CAD build need final opinions!

[evanmoore]

Hi,

 

I am wanting to build a PC for use with the following applications-

 

Autodesk Alias,

Autodesk 3ds max

Solidworks

Keyshot

Maxwell

Octane

Maya

Adobe after effect

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Premier Pro

Google Sketchup

 

I have pretty much decided on the parts that i want to use and would much appreciate advice, suggestions and opinions on the final build to make sure i have everything right and it will be a good machine for the applications i am looking to use.

 

This is the build-

 

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor (£188.40 @ Aria PC)

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£23.90 @ Ebuyer)

Motherboard: ASRock H87M Pro4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£60.00 @ Amazon UK)

Memory: Kingston XMP Blu Red Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£96.59 @ Amazon UK)

Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£118.79 @ Amazon UK)

Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WN851ND 802.11b/g/n PCI Wi-Fi Adapter (£13.14 @ Aria PC)

Video Card: Sapphire Technology AMD FirePro W5000 2GB GDDR5 DVI DP PCI-E Professional 3D Graphics Card (£339.91 @ Dabs)

Case: Fractal Design Arc Mini R2 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£64.98 @ Novatech)

Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£57.67 @ Dabs)

Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£13.18 @ Scan.co.uk)

Operating System: Windows 8 Professional Student (£49.99 @ Microsoft)

Total: £1026.55

 

The one thing i am still a little inconclusive about is my monitor. I would love to get the Dell U2713HM but it is over my budget which is £200-£300. I am just not sure if it worth spending that extra money to get a 1440p monitor. My other, more realistic option, is to get the Dell U2414h or P2414h. But i am still unsure so would appreciate any help deciding on a monitor.

Cheers

[Zdravko Barisic]

RAM: 32GB of RAM is a must...in these days, so go for it in start.

 

VGA: Go for GTX770 4GB, you will have much more power for ADOBE+OCTANE, even for viewport operations, than with FirePRo, believe me, it is like that...just it could a lot of time to explain it.

 

MONITOR: Go for simple 24"+some cheap old refurbished 22" as second one, if you can not afford 27", dual setup monitor is not so expensive, and working comfortable is simple amazing!

...

Anyway, pretty good setup for 1000GBP...Good luck!

[Dimitris Tolios]

You will have to balance your needs.

It is easy to understand that for a budget that approaches the "low end" as far as a DCC/CG workstation goes, you cannot have everything.

 

I tend to think that 16GB of RAM will be "ok" for the most part. Plus, if you have 2x8GB, it is always possible to get a second set to go 32GB.

 

The biggest discrepancy is the Firepro vs. the required programs: you have to deal with it in 2x discrete fields:

 

Compute: or CUDA vs. OpenCL - e.g. real time accelerated filters or rendering engines through the GPU

some of them, like Octane, are CUDA based. CUDA is an NVidia exclusive language, thus there can be no GPU acceleration with an AMD card.

 

Adobe Suite products, are either CUDA or OpenCL, depending on version. AMD cards do very well in OpenCL. The W5000 will be vastly faster than any current Quadro cheaper than the K5000 in OpenCL, and a $200-250 Radeon 79xx/R9 will be much faster than either a $700 GTX 780Ti or $1000 GTX Titan (NVidia cards work for both OpenCL and CUDA).

 

And then, there is the

OpenGL vs. D3D performance - this is for viewports only, e.g. how fluidly you can orbit and pan and zoom in scenes with complicated models.

Viewports that are Direct3D based, like all Autodesk products, run great on "gaming" cards, i.e. any GTX or Radeon above the $200~250 will do great.

 

OpenGL, especially for engineering products like Solidworks, is much more challenging. That is where Quadro and Firepro cards still have no match.

Other OpenGL based products, like Rhino and Sketchup etc, will also benefit from a workstation card, but not as dramatically (models also tend to be much simpler).

 

So, there are compromises to be made. I would suggest prioritizing the software requirements. i.e. if you will be doing 90% 3DS + real time rendering etc and 5% Solidworks, a Firepro won't do you much. A fast GTX would be the more balanced option for "ok" viewport and great CUDA acceleration.

If you primarily work with Solidworks and you just want to be able to open / convert a file here and there for the rest, a workstation card will probably give you the most for your buck.

If you primarily work with Adobe for PP, or Sketchup etc, any card, even a $100 Radeon 7750 will get you there just fine. CPU will be doing most of the work anyways.

[evanmoore]

You will have to balance your needs.

It is easy to understand that for a budget that approaches the "low end" as far as a DCC/CG workstation goes, you cannot have everything.

 

I tend to think that 16GB of RAM will be "ok" for the most part. Plus, if you have 2x8GB, it is always possible to get a second set to go 32GB.

 

The biggest discrepancy is the Firepro vs. the required programs: you have to deal with it in 2x discrete fields:

 

Compute: or CUDA vs. OpenCL - e.g. real time accelerated filters or rendering engines through the GPU

some of them, like Octane, are CUDA based. CUDA is an NVidia exclusive language, thus there can be no GPU acceleration with an AMD card.

 

Adobe Suite products, are either CUDA or OpenCL, depending on version. AMD cards do very well in OpenCL. The W5000 will be vastly faster than any current Quadro cheaper than the K5000 in OpenCL, and a $200-250 Radeon 79xx/R9 will be much faster than either a $700 GTX 780Ti or $1000 GTX Titan (NVidia cards work for both OpenCL and CUDA).

 

And then, there is the

OpenGL vs. D3D performance - this is for viewports only, e.g. how fluidly you can orbit and pan and zoom in scenes with complicated models.

Viewports that are Direct3D based, like all Autodesk products, run great on "gaming" cards, i.e. any GTX or Radeon above the $200~250 will do great.

 

OpenGL, especially for engineering products like Solidworks, is much more challenging. That is where Quadro and Firepro cards still have no match.

Other OpenGL based products, like Rhino and Sketchup etc, will also benefit from a workstation card, but not as dramatically (models also tend to be much simpler).

 

So, there are compromises to be made. I would suggest prioritizing the software requirements. i.e. if you will be doing 90% 3DS + real time rendering etc and 5% Solidworks, a Firepro won't do you much. A fast GTX would be the more balanced option for "ok" viewport and great CUDA acceleration.

If you primarily work with Solidworks and you just want to be able to open / convert a file here and there for the rest, a workstation card will probably give you the most for your buck.

If you primarily work with Adobe for PP, or Sketchup etc, any card, even a $100 Radeon 7750 will get you there just fine. CPU will be doing most of the work anyways.

 

Thanks for the in-depth response it is much appreciated! I am building this machine for university next year so its hard to say exactly what software i will be using most. I know i will be using solidworks alot, but also programs such as rhino and revit, which i have no knowledge about yet. At the moment i am mainly using autodesk alias and then take my files into autodesk showcase to render the files. I prefer Keyshot to render my files but computer isn't good enough to download it, but i plan to get it on my new machine.

 

I wanted to get a video card that would perform well in most cad applications due to the uncertainty of what programs i will be using in the future. I felt the w5000 did just this, judged by benchmarks, has the added bonus of certification by a lot of cad programs, and doesn't break the bank! Would you agree?

I would say that i want my GPU to perform best in the following applications-

 

Alias

Solidworks

Keyshot

3DS max

Maya

 

The video editing is just a side hobby so i am not to fussed about its performance, i would just be useful it rendering video clips was speedy! What do you think would be the best GPU for me? (Budget £300-£350)

Other than the GPU and ram which i do hope to upgrade to 32 gb in the future, do you think the rest of the build will perform well?

Cheers again

[Dimitris Tolios]

Well, you are getting a top of the line Haswell Quad (ok, I would probably get the 4770K which is a tad faster, and overclockable but the 1230 is fine), ofc it will run stuff.

 

I know you want to "try" everything, but what will your school major be? Are you sure you will be using Solidworks and revit for it?

The W5000 is a good card, better than the K2000 in my book, but outside Solidworks, it won't really shine.

Less money you could get a R9 280X and do pretty much everything and vastly better compute (and gaming, lol), or match the cost with a GTX 780 and have CUDA progressive rendering ontop.

[evanmoore]

Well, you are getting a top of the line Haswell Quad (ok, I would probably get the 4770K which is a tad faster, and overclockable but the 1230 is fine), ofc it will run stuff.

 

I know you want to "try" everything, but what will your school major be? Are you sure you will be using Solidworks and revit for it?

The W5000 is a good card, better than the K2000 in my book, but outside Solidworks, it won't really shine.

Less money you could get a R9 280X and do pretty much everything and vastly better compute (and gaming, lol), or match the cost with a GTX 780 and have CUDA progressive rendering ontop.

 

No i wont be using both solidworks and revit for my university major, i will be using whichever program one i am most comfortable with once i have learnt them properly.

If i were to go the consumer graphics card route i would defiantly get a Nvidia card due to CUDA acceleration. I think i would get a GTX 780, but do you think it is really worth that extra £50 over the W5000? If we exclude solidworks, would a GTX 780 outperform a w5000 in most commonly used CAD and rendering programs? What about a GTX 770 4GB?

Cheers again

[Dimitris Tolios]

Wait...

Never said "outperform"...I said that the 780 will do fine. Better than the W5000 "here", worse "there".

Workstation cards have their niche, unless you go for a K6000 or the equivalent W9000 or so, you won't be able to out-do the brute compute power of monster gaming cards with just drivers in EVERYTHING.

 

In most stuff listed but Solidworks, it will do fine. In the Solidworks 2013 it will do "ok", as at least with my Titan the 2013 SP1 version works vastly better than older OpenGL engines in Solidworks. Unless you go to really complicated models ofc. Other CAM/CAE tools like Siemens NX are still HORRIBLE with anything but a W5000 or better.

 

That said, Revit is NOT interchangeable with Solidworks. Completely different programs.

Yes, both are 3D CAD, but Revit is a 3D CAD/BIM tool to design and engineer buildings, while Solidworks is a CAM/CAE for complicated machinery, and in general "smaller than building" products.

 

One is geared towards architects, structural and mechanical engineers trying to produce drawing sets for a contractor to build a building, the other make a VERY detailed model of each little part in a machine (i.e. from coffee makers to cars or spacecrafts down to each bolt), and probably simulate required mechanical properties etc for each.

 

Kinda hard for anyone to use Revit and Solidworks interchangeably, even if he is fluent in either. You will probably be in some Architecture or engineering field - otherwise you wouldn't be talking about Revit to begin with, so lets get it straight, Solidworks will probably NOT be good for anything really required in your school - unless you go into some pretty detailed kinetic façade studio, where again, Rhino+Grasshopper, 3DS/Maya or even Sketchup will be able to do most of the modeling just fine.

 

If you want to play with Soldiworks to give it a try, a 760/770 would work. A 780 a tad better. You will probably be struggling with far simpler models than what a W5000 would give you an edge using.

[RyderSK]

unless you go into some pretty detailed kinetic façade studio, where again, Rhino+Grasshopper, 3DS/Maya or even Sketchup will be able to do most of the modeling just fine.

 

I like reading your stuff. You're like a fighter against bro-science :- ) I don't even remember if there was someone so good in tech knowledge in my college, but I guess they were exactly in studio heavy in Parametric stuff and I never made it there.

[evanmoore]

Wait...

Never said "outperform"...I said that the 780 will do fine. Better than the W5000 "here", worse "there".

Workstation cards have their niche, unless you go for a K6000 or the equivalent W9000 or so, you won't be able to out-do the brute compute power of monster gaming cards with just drivers in EVERYTHING.

 

In most stuff listed but Solidworks, it will do fine. In the Solidworks 2013 it will do "ok", as at least with my Titan the 2013 SP1 version works vastly better than older OpenGL engines in Solidworks. Unless you go to really complicated models ofc. Other CAM/CAE tools like Siemens NX are still HORRIBLE with anything but a W5000 or better.

 

That said, Revit is NOT interchangeable with Solidworks. Completely different programs.

Yes, both are 3D CAD, but Revit is a 3D CAD/BIM tool to design and engineer buildings, while Solidworks is a CAM/CAE for complicated machinery, and in general "smaller than building" products.

 

One is geared towards architects, structural and mechanical engineers trying to produce drawing sets for a contractor to build a building, the other make a VERY detailed model of each little part in a machine (i.e. from coffee makers to cars or spacecrafts down to each bolt), and probably simulate required mechanical properties etc for each.

 

Kinda hard for anyone to use Revit and Solidworks interchangeably, even if he is fluent in either. You will probably be in some Architecture or engineering field - otherwise you wouldn't be talking about Revit to begin with, so lets get it straight, Solidworks will probably NOT be good for anything really required in your school - unless you go into some pretty detailed kinetic façade studio, where again, Rhino+Grasshopper, 3DS/Maya or even Sketchup will be able to do most of the modeling just fine.

 

If you want to play with Soldiworks to give it a try, a 760/770 would work. A 780 a tad better. You will probably be struggling with far simpler models than what a W5000 would give you an edge using.

 

Cheers for the answer its very helpful. I must apologize, i didn't mean Revit i meant Rhino, because as you rightly pointed out, they are completely different and i wont be needing to use Revit for my sort of work. Yes i don't think that we will be require to create that sort of intricacy at University. I realize from what you are saying that i basically cant get a GPU in my budget that will perform well in any CAD program that I throw at it. But that still leaves me with the question of what GPU do i get based on the uncertainty of the which CAD programs i will be using in the future. What would be your advice from you knowledge of working with CAD and rendering programs?

Cheers

[Dimitris Tolios]

Cheers for the answer its very helpful. I must apologize, i didn't mean Revit i meant Rhino, because as you rightly pointed out, they are completely different and i wont be needing to use Revit for my sort of work. Yes i don't think that we will be require to create that sort of intricacy at University. I realize from what you are saying that i basically cant get a GPU in my budget that will perform well in any CAD program that I throw at it. But that still leaves me with the question of what GPU do i get based on the uncertainty of the which CAD programs i will be using in the future. What would be your advice from you knowledge of working with CAD and rendering programs?

Cheers

 

The contrary, I say that since you already have allocated a relatively generous amount for GPU, pretty much anything in the upper range of that budget (tbh, pretty much anything above $250) will work well.

 

Rhino is pretty forgiving as far as GPU goes...been working on Rhino pretty fluently using mobile radeons (e.g. in laptops), and so did friends with iMacs etc (again, mobile AMD & NVidia cards).

 

The least forgiving program is Solidworks, which in the latest viewport engine does allow GTX cards to work pretty well. Did not have a Radeon @ hand to work with, but I don't see my W5000 doing considerably better than the GTX Titan - at least in the things I've opened to test with, and Specviewperf 12 (uses Solidworks 2013 SP1 & models used range in size from 2.1 to 21 million vertices).

 

I don't think a 780 would do worse than the Titan. If Titan does ok, 780 does ok, and I would suspect any R9 Radeon to do just as fine, if not a tad better.

NVidia ofc retains the exclusive access to CUDA accelerated apps, despite being slower than AMD in OpenCL. At least NVidia works with pretty much everything.

 

The only real advantage the W5000 will offer you, is that it is much smaller and consumes less energy. Will fit inside a small case, won't require you to allocate 250W or so just for the GPU when picking your PSU, and ofc will remain faster in very demanding OpenGL apps (e.g. Siemens NX) or those that did not get their engine upgraded lately, but it is not already maxed out by gaming cards (e.g. that is the category Rhino falls in imho)

[evanmoore]

The contrary, I say that since you already have allocated a relatively generous amount for GPU, pretty much anything in the upper range of that budget (tbh, pretty much anything above $250) will work well.

 

Rhino is pretty forgiving as far as GPU goes...been working on Rhino pretty fluently using mobile radeons (e.g. in laptops), and so did friends with iMacs etc (again, mobile AMD & NVidia cards).

 

The least forgiving program is Solidworks, which in the latest viewport engine does allow GTX cards to work pretty well. Did not have a Radeon @ hand to work with, but I don't see my W5000 doing considerably better than the GTX Titan - at least in the things I've opened to test with, and Specviewperf 12 (uses Solidworks 2013 SP1 & models used range in size from 2.1 to 21 million vertices).

 

I don't think a 780 would do worse than the Titan. If Titan does ok, 780 does ok, and I would suspect any R9 Radeon to do just as fine, if not a tad better.

NVidia ofc retains the exclusive access to CUDA accelerated apps, despite being slower than AMD in OpenCL. At least NVidia works with pretty much everything.

 

The only real advantage the W5000 will offer you, is that it is much smaller and consumes less energy. Will fit inside a small case, won't require you to allocate 250W or so just for the GPU when picking your PSU, and ofc will remain faster in very demanding OpenGL apps (e.g. Siemens NX) or those that did not get their engine upgraded lately, but it is not already maxed out by gaming cards (e.g. that is the category Rhino falls in imho)

 

What about the difference in price? The 780 is more expensive than a w5000. I doesn't seem worth it if im not really going to be gaining much. If you were saying a GTX 770 would offer me better performance in apps like Alias, Rhino, Keyshot, 3DS than a W5000 then i would definitely get at 770 due to the fact it cost less and im going to get better performance in apps that im most likely to use. I dont really understand what you are advising me to do to be honest. What graphics card would you recommend in my £300-£350 range?

Cheers

[RyderSK]

Dimitris will never tell you completely subjective opinion because there is never a single best choice :- ). You have to decipher it "slightly".

 

But you should just buy GTX760, you will save even more money, you will never notice the difference to 770/780, and you will be happy in every single app you will work with.

People did the work just fine with 10times slower older cards.

[Dimitris Tolios]

What the 780 buys you over the W5000 is compute, and specifically CUDA compute.

Juraj is right, as far as viewport goes, a 760 already gets you roughly exactly where the 780 will, only lacking in compute, but still giving you decent all around performance. (that was hinted in the "pretty much anything past $250" sentence, well, the 760 is the $250 class GTX).

And he is also right in that I don't want to be authoritative and say "BUY X or Y" or whatever. I am trying to unfold the reasoning behind the options, as there is rarely "one answer" when the problem is presented as widely as you've presented it (e.g. "I want it all" = too wide). Add my rants, and it gets out of hand I guess.

 

The W5000 is not bad @ compute, it just doesn't play with CUDA, and that's what most current generation programs work best with.

 

The GTX cards will get you more flexibility, and with minor performance sacrifices (i.e. you don't have to deplete your budget and go either "all in" for W5000 or "all in for 780")

[evanmoore]

Dimitris will never tell you completely subjective opinion because there is never a single best choice :- ). You have to decipher it "slightly".

 

But you should just buy GTX760, you will save even more money, you will never notice the difference to 770/780, and you will be happy in every single app you will work with.

People did the work just fine with 10times slower older cards.

 

Cheers for the answer man. I will definitely look into getting the 760 then. Have you had experience using this card? Cheers

[kareemismael]

Hi Dimitris,

 

I made an account here especially to ask you the following question.

 

For many days I have been trying to find the best graphics card for my budget, I have read at least a hundred forums and a hundred articles and every one has his own favourite, right now I am so so very confused.

I decided to build a new computer with the following specs:

CPU: Intel Core i7 4790K.

Boot Drive: Samsung (or another manufacturer) 240 or 250 GB SSD.

Storage Drive: Seagate Barracuda (Or another manufacturer) 2TB 7200RPM HDD.

Optical Drive: DVD or Blu-ray Writer any manufacturer (does not really matter).

PSU: 640 or 650W.

Case: Not decided yet.

Cpu cooler: Not sure if I would want that, but if so, then Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo most probably.

MotherBoard: GA-Z9TX-UD3H 1150

RAM: 8GB Transcend.

GPU: ?? (Budget 350USD for the card).

 

I checked for the professional cards, and they are all very expensive, except for the Quadro K600 which everyone says that it is no good and old.

 

So I believe that now I should be looking for good consumer range GPUs.

 

Summary:

I know that this question must have been asked before many times, but please forgive me as I am very confused at the moment.

1- The budget I am putting for the GPU is around 350USD.

2- I am going to use Maya, 3Dsmax, After Effects, and Mudbox (for now).

3- I am doing modelling, animating, and rendering.

 

Wow this post is getting long...

 

I stumbled upon the following words which are kind of foreign to me, but from my understanding they are very important when it comes to the final render (?) and while working on the viewports in a complex scene:

OpenGL, OpenCL, DirectX, Cuda, and Kepler.

One thread had a member saying the following:

" the GTX 770 performs stronger in the AutoCAD directx benchmark, but the R9 280x performs better in the Maya OpenGL benchmark. I think I'll go out on a limb here and say that they have similar performances but DirectX apps can utilize the GTX's CUDA cores better while the R9 has better OpenGL and OpenCL support."

 

1- Now should I be using CUDA OR OpenGL or OpenCL!

2- If I am going to use CUDA then I must get an Nvidia like the GTX760 or 770. But I saw somewhere that Nvidia played with these cards, making them perform worse in some way? Kepler?

3- If I am going to use OpenGL or OpenCL based on the thread below, I should get the R9280 for example:

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1890745/gtx-770-...

4- After reading this here thread now, it made me prefer the GTX 770 for example for its CUDA abilities, but still, is it one of the tweaked models? would you go for the GTX 770 and not an R9?

 

I really do apologize for the length of this post, but I just want to make sure that I don't just pay money with no real benefits.

 

Also I am looking for advice from everyone, if someone has any information at all, it will be very appreciated.