planning my new workstation: your opinions

[carlonarducci]

I am planning my new workstation for hard work in 3D fields.

ALwasy same software (3ds max chain)

After some reading and my idea on budget (from 3000 to 5000) my idea is this

 

1 - Dual Xeon 2550 v2

2 - k2000 Nvidia

3 - 32 Gb ram

 

 

some modern features as ssd hard drive, power supply and so on.

 

 

price must be around 5 000 €

[alexanderbong]

I'd rather go for i7, GtX and a regular ol harddisk.

then spend extra cash on new monitor and chair .

[Dimitris Tolios]

No E5-2550 v2 I believe.

There is a E5-2650 V2, 8-core 2.6GHz/3.4GHz turbo for around €1150 ea.

Two of them should do ok in rendering, but mediocre in pretty much anything else.

 

For the €2,800~2,900 that just the 2* CPUs + mobo will set you back, I hope you are "ready" for what you are getting yourself into, as single threaded performance will definately not be indicative of such a pricetag. But I have to admit that anything notably faster above 6 cores, would cost nearly double per CPU.

 

Also keep in mind that RAM is not shared seamlesly between the two CPUs (each one has its own memory controller and tries to do its own thing. So 32GB will be "better" than 16GB on a single processor system, but not that much better. Perhaps not an issue if you are not into really complicated scenes/really high resolutions, but keep it in your mind. Go for 8GB sticks (2 per CPU, don't bite for quad channel) and leave some headroom for upgrading to 64GB should you need to. Unless you don't go for the cookie cutter entousiast board, Asus Z9PE-D8 WS, but for a server board that has more than 4 slots per CPU.

[RyderSK]

5k euros (if you included VAT) is tad bit low for full-scale dual-Xeon machine, but only slightly. That's around the price I build/specced my (glorified)nodes around, best budget for workstation starts more close to 6k. And imho it's either that, or wait for 8-core Haswell-E coming in June (whether that's gonna be also 5930k is unclear ? but 5960x is 8) and built the ultimate workstation for half this cost.

 

So I suggest either upping the budget and going with something similar as outlied bellow:

 

Asus Z9PE-D8 WS (:- D ..why cookie cutter ?)

2x E5-2667 v2 / 2687W v2 or "budget" scenario would be 2643 v2 // General idea is to get highly clocked modules for single-threaded/dominant application/processes

 

Or wait for Haswell-E 8-core, which is around corner.

 

If those xeons interest you I will post my build next Monday, but here is my specs, mind you, it's "node", not workstation ( I keep few i7 4930k as workstations ):

 

ASUS Workstation Z9PE-D8 WS // I like this board due to WS features the server competitors (Micro,Tyan,etc.) lack, such as number of PCI-E 16 lanes in case you ever decided to go 4xGPU for whathever reason

 

Fractal Design Define XL2 // I love this case, I have 7 of them heh. They all look minimal and are extremely silent. Excellent price for the value.

 

E5-2680 v2 // As node, I preferred slightly more multithreaded performance, but didn't want to spend as much as 2690 v2 as I wanted two (so 4xcpu total). of these. /// Workstation suggestions few lines bellow

 

Corsair Vengeance LP 8x8 64GB // Average module, but proven. For CGI, ECC is vastly unnecessary, don't buy into it, most people don't even know why they should want one. Any Kingston module would be fine as well, I just already have too many Corsairs, so I go with them because of redundancy.

For the amount of threads E5 v2 family has, and to fill quad-channel (not so important though...) 64GB is preferable compared to 32GB, as 32GB can be detrimental in performance under certain situations.

 

Samsung SSD SSD840 EVO 250GB // Excellent budget/perfomance. For Workstations, I use PRO version instead, provides slight performance advantage.

 

Sapphire Radeon HD 6450 // Placeholder graphics. For workstations I use various GTX (from 670 to 760/770, all with 4GB ram). If you opt for Quadro, aim for K4000 instead of K2000 only.

 

Super Flower SF-1000P14PE Golden King // Recent experiment for complete passive cooled unit. Usually stick to Seasonic Platinum though, both are excellent, this one is more trendy and silent.

Anyway you go around this, you will end up with expensive computer, so it's good to keep it safe, stable and efficient with quality unit. Don't compromise here, never

 

2x Noctua NH-U14S // Powerfull but slimmer as NH-DH14, preferrable for dual Xeons next to each other. For single CPU, I use the latter though.

 

3x Noiseblocker NB-BlackSilent PRO PK1 // Latest coolers I use. Single, best, silent on earth. Germany made. Nothing compares to super silent and cool build

 

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

 

As specced above, it's 5200 euros including VAT.

 

To transform it into workstation, let's swap 2680 v2 into 2667 v2, which will add 300 euros per CPU, so 5800 euros.

 

Now if you add regular GTX, like 760 for example, you're at 6000 euros exactly, if you add K4000 you're at 6700 euros. And this is pretty much the cheapest way to go around it.

 

For fully specced workstation with 2687v2, fancier case and water cooling, you're looking at 8000 euros.

 

I guess, this might be overkill for what you expected. 3000+ euros is much more reasonable budget for workstation, and for that you can get almost the best single CPU Workstation you can imagine.

 

5960x + custom water cooling, overclocked to max

..

780Ti with 6GB // great viewport performance plus possibility of GPU rendering....and gaming

...

??

Profit ! /// Lot's of unnecessary luxury still, but to illustrate that even this, is still half the price of 2p xeons.

 

Lot's of choice, think wisely :- ) And do a LOT of math

Edited April 3, 2014 by RyderSK

[carlonarducci]

thank you all.

 

so and the best configuration for that value?

 

even if I am reading Dimitris' blog and everything is much clear.

 

just notice between 4930k and 3930k not so much different also in price.

Edited April 3, 2014 by carlonarducci

[Dimitris Tolios]

Thank Juraj for his detailed insight.

 

"The best" is always subjective. Will be the best for your money in some areas, not the best in others.

We are always compromising here or there, but the goal is achieving a good balance without over-spending. It will out-paced regardless of the money you spend. You can future proof perhaps your PSU, case etc, but the working components will be "Slower" than what you can buy for this kind of money a year from now, definitely in 2 years. C'est la vie.

 

The 4930K is a clear winner over the 3930K for the most part. Runs on less power, turbo-boosts more cores more often. Yeah, it might overclock less, but that's not exactly what a workstation CPU is called to do 24/7 for the absolute majority.

I have a good clocking 3930K, and I would easily direct trade it for a 4930K if given the chance... =)

But it will be pretty hard to see a noticeable difference in real life between the two as far as performance goes.

 

A 4930K will easily beat all but the fastest 8-core E5's out there in single threaded tasks, for 1/4 the price, and the 4770K/4771 would beat the 4930K for half that $.

 

But ofc a €5-6000 2P oughts and will beat them easily while rendering without giving away too much in everyday modeling. Can't win them all.

It's part of the balancing you need to do yourself according to you actual workloads.

What you get back from your money in extra speed greatly diminishes after you reach a $1500-2000 machine.

So choose wisely in order to get a return of your investment.

[RyderSK]

Hi Carlocki,

 

3930k and 4930k cost mostly the same because of intel's price politics, somehow their CPUs don't really fall in price (neither much in moral lifespan either) for recent years.

 

If you really need workstation right now (like this very month), then 4930k is obviously the most logical and budget friendly choice, giving you maximum performance for great value compared to Xeon systems.

But if you're willing to wait until June, you can get next generation, which will also feature 8-core, giving you even better performance for the value of 1cpu system.

 

I like Dimitris's wording on comprimise, which is very correct, there is always some trade-of.

 

There are so many ways to go around setting up home/office performance. If you'll miss the performance of the 2p Xeon system, you can always add few 4930k/4770k render nodes additionally.

[carlonarducci]

thank you. crystal clear.

[TheMulf]

Thanks for the info Dimitris, helpful - but I'm going to jump in and ask pretty much as the same question. I am looking to buy either a dual xeon workstation or the highest end i7 (or wait till the new ones come out this summer).

 

My workstation will primarily be a 3DS Max workstation using Vray to render. I will use a GTX 770, that will work for me. So the most important thing for me is to be blowing out renders. At work I am spoiled with a nice BOXX i7 980 OC'd to 4.1 Ghz. That gets about 900-something on cinebench. We also have server xeon slaves nodes, some are10 core E5's, so I'm used to having lots of buckets.

 

I'm looking for something to use at home for my own personal projects, and some community development animations I plan to do. My budget is about 6kish USD. I guess my question is, for rendering - how crazy would I have to go with xeons to make them worth it (i know, subjective) over the fastest i7?

 

 

EDIT-

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/overclocked_cpus.html

 

A 6K system w/ dual 2687W's @ 3.1ghz might be good...?

Edited April 3, 2014 by TheMulf

[RyderSK]

Did you really read the thread ?

 

Here is comparison of your current i7 980 vs 5960x. Because 5960x hasn't been released yet, we know it's Haswell-E based Octacore at 3Ghz baseclock, so I compared it to 2687W which is SandyBridge Octacore at baseclock of 3.1Ghz. You can add 10perc to both, for 980 because of overclock, to 2687W because of 2 generations of architecture. But it would fit rather closely.

 

 

So with upcoming i7 you're looking at 60-70perc. multithreaded performance increase directly correlating to render speed improvement.

 

If you decide to build 2p Xeon system with 6k dollars, you can close double that performance.

 

6000 dollars build off Amazon // quick example

 

Intel Xeon Eight-Core E5-2687W

Asus Z9PE-D8 WS

Corsair Vengeance LP Blue 32 GB (4x8 GB) x 2 // 64GB total

Seasonic PLATINUM-1000 ATX

Samsung 840 EVO-Series 250GB

Fractal Design FD-CA-DEF-XL-R2-BL

Noctua NH-U14S

Gigabyte GTX 770 GDDR5-4GB

 

Without regular HDD ( I do presume everyone uses network storage by now ), cables, montage price and additional fans comes under 6000 dollars by little margin.

 

 

To avoid confusion, within 6k +/- dollars budget, you can only afford from "WS" E5 family either older SandyBridge 2687W (not "v2" Ivy Bridge version) or newer 2643 v2. Don't be confused by lower number, it has higher base clock, and lower TDP (150x2 vs 130x2, quite difference).

 

The 2643 v2 is hence superior in both performance and TDP, but is 200 dollars pricier per each unit.

Edited April 3, 2014 by RyderSK

[TheMulf]

Thank you very much for the reply, I did read the thread, but I get lost in all the model numbers (especially with the i7 family) and euro conversions.

I was just spec'ing out a 2687 system just like that on JNCS.com. You are right, network storage is where its at.

 

My main confusion is I ran a benchmark on one of our 2680 V2's (Corona Alpha4 benchmark) and it only beat the i7 x980 @4.15Ghz by a few seconds. The 2680 on average runs faster on other vray benchmark scenes, and everyday animation/renders.

[RyderSK]

Thank you very much for the reply, I did read the thread, but I get lost in all the model numbers (especially with the i7 family) and euro conversions.

I was just spec'ing out a 2687 system just like that on JNCS.com. You are right, network storage is where its at.

 

My main confusion is I ran a benchmark on one of our 2680 V2's (Corona Alpha4 benchmark) and it only beat the i7 x980 @4.15Ghz by a few seconds. The 2680 on average runs faster on other vray benchmark scenes, and everyday animation/renders.

 

Hi Thomas,

 

you were too quick to respond, please re-read my last part of message that I added :- ) I compared 2 Xeons that might be viable for you.

 

Regarding Corona benchmark, it's not correct measurement. Not only is it based on old A4 (current version is A6, almost 1.5+ of development), but also it doesn't scale well to 2p system. It only concerns this "benchmark" (it wasn't meant as benchmark, maybe they should really put it down), actually Corona takes into account 2p systems correctly.

 

Cinebench is better in this regard, as it's with some flaws, correct and standardasized bench