://forums.cgarchitect.com/73773-mini-itx-render-node.html

 

http://forums.cgarchitect.com/74013-mini-itx-render-node-build-write-up.html

 

For your GPU decision, there is plenty of threads here talking about the options you have... As a summary, if i am not mistaken, i could say that the conclusions where:

Quadro K4000 : BEST for Viewport Performance on 3D - Open GL programs (bad for gaming)

Gtx 780: Best for GPU rendering on Vray (and for gaming). Mediocre Viewport Performance on 3D programs.

 

About Xeons and FirePro... i know nothing!.

 

Good luck, and i hope you can get some better an educated advice than mine...

[kalisafielding]

Thank you so much Javier! haha, yes I did mean the i7-4930k. I didn't realize the mobo's wouldn't be certified for it right away, so that does kind of change things. I like the idea of having the newer CPU, but now I'm not sure. I would like to do this build as soon as I can, as it's for my last class in school and I want to be able to have a great & reliable rendering machine while finishing my portfolio.

 

I've heard the firepro w7000 in is on par with the quadro k4000, but not as reliable. It is better for gaming though than the quadro from what I've read so far. But I feel like more people go with nvidia over firepro.

 

I keep hearing various things about using an i7 over a xeon (and vice-versa) in a workstation, so it's just a lot of information to take in as this is my first build ever. I wonder why they don't have a mobo available at the release of the i7-4930k....

[Dimitris Tolios]

Remember, that "many cores" in mainstream CG creation are used almost exclusively when rendering (stills/video), developing camera RAWs/applying certain PS filters and transcoding video.

 

A 4770K will be faster than a 4930K (both @ stock and clock per clock when overclocked) for most stuff outside the processes above.

Depending on your workflow, it might be:

Single threaded heavy: lots of Revit / CAD / Sketchup / 3DS / Maya / C4D modelling

Heavily threaded: lots of renderings, lots of video transcoding. For the 1st part we are talking about a rendering node.

 

And that is the curse of the 2P systems: when rendering, the many cores/threads work great. 2P systems are the ideal rendering nodes.

 

But when it comes to modelling, you have all but a couple of cores idling, and all this "horsepower" goes to waste.

Xeons are forced to have low clocks to accommodate all these cores in a "manageable" thermal package (i.e. something that you can cool efficiently in a server room environment where 100s or 1000s of CPUs might be pumping out heat through small 2U or smaller racks) and are far from optimized for "workstations" that might have a whole full ATX tower and large coolers dedicated to cool them down.

 

Technically, a $2000 8 and soon 12 core Xeon or a 2P system with two of those, is no better for modelling and than a faster clocked, $120 Haswell i3 dual core CPU.

 

So, although daydreaming those fancy Xeons based on "number of cores" is easily understandable, few people can make use of them in ways that would make a 2P workstation better overall than a fast Quad i7 with decent GPU and RAM specs, along with a number of simpler render nodes that allow you to work faster, more efficiently and with better redundancy than placing all your money on a single box.

 

For school work, stay away from W7000/K4000, Mac Pros and all these fancy components. You can never have a return of investment on those, and i highly doubt that you will be using them to their full potential anyways. Of course those are better, but thinking "thinner" hardware, will allow you to invent workflow work-arounds that will make you work more efficiently and effectively regardless of hardware - as long as you are meeting a certain minimum - ofc I wouldn't suggest anyone working with a ultrabook and IGP graphics, but if you "spoil" yourself thinking that you can just buy your way into complex models, you will soon be disappointed by the thinks you assume should work "magically", but won't, regardless of you using a k4000 or a k6000, a 2P or a whole render farm.

[kalisafielding]

That is so unbelievably helpful! I have had a few people tell me the xeon/quadro k4000 is the only way to get a proper workstation. I am so new at this stuff that it's hard to research it all, but I really appreciate everything you said!

 

SO, what would you suggest as far as the GPU goes? And you think the 4770k>4930k? I do want it to be a nice build that is easily upgradeable later down the road if need be, but it's by and far not a computer that I'm doing work for clients yet.

[unrinoceronte]

Kalisa, without the permission of Dimitris, i will take the liberty of posting his excellent resourcefull website where he has recommendations for several "types" of computer configurations, from Basic, to Pro. Take a look at it, you will find everything you need, and if you want to change something, you have the base for most of the configuration components chosen in a logical way.

 

Go here, and select SYSTEM CONFIGURATIONS/WORKSTATIONS : http://pcfoo.com/

You might be interested in his recommendations for MID RANGE and PRO.

 

Good luck

[Dimitris Tolios]

Depending on the programs you are using, I would say either a Quadro K2000, or a GTX 760 should work fine.

Javier ended up getting a K600 and he still can work on stuff (I presume).

 

GTX cards work fine with latest Autodesk DirectX viewports, like 3DS, Revit and ACAD.

 

Quadros (and Firepros) are still "better" in some ways, but again, having a quadro won't help you become better...especially in those programs.

 

Quadros (and Firepros) are vastly better in OpenGL based viewports, like Maya, C4D, Solidworks, Siemens NX etc.

 

Also better in Sketchup, but the complexity in Sketchup is usually not that crazy, plus sketchup has a relatively intelligent image degrading algorithm that works great when organizing your model with blocks/components. Sketchup is more CPU limited (only uses 1x core of course, not to be mistaken for plugins like VRay for Sketchup that use all available) than GPU limited.

 

Similarly, Revit is also far more CPU/RAM/SSD or HDD limited than GPU limited (to my experience).

 

For all the above, your mileage may vary, as everything is linked to scene complexity - something that is subjective...you might feel that you scene is "amazingly complex, god I need a Quadro K4000", when some people in this forums might have been working on that kind of complexities 10 years ago in Pentium IIIs. Or what you think mundane and simple, might be what I consider "impossibly" complex. Don't trust anyone saying "you need X to run 3DS", unless there is a point of reference - i.e. end result images, polygon counts, total texture sizes etc.

 

Always keep in mind the masterpieces of CG created over the last 10 years, and that every 2 years you get "twice" the processing power.

I.e. some people were doing stuff that would be considered far above average today, using 5% the CPU power a modern i7 has. The only thing that changed really, is that after you've modeled the thing and did the lighting setup, you can "orbit" around it much faster with your modern GPU, and render it 20 times faster with your modern CPU (or use much finer settings). The creative process is not revolutionized by machines, but by users. You cannot buy your way into it, takes patience and passion above $$.

 

Yes, the 4770K is faster than the 3930K / 4390K for anything you do before you hit the "render" button.

All these rants and descriptive crap of posts I write, are exactly cause you cannot just say "4770 > 4390" and walk away. It is situational, you cannot dismiss either as "inferior"...there are many reasons why the 6-core is better, and many reasons it is not.

 

If you go 4390K way, there is no "upgrade path" for the future - unless you mean adding more than 32GB of RAM (4770K is limited to 32GB, s2011 CPUs can go 64GB with regular UDIMMs). There won't be another compatible X79 s2011 generation after the 49xx.

GPUs will work just fine with either platform. Again, for single or 2x GPUs, the Z87/4770K platform will be slightly faster than the X79/4930K, much like the Z77/3770K was faster than the X79/3930K.

 

All those differences are small to untraceable for most users, but the fact that a Quad core can be faster than a Hex-core due to architecture and clock advantages still stand: it is only during heavily threaded processes that the extra 2 cores come into the scene to save the day for the 4930K. If that's not part of your workflow "enough", you've might end up paying $300-400 extra over a Z87/4770K combo under the illusion that "since it is a hex-core, it is definitely faster".

[kalisafielding]

Wow, yea that website is wayyyy too helpful! So awesome. Thanks so much for posting that

[kalisafielding]

Dimitris- You sir, know your stuff! Thank you so very much.

 

My system I have now that I have been using for maya has a Intel Q6600, with 4GB of RAM and a geforce gtx 260. It has been fine for learning the programs, I just want something a bit better... It's starting to feel quite slow!

[Dimitris Tolios]

Dimitris- You sir, know your stuff! Thank you so very much.

 

My system I have now that I have been using for maya has a Intel Q6600, with 4GB of RAM and a geforce gtx 260. It has been fine for learning the programs, I just want something a bit better... It's starting to feel quite slow!

 

True, that's a tad outdated. Even a i5 Sandy/Ivy bridge laptop is probably faster than that in pretty much everything (CPU wise).

[numerobis]

... the i7-4930k. I didn't realize the mobo's wouldn't be certified for it right away, so that does kind of change things. I like the idea of having the newer CPU, but now I'm not sure. I would like to do this build as soon as I can, as it's for my last class in school and I want to be able to have a great & reliable rendering machine while finishing my portfolio. ...

I wonder why they don't have a mobo available at the release of the i7-4930k....

 

I think this shouldn't be a problem. The Bios updates to support the 4930K are already available (at least from ASUS) http://www.techpowerup.com/187989/asus-intros-ivy-bridge-e-bios-updates-for-x79-motherboards.html

and there are new boards coming with Ivy-E support like the Asus P9X79-E WS ( http://www.techpowerup.com/185636/asus-p9x79-e-ws-socket-lga2011-motherboard-launched.html )

I would go for the 4930K - if rendering is important for you. Otherwise the 4770 or 4770K.

[kalisafielding]

awesome! Thanks so much everyone for their advice and input. It's been really, really helpful I'm going to post my final build in a little bit once I price things out. (of course, it's always up for discussion and critique! )

[AJLynn]

I'm a bit late to this discussion, but - can you comment on your priorities? Would you like advice on how to save money, or just on how to get more power?

[kalisafielding]

Saving money would always be nice! I'd like to put the money towards pieces that need it more. I basically just want a really nice pc that can handle maya and some mild gaming. The 3d modeling is by far more important though

[AJLynn]

3D modeling or 3D modeling and heavy rendering?

[kalisafielding]

3d modeling and rendering

[troyhome]

If you can afford it, just get a BOXX

 

My first computer was a Hitachi laptop sporting a pentium 133Mhz chip

 

 

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[Dimitris Tolios]

If you can afford it, just get a BOXX

 

My first computer was a Hitachi laptop sporting a pentium 133Mhz chip

 

 

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BOXX offers quality products, but other than their cases (which are also hit and miss in some areas) they are offering off-the-shelf parts:

i.e. an Asus / MSI or w/e s2011 / 1150 motherboard, an asetek / coolIT closed loop etc.

 

A 4770K based, overclocked BOXX workstation with a K2000 Quadro might be above $3500 to a shy off $4300 adding RAM and (small) SSD upgrades...base model is $3200 and includes 4GB of RAM, a K600 and a single 500GB HDD...

 

A good option to "sell" your corporate office into getting overclocked, high end i7 machines instead of a mainstream Dell or HP workstation with a low clocked "affordable" Xeon, but, have almost NOTHING vs. what a home user can put together with that price.

 

I am using a O/C (extreme) BOXX offering as an example, cause non overclocked BOXX loses its edge over HP/DELL/LENOVO outside the great customer support. We are talking hardware and performance here.

 

Even if you don't feel comfortable building / overclocking it yourself, local shops can do the dirty work for far less (i.e. 1000s of $) than the difference between buying the exact parts that BOXX uses, and how much a BOXX costs. Many of them assemble the PC for free for you, and overclocking a s1155 or 1150 CPU is pretty easy - might require an afternoon or two of tweaking if you want to go really high, but BOXX uses conservative clocks, so matching or surpassing that is as easy as manual BIOS overclocking gets really...

 

Not bashing their efforts - they are a good company. Just my sense of return of investment cannot justify BOXX for a home/small office user that has the nerve to come and ask about piecing his PC together himself/herself...if the question is "best ready-made-turn-key-workstation", sure, BOXX plays in a game of its own.

Edited September 14, 2013 by dtolios

[troyhome]

If you know what you're doing and what hardware/driver combos work best and you've got the time to troubleshoot problems that might come up and experiment with the best overclocking settings- go for it.

Personally my return on my investment has been time to put into projects and not fiddling around with my computer. Quite frankly i don't trust the shops around here to build a machine that compares to my BOXX. I think it can be done, I'm just saying I'd rather pay a couple hundred more for it to work right out of the box every time. That's just me. It's not for everyone- especially if budget is a concern. I just got tired of buying my way out of glitches and mysterious malfunctions and when i added it up I spent on my home build what i could have put into a professionally built machine from a company that really only serves the workstation user.

It's just something to consider- for me it's not as clear cut as matching the specs on paper- it's about reliability the first time.

Note, I wouldn't give the same credit to Dell. They may make a fine workstation, but the same level of personal service isn't there- and that becomes a big deal when you spend more than three hours with tech support.

[Dimitris Tolios]

If you know what you're doing and what hardware/driver combos work best and you've got the time to troubleshoot problems that might come up and experiment with the best overclocking settings- go for it.

Personally my return on my investment has been time to put into projects and not fiddling around with my computer. Quite frankly i don't trust the shops around here to build a machine that compares to my BOXX. I think it can be done, I'm just saying I'd rather pay a couple hundred more for it to work right out of the box every time. That's just me. It's not for everyone- especially if budget is a concern. I just got tired of buying my way out of glitches and mysterious malfunctions and when i added it up I spent on my home build what i could have put into a professionally built machine from a company that really only serves the workstation user.

It's just something to consider- for me it's not as clear cut as matching the specs on paper- it's about reliability the first time.

Note, I wouldn't give the same credit to Dell. They may make a fine workstation, but the same level of personal service isn't there- and that becomes a big deal when you spend more than three hours with tech support.

 

I am with you 100% as far as saving time goes for getting started faster opting for a ready made workstation that comes from a tested and trusted source like BOXX.

 

BUT, there is a BIG but, this kind of service doesn't cost $200. It costs more like $2,000, and that is not a small amount.

For a seasoned professional that makes that much a day (that "critical day"), or a company that might be paying $50,000 a year or much more for their employee using it, $2,000 more might reach ROI pretty fast.

 

Not everybody gets this kind of wages (not even people within the US), and this kind of money - which again, is not a "couple of hundred bucks", could actually buy you two (2) DIY as good workstations instead of one (1), or support the expenses for monitors, input devices and/or software that is not cheap in itself.

 

BOXX, or HP, or DELL, don't have no "magic workstation underwear" to fortify their workstations with, neither drivers always work the best etc. Other than the fact that they offer 2P systems and Quadro cards, I don't believe that they have anything "workstation" about them in their i7 systems that is notably more reliable or faster than what high-end products available to consumers in very decent prices. There is nothing BOXX does to DDR3 1600 ram that makes 32GBs cost $900.

 

Things go wrong with software and hardware on ALL PCs. And in some cases, having had your hands dirty building it the first place, might be handy in "that critical day", where despite having a board or card malfunction that would be fully covered by the best warranty in the world, wouldn't be replaced within a few hours, while you could drive to a local PC supply store, buy it yourself, "save the day", save the $2,000 markup for great support (great is great, it is not magic), and maybe make that deadline that you wouldn't otherwise - not unless you bought a whole new system or something like that.

 

Again, I like how caring BOXX sounds as soon as you pick the phone, BUT...the components they are using are off the shelf motherboards, ram sticks, coolers etc. In the case of Dell/HP/Lenovo you could say that everything is custom made, and you cannot get it unless you buy directly, etc etc...but even those companies suffer from failures, just like BOXX does...no magic underwear...probably FOXCONN or a similar mega-factory makes most parts for them (and Asus, and Asrock and you name it) anyways, same DNA

Edited September 15, 2013 by dtolios

[troyhome]

When you get to the point where it makes sense to bump it up a notch service becomes an issue. Right now it budget is more important and I can respect that.

Don't skimp on your mobo or RAM. An SSD will obviously give you a boost of speed. If you can manage to get a 6 core i7, go for it (the more cores the better).

You might even consider just buying two HP xw600 workstations for $199 each (dual Xeon dual-core 5140 2.33GHz 4GB 500gb w RAID. Just network them and you've got 16 cores for $400.

 

 

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[numerobis]

I'd rather pay a couple hundred more for it to work right out of the box every time.

A couple of hundred would be ok... but it is more a couple of thousand!

A 4770K @4,3GHz with 32GB RAM, a K2000, 240GB SSD and only ONE year Premium Support and NO water cooling is $5314!!!!!

You could easily build the same machine for less than $2000 + the overclocking. $3300 for a standart overclock to 4,3GHz and 1 year Premium Support?!? Really?

 

 

edit: ...sorry i hadn't read the last page before posting

[AJLynn]

Okay, so here's what you've got plus a case (always use a good case): Kalisa's Build. It's a bit over $2800.

 

If I wanted to make this less expensive here are some changes I'd make:

 

Go to a 4770K CPU. The 3930 is about 20% faster at rendering (which isn't a lot) and it's actually slower at everything else, and the CPU and MB both cost more.

 

Use a FirePro W5000 GPU. The newer FirePros are great in Maya, newer and more efficient than the Fermi Quadro and cost less. The disadvantage is you can't use them to accelerate CUDA renders like iray. If that's a priority, go to the Geforce GTX 770 4GB. More power, less money. Get one of the better ones with a cooler upgrade like this one.

 

The RAM is kind of excessive. Get 16GB that leaves free slots in case you want a later upgrade.

 

A BD writer is... well, if you don't have clients who want BDs (does anybody do that now?) it's not so useful.

 

Here's what I ended up with. It comes in a bit under $2000 and I don't think it really loses anything in terms of useful performance. I also added an external backup drive. I used a motherboard that has added PCIE lanes so that if you want to use CUDA rendering you can add something like that 770 card, use it for CUDA and keep the display on the FirePro. The other option I considered was the Asus Z87 Sabertooth, which is a bit less money and has durability features but does not perform as well if you use 2 video cards.

[kalisafielding]

AWESOME! Thank you Andrew! Super helpful