Building dedicated workstation for rendering and animation on Rhino and Vray

[stuartwatson]

Hi guys,

 

Currently trying to spec a dedicated rendering workstation for the architectural office I work in. Predominantly will be used for Rhino, Vray and Photoshop. The main output will generally just be still images, although we will also need to produce animated walkthroughs, etc. These won't be as technically advanced or demanding as a lot of the animation stuff that I'm sure people on this forum spec for, but I'd still like to make sure I have enough power to not struggle with these.

 

Any help would be much appreciated, never assembled a PC before!!

 

Case

STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA CASE + 2 FRONT USB

Processor (CPU)

Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-6500 (3.2GHz) 6MB Cache

Motherboard

ASUS® Z170-E: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs

Memory (RAM)

32GB HyperX FURY DDR4 2133MHz (4 x 8GB)

Graphics Card

INTEGRATED GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR (GPU)

1st Hard Disk

500GB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 16MB CACHE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive

24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply

CORSAIR 350W VS SERIES™ VS-350 POWER SUPPLY

Processor Cooling

INTEL STANDARD CPU COOLER

Thermal Paste

STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING

Sound Card

ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Wireless/Wired Networking

2 x ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORTS

USB Options

MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS

Power Cable

1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)

Operating System

Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Office Software

FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365

Anti-Virus

BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL

Monitor

BENQ GL2250HM LED 21.5" 1920 x 1080, 5MS, HDMI, D-SUB, DVI-D (£98)

Warranty

3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

Delivery

STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time

FAST TRACK 5 WORKING DAY DISPATCH (£29)

Quantity

1

 

Price: £813.00 including VAT and delivery.

[Nikolaos M]

So, you'll be running Rhino with the integrated gpu? I don't think it will suffice. I happen to run Rhino myself (it's my main CG software) with a gtx 780 and it's a demanding program.

Also, no ssd in a new system?

The psu is not a good choice at all.

Mediocre monitor and too small for CG jobs.

I'll stop here. I think you should raise the budget a bit in order to get something decent.

[Morne Erasmus]

+1 What Nikolaos said.

And make sure you get Windows Pro, not the home edition. (Its better for networking stuff and a lot of CAD/3D packages will only install on Pro - may not be the case with Rhino)

Try and get an i7 instead of an i5

GTX 970 GPU with 4GB ram should be fine.

For the PSU you'll need at least a 650 or 750 or higher one

[TomasEsperanza]

And make sure you get Windows Pro, not the home edition. (Its better for networking stuff and a lot of CAD/3D packages will only install on Pro - may not be the case with Rhino)

 

Not to mention the RAM limitations! on Home editions, btw.

 

+1 here: SSD is a must, Good CPU is a must, Good GPU is a must.

 

Do you have many other computers in the office that can double up as render nodes? This might effect your choice of CPU/s.

Edited January 28, 2016 by TomasEsperanza

[Scott Schroeder]

Ditch the DVD and blu-ray. Who uses optical drives these days anyways? You can push that cost to upgrading other components. Your motherboard should come with a decent sound card option. There is no need to go anything better for a workstation as you use headphones probably 100% of the time.

 

You'll want to go with an i7 if you plan to render, 650 watt PSU should be fine. Way too many people put in too high of wattage PSU's and waste money there. You might want to look at something other than a stock intel cooler. It probably doesn't have to be water cooling, but stock coolers usually don't work so well on a rendering system.

 

Only a 500 gig platter hard drive as your main drive? What is this, 1992? Go much higher as these are cheap. You'll want at least a 250 gig solid state as your app drive. You'll never look back once you run solid states for your apps. Use the platter drives for asset and non-essential apps.

 

You really should check this site out: https://pcpartpicker.com/ I used it to build my recent computer at home. It does a really good job at telling you potential conflicts between your components and your general wattage consumed.

 

The biggest wastes of budget are choosing an over designed case, "gaming" RAM, "gaming" motherboards, and much higher than you'll ever need PSU's.

[Nikolaos M]

This is what I would consider as a minimum in this case: PCPartPicker part list

OS is not included. RAM is easily upgradable to 32gb. 16gb is an absolute minimum these days, but the whole system is very basic in many aspects, but decent, nevertheless.

 

I didn't choose the 6700 (non-K), because it costs only 20£ less than the 6700K, and you'll be needing the extra boost in rendering (the 6700K is 10-15% faster in rendering).