New High-End Workstation mostly for 3DS MAX and Vray

[Marco Manunta]

Hi guys, 

i am ready to buy a new workstation. I have to replace mine which has nearly 6y old and more and more ofter it forces me to send renders to renderfarms in order to get it right with deadlines...

My budget is around 4500/5000€. 

My idea is to buy: 

CPU : AMD 3970x (i never had anything by AMD, i always sticked with Intel. Is it a good CPU as it seems to be on Vray Benchmarks  ? no compatibility problems with 3DS or Vray? )

GPU : 3080 or 3090 when it will be avaible. For the moment i would put my "old" 1080 inside the new workstation.

Motherboard : ASRock TRX40 TAICHI( i m in the dark here....i usually work at home so i don't have many PC's or servers to plug, just two render slaves, but idk which one choose, i always sticked with entry level motherboards...) 

Cooler : Noctua NH-U14S

RAM : Corsair Vengeance LPX 32Go (2x16Go) DDR4 3200MHz C16 or G.Skill Trident Z Royal 128 GB (4 x 32 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 what do you think ? G.Skill is so cheap compared to corsair...i always had Corsair Vengeance, but i m open to other ideas. 

STORAGE : Samsung 970 EVO PLUS 2TB + Samsung Evo 970 1TB

POWER : Corsair RMx 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified (is it ok ? )

CASE : Fractal Design Define R5 ATX

for the monitor i have to see...i have to sell my old FULLHD monitors and maybe i will get 2 Dell 27 4K UHD Monitor - S2721Q

What do you think ? I plan to buy the 3970x for a while, but i have cold feet...i know some guys in archviz who were really disappointed by the last Threadripper generation (2990X) saying that they had problems with compatibility, and so they came back to intel x-treme and use threadripper 2990x only as render slave. 

any ideas or enhancement to this list would be much appreciated! 

have a great day! 
 

 

[Nikolaos M]

Hi. Your basic idea is rational. The 3970X is a real beast in Vray, and it will reduce your render times by a great deal.

Nevertheless, I would make some changes in the list above, if this WS was for me and I had the freedom to use the budget to its full extent in order to get top notch parts. Changes could be made, of course, if you want to shave off some Euros (ex. a 2TB sata drive for storage, or a golden rated psu etc). But for a system like that I would like to get the best I can afford. 

https://geizhals.de/?cat=WL-1762570

Keep the gtx 1080 for now. It will do fine with 3ds max's viewports. It still remains a decent gpu. You could always upgrade to a 3070 latter on, when prices and availability of the new RTX's are somewhat stabilized. No need to consider a 3080 or a 3090 if you don't plan to use your gpu for rendering. If you do, then the Threadripper 3970X might not be the best choice. 

[Tommy L]

If you have no additional render node, get the 3990 threadripper. Will pay for itself very quickly. MUCH more stable than the 2990, Ive owned both. 

[Curtis Walker]

I second @Tommy L you would not regret the 3990x. Its way faster, runs cooler and is simply beautiful in action with CPU renderers like Vray and Corona. Ive had no issues so far with in terms of compatibility or stability. Actually looking at getting another one to be honest.

I'm not a fan of 4K monitors personally. Find 3ds Max awkward to use at the resolution (tiny menus etc) and don't see the benefit of them for work, so you could save some money there going for 1440p ultrasharps instead. I'm sure that will be a polarising opinion though.

Get another fan for your Noctua cooler to run in push pull configuration. It will need it. 

[Marco Manunta]

16 hours ago, Curtis Walker said:

I second @Tommy L you would not regret the 3990x. Its way faster, runs cooler and is simply beautiful in action with CPU renderers like Vray and Corona. Ive had no issues so far with in terms of compatibility or stability. Actually looking at getting another one to be honest.

I'm not a fan of 4K monitors personally. Find 3ds Max awkward to use at the resolution (tiny menus etc) and don't see the benefit of them for work, so you could save some money there going for 1440p ultrasharps instead. I'm sure that will be a polarising opinion though.

Get another fan for your Noctua cooler to run in push pull configuration. It will need it. 

thank you, that's interesting. 

i would love the 3990x but i guess the difference would put me a little at risk at the moment.

In the last two months we had less clients , and i have already cold feet to buy this one, i cannot imagine adding 2k euros more..My actual machine is obsolete so i struggle even doing cool simple renders to enrich my portfolio. So i need a good workstation in order to pump up and get some new clients. If everything we'll return normal i will save money maybe for a 4990x when it will come out in one year or two.

anyway a lot of items are out of stock. Specially Corsair's. So i will wait one or two additional weeks i guess...

 

[Curtis Walker]

Let us know what you settle on.

I similarly thought it was crazy to get the 3990x, knowing full well how many less powerful nodes I could build with that crazy cash. But with no space, power capacity or cooling capacity for a large server farm and my own PC starting to show its age, it really was the best option for me. I have to say so far I've not looked back and its completely altered my options and creative time simply due to the fact that the CPU allows me to forget rendering time as an issue. Especially for test renders. There is also the licence fees savings to consider when you start talking about multiple render nodes.

Good luck, hope you get new clients too. Its tough times i know, but I'm a firm believer that its in all our interest to keep moving through this (including other industries that we support) I hope they are also considering the same.

[Marco Manunta]

sure i wil let you know, for the moment i m waiting for the PSU and the MOBO which are out of stock. So i guess at this point i will wait for cyber monday and see what happens...also because the CPU is 100$ more expensive than usual. 

What have you bought for cooling your 3990x ? 

[Curtis Walker]

4 hours ago, Marco Manunta said:

sure i wil let you know, for the moment i m waiting for the PSU and the MOBO which are out of stock. So i guess at this point i will wait for cyber monday and see what happens...also because the CPU is 100$ more expensive than usual. 

What have you bought for cooling your 3990x ? 

I got the Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 cooler with an extra NF-A15 fan for push pull configuration. Keeps the temps under control and super quiet. Better than most coolers due to the heat plate being designed for the chip rather than a standard heat plate.