Help with new build for architect

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Sep 20, 2013
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Hi,

so I was asked to suggest a new pc build for an architect, but building systems isn't really my thing, so I'd like some help.
The software that is required to run is:
I checked the requirements and I went with at least the recommended of each one and I came up with the following parts:
So, I'd like to know if that build is ok. I believe that everything is compatible but I don't know if everything is sufficient or an overkill in some cases.
I went with the latest version of each software and I'd like it to be ok for as many years as possible.
It is intended for professional use only. 3d, rendering, etc (no gaming etc).
Also I'd like some suggestions for the PSU (not sure if the 450 is sufficient) and cooling. I don't want it to be too noisy.

The budget is around 1200€. The above build is about 1350€, so if I could reduce the cost it'd be great.

Thanks
 
Solution
electro_neanderthal
A workstation card, like the Nvidia Quadro P2000, is meant for precision and keeping things exact. It's built around the concept of accuracy first and speed second. Also, workstation cards are significantly faster with CAD programs than gaming cards of equal size. AMD has the Fire Pro lineup, but so far Nvidia has the edge on them.

They cost more, but to a professional engineer, they work better.
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Here is the list:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor (€279.90 @ Caseking)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - B360M DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (€81.84 @ Mindfactory)
Memory: G.Skill - Trident Z 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (€152.74 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Crucial - MX300 275GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€80.95 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€41.10 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: Inno3D - GeForce GTX 1080 8GB Twin X2 Video Card (€569.00 @ Caseking)
Case: Corsair - 100R ATX Mid Tower Case (€45.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: Corsair - CXM 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (€65.75 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €1317.27
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-04-16 17:13 CEST+0200

Did not cut down on price much but improved the performance by a huge margin. Especially for 3D rendering there will be huge gain in performance.
 
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Keeping some multitasking workloads also in mind :

Coming this April 19th :

Ryzen 2700X - 330 €, comes with stock cooler.
Mobo : Asrock X470 Master SLI/ac ~ 120 €

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Memory: G.Skill - Trident Z 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (€152.74 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Samsung - 960 EVO 500GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (€187.77 @ Mindfactory)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€56.88 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: Zotac - GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Mini Video Card (€169.85 @ Mindfactory)
Case: Fractal Design - Focus G ATX Mid Tower Case (€50.17 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: Corsair - Vengeance 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (€64.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €682.31
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-04-17 04:21 CEST+0200

So this comes to about 1250€
 
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Thank you both for your replies.
Unfortunately, due to difference in prices and shipping, some of the parts that you suggested are more expensive here.
But I used your suggestions and came up with the build below.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor (€279.90 @ Caseking)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG - H7 49.0 CFM CPU Cooler (€34.26 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - B360 AORUS Gaming 3 WIFI ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (€116.84 @ Mindfactory)
Memory: G.Skill - Trident Z 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (€152.74 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Samsung - 960 EVO 250GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (€115.10 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€40.96 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: Zotac - GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Mini Video Card (€461.94 @ Mindfactory)
Case: Corsair - 100R ATX Mid Tower Case (€45.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - 520W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (€66.90 @ Caseking)
Optical Drive: LG - GH24NSC0 DVD/CD Writer (€14.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case Fan: Cooler Master - SickleFlow (Red) 69.7 CFM 120mm Fan (€7.89 @ Aquatuning)
Case Fan: Cooler Master - SickleFlow (Red) 69.7 CFM 120mm Fan (€7.89 @ Aquatuning)
Case Fan: Cooler Master - SickleFlow (Red) 69.7 CFM 120mm Fan (€7.89 @ Aquatuning)
Total: €1353.19
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-04-18 11:30 CEST+0200

This comes at 1315€ (local prices).
The Inno GPU was too expensive, hope the Zotac is good too.
I cut down on the SSD, but I wanted to stick with Samsung 960.
Went with the Trident instead of the Ripjaws.

So, how does it look?
 
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Did you do a research on which gpu to get? U might be overspending if you aren't gonna be gaming.

The ryzen 2700X is an 8 core cpu with higher base clock(3.2 vs 3.7) . So that helps in multitasking.

Can you get the seasonic Evo 620w? It got 2 8 pin connectors. Useful for upgrades.

Sickle flow fans are not great. Try phanteks, fractal design, be quiet, corsair ML series.
 
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For 3D rendering increase in GPU processing power as well as increase in GPU memory will largely effect it.

Ryzen 2700X well we have to see how good it's benchmarks are. AMD claims it to have higher clock speed and bit improvement of IPC, lets see how big of a improvement it is over R7 1700X. If it is good and is near to performance of i7-8700 in single core benchmark then it will be better option.
 
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Oh, goodness, that's a tight budget. Here's some advice before I recommend cheaper options:

Get a workstation graphics card: The highest grade quadro you can keep within budget (a p2000 is suggested). This may seem odd, but the drivers for these cards are meant to run those programs; furthermore, the accuracy is nearly guaranteed. If the architect ever designs something with tight tolerances and people lives could be at risk with a bad design, then having a design shift some points slightly could be a really, really bad thing. Don't get a gaming card for a professional architect (unless it's his gaming PC at home).

Now for the cheaper options:

- ARCTIC Freezer 7 Pro Rev. 2 (instead of the 212)

- Slow that RAM down a bit for better prices, G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 8GB 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2666 (PC4 21300)

- Smaller SSD, larger HDD... 2TB (those projects can get big, and keeping a bunch will fill up storage quickly, WD is a good brand, 7200 is good as well).

- Ryzen 7 2700, or if you're fast enough, this is on sale: https://www.newegg.com/global/fr/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113429&cm_re=ryzen-_-19-113-429-_-Product

- Don't forget the appropriate motherboard.
 
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Spending on CPU cooler waste of money. Intel i7-8700 comes with a decent cooler.

SSD you may have personal reason to choose 960EVO. But there is no big performance effect even if you go with Normal SSD instead of NVMe and it will save you money which you can spend on GPU which is important part of the build which do effect performance greatly.

3 Case fans not required add only one it will do fine job.

If you leave out the CPU cooler and go for normal SSD and leave out 2 fans it will give you enough money to spend on GPU which will get you GTX1080 over GTX1070 that will good performance improvement on complex 3D models and for rendering larger scenes and will save you lot of time.
 
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As far as I'm aware, the programs the OP listed use CPU based rendering (3D Max has a gaming GPU setting, but it's not the only render engine), and a workstation graphics card will significantly outperform a larger gaming card on the types of work those programs use, because the drivers are meant for those programs; especially CAD programs.

Also, accuracy is most important; professional engineers (architects are a classification of engineer) need precision over speed, especially with large projects.
 
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I created a list including the recommendations above with prices from alternate.de

Intel® Core™ i7-8700, Prozessor € 299
Alpenföhn "Atlas", CPU-Kühler € 39,99
ASUS PRIME H310M-K, Mainboard € 59,90
G.Skill DIMM 16 GB DDR4-3000 Kit, Arbeitsspeicher € 172,90
MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GT OC, Grafikkarte € 189,90
be quiet! PURE BASE 600, Tower-Gehäuse € 69,90
Corsair CX550 550W, PC-Netzteil € 56,90
WD WD10EZEX 1 TB, Festplatte € 38,99
Crucial MX500 500 GB, Solid State Drive € 117,90
Total
€ 1.045,38 +shipping

It is still within your budget with operating system.
 
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Since I don't really know much about pc building (especially what is needed for rendering, etc) ,my research was based on the requirements of each program.
Sure, I could get the 620, it's the same price after all.





I have no idea about workstation GPU's and I don't know what I should been looking for. The PC is intended for professional use only, no gaming whatsoever.
I will go for a 250 SSD instead of 500, but she already has other HDD's so 1TB is enough for the time.
I wouldn't like to cut from the RAM.
Also, personally I have only used Intel CPU's from which I am satisfied. Have no experience with AMD.






The PCIe over the SATA speed?


Btw, the plan so far is to buy all the parts from local stores (Greece), to avoid the shipping costs.
 
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A workstation card, like the Nvidia Quadro P2000, is meant for precision and keeping things exact. It's built around the concept of accuracy first and speed second. Also, workstation cards are significantly faster with CAD programs than gaming cards of equal size. AMD has the Fire Pro lineup, but so far Nvidia has the edge on them.

They cost more, but to a professional engineer, they work better.
 
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Solution


Quadro is definitely good choice if one earns profit on the outcome. Otherwise spending on Quadro is meaningless as it will take lot more time even if it is accurate to point. For general purpose usage as much time you can cut down on rendering scenes and working on complex framework and 3d geometries it is better.
 
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I found this piece of information "Nvidia to test and certify video card drivers for the Nvidia Quadro K, M and P series. These product lines are recommended by GRAPHISOFT for ARCHICAD 21." at archicad1s website. Along with benchmarks: https://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/technotes/video-cards/recommended-video-cards-for-archicad-21/

The Quadro K2200 with 4GB GDDR5 ram is sold for 400 euros, the PNY Quadro P1000 for 340. That is 150 euros over the 1050ti.
 
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the only software i see that benefits from quadro is photoshop. but a 10 bit professional monitor is required to make use of that.

those quadro cards mainly offer more vram and bandwidth to load up bigger files and load it faster. so if the OP is gonna be using files with high amount of meshes/polygons, its good.1 more area where quadro gives u peace of mind is the correct rendering of part files without any artifacts. i have come across a few of those, but not much.

regarding gpu, primere pro is the software that might use the actual GFLOPS of the card rather than its vram and bandwidth. but then again, RX580 outperforms even a gtx 1080 in those workflows. finally seeing those GFLOPS and opencl optimisation in work.

the ipc of skylake to coffee lake is almost about the same. so u can consider that 2700X 3.7ghz to be equal to a 3.4ghz 8700? but its a proven fact that ryzen 7 are excellent workstation cpu, the higher base clock of 2700X makes it a no brainer imo.

if ur budget allows it, settle for the nvme ssd, not a sata based one. prefessional users and content creators are the only ppl who actually benefit from those read/write speeds.
 
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PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant A list without motherboard.

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 2700 3.2GHz 8-Core Processor (€289.00 @ ARLT)
CPU Cooler: Scythe - Mugen 5 Rev. B 51.2 CFM CPU Cooler (€44.90 @ Caseking)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (€174.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Intel - 760p Series 512GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (€186.81 @ Mindfactory)
Storage: Western Digital - Red Pro 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€119.85 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: PNY - Quadro P1000 4GB Video Card (€348.05 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: be quiet! - Pure Base 600 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (€75.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - S12II 620W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (€60.17 @ Mindfactory)
Total: €1299.66
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-04-18 15:24 CEST+0200
 
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To clarify: Autocad, Sketchup, and Archicad should benefit from the Quadro. Component-wise, the biggest advantage of workstation cards is the use of the best binned chips, as well as a difference in the physical allocation of cores. They don't necessarily come with more VRAM, and the higher bandwidth was really only unique starting with Vega. However, the drivers and dedication of cores to specific functions not used by gaming cards are where they really stand out.

They don't focus on drawing meshes, but rather placing and calculating points in 3D space, and making sure there are no calculation errors (as is more common in gaming cards, which can easily be hidden because the frames overlap fast enough that you almost never notice them). The drivers are also extremely specific and stable (same reason they make terrible gaming cards).

Gaming cards are superior at drawing meshes and doing it quickly. Accuracy in 3D space, however, is not the goal there; it's giving you a smooth frame rate. Not that they can't be accurate, it's just that they have a higher margin for error. For an architect who designs homes for people, a gaming card would probably be fine, but we have no idea what the architect in question actually specializes in. As a result, I have assumed they're doing something where things need to be accurate to the millimeter or smaller. And that assumption is what my recommendation is based on.

I should have been asleep 8 hours ago, I apologize if my words don't make sense.
 
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^ yeah, higher bandwidth and more vram is a recent trend.

And what you said is true. Quadro cards give less artifacts. Especially files which are not native and you open in another software. (not the file or software 's fault, cuz seen it open perfectly Allright in my office computer)

@ Zoltan.bose, u a cooler for 2700? The stock cooler is fine. U even ditch that and go for the 2700X which has an even better stock cooler cuz of the 105w tdp.
 
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