1 question - 2 computers - 3 processors. Advice needed.

[Jtrudeau]

Hello everyone, I look at this forum often but never had anything to ask until just recently. I know these questions probably get old, but hopefully this piques someones interest.

 

After 4 years I realized that I need a new computer and have been figuring out what setup works best for my needs. I'm deciding between using dual CPUs instead of a single overclocked CPU. The difference between the 2 computers is 400 dollars and can be found below.

 

I've done as much research as I can online, but everyone in this forum is more suited to answer this question than anyone else.

 

Background - I'm a set designer mainly working in Maya and Rhino (3d modeling and drawing). I do render scenes (keyshot, vray), but it's not day to day, however it's something I like to do and I look for opportunities to incorporate renderings where I can

 

Question - I'm not sure if using a dual xeon setup is worth it since Rhino doesn't use multi threading and I don't render every day. I've heard murmurs that Rhino 6 may utilize multi-core processing, which would be awesome, but not sure if that's a good enough reason. 400 dollars doesn't seem like too much to pay for such a big leap in processing, but it's enough to make me question the two builds. There is a fair degree of future proofing with the dual xeon setup I suppose

 

Dual Xeon- https://pcpartpicker.com/user/jtrudeau/saved/#view=rHv7YJ

 

Over clocked I7 - https://pcpartpicker.com/user/jtrudeau/saved/#view=QJ7xFT

 

If anyone has the time to look at the two setups and tell me what they think I would be very grateful.

 

Thank you kindly.

[RyderSK]

It's hard to justify Dual-Xeon setup if rendering is not on your table daily, compared to the ones you picked (2630), aren't even faster much at multithreading compared to clocked 5960. Depending on how high you would be willing to go with costs, you could gain additional 30-60perc in multi-threaded performance (2670-2699), but even that's not future-proofing, it's just stretching another performance into single box, getting slightly faster renders.

 

So the choice is clear if you're after absolute best i7, 5960X is excellent choice. Not sure how complex your renders are, you might be perfectly comfortable with 5820K, esp. seeing you're going with Titan-X, which I can I just presume is for GPU rendering (Keyshot). This might be more reasonable setup.

Unless you again absolutely need 5960X, it's not future-proofing you either, 10-12 cores will surface in consumer domain next two years.

 

I would not suggest you to go for merely 256GB System drive, esp. at this budget, despite whatever size would be your secondary storage.

512GB is good sweat-spot if you use multiple applications today.

 

Rest is fine, up to personal choices.

[Nikolaos M]

I use KeyShot and it's a rather basic cpu renderer. It has some good features though. It's very easy to use and one can assign as many threads as he wants to the renderer, leaving the rest for a more smooth system operation.

 

I vote for the 5960X build too. It's a good build in general, but I would change some parts if I had this budget. For example, a Titan X isn't really needed for just Maya and Rhino viewports (Rhino is my main working program right now and I'm more than fine with my "old" gtx 780). A 980Ti would be equally fast and it just has half of the TitanX's vram, i.e. 6gb vs 12gb.

 

I also agree with Juraj about the OS drive. Since the budget is enough for the best choices, a 512gb Samsung 950 is perfect for this build.

 

And one last thing about the case. The 750D is a good all around chassis, but I think there are lots of good alternatives within the same price range. But it's a personal taste thing, this one. I wouldn't object any further.

 

So, if you haven't already made up your mind about this workstation, you might want to take a look at another one that's more balanced, imo:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-5960X 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($899.99 @ Micro Center)

CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X61 106.1 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($125.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Motherboard: Asus X99-PRO/USB 3.1 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($319.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($189.99 @ Amazon)

Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 512GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($329.99 @ Amazon)

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($138.89 @ OutletPC)

Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card ($699.99 @ B&H)

Case: Fractal Design Define S w/Window ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.99 @ NCIX US)

Power Supply: Cooler Master VSM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($69.99 @ Newegg)

Total: $2844.81

 

You can save some cash without losing anything in terms of performance.

 

Edit: I just noticed. You don't need an extra wi-fi adapter with the Deluxe and the Pro motherboards. They already have WLAN onboard.

Edited December 27, 2015 by nikolaosm

[Jtrudeau]

Thanks so much for your feedback everyone. That's exactly the kind of advice I was looking for. The 512gb m.2 switch has been made. Now I'm afraid you brought up questions I've been dying to ask regarding the overclocked build.

 

- Are there any downsides to using a mid-tower case for an overclocked build? I was under the impression that for water cooling clearance and

for airflow I should go with a full sized case (such as the Enthoos pro).

 

-Are there any additional fans I should add to replace or add-to what I already have?

 

- The TitanX is a placeholder for price in the list: I have the opportunity to buy friend's Quadro k5200 for around the same price. I'm not sure if that's an intelligent decision, I've only used Quadros because of the "better viewport performance". I also know this is a highly contested topic.

 

-Lastly, I have never overclocked a cpu. Is it fairly easy if I'm vigilant about doing the research?

 

Again, thank you both for your feedback.

[RyderSK]

I'm not sure if that's an intelligent decision

 

Mostly not :- ). Although you would be getting quite a discount.

 

 

I also know this is a highly contested topic.

 

It's not contested, people just can't be bothered to review their facts and continue to either believe that was was once true, is still, or are brainwashed by continuous marketing. Any viewport improvement was specific to application (3dsMax

 

Esp. in case of Maya, which has DX11 powered 'Viewport 2.0', a very game-engine like viewport, Quadro would provide identical at best, slightly worse in reality performance as its architectural counterpart. K5200=GTX780 :- ) A powerful card, but why waste the money when 780 is worth about 300 dollars right now ?

Rhino, AutoCad,and 90perc. of other CAD applications don't utilise the OpenGL specific driver of Quadro range either (and only rare CADs like Siemens NXT do still benefit from it based on published benchmarks.)

 

Yes, there are other benefits (14bit native LUT support for extended color pipeline for colorists or hardcore print labs), ECC memory and Double floating-point precision for super-computer clusters involved in scientific (and only scientific/economic, not rendering) calculations, and specialized driver and support for software developers.

I don't see 99perc. of 3D artists to fall into any of the above brackets.

 

If you're not planning on any GPU-rendering, using real-time engines (like Unreal4), or playing game in ultra/ultra type of settings, you're wasting money on any kind of high-end GPU. Medium range cards like GTX970 would be highly above your needs for years to come.

Edited December 27, 2015 by RyderSK

[Nikolaos M]

It's not only the tower's size that determines if it has a good airflow or not. It's a basic factor, alright, but there are many things to consider. The Fractal S I've posted before doesn't have any drive bays in the front side, so, the air is flowing towards the rear side without any obstacles in the way. It has 3 cleverly placed 3.5" nests behind the empty front tray and 2 more 2.5" for ssd's behind the motherboard tray.

You can easily place a 240-280mm radiator in the front even in push-pull configuration. In my case, taking the X61 Kraken from its place at the top of my NZXT H440 and placing it in the front and adding 2 more 140mm fans for push-pull gave me a 4-5°C improvement in cpu temps. And I'm talking about a 5960X at 4.4GHz, while the H440 isn't the best chassis when it comes to front air intake performance. The Fractal S is much more capable of inhaling air from the front grills compared to my H440.

 

The Enthoo Pro is a fine case but most of the users I know and have talked about this case are complaining about noise issues coming from the big 200mm intake fan that's very firmly placed between the front cover and the main chassis. Same problem appears with the Luxe too. I've read about some issues with the side plexi window too.

 

The K5200 for 1K doesn't seem like a great bargain to me. I wouldn't pay that money for this card, although it's a good professional gpu and it should handle Maya's and Rhino's OpenGL viewports very well.

 

As for oc, if you spend some time studying your hardware's capabilities, you can do very well with your 5960X. I've recently tried out the Asus oc utility (AI Suite) and it's a very good starting point from where one can easily make some final adjustments and have good voltage/temps levels and a huge performance boost.

Edited December 28, 2015 by nikolaosm

[Nikolaos M]

Esp. in case of Maya, which has DX11 powered 'Viewport 2.0', a very game-engine like viewport, Quadro would provide identical at best, slightly worse in reality performance as its architectural counterpart. K5200=GTX780 :- ) A powerful card, but why waste the money when 780 is worth about 300 dollars right now ?

 

I'm not really sure, but I think direct3d viewport 2.0 isn't used by default in Maya. Is that true? I think OpenGL is on by default. Besides, Maya is widely used with MacOSs, so direct3d couldn't be on by default in any case.

[Jtrudeau]

That get's right to the point of my questions, all answered concisely, thank you, this will save me money and time. I'm going to reconfigure my setup based on your recommendations.

 

As to Nikolaos's question: After Maya 2014 viewport 2.0 comes as the default viewport display.

 

Thank you again and I hope you don't mind if a question or two comes up before I pull the trigger.

 

JRT

[Ernest Burden III]

...since Rhino doesn't use multi threading...

 

Whatever Juraj says is golden, so I defer to his wisdom.

 

But that caught my eye--Rhino isn't multi-threaded?

[Jtrudeau]

Hi Ernest, I agree, this advice is as solid as it comes. It has totally changed the way I look at my build.

 

And you are correct, at this point Rhino does not utilize multithreading. I think there are a few tasks that may, but they're inconsequential as far as I know. Commands like Make2D that really could use multiple cores do not.

[Nikolaos M]

As to Nikolaos's question: After Maya 2014 viewport 2.0 comes as the default viewport display.

 

Thanks. I guess you're right. I just checked a trial version of Maya 2016 and OpenGL Viewport 2.0 must be activated by hand. As for your setup, I'm glad I could help.

[joelmcwilliam]

Can you name the specs of your current pc?

 

You said you need a new pc. Because you want the faster render times. And how fast you want to render? Like two times faster?

 

How is the modelling going? Are you happy about the speed?

 

Dual xeon, like 2 x 2630 is wise if you render a lot and mainly do renders. Not the case with you.

[Jtrudeau]

My current pc was built when I was in grad school doing waaaay more rendering. I also skimped on a lot of other components to keep the cost down.

 

Recently viewpoint speeds on larger models have slowed down and the fan assembly is on the fritz with the Quadro. All that being said, the info on my previous build is below, definitely let me know if you think it's worth an upgrade.

 

My build before was:

 

Dual xeon E5620 @ 2.4 Ghz

Supermicro motherboard

Quadrp 4000

SSD for the operating system

Mechanical HD for storage

24 gigs of DDR3 ram

 

Hopefully I'm not convincing myself I need a new PC because they're funl to build.

 

Thanks

Edited December 30, 2015 by Jtrudeau

[joelmcwilliam]

Would be nice to answer if you are happy with the speed of your modelling.

 

Well, i am no expert but from what I have understand, but I could be wrong here, is that software that are written around opengl, like rhino, are better off with the quadro's. Especially when models are big.

 

In your case where you have problems with the viewports and you have access to the latest quadro model (the one your friend has) I would suggest to see if you can first borrow or persuade your friend to lend his quadro to you for testing purposes. It might just work out nicely.