Advise on New Workstation - Yes, once more . . .

[salvador]

Hello guys.

 

We finally made it to upgrade the machines and, like so many others, I'm here kindly requiesting your advise, let's go:

 

SOFTWARE / APPS:

Win 7 x64 Pro

3ds Max / Vray (emphasis in RT)

Sketchup / Vray

AutoCAD

Adobe Suite

 

This is my dealer's proposal:

Intel® Core™ i7-4770 Processor

MoBo Asus SABERTOOTH Z87 4DDR3 2PCle16 SATA6 DP/HDMI 1150

VIDEO CARD PNY NVIDIA QUADRO KEPLER K4000 3GB GDDR5 768 CUDA Cores

NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX TITAN 6 GB GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS 3.0

HDD: 1TB SATA 3.5 SATA II / SATA III, 7200 RPM.

Solid State Drive 240 SATA3 SERIE300

Case:THERMALTAKE SOPRANO Black USB 3.0 Docking

PSU: COOLER MASTER SILENT PRO 850W RS850-AMBAJ3-US

Fan: COOLER MASTER SEIDON 120M RLS12M-24PK-R1

Ram 2x DDR3 KINGSTON HYPERX BLU 8GB1600MHZ (KHX1600C1OD3B1/8G)

 

This rig is a bit above budget but still doable. We are looking at buying two of these.

I indicated the need for both good viewport performance and a GPU capable of fast RT rendering. I suggested a GTX 590 for RT but they returned a Titan.

 

Are PNY cards just as good and reliable as "native" Nvidia cards?

 

So, what do you experts think?

 

Thanks in advance for your time and efforts.

[Dimitris Tolios]

Random sequence of reactions:

 

 

• PNY is the only source for retail Quadros afaik. All quadros are reference design = in theory as good as nVidia makes it. Or, "designes"...don't really know if nVidia has an assembly line to begin with. Titan's are all reference design also.
  
• GTX Titan might be a bit overkill for the most stuff - only needed if you have to have 6GB Vram, otherwise it is too expensive for the performance gained. A "vanilla" 780 3GB is 90+% as fast, and costs 1/2 or less. 780Ti is 6-7%faster, and the 3GB version is around 70% cheaper. EVGA anounched a 6GB 780Ti already, and I doubt it will be that much more expensive than a Titan, tho availability will depend on region and ofc supply/demand.
  
• The case suggested is a bit mediocre / outdated.
  
• K4000 might be overkill for what you are doing
  
• Asus Z87-A is just as good as any other Asus Z87, i.e. at the top of the food-chain. Sabertheeth and Pro's etc are adding little value - especially for someone that won't be overclocking etc to go after more phases in the CPU VRMs.
  
• PSU is an oldie, but good one. I would get the newer Corsair V line if available (latest seasonic 80+ gold design OEM). 850W is not really required for a 4770 + 2x GPUs, even if both were Titans. The V700 will be more than enough.
  
• Additional cooler: its a gimmick to get even a low end closed loop water cooler (CLC) if you will be using it on a non-overclockable CPU (or overclockable @ stock speeds). Don't worry, intel's included cooling solution is just fine. They are not trying to kill your CPU for you to get another one
  

So, all in all, I see many many areas to bring the cost down without sacrificing ANYTHING in real life performance.

[salvador]

Thanks a lot Dimitris. Even though I see your point, I still feel a bit rumbling around. I'll have the proposal re-done based on this and I'll come back woth results, if you don't mind a little extra time of reading.

 

Glad to read your reply.

[numerobis]

Solid State Drive 240 SATA3 SERIE300

I suppose you mean an Intel Series 330 or 335. These are already quite outdated (07/2012) and overpriced. I think a Samsung 840 EVO or Pro would be the better choice.

[salvador]

I suppose you mean an Intel Series 330 or 335. These are already quite outdated (07/2012) and overpriced. I think a Samsung 840 EVO or Pro would be the better choice.

 

Great! I'll check that one in.

 

Thanks numerobis .

[RyderSK]

Great! I'll check that one in.

 

Thanks numerobis .

 

I can vote for this advice, I had few SSDs, from OCZ vertex(3?, horrible though, all went south...)Corsair and Crucial M4 mostly lately (most satisfied with this). But for the latest stations I've build month ago, I used 840Pro and it's the fastest one I had, on paper it reads nicely, but it's trully noticeable difference compared to the Crucial one. (both 256GB, this doesn't affect the difference in performance). It's mostly the writting and sequence writting that is so superior.

[salvador]

Thanks Juraj; all feedback is gold for me right now.