Workstation for 3ds max + Vray

[Irida Pappa]

Hello everyone,

I want to buy a good and fast PC in order to work with 3ds MAX and Vray, but I am very confused regarding the specs because I have heard different opinions from 2 different people.

Regarding the processor, one recommended the “AMD CPU Ryzen 7 3700X (AM4/3.6 GHz/36 MB)” and the other guy said that I should get an Intel instead.

Regarding the graphics card, one recommended the “VGA GeForce RTX 3080 EAGLE OC 10G” and the other said that this is not appropriate for renderings and that I should get the “PNY Quadro P4000 8GB (VCQP4000-PB)”.

I really have zero experience about this stuff so maybe you can help me!

Thank you,

Irida

[Nikolaos M]

Hi Irida!

Both gpus you mention are unnecessary for 3ds max since you'll be rendering with Vray. Especially the Quadro card. You should focus on cpu and RAM. A mid range gpu would be more than enough for max's viewports.

Could you mention your total budget for this rig and if you want to buy peripherals (monitors etc) too? Also, where are you going to buy this hardware from (location, pc store etc)? Are you aiming at a prebuilt system?  

[Irida Pappa]

Hello Nikolaos,

Thank you for your answer. No prebuilt, but I am thinking of buying all the stuff from Plaisio store in Greece, since they can build it and I can also have technical support for the whole workstation if anything happens (instead of buying everything from different stores over the internet and then find somenone to build it for me).

My budget should not be more than 2000 euro with the screen and the tower (or I could use my old tower which is big and get the guys transfer all the old hardware into a smaller and cheaper tower, so that I can use it as a secondary pc)...I haven't decided that yet. It all depends on the total price.

[Nikolaos M]

Hi Irida, sorry for answering so late.

Buying from Plaisio has some serious drawbacks imo. First of all, they usually charge a high premium for most of the hardware parts, 10-20% more expensive from the average market price, in some cases. Furthermore, they offer a very poor variety of products from each category of hardware. So, at the end you buy less "hardware" for your money, and not always the best you can find at the given price range. You're kind of limited to their narrow list of parts.

Instead of buying the parts and ordering the assembly from the hardware store you'll end up with, I suggest you take a look at a prebuilt system from another pc store (with more flexible builds), and make the changes you want, customizing the build. It's easily done, no worries about that. 

Just to give you an example, you could order this one https://www.e-gate.gr/868355/e-gate-amd-swift-gtx-maverick-ryzen-9-3900xt16gb1tb500gbgeforce-gtx1660no-os and ask them to add more RAM, according to your needs, ex. 32(=2x16)gb or 64(=4x16)gb. The same goes for prebuilt systems from other pc stores too. Most pc stores give a 3 year warranty and free support period (each one has its own policy of course, but this can be easily cleared out before the order).

As for the parts, let me start with saying that imo now is the worst time to buy a graphics card. The new 3000 series from Nvidia just came out with an excellent performance boost compared with the previous 2000 series, but with very low availability and a huge demand from users around the world. I'm sure you don't need an RTX 3080 for your workflow, and even a 3070, when it comes out, might be overkill for you too. You should aim at the mid-end category, in my opinion. The new mid range cards, i.e. 3050-3060, should be released in 1-2 months from now. Buying a new 2060 or 2070 today would be a waste of money, because their replacements are around the corner and they will make their performance look obsolete due to the performance/$ improvement. The way I see it, you have two options. Either you buy a used (2nd hand) graphics card at a much lower price (personally, that's what I did a few days ago, buying a 2080 at a very good price), or you buy a low/mid-end card now, like the gtx 1660 in the system above, as an intermediate solution, and upgrade once the new mid-end cards come out later this year. I know, both solutions might not seem too attractive, but believe me, anything else would be a total waste of money in your case. It's up to you to decide. 

The cpu now. This is where you should focus, imo. You'll be needing fast rendering times with Vray. If your budget was a bit more flexible, I would definitely suggest the 3950X. It's the best cpu at this price range. Since you include a monitor inside the budget and the actual budget for the tower is further reduced, the next best thing is the 3900XT. It's a very decent and affordable processor, with high STP (single threaded performance, which is paramount for most tasks, like modeling, editing etc) and it's very powerful in rendering too. You can see and compare the rendering performance of various cpus in Vray here https://benchmark.chaosgroup.com/next/cpu?search=

An equivalent from Intel would be the 10900K, but at a significantly higher price (590€ vs 3900XT's 420€ lowest prices at the moment we talk), so for me it's not worth it. 

And last, the monitor. Given your budget and use, I would aim at a 27" 1440p IPS monitor. With 3ds max you could have issues with scaling, afaik, so a 27" 4K would be too dense in pixels for you (even though there are some workarounds on that). I personally own a 27" 4K monitor, but since I'm mainly a Blender user and Blender allows for UI scaling at will, I have no issues whatsoever. 

You could check these monitors as decent solutions for around 300€:

https://www.skroutz.gr/s/21404653/Dell-P2720D.html

https://www.skroutz.gr/s/24342131/AOC-Q2790PQE.html

https://www.skroutz.gr/s/10500387/BenQ-PD2700Q.html (I own the smaller version of this one, the PD2500Q, as a secondary monitor, and I know for a fact that it's one of the best monitors in this segment of the market, with excellent colors covering 100% of sRGB and Rec. 709, and it comes pre-calibrated from the factory, that's why it's an affordable option for many photographers). 

If you want to eventually go for a 4K, check this one out: https://www.skroutz.gr/s/19528409/AOC-U2790PQU.html

I don't know if all this information helped or made things more complicated. 

Edited September 23, 2020 by Nikolaos M

[Irida Pappa]

Hello Nikolaos!

I am really sorry for the late reply....the "reply box" had disappeared in IE and I couldn't loggin in Chrome.

So, thank you very much for the detailed reply.

I contacted e-gate and they suggested this one:

https://www.e-gate.gr/902474/e-gate-swift-nova-10g-rtx-super-i7-10700k32gb2tb-500gbgeforce-rtx2070-superno-os

What do you think??

[Nikolaos M]

1 hour ago, Irida Pappa said:

https://www.e-gate.gr/902474/e-gate-swift-nova-10g-rtx-super-i7-10700k32gb2tb-500gbgeforce-rtx2070-superno-os

What do you think??

Hi Irida. No worries. I had the same problem logging in too. 

Listen, I wouldn't bother with this system they suggested. It's far worse in rendering compared to the previous one I posted. I don't know why they tried to skip this choice. You can compare the 3900XT and the 10700K in Vray performance if you search here https://benchmark.chaosgroup.com/next/cpu?search=

There are other pc stores that offer a free assembly for parts of your choice, if you buy all the parts from them. In my opinion, you should insist on the first e-gate pc I suggested, with the addition of extra RAM, as I wrote in the previous post. Tell them that you prefer the 3900XT over the 10700K. That's what I would do, if I was you.

I have another suggestion to make. I managed to build a much better system from another pc store, foxstore.gr, which offers free assembly for parts over 800€. I fitted the 3950X inside, which blows away any other cpu from AMD and Intel in this price range. 

Here is the list:

Εικόνα	Όνομα Προϊόντος	Κωδικός Προϊόντος	Ποσότητα	Τιμή Μονάδας	Σύνολο
	Corsair RMx Series RM750x (2018) (CP-9020179-EU) ***	FS003737		128,08€	128,08€
	Corsair Carbide 275R Midi-Tower Black (CC-9011130-WW) ***	FS011030		80,50€	80,50€
	be quiet! Dark Rock 4 Pro (BK022)	FS015149		75,18€	75,18€
	XPG SX8200 Pro internal solid state drive M.2 1000 GB PCI Express 3.0 3D TLC NVMe Black (ASX8200PNP-1TT-C) ***	FS034484		132,22€	132,22€
	Gigabyte X570 AORUS ELITE (rev. 1.0) motherboard Socket AM4 ATX AMD X570 (X570 AORUS ELITE) ***	FS073066		180,16€	180,16€
	G.Skill Ripjaws V F4-3600C16D-32GVKC memory module 32 GB DDR4 3600 MHz (F4-3600C16D-32GVKC) ***	FS079379		159,50€	159,50€
	GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER OC 6G (GV-N166SOC-6GD)	FS081291		216,89€	216,89€
	AMD Ryzen 9 3950X processor 3.5 GHz 64 MB L3 (100-100000051WOF) ***	FS089618		684,99€	684,99€

The grand total is 1657€. You're left with ~340€ for the monitor and the ones I listed above are within your caliber. 

There is no comparison in terms of hardware quality with the previous systems from e-gate. Rendering performance is way better, and each one of the parts is better in quality and performance from any viewpoint. Again, think about it and decide. I wouldn't hesitate if I knew that I could fit so much higher performance inside my budget. 

Edited October 2, 2020 by Nikolaos M

[Irida Pappa]

Thank you so much!! 

I am sorry for the late reply, but a few things came up and I didn't have time to work on my "new PC project" and read your response.

I will definitely consider your suggestions and decide what to buy!

Again, thank you very much for all your suggestions and the time you spent replying to my post!!

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